Off the Rails 5

We can't print that . It criticizes US!

Over the past eleven years I have written 30 letters to the editor of the local daily newspaper. Over half of them were never published. This is the most recent addition to that list of unpublishable works - obviously of dubious merit. It was written on March 19, 2009, in response to a March 18 letter to the editor, the subject of which was a front page headline (above the fold) in the March 17 edition of the Prince Albert Daily Herald.

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WARNING TO READERS:
PLEASE don't pant over nuclear power: we're too shy for such things in this city.

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The Editor,
Prince Albert Daily Herald

Until I read Alan Loustel's letter today, I had temporarily forgotten that "pant" without a terminal "s" could also refer to clothing. More often (and this was how I interpreted Kristina Jarvis's proofreading lapse), "pant" is an activity performed by a body eagerly anticipating a particularly desirable experience, or the result of strenuous exertion. Consequently, I burst out laughing when I read "Majority of area residents say they are in favour of nuclear pant" - because I could clearly visualize these people, the riotous mob led by Prince Albert business owners drooling over the prospect of profits to be derived from Bruce Power's investment in this area. This was definitely a disturbing vision.

With this brilliant blunder (it was, in fact, a perfectly appropriate Freudian slip), the aforementioned reporter won the contest begun a day earlier by her colleague, Angela Hill, who blithely tapped out the notion that the Cloverdale Church ladies aid had "a bizarre and dance in the fall." Not to be mistaken for a "bazaar," where small items are sold for the benefit of a charity, those "bizarres" in my dad's home district must have been amazing sensory stimuli.

I presume the spelling and grammar check functions do not work on these reporters' software. Fix them, before I get a laughter-induced hernia.

Sincerely,
Brian R. Clavier