Friday, August 21, 2009

Pizza and Pronouns

Arby is on vacation this week. Please enjoy this post that originally appeared on Arby's Archives.

The pizza pictured on the store banner looked fantastic. It was Papa John’s Spinach Garlic Parmesan Alfredo with Sliced Roma Tomatoes pizza, and I knew the moment I saw it that I would be ordering one in about five weeks, after the Boss deploys. The Boss doesn’t do spinach. As I was looking at the picture I thought to myself, “I can make one of those.” How hard can it be? I already make very good pizza, and my Alfredo Sauce is excellent. Honestly, how can you screw up butter, cream, and melted cheese? My only question concerned the cheese on the pizza. Was it Mozzarella or some other specialty cheese?

That was when the young girl stepped around the counter and approached me. She looked to be in her late teens or early twenties, and wore the standard red shirt and tennis visor of a Papa John’s employee. “Is there something I can help you with?” she asked.

“Is the cheese on the Spinach Alfred pizza pictured on your banner Mozzarella cheese?” I asked, pointing to the store banner.

“No,” she replied.

“Really?” I was surprised. “What kind of cheese is it?”

“White cheese,” she informed me.

I leaned a little closer to her and whispered in a mock-conspiratorial tone. “Does the white cheese have a name?” I thought I might be asking her to divulge a trade secret.

A cloud of confusion passed across her face before daylight broke through. She smiled brightly. “Just like the kind that’s on your pizza,” she assured me, pointing to the two pizza boxes that I was holding.

Brilliant.



Captain Chaos caught a bug of some sort. She spent the weekend shooting the contents of her digestive tract out both ends. She spent the time in between lying on the floor in front of the TV, watching videos. It was the calmest she’s been in years.

Sunday afternoon the Boss and I were discussing dinner options. I asked when the Captain last had an accident from either end.

“She hasn’t diarrheaized all day,” the Boss responded.

There it was. She’d done it again! The Boss demonstrated her amazing talent at turning any noun into a verb, an act that never ceases to make me shudder.

“Diarrheaized?” I asked.

“Yep!” she answered proudly. “I can turn any noun into a verb!”

This woman can read my mind.

“There’s got to be a name for that,” I muttered, heading for the dictionary.

There is. According to Webster’s Third New International Dictionary, Unabridged, verbification (which spell check does not recognize) is “the act of making into a verb.” You might also say verbify, which also means, “to make into a verb.” The Boss’ talent at turning nouns into verbs makes her a verbalizer, “one who verbalizes.” Before you protest, one of the definitions of verbalize is “to convert into a verb: verbify.” While I would have argued that she bastardized the English language, (and if you want an education beyond the pejorative, get an unabridged dictionary and look up that root word) it would be proper to say that she committed verbicide, “a deliberate distortion or destruction of the sense of a word.”

So, I stand corrected.

I’m certain that she experiences a similar feeling every time I pick up a pencil and try my hand at mathematical computations, but according to Webster, there is no term for mathematicide.

2 comments:

Bleu said...

I don't know if you've heard the song "Womanizer" by Britney Spears, but now I have that tune running through my head as "Verbalizer."

CrossView said...

So did you try your hand at making that pizza? The one with the unnamed cheese? ROFL!

And kudos to The Boss. That's a special talent she has. ;O)