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Friday, 2005 April 29, 21:05 — language

jargon often travels poorly

Ken MacLeod‘s recent novel Newton’s Wake (whose title I’m not sure I understand) has a character say:

What we do is you tell us some more about Eurydice and its beautiful people, and then you get tired and emotional, and then we take you home.

tired and emotional is wink-wink euphemism for drunk, popularized (I gather) by Private Eye. How many Americans, I thought, will be baffled?

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