P&J's Jingoistic Chuckle of the Week award goes to Tracy "My, She Looks Good on Horseback" Breton in her December 13 Urinal front page story on the recent overturning of Jamestowner David Swain's murder conviction in Tortola by the Eastern Caribbean Supreme Court of Appeal.
Now, P&J understand how some people can get confused by a Caribbean lilt and patois, but not so when things are written down, unless one is, pardon the allusion, on her high horse. (Though the lyrics sung in those early reggae songs by the Wailers and Toots and the Maytals can be a bitch to suss out, never mind Leslie Kong's compilations.)
In her article, our Tracy quoted the ruling of the three-judge panel, pulling directly from their written report, which was written in the Queen's English — an English a bit different than our own. Perhaps in fear that we would think less of her, Ms. Breton decided to cover her rear through the not-so-judicious use of the deadly "sic," usually employed when a direct transcript contains a howlingly blatant error that was reported exactly as written, such as a bank robber's note alerting a teller to "Giv (sic) me all yur (sic) money, I have a gub (sic)." (Sorry, Woody.)
Ms. Breton quoted the appeal transcript in the verdict thus: "the murder case would be unfair 'in light of the fact that 12 years have passed since the date of the offence (sic),' " as well as, "and that [the trial judge] 'also failed to put Mr. Swain's case in a balanced manner to the jury, and her summation was more favourable (sic) to the prosecution's case.' "
Most people who are likely to be reading a newspaper these days are aware that the Brits spell "favourite" and "offence" a bit differently than we Yanks do, but nonetheless, thanks for the Romper Room-ish alert to cultures so foreign to our own. We'll learn them snooty English toffs' Americanese whether they like it or not. Sleep tight, William Blake.
TWEET ATTENTION SPAN THEATER
Your hawkeyed correspondents have nothing much to add to the idiotic stream of GOP (Gekko's Office Party?) analysis coming out of Iowa. But we will point out this salient fact: Ashton "Two and a Half IQ" Kutcher is an native Iowan. Nuf sed.
• In a blatant attempt to keep up with the sporting world's sex offender craze, an assistant football coach at Phillipe's old high school in Connecticut was caught giving freshman football players the password to a porn site, purportedly to build camaraderie and pump up (rim shot!) that fighting spirit. (This flies in the face of traditional, old-school coaches' thinking that retaining your precious bodily fluids before a game breeds competitive fire, but hey, it's the 21st century, right?) The coach was fired, but if he had been clever (which is not a standard quality for assistant football coaches), he would have said it was part of a history lesson, as legendary XXX film star Marilyn Chambers was a hottie cheerleader at the high school in her teens. (Bonus round: Chambers, nee Briggs, was the sister of Bill Briggs, organist in the famed Boston rock band, Barry and the Remains. Ya learn something new every day, don'tcha?)
