The Purr-loined Litter

I just saw an ad that said: “Never touch, breathe, smell, or handle cat litter again.”

I have no particular hankering to handle cat litter, but if the alternative means giving up on being able to touch, breathe, and smell, then thanks but no thanks.

P.S. – I would like to apologise most abjectly for this post’s title.

P.P.S. – I would like to, but that doesn’t mean I’m going to.

22 Responses to The Purr-loined Litter

  1. Brad Spangler May 7, 2009 at 3:26 am #

    No doubt your Anglo-German colleague, Herr Ball, is scratching out a similar post — adding a clause to the fur-nished tale.

  2. Mike D. May 7, 2009 at 8:36 am #

    This is why you shouldn’t blog drunk, Roderick.

    • Joshua Lyle May 7, 2009 at 9:15 am #

      Or perhaps this is why he should blog drunk.

  3. Kevin May 7, 2009 at 9:14 am #

    This reminds me of a Mises Conference I went to about five years ago. I came into the lecture hall during a talk, happy to see that a spot next to Roderick was open. I sat down next to him, leaned over and said,

    “Hey man. How are you doing?”

    Roderick peered over at me, leaned in and said:

    “How am I doing what?”

    • martin May 7, 2009 at 10:11 am #

      Which reminds me of a concert where someone in the audience shouted “what’s up”, to which the singer replied “I’ll tell you one time”, pointed his index finger upwards and said “up”.

      • Joshua Lyle May 7, 2009 at 12:25 pm #

        In high school physics I was taught to say, “The Zenith. It’s the point that’s directly overhead.”

    • Roderick May 7, 2009 at 11:42 am #

      Roderick peered over at me, leaned in and said:

      “How am I doing what?”

      A perfectly reasonable question which, I must point out, you never answered.

      • Kevin May 8, 2009 at 12:18 am #

        You know, Roderick, you totally stumped me with that one. Another flashback. At another Mises Conference, I was complaining about your never respond to my emails. I asked you,

        “Why didn’t you respond to my email?”

        And then you said,

        “I responded; I just didn’t reply.”

        • Roderick May 8, 2009 at 12:39 am #

          Heh. I’d forgotten that one.

          I live to torment you.

  4. Charles H. May 7, 2009 at 9:16 am #

    Don’t tell me you’re holding to a “rule” from some self-appointed authority like Strunk & White that says you can’t apply a comma-separated list of verbs to a single direct object. Would you prefer “Never touch cat litter, breathe cat litter. . .” ? If you didn’t have to keep repeating the direct object, you could literally decimate your sentence.

    • Mike D. May 7, 2009 at 9:58 am #

      +1 for correctly using both “literally” and “decimate”.

      • Charles H. May 7, 2009 at 1:42 pm #

        Well, “decimate” was a reference to a recent post about abuses of that word. And when I hear people use “literally” as an intensifier, my head figuratively explodes.

        • Roderick May 7, 2009 at 3:26 pm #

          One of my college roommates used to say “there were thousands, literally dozens of them!”

        • Mike D. May 8, 2009 at 9:50 am #

          “One of my college roommates used to say “there were thousands, literally dozens of them!”

          Ha. I suppose technically speaking thousands are “literally dozens.” Just a whole lot of them.

    • Roderick May 7, 2009 at 11:39 am #

      Don’t tell me you’re holding to a “rule” from some self-appointed authority like Strunk & White that says you can’t apply a comma-separated list of verbs to a single direct object.

      No, I don’t hold to such a rule. My criticism of the sentence was that it was ambiguous in such a way as to be unintentionally funny, not that it was ungrammatical. It’s the difference between a strategic mistake in chess and a mistake like moving the rook diagonally.

  5. Alex Knapp May 7, 2009 at 10:07 am #

    I accept Charles H.’s interpretation of this rule of grammar–all the verbs are parallel, so one direct object could be appropriate, albeit sloppy.

    That said, I have to ask: how do you breathe cat litter? And aren’t “touch” and “handle” a bit redundant in this context?

    • Matt May 7, 2009 at 10:20 pm #

      Alex Knapp said: “how do you breathe cat litter?”

      Obviously you’ve never emptied a cat box. Most brands of cat litter are made of bits of dry clay which can contain particles small enough to become airborne when disturbed.

      • Roderick May 7, 2009 at 11:23 pm #

        But are they still cat litter then?

  6. Jac May 7, 2009 at 10:47 am #

    I just figured he was referring to the final comma being extraneous… I’d have written “Never touch, breathe, smell or handle cat litter again.”

    • Roderick May 7, 2009 at 11:40 am #

      I don’t think the presence or absence of the comma removes the ambiguity.

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