Yesterday I was reading a news article on-line (this is our morning tradition, really. We're both pathetic and sad and we drink our coffee and read the morning news online, he in the study and me on my work laptop with my feet up on the couch. One of us will make breakfast and we will eat it while we read, and then at some point a calendar reminder lights a fire under our asses and we get to work. We may need to get out more.) Anyway, while reading said news article I saw a word: fornicator. This was as said by a very conservative Christian nutter who used the word in context with other very religious terms such as "serpent of Eden", "moral values" (which I felt was definitely overkill) and, of course, the words "Christ our savior". My eyes glazed over for most of it, but that one word caught me: fornicator. I drew it out on my tongue - forrrrrrrrr-ni-ca-torrrrrrrrr.

I decided it needs to be my new word. It's a great word. It doesn't get used enough. I'm going to use it all the time.

I poke my head into Angus' office later in the morning. "So, I was reading this article and I came across a new word."

"Really?" he asks. "What's the word?"

"Fornicator," I reply, savoring the feel of the word rolling out of my mouth.

He looks at me. "Surely you've heard of this word before."

"Oh yes! Yes I have. It's just I've never really used it. It's a neglected word. It needs using. It's going to be my new word."

"It's a good word."

"Thanks! You can use it too!" I chirp.

"I might. I'll let you use it first, though. You can try it out."

So benevolent, my boy. So giving.

It's August, which means it's holiday season here in the UK. Most people are out of work as school's still out and this weekend is a 3-day weekend (the last until Christmas). You would expect that work would be dead, but instead it got a bit manic yesterday, made slightly more manic by a fellow project manager I have to work with. I got an email from this project manager (he manages the customer, I manage technical projects. I wouldn't want his job and he wouldn't want mine, but we work together just fine.) This project manager wants me to take my technical implementation document and re-write it for a 6 year-old level.

Seriously.

I write back - Do you mean you want me to re-write this in layman's terms?

His reply - No. I need it written as though written for 6 year-olds. A manager wants this.

I think about this. Seriously? 6 year-olds? I smack my forehead with self-disgust as I realize that maybe we have a new person on the project who is a bit special, who maybe nas a lower reading level due to developmental problems, and how could I be so mean to not think of their needs? I ask the project manager if this is the case. He replies - No, everyone is just fine. They just want it written as though for a 6 year-old.

I write back - I will certainly try, however I am a grown-up and I tend to write technical documents for grown-ups. If it helps, I'll give Dr. Seuss a call and see if he can add some talking animals and some rhymes, maybe that'll liven things up.

Then I try to do this.

Without going into too much detail about what I do, let's assume that I sometimes have to write documents about how to make candy. This, because candy is good and, well, it's way more interesting than what I actually do. So say I write a document on how to make the latest color of M&M. If you use fidgety widgets to make M&Ms and the industry has always used fidgety-widgets to make M&Ms, anyone who works in this industry has spent time with a fidgety-widget because you cannot possibly make candy without a fidgety-widget, ever, so I tend to not define the fidgety-widgets too much. So I look at my document with a critical eye. I picture a 6 year-old trying to read my document.

There's no fucking way a 6 year-old could follow this document, or any document like it.

I don't care if you're Doogie Howser, Yo-Yo Ma or Richie Rich. A 6 year-old would not get this because 6 year-olds have better things to do than be the audience for technical implementation documents.

So I start to steam up and write. "Imagine, children, that a man wants to make candy. Candy is good, even though it rots your teeth and so you shouldn't eat very much of it. Maybe you'd like a carrot, instead? But let's pretend candy is healthy, and let's make some candy! Yeah, candy! The man puts candy on the conveyor belt moving walkway to paint the candy. Go candy, go! Watch the candy get colored in paint mixture RT-782 IPT Compliant pretty pink rainbows. Whee, candy, whee! So pretty!"

I realize at that point that most women stop working before the birth of their babies not because they are tired, but because they can't keep their hormones in control to deal with people.

I tell the project manager that I simply cannot dial down the language in the document without losing the ability to explain the actual implementation, that if 6 year-old language is needed then he needs to do it. He does ask me for a glossary, which I help with. I even define M&Ms (as "melts in your mouth, not in your hands"). Maybe my inability to write a document for a 6 year-old means I'm inflexible. I'm ok with that. It's not like many 6 year-olds are in my line of business, after all. I'm really pissed off during this whole interchange, and I forgot to use my new word once. How could this happen? I was so annoyed all day and I didn't even use my new favorite word!

I wearily go upstairs to wee. I do so, flush, and then see, there on the floor, an enormous beetle. I grab some toilet paper and wing the beetle into the toilet. The beetle stares at me. I freak out. Our English toilet tank is still filling up so I cannot flush the fucker down yet. I squirt it with bathroom cleaner for measure, mostly so it will stop looking at me on the slowly sinking toilet paper island. I could leave the beetle there and flush later, only I'm very conscious of the film Ghoulies ("They'll get you in the end!") and what happens if this is a rare Amazonian Ass-Biting Beetle, one that can jump and seize a mouthful of my porcelian-white butt in its pincers? I can't have that. The beetle and I stare each other down until I hear the small click meaning that the toilet tank is full.

I flush the toilet, somewhat worried that the beetle is not just an Amazonian Ass-Biting Beetle but a Hurdling Whimper Beetle that can launch itself into the air and clamp on to the white underside of my arm. I snake my arm around to the side to flush the toilet just in case. You can never be too careful with the athletic beetles.

"Fornicator!" I shout, pointing to the beetle, who is now swirling around the tank still precariously perched on its toilet paper iceberg and headed for the great unknown.

The new word, it feels good.

-H.

Posted by: Everydaystranger at 08:49 AM | Comments (15) | Add Comment
Post contains 1280 words, total size 7 kb.

1 I love the tangent of this post. Brilliant, made me laugh. Also the 'dial it dumb' thing regarding technical documents does my head in.

Posted by: Elisa at August 22, 2007 10:55 AM (AlPvn)

2 *LOL* I may have to use that word myself. Oh, and my wife had a similar problem when she was pregnant. You know that little filter you have between your brain and your mouth? You know, the one that turns "That's the stupidest fornicating idea I've ever heard" into "Let me think about that and get back to you"? Hers disappeared while she was pregnant. Honestly, it's never worked right since...

Posted by: ~Easy at August 22, 2007 11:02 AM (OfRIX)

3 Right, so from now on when I kill pesky Aussie cockroaches, I am going to shout "fornicator!" very loudly whilst doing it. Hopefully your new word makes me braver, because I hate killing cockroaches only slightly less than I hate seeing one and then not knowing where it went!

Posted by: Super Sarah at August 22, 2007 12:03 PM (WCDGg)

4 It's official, you've lost your ever loving mind.

Posted by: statia at August 22, 2007 12:09 PM (lHsKN)

5 I tell the project manager that I simply cannot dial down the language in the document without losing the ability to explain the actual implementation, In about 3 years you'll be able to explain rocket science at a 3 year old's level. Kids have a way of necessitating that.

Posted by: Solomon at August 22, 2007 12:39 PM (x+GoF)

6 There are days I think a six year old really knows more than I do. Today could be one of those days.

Posted by: sue at August 22, 2007 02:50 PM (WbfZD)

7 Hahahahaha!

Posted by: geeky at August 22, 2007 03:44 PM (ziVl9)

8 I don't know... I believe I've been accused of fornication... um.hmm. evidently you have too!

Posted by: Angela at August 22, 2007 04:14 PM (DGWM7)

9 Once upon a time, in a far off country called England there lived a beautiful pregnant little fornicator named Helen who was bestowed the impossible task of writing technical documents (which, let's face it,would make most adult's eyes go googly) for young little six-year old who were just out of diapers. Now beautiful Helen was a smart little cookie because writing documents was her very bestest speciality. In fact she was so good at her job, Helen and her handsome prince attended many beautiful balls in her honor, dancing the night away in her beautiful pink and purple puffy gown. Helen, how's that for a start? (The violent part where you punch someone in the throat for asking you to do something stupid comes later!) Fairytales....that's all life is about isn't it?

Posted by: Heidi at August 22, 2007 04:28 PM (S8Jn4)

10 Your predicament with the document reminds me of a situation at work when I was about as pregnant as you are. My boss wanted me to write a manual of my job duties, as I was leaving and they worried my replacement would be hopeless. I tried the best I could but seriously, you canNOT write down everything you have ever possibly been called upon to do in your job. So while going over what I felt was absolutely the last fucking draft of this thing, I lost it. And I finally made her laugh by saying, "I can write you directions on how to make a peanut butter sandwich but at some point, I have to assume you know where to get the bread!"

Posted by: donna at August 22, 2007 04:31 PM (sCDQQ)

11 HAHAHAHAHAHHAAHA. Thanks for the laugh, sweets. I needed it.

Posted by: caltechgirl at August 22, 2007 06:11 PM (/vgMZ)

12 If you marry, do you lose your "fornicator" status, or do just become a former fornicator? I cannot tell you how many tech specs - or even functional specs - I've read...and re-read...and read again - going WTF...what the hell does that mean??? Never once would I have expected it to be written at a six-year-old's level. Unfortunately, I work for a consulting company where people seem to think using 25 syllable words never seen except in scrabble to achieve a quintuple word score will get them promoted. Now. I must go work on my first officially published article. For work, anyway. On Distributed Delivery Framework. Wonder if I could work "Fornicator" into that? "Offshore teams staffed by fornicators will be more relaxed and ergo more productive."??

Posted by: Tracy at August 23, 2007 01:17 AM (h2BZL)

13 LOL! I had a new word about a year ago. Bamboozled. I read it in Life of Pi and I just had to use it. My goal was to use it in posts, in speech, everywhere. It cracked me up, which is all that really mattered... amusing myself. ;-)

Posted by: Bou at August 23, 2007 02:09 AM (fGpp7)

14 I liked this post very much. It seems that you have some of your old sense of humor back. I love the word fornicator and I will find the Dutch translation for it in the dictionary, although it may not be as good in Dutch. The act is the same in either language, though.

Posted by: irene at August 23, 2007 04:40 AM (RL+iu)

15 Ha!

Posted by: That Girl at August 23, 2007 04:42 AM (s5Uyz)

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