Dave Barry - Claw Your Way To The Top

8. AVOID DANGLING PARTICIPLES. A participle is the letters “ing” at the ends of words like “extenuating.” You want to avoid having it “dangle” down and disrupt the sentence underneath: There appear to be some extenuating circumstances. Hey! Get that participle out of here!! Ted and myself feel that these ...

Q. When’s it okay to say “between you and I”?

A. It is correct in the following instance: “Well, just between you and I, the cosmetic surgeon took enough cellulite out of her upper arms to raft down the Colorado River on.”

Q. What is the purpose of the apostrophe?

A. The apostrophe is used mainly in hand-lettered signs to alert the reader that an “S” is coming up at the end of a word, as in: WE DO NOT EXCEPT

PERSONAL CHECK’S or: NOT RESPONSIBLE FOR ANY ITEM’S. Another important grammar concept to bear in mind when creating hand-lettered signs is that you should put quotation marks around random words for decoration, as in “TRY” OUR HOT DOG’S or even TRY “OUR” HOT DOG’S.

Q. When do you say “who” and when do you say “whom”?

A. You say “who” when you want to find out something, like for example if a friend of yours comes up and says, “You will never guess which of your immediate family members just lost a key limb in a freak Skee-Ball accident,” you would reply: “Who?” You say “whom” when you are in Great Britain or you are angry (as in: “And just whom do you think is going to clean up after these elk?”).

Q. Like many writers, I often get confused about when to use the word “affect” and when to use “infect.” Can you help me out?

A. Here is a simple pneumatic device for telling these two similar-sounding words (or “gramophones”) apart: just remember that “infect” begins with

“in,” which is also how “insect” begins, while “affect” begins with “af,” which is an abbreviation for “Air Force.”

Q. I have a question concerning the expression: “As far as Fred.” I would like to know whether it is preferable to say: “As far as Fred, he always gets the hives from that spicy food”; or, “As far as Fred, that spicy food always gives him the hives.”

A. They are both preferable.

Q. What do they mean on the weather forecast when they say we are going to have “thundershower activity”?

A. They mean we are not going to have an actual thundershower, per se, but we are going to have thundershower activity, which looks very similar to the untrained eye.

Q. I think my wife is having an affair.

A. I wouldn’t doubt it.

Most people, no matter how competent they are, break into a cold sweat when they have to speak in public. This is perfectly natural, like being afraid to touch eels. But once you learn a few of the “tricks of the trade” used by professionals, you find it’s surprisingly easy, and can even be fun! I’m talking here about eel-touching. Public speaking will always be awful.

There are, however, some standard techniques you should be aware of:

1. ACT VERY NERVOUS. A lot of inexperienced speakers try to act cool and confident, which is a big mistake because if your audience thinks you’re in control, they’ll relax and fall asleep. So you want to keep them on their toes. Have a great big stain under each armpit. Speak in a barely audible monotone. From time to time, stop in mid-sentence and stare in horror at the water pitcher for a full 30 seconds. Try to create the impression in your audience that at any moment they may have to wrestle you to the conference table and force a half dozen Valiums down your throat. After a while, they’ll start to feel really sorry for you. They’ll help you finish your sentences. At the end, if you ask for questions, the room will be as silent as a tomb. If anybody even starts to ask a question, the others will kick him so hard he may never walk again.

2. ALWAYS START WITH A JOKE. Probably the most famous example of a good opening joke is the one Abraham Lincoln used to start the Gettysburg Address. “Four score and seven years ago,” he said, and the crowd went nuts. “What the hell is a score?” they asked each other, tears of laughter streaming down their faces.

3. USE QUOTATIONS FROM FAMOUS DEAD PEOPLE. You can obtain these in bulk from Bartlett’s Familiar Quotations, a book of quotations nobody is familiar with.

4. USE A PIE CHART. This is pretty much a federal requirement for making a business presentation. It has to have the words “market share.”

5. IF YOU HAVE TO SCRATCH SOMEPLACE LIKE YOUR CROTCH, DRAW THE AUDIENCE’S

ATTENTION AWAY FROM YOURSELF VIA A CLEVER RUSE. Like, you could suddenly point at the window and say, “Hey! What the heck is that!”

Now let’s see how you’d put all these elements together. Suppose you’ve been called upon to make a presentation to top management from all over the country to explain how come a new product, Armpit Magic Deodorant Soap, is not selling well. Here’s what you’d say:

“Good afternoon. A priest and a rabbi are playing golf. The priest hits an incredible shot, and ...”

(30-second pause)

“Staring at this water pitcher, I am reminded of the Bartlett’s familiar quotation by the ancient dead Chinese painter, Ku Kai-Chih, who said: ‘Of all kinds of painting, figure painting is the most difficult; then comes landscape painting, and next dogs and horses.’”

...

“But as this pie chart shows ... Hey! What’s that over there, away from my crotch!!??”

“Ha ha! My mistake. But as this pie chart shows, our ‘market share’ for Armpit Magic Deodorant Soap is not going to improve in a day, or even two days. It’s not going to improve until we figure out some way to make it stop causing the consumer’s skin to develop oozing craters the size of Susan B. Anthony dollars. Thank you, and you’ve been a wonderful audience.”

When you’re trying to get a prospective client to sign a big contract, it’s a good idea to get him away from the formality of the office and into a relaxed dining environment that is more conducive to getting liquored up. But you must select the restaurant carefully: it could destroy the whole effect if his entree were to arrive in a colorful box festooned with scenes from Return of the jedi. No, you must select a classy restaurant, the kind with valet parking and dozens of apparently superfluous personnel lounging around in tuxedos. You can tell this kind of restaurant by its name.

Eduardo’s

La Pleuve en Voiture

Ye Reallie Olde Countrie Manour Downes Inne

Booger’s

The Chew ‘n’ Swallow

Commander Taco

When you arrive at the restaurant, turn your car over to the youthful narcotics offender in charge of valet parking and promise him a large tip if he doesn’t drive it over any preschool children. Now go inside, where you’ll be approached by the maitre d’hotel (literally, “man who run de hotel”). He will ask: “May I help you?” They’re always making this kind of snotty remark.

This is where you get to show your prospective client that you have a great deal of savoirfaire (“five” dollar bills”). Hand the maitre d’ some money. Make sure the prospective client sees this; you might have to snatch it back and hand it over again several times, just to be on the safe side. Then say: “A table for two, my good man.” Wink at the prospective client when you say this, so he will realize that you are “slipping” the maitre d’ a little something” to “grease his palm.”