It’s Only Words

I don’t why this strikes me as funny but it does.  

Nobody to whom I showed it thinks it’s funny, either, even when I explain (lamely) that when I read it, I understand it to be a dispenser of soap for foaming hands.  In fact, some observers speculate that what I find funny is   the word “Swisher” in this context, which I don’t get.

I also find the word “foaming” to be funny all by itself.  Ditto the word “facial.”  In fact, had the dispenser read, “Foaming Facial Soap” I’d still be laughing in the men’s room (that’s a disturbing image, recalling US Senators in airport stalls  with “wide stances”).

Here’s what else I found today to illustrate the importance of adjectival placement. (In case you had any clue that in fact that’s what this is about.) 

Before the meeting, the head of the FMA sent out a letter explaining the compromise over eye-care prescriptions to his colleagues that offered a window into how special interest fights are waged in Tallahassee.

In the letter, Dr. Miguel A. Machado, a St. Augustine neurosurgeon, offered a rare and candid observation about the power of campaign cash.

“Strength in the legislative and political arenas is measured by relationships and political resources,’’ Machado wrote. — Miami Hurled

Let’s give the reporter (Mary Ellen Klas) some credit: she knows as well as anyone that the physician’s “observation” is a commonplace.  Basically, this shrewd health professional and political activist’s pontification simply reiterates the age-old “Money Is Power” adage.  Big duh.  One hears this all the time, from commentators and barflies everywhere.  So why does Klas describe it as “rare and candid” when it’s neither?

Answer: what’s rare is the candor, not the observation.  The word “and” untracks the whole thought.  The sentence should read , “….offered a rare, candid observation…..”  This makes her point that a skilled lobbyist would have been sufficiently subtle and professional (read: sneaky) to phrase that differently, if at all.  This oaf isn’t.  No wonder he wants patients to sign away their legal right to sue for malpractice, which is what this is all about.

But what the hell.  See title, with belated thanks to the Bee Gees of yore.