Humorous Dialogue on Language and Literature

Not object if I also offer the doctor my most enthusiastic

contrafibularities

Contrafibularities, sir?

It is a common word down our way.

Damn.

Oh, I'm sorry, sir.

I am anestpeptic, phrasmotic,

even compunctious to have caused you such pericombobulation.

What? What?

What are you on about, Blackadder?

This is all beginning to sound a bit like Dago talk to me.

I'm sorry, sir. I merely wished to congratulate the doctor

on not having left out

a single word.

Shall I fetch the tea, Your Highness?

Yes, yes, and, and get that damn fire up here, will you?

Certainly, sir.

I shall return interphrastically.

So, Dr. Johnson, sit you down. Now, this book of yours.

Tell me, what's it all about?

It is a book about the English language, sir.

I see. And the hero's name is what?

There is no hero, sir.

No hero?

Well, lucky I reminded you. Better put one in, pronto.

Um, call him George. George is a good name for a hero.

Uh, now, what about heroines?

There is no heroine, sir, unless it is our mother tongue.

Ugh. The mother's the heroine? Nice twist.

So how far have we got then? Old Mother Tongue is in love with George,

the hero.

Now, what about murders? Mother Tongue doesn't get murdered,

does she?

No, she doesn't. No one gets murdered, or married, or in a tricky situation

over a pound note.

Well, now, look, Dr. Johnson, I may be as thick as a whale

omelet- ... but even I know

a book's gotta have a plot.

Not this one, sir. It is a book that tells you what English words

mean.

I know what English words mean. I speak English.

You must be a bit of a thicko.

Perhaps you would rather not be patron of my book if you can see no value in it

whatsoever, sir.

Well, perhaps so, sir, as it sounds to me as

if my being patron of this

complete cowpat of a book- ... will set the seal once and for all on

my reputation as an utter turnip head.

Well, it is a reputation well deserved, sir. Farewell.

Leaving already, doctor?

Not staying for your pendigestatory interludecule?

No, sir. Show me out.

Certainly, sir.