About TWD
Second, no word ending in “gry” was ever the proper answer to this insipid, annoying riddle. The wording of the riddle itself has been badly mangled as it was passed from person to person over the years, but the original form was evidently a trick question (as many riddles are) that used double-talk to send the listener off on a wild goose chase looking for a third “gry” word. Depending on the form of the riddle, the proper answer may actually have been “it,” “language” or some other tricky answer. No one knows for sure because the original form of the riddle has long since been lost in the mists of time, rendering the whole mess unsolvable. Trying to untangle the “gry” riddle today is right up there on the Pointlessness Scale with deconstructing the Sergeant Pepper album cover or assessing the structural dynamics of Donald Trump’s hairdo. No one knows, no one will ever know, so please get over it.
I explained all this to my readers, of course. Still the letters and e-mails came by the bucketful pleading for “the third gry word.” I explained it all again, and even wrote a long essay on the subject which I posted on my web page. And still every morning brought a fresh crop of dozens of earnest “gry” queries. By now I was getting cranky. (Correction: I was already cranky. I was becoming homicidal.) I created a giant flashing chartreuse banner for my web page that warned visitors that all further “gry” seekers would have their names forwarded directly to a group of crazed Kali cultists I happened to know. It didn’t work, of course, nothing does, and I have finally given up. This “gry” business will outlast us all, a fact which, while depressing, did supply me with a good idea for the inscription on my tombstone: “There are three words ending in ‘gry': angry, hungry, and …? Wake me up and I’ll tell you the third.”
Most questions I receive, thankfully, have nothing to do with “gry,” and often provide entertaining (and occasionally disquieting) insight into who actually reads my column. I am approached, for instance, to settle an inordinate number of drunken “bar bets” born in taverns all over the world, as well as arguments between husbands and wives or workers with their bosses, situations requiring the sort of delicacy and tact I would have thought it amply evident that I lack. Luckily, so far I know of only one divorce in which my column can fairly be said to have been a causative factor.
Many questions come from young people impertinently questioning the sanity of a grandparent who uses antiquated phrases such as “mean as garbroth” (an apparently vile soup made from the apparently vile gar fish), or plaintively begging for help with their homework. To such academically delinquent pleas, usually sent late on Sunday nights, I turn a righteously deaf ear, pointing the wayward youngsters towards their school libraries (probably thus insuring myself at least one more generation of disgruntled Kali worshippers).
By far the largest category of questions I receive are those that arrive during the workday from office workers who are, to put it bluntly, wasting eons of company time arguing amongst themselves about the origin of “dead as a doornail” or the logic of “feed a cold, starve a fever.” If no one answers when you call customer service for your computer, or your accountant puts you on hold for twenty minutes, or the telephone company service rep seems to be arguing with a co-worker while you try to explain that you did not call Tahiti for 45 minutes on New Year’s Eve, there’s a pretty good chance that my column is ultimately to blame. The easy access to the internet many companies inexplicably grant their employees (What’s next? Cable TV on every desk?) has apparently made my web site a major factor in the declining productivity of workers all over the world.
Not bad for a newspaper column that began way back in 1954. Sadly, my father died in January 1994, too soon to see the new direction his creation had taken, but gratified, I am sure, by the knowledge that his work would continue. For my part, I am deeply grateful to my father for my apprenticeship, and to both my father and mother for investing me with the ability to continue the column on my own. That this book is dedicated to my parents is no mere formality. To them I owe everything that I have accomplished and may, in the future, dream to do.
–Evan Morris
Page 5 of 6 | Previous page | Next page
