I’ll grind pepper on my salad at home, but find it vaguely annoying when a server wants to grind it on to your salad for you. Just leave the grinder on the table, I ask, or at least hand it to me. But they never do.
This comic got me to look something up, and I learned a little. I’ve been writing “straight-laced” all these years, but it turns out that “strait-laced” is correct. They get these things right on Ballard Street.
I don’t think readers would need to know anything very specific about either physics or the philosophy of Wittgenstein to get the point of this particular comic. That knowledge might even distract from the point. :)
Well, according to Wikipedia, "While Brilliant employs a self-imposed limit of 17 words per epigram, he has actually written and published 41 with 18 words and one with 19 words. Once discovered, all these errors were corrected and then re-published. "
His web site, ashleighbrilliant daught ¢0m (will GC let that through?) says “brilliant thoughts in 17 words or less”.
“Of all the pleasures in life, I love nitpicking the best”. – Wally, in “Dilbert”.
Ashleigh Brilliant has a self imposed maximum of 17 words for these. He made it in this case if you count “self-contradictory” as one word rather than two, if you consider the “Caution!” at the top to be an illustration which doesn’t count as one of the words, or both.
I do understand people trying to save money on checked luggage, but it gets kind of ridiculous. Except that a lot of the time, the airlines will let them get away with it.
But they leave the saltshaker at the table, and don’t disinfect it after each use. ;)