Comments on: He’s a Mean One, Mr. Grinch

By: Sam

Sam — Tue, 10 Apr 2007 05:51:10 +0000

tâ€s the way my mother the English major, MA grammar hound taught me to answer the phone: (Actually, it was much longer -Hello, â€”â€”- residence, David speaking. â€¦â€¦ Whom may I ask is calling? â€¦â€¦ One moment, Iâ€ll see if s/he is available. - I was raised for geekdom. I honestly don't mean to sound rude, but it's a sort of Geekdom that Alan Ross would have called "Non-U" Geekdom. The formula is incorrect, as you can see by re-wording: "May I ask, whom is calling?" It's more pronounced with an accusative pronoun in place of the accusative interogative: "Is him calling, may I ask?"

By: Western Dave

Western Dave — Mon, 09 Apr 2007 20:23:04 +0000

It’s the way my mother the English major, MA grammar hound taught me to answer the phone: (Actually, it was much longer -Hello, ——- residence, David speaking. …… Whom may I ask is calling? …… One moment, I’ll see if s/he is available. – I was raised for geekdom.

By: Sam

Sam — Sun, 08 Apr 2007 06:00:29 +0000

The California Democratic Party has the worst, most irrational policies on this issue.

As an election approaches, we get as many as–and this is not an exaggeration, but based on an actual count–eleven pre-recorded messages per day, and never less than five, starting at least three weeks before the election. And this being California, the recordings come not only from the candidates but from every celebrity and pseudo-celebrity imaginable. (“Hi, This is Martin Sheen,” “This is Ed Begley Jr. with an important message,” “You may know me as Nina Van Horn from ‘Just Shoot Me.'”) And while I know that the poor schmuck who is occasionally responsible for making the personal plea is not responsible for this badgering, it’s impossible not to give him or her a pretty butal verbal lashing.

I’ve made it clear that I’ll never under any circumstances give money to the party again. At this point, if the Republicans were putting up a ticket of Jeffrey Dahmer and Beelzebub I doubt I’d offer any more assistance to the Dem party beyond pulling the lever, as long as the Beelzebub ticket promised not to call me at home.

Western Dave, I like your strategy. But curiously, your four year old is hyper-correcting; the verb in her question requires a nominative (“who…is calling”); “may I ask” is parenthetical. /pedantry.

By: Neel Krishnaswami

Neel Krishnaswami — Fri, 06 Apr 2007 02:58:14 +0000

If you can figure out which company the mortgage people are from, you can file a lawsuit against them in small claims court. Political parties are exempted from the Telephone Communications Protection Act, though.

By: Western Dave

Western Dave — Thu, 05 Apr 2007 20:40:14 +0000

My favorite technique, put the phone down pick up a few minutes later and say, “I’m sorry, I had to help my child in the bathroom, can you start over.” Also speaking in foreign languages is fun too! Or giving the phone to the 4 year old and letting her talk to the telemarketer. She almost has the phrase, “my daddy says that you and I could have a good conversation” down. She already says, “whom may I ask is calling?”

By: Joey Headset

Joey Headset — Thu, 05 Apr 2007 11:39:40 +0000

There’s no point in chewing out these people. They’re sitting in a cubicle somewhere making some shitty hourly wage. When I get a call like this, I responed with the following phrase before they are done introducing themselves:

“Please remove me from your call list”.

Maybe they do remove me, maybe they don’t. But it always ends the call.

By: David Chudzicki

David Chudzicki — Thu, 05 Apr 2007 02:53:21 +0000

So your Jewish forefathers helped found the Republican Party and these people keep really good records?

By: emschwar

emschwar — Thu, 05 Apr 2007 02:21:24 +0000

My favourite political fundraising gaffe so far is that I keep getting invitations to join the National Republican Jewish Coalition, apparently based on my last name (Schwartz). The only problem is that my family’s been Catholic for as far back as anybody’s been able to trace (which, admittedly, is only 150 years or so).

By: withywindle

withywindle — Thu, 05 Apr 2007 02:00:04 +0000

I doubt you’re going to have any luck. Not only am I on the Republicans’ list, but, since I gave to a left-leaning NGO in lieu of a wedding gift at a friend’s request, I’m in that world’s mailing lists and phone calls as well–and no amount of yelling, pleading, etc., seems to get me off of any list. Also, I get political junk mail for deceased relatives. And my wife gets harrassed by the Policemen’s Beneficiary Society, or whatever it is, and I have to deal with Swattie fundraisers every year. I would suggest changing your name and moving to Antarctica for a short period of time as a partial solution. But doubtless you would only add the OPUS* folks to your list of woes.

* Organization for Penguins Under Stress.