In ideal conditions I would never employ the phrase "woefully underprepared".
You're right, of course, but then the sentence would be missing a verb. I could delete "affords" and change "that" to "in", I guess.
Or, you could change "that" to "in" and retain "affords".
-- If you subsequently deleted "an", we could read the sentence as if "affords" meant "surroundings".
I could do what you describe in 4, true, but it would lead to the sentence making no sense.
I have had it with these motherfucking chemists on this motherfucking plane!
(I'm so, so sorry.)
"The Terrorists Who Couldn't Bomb Right," script by David Sedaris, directed by the Zucker bros
It's OK, 'smasher. You said it so that nobody else would have to.
But w-lfs-n, where is the pellet with the poison?
12 -- the poison is stored in sprinkles, not pellets.
Is the Ealing comedy "The Mouse That Roared", and if so, has it been remade?
I would like to see an entire thread consisting of discussion of the grammar and possible rewordings of the text of the post, without ever discussing the substance of the post. This one looked promising, but alas, we have sunk to discussing content.
15: "consisting of discussion of" s/b "discussing" or "devoted to"
Do we like the way "the text of the post" is echoed by "the substance of the post"? Would it be better as "the text of the post . . . the post's substance"?
I could go either way.
I might change "text of the post" simply to "post," and change "substance of the post" to "its substance."
Once you start talking about the substance of the post, you might as well use compound nouns.
I'd be much more concerned about poison gas than explosions- see that Japanese cult and Andrew Sullivan's recent fantasy. It's much easier to conceal poison emitting materials compared to explosives (since explosives tend to be reactive) and there's no test in place for them.
I think I might move "simply" to between "might" and "change," and remove the second "change."
The Ealing comedy is "The Ladykillers", you petty, jealous, economically illiterate bitches.
24:
Truly this thread is like a refiner's fire.
I was a fan of the post-substance but looking for niggling errors in the post-text and comments-text is an appealing notion.
In related news, I have added "The Court Jester" to my NetFlix queue.
But w-lfs-n, where is the pellet with the poison?
I already said in the post that I don't know anything about Ealing comedies, so how would I know? I'd check the chalice from the palace, though, or maybe the washbasin.
Ben, this all sounds extremely plausible to me, but it won't be an American movie. It'll almost certainly be made in France, starring Gerard Depardieu or another prominent Gallic clown. And it'll have a title like My Nephew, the Terrorist.
I can't wait for the LGF thread.
I believe a movie that fits this description was released about six months ago, although it was preordained by its studio as a flop (in Pittsburgh, it played for about two weeks in two theaters) despite its many stars.
31: "I know, I feel that way too" s/b "I love my son".
"I love my son"
You're not married, right?
We are all pawns in the slow erosion of our privacy rights.
30.--I like w-lfs-n's idea that it should be a sitcom, rather than a movie. I'm imagining something with the recurring futility of "The Prisoner" and the grandiose slapstick of "Pinky and the Brain."
With a dash of "Hogan's Heroes"
s/that/but/ in 25, I think; my idea was that it would be a movie. I think it would be hard to pull it off as a sitcom, because sitcoms, as a rule, suck, and part of my idea is that this would not suck, just be in poor taste.
I like tom's 29. Written by BHL? But the French would resist the appositive and parenthecize instead: My Nephew (Terrorist)
"I love my son" s/b "I love my dead gay son"
Ah, my mistake. Well, I think it should be a sitcom. A shortlived sitcom, probably.
29: That movie has also been made. With the Depardieu role being played by India's answer to Depardieu.
1-6: all annoying. The obvious solution is to change "that" to "of," which makes "imagine" the verb.
B, that does exactly the same thing, with a different word, as what I proposed in 3. (Technically "imagine" is already a verb? Changing "that" to "in" or "of" changes the nature of the clause.)
Also, airplane restrooms aren't circular. It wouldn't be an efficient use of space.
44: You're right about three. But your parenthetical is beside the point: I didn't say it made "imagine" a verb, I said it made it the verb, which is to say, the predicate of the sentence. So nyah.
(I throw the nyah in just to please Ogged, if he's hanging out.)
39: Wonder how she'd react if her son had a limp wrist with a pulse.
43: I would say the same, now that I've taken the time to read it more carefully. You'd still have to delete "affords". And you can't play if you're going to call us names.
Deleting affords goes without saying, since we started with the statement that "affords" is a weak verb.
So there.
You gaylords go on thinking about grammar, but I can't help wonder, how awesome--and how very much in the interest of national security--would it be if, in airplane bathrooms, you strapped yourself into a harness, pushed a button, and were just hung outside the plane to do your business?
Harnesses are for fags. Real men hang on to the wings with their teeth.
52: There's a similar setup in Fluke, but instead of being dangled out of an airplane, you're squeezed halfway out a whale rectum, then sucked back in.
'Twould be quite a trial for the pee-shy. And it would make it even more difficult to change a baby in the restroom rather than on the fold-down tray at your seat.
I suppose the answer for that is that people shouldn't bring babies on planes in the first place.
or we should become accustomed to the changing of babies on the fold-down tray. It's not as bad as sitting next to an incessant farter.