Language, Timothy

I'm standing at the counter at Subway, waiting for the guy in the green cap on the other side to wrap my dinner and slip it into a plastic bag for me to carry away. He has an odd accent which I simply cannot place. I pride myself on having a good ear for languages and accents (it compensates for being blind to other peoples' faces), and I don't like being unable to place his accent. So I unobtrusively lean forward to read the name on his tag in the hope that it will give me a clue.

It turns out his name is "Sandwich Artist". Sure, that would explain his accent and my inability to recognize it. After all, I've never before met anyone from the Sandwich Islands.

(Irrelevant geographical note - the Sandwich Islands, currently known as the Hawaiian Islands, are not to be confused with the South Sandwich Islands which are in the South Atlantic.)

Seriously, what is it with these ridiculous job titles? I could even accept the guy being known as a sandwich technician, but an artist? I'd love to walk up to him one day and ask for a toasted post-abstract neo-classical club with extra cheese and sweet onion sauce. Oh, and can I have some French impressionist fries with that? I'll concede that his sandwich tastes good, but what does it mean?

I'm convinced that the sandwich artist was dubbed thus by some dimwitted business school graduate. I was taking job interviews at a business school last weekend when one eager young newbie proudly told me that he had run something called Schmeezer (name changed to protect the asinine).

"What the hell is that!?" I asked, momentarily relinquishing my usual suave dignity. "That", he told me sagely, "is our communication platform". I asked him to try again, in English this time. He did, and confessed that "communication platform" is idiot-speak for "college magazine". And on that high note, the interview ended.

I wonder where it will all end. My poor pet dog will probably mutate into a canine social accessory. Bless her shaggy little soul, she does love her tissue-based dental resistives (that's chewy bones to you). She's asleep now, sprawled on the domicile/inhabitant ambulatory interface (floor), blissfully unaware of the perils of human language.

I'd like to take all this dumbass jargon, bring it back to the weeds who invented it, and get them to make a solar-deficient depository credit.

Oops. What I mean is that I'd like 'em to stick it where the sun don't shine.