> Hey Dave. Truly, I'd like to congratulate you
>on that remarkable impersonation of Sam, which
>had me going there for most of the first seven
>paragraphs. That's saying a bit because I've
>been corresponding with him for nearly a decade
>now, heh. Good job. We've always appreciated
>the extent of your tremendous creative caliber;
>this is an even more delectable icing on the
>cake. So I wonder how Sam will react to your
>knowing him like the back of your hand, eh Dave,
>you worm brain :-)

Heh. I'm hoping he likes it at least as much as most of the other people around here seem to.


> >
> > This is a ludicrously obscure reference to
>>what I *used* to think the Quebec licence plate
>>said. I took two years of High School French,
>>and this was the best I could do. :-)
>
> As eric, codeman, and Grishny have already
>noted-- the pin dropped on me with that
>strangely uncharacteristic "stupid frenchies"
>phrase. Hey. That's not like Sam! You know
>that. He's more apt to write something like
>"frenchie-smenchies" or "those fudging piece of
>orifice rascals". Gotta admit, though, that
>even though Sam does know how to read basic
>French, the "I smile at myself" pseudo-
>translation is much like something he *might*
>conceivably say about "je me souviens". (Sam
>once said French helps him to read Spanish
>easily: "Canto de Pueblos Andinos" translates
>perfectly to "Can't De-Populate Andy's Nose").

I honestly used to think it said "I smile at myself". See, when I was tought French, most of the emphasis was on speaking it, not on writing or reading it. We did do a good deal of writing and reading as well, but for the most part out teacher was more interested that we learned to speak it fairly well. As a result, I could speak rudimentary French after two years of being a poor student, but I had never actually seen a lot of the words I could say in print. To me, "Souviens" looked like similar to the word I knew for "smile". And the construction "Je me" to me meant "I performed the following action on (or towards, or in regards to) myself". So, literally translated, "Je me Souviens" came out "I smile at myself."

>
> N.B. Regarding the next ten paragraphs of your
>Stoddardian Road-Rage thriller, they were also a
>triumph of superb literary entertainment. Even
>though they sounded suspiciously like a certain
>somebody else, methought...Who could it be?
>You're scary, Dave. I think I love you...

Aww, I love you too. ;-)

And the weird part is, I wasn't really making any conscious effort to sound like Sam--I was merely trying my best to *not* sound like myself. Towards the middle and end I intentionally let slip a few "Davisms" like the aforementioned "stupid frenchies" and "retard". But for the most part, I was simply trying to avoid classic Davisms like starting every paragraph with "Anyway".

-- Dave