by David Deans
Inspector Marlow’s chief aim is to find out what the suspects were doing between the hours of six thirty and seven thirty on Friday evening, the inferred time of the incident. He asks each suspect, “What were you doing at seven o’clock on Friday evening?” which, expressed in the past progressive, means effectively, “What were you then in the middle of doing at that time?” In the following exercise, pair off the names in the box with the suspects’ answers to the inspector’s question below. The first one has been done already to help you:
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Warren Crosby; Lucinda, the Ping-Pong champion; Señor Gonzalez; Matilda; the Horologist; Mr. Gleason, the printer’s assitant; Tushi Moto; Janitor Bert; Mick Aldehyde; You; Miss Scarlett
* * *
a) “I was taking down the bunting in the office foyer.” (Janitor Bert)
b) “I was browsing at the Barnes and Noble for books about skiing.”
c) “I was unwinding in front of the news on TV.”
d) “I was remantling the birdcage in the living room.”
e) “I was driving home from the office.”
f) “I was setting a six-point Harrington typeface for the Belmont Gazette.”
g) “I was mixing the sawdust for the Bird-Man of Easter Island.”
h) “I was playing in the semifinal of the Belmont Ping-Pong championships.”
i) “I was winding the clocks up.”
j) “I was lying in my hammock and smoking a Cuban cigar.”
k) “I was fornicating with his wife—so it can’t have been me!”
Note that there may not necessarily be any causal connection between these actions and the victim’s defenestration; any apparent synchronicity may be purely gratuitous. It is highly unlikely the deceased actually waited for any of these things to happen to tip him in favor of making a jump, nor (in the case of homicide) did the murderer see them as a signal to push, etc.—for which the simple past form would be used in place of the past progressive (e.g., “When I wound the clocks up, the man jumped out of the window”).
Now put the alibis into order of plausibility, giving reasons. State who in your opinion has the least credible alibi and have them brought down to the police station for further questioning by the inspector.
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Mirroring Bob’s own “disappearance,” I can imagine this implausible exercise turning up among a pile of clothes—a Big Boss™ business suit—discarded above the tide-line of a gigantic curve of shallow white sand (a schooner on a glistening calm horizon with a parrot in the crow’s nest aboard)—discovered presumably by the student, taking his dog for a walk on Sunday morning in the gray light of dawn. (“No, Rover, leave that alone. Here, that jacket looks like it’s been cut from a fine bolt of cloth…”). And, not unlike the implausible contrast there between glistening and gray, it’s the very sort of stuff to drive any sane, mild-mannered African gray up the plastic multicolored rungs of the nearest ladder.
Funnily enough (to employ the contrast of tenses herein recommended), it was while I was reworking the past progressive (out there in my correctorium, pining for Matilda) that I first became aware of an insidious collateral hazard—that even once I’d eliminated them, even once I’d incinerated them in the barbecue (“Another barbecue there this evening, Bob?” “That’s right, Chuck. Just thought I’d rustle up a burger”), some of Bob’s homespun miswirings might still find a very mysterious way back into Forward with English! (eighth edition). Time again for the yellow lightbulb to ping into surprise over my head, a halo of cartoon thumbtacks: however braced one might be, it’s not always easy to resist falling under the spell of Bob’s impish perversions—especially when casting around for replacement phrases and one’s critical faculties are overcome by a mind-blowing sense of possibility.
One can envision a lesser editor than Comenius, worn down by decaffeinated titter, permitting a Hash-ism to remain now here, another now there. Before you knew it, Bob’s haywire aberrancies would be strutting back into Forward with English! like a flock of prodigal peacocks, back onto a croquet lawn from their lair in the willows—with the inevitable cavalcade of garish potpourrifications in tow.
I am happy to announce that Comenius has at all times managed to resist this munificent temptation.
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Palindromes
Parrot cast its actor rap
Tar by tram, arty brat!
Drawn, one Polly did idyll open onward
Leek never, even keel
Flay ram alack calamary, Alf
Red? Now plug divot, Ovid—Gulp! Wonder!
Abracadabra: scenic Sotades abased at oscine csar—bad acarba!
Wend no maid a diamond new
Sub in moon, Bob: no omnibus
Bird mirror, or rim drib?
No, Sir Psittacid Daddi Cat, ’tis prison!
etc. etc.
LANGUAGE TIP! As far as possible, try to avoid using palindromes in everyday direct speech.
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No, Bob, you eponymous little palindrome, I’m afraid this will just not cut the mustard. That “tar by tram,” that “bad acarba,” that “Psittacid Daddi Cat” indeed—surely not the Florentine muralist? Pah! Who among my symmetrical detractors now cannot crave the swiftest removal of Bob and his remaining cuckooisms (if I might be permitted—just this once—to coin something off my own bat)?
The budding linguist will be relieved to learn that I will be seeing this business through to the end. Things are now at last in capable talons and this as I’ve said is my surge. Soon, nothing more will be left of Bob’s antics than a Cheshire cat’s floating grin in the bough of a tree. No incompetent Sideshow Bob I.
I wonder, though, if there’s not another danger here—that my revision work is now going too fast? Since setting up my correctorium, my work has come to acquire the impetus of a hare to bring the new eighth edition of Forward with English! to a definitive close. Only a few sections to go now till it gets sent off to the printers. But have I considered the possibility that once the job’s done, my services might actually no longer be required? (Not that there’s any real reason why I shouldn’t carry on, in a noneditorial capacity—I’m really just exploring the possibility that my remaining in human form—and, more important, remaining Mrs. Hash’s husband—might somehow be linked to my remaining in a troubleshooting role.) My mission completed, I might simply be withdrawn from the scene, no explanation given, as by a puppeteer’s invisible hand, or when Superman—the inferno extinguished, the damsel returned to the ground (“Let’s just say it’s good to have both feet back on the fifth floor!”)—modestly blends back into the crowd of office workers gathered behind the police cordon (office geeks from the early sixties in short sleeves and neckties, throw in the odd trilby).
Shouldn’t I maybe try to slow things up, postpone eventual completion, by undoing a little of each day’s literary labor, just in case?
Talking of cops, besides inheriting Bob T. Hash III’s deck of business cards, platinum this, identify that, all in Bob’s name, all eminently valid (“here, darling, look, a library card too”) the title deeds to his house and his wife, I happen to have in my possession the author’s rights to nothing other than the manuscript of Forward with English! (eighth edition)—not to mention the suspicious manuscript itself.
By the way, two more crates of celebratory fizzy pop and a carton of something soft were delivered this morning to the staff quarters’ kitchen.
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Idiomatic Expressions and Phrasal Verbs
Example: Those clocks seem to be slowing down. A horologist (whiskers, magnifying glass, and a very large clock key) has been summoned and is now trying to do something about restoring time to its usual velocity—in both the staff quarters’ kitchen and elsewhere. We say of the clocks that the horologist “is winding them up.”
In this exercise you have to choose the correct word from the lists to fill in the blanks. The first one has been done for you.
a) You and Bob Calvert are having a tea b
reak. You take two sugars and milk and drink from a blue cup and saucer while Bob has a company-sponsored red cup with milk and no sugar. You break off to answer a phone call and, distracted, pick up the red sugarless cup of tea by mistake. You take a sip or two and declare: “That is not my _________ of tea!” (sponsorship/cup/kettle)
The correct answer is “cup”—That is not my cup of tea!
b) On the eve of an important business trip you are repairing some slight hurricane damage to the garden shed. Purblind Little Johnnie is helping you out by replacing a plank of wood. He holds a nail between left thumb and index finger, swings with great instinctive accuracy with the hammer in his right. Complimenting him, you say: “You’ve hit the nail on the _________!” (hammer/thumb/head)
c) Bob is at the office canteen. He has asked for several helpings of nut roast, to which he now attempts to add a rather large gherkin, which, there being no room left for it on his plate, rolls off onto the tray. We say: “Bob has too much on his _________.” (tray/mind/plate)
d) It is raining outside and Mr. Hash and the children call off their game of Frisbee in the garden. They decide to play an indoor game involving small round glass transparent balls, threaded with threads of opalescent color—onyx, amethyst, ruby. Having looked high and low for the soft velvet pouch in which these little glass balls are kept, he finally gives up. We say: “Mr. Hash has indeed lost his _________!” (Frisbee/umbrella/marbles)
e) Your wife has been doing breaststrokes in the local natatorium. She wishes now to come out and dry herself off. With great promptitude and helpfulness from the side of the pool you “throw in the _________.” (kitchen sink/water wings/towel)
f) It has been raining. You are inside, waiting to get on with a game of tennis. You ask Mary to look out the window to see if it’s stopped. You ask her to “take a _________ check.” (Mary/tennis/rain)
g) A wagon with faulty axle has failed to pass its road test and has been banned by the sheriff from further road usage until the problem is fixed. You decide you must write a book and, as you see the wagon being towed off to the scrap heap and everybody else seems to be doing so, you find it irresistible not to “_________ on the banned wagon.” (test/jump/write a book)
h) There is a manila envelope on the desk. With your hand you shunt it forward. Miss Scarlett, entering your office, observes: “You’re _________ the envelope.” (posting/watching/pushing)
i) To pass the time Mr. Hash and Miss Scarlett are playing a game in the local municipal park. Mr. Hash throws a short length of sturdy twig and Miss Scarlett runs to fetch it. One of the rules is Miss Scarlett must pick it up at the end with the leaf attached to it. This time, however—breathlessly running back toward Mr. Hash—she has clearly picked it up at the end with no leaf. “Miss Scarlett has got the wrong end of the _________.” (leash/Bob/stick)
j) Bob and Jack are on a fishing trip. Bob has hooked a lovely marlin. On the point of reeling it in, the line snaps. Notwithstanding concerns of depletion due to high levels of toxic effluence, one suspects that the escapee marlin is not the last living example of its species. Jack says: “Don’t worry, Bob, there’s plenty more _________ in the sea.” (water/fishing lines/fish)
k) A parrot, having been discovered at customs in a smuggler’s suitcase, recounts the hallucinatory tale of his adventures. At the end of his tale the parrot then invites you to choose from a selection of Viennese chocolate, French cream cake, Battenburg, etc. You say: “I’ve heard some daft stories in my time, Bob, but that one really takes the _________!” (grammar book/suitcase/cake)
l) Bob is at the hippodrome, where he hired a very long-legged horse for an hour. It is now one hour and ten minutes since hire time began and, though a small queue of pegs has formed, Bob shows no sign of stopping. You say “It’s time Mr. Hash got off his (trot/one-hour/high) horse—and I suggest he be taken down a _________ this very instant!” (short-legged horse/hippodrome/peg or two)
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Some exercises are entirely without merit, and this is a nice example.
To enter, for a wild millisecond, into Bob’s reckless idiomatic spirit, it could be said of our mischievous compiler that, with this latest exercise, he has finally “ventured forth from a bucolic rolling dale context and relocated himself in an urbanized focal point at the epicenter of the maddening concrete” (gone to town). It is high time indeed for us to “replace at a lower altitude, with firm determination, the extremity of one of our singular hind limbs” (put our foot down). “Yes, Miss Ratcliffe, down at the front here; your homework on the dangled modifier came top of the class.”
Another two mysteriously light cartons (popcorn, balloons?) have been delivered to the staff office kitchen. This was the major (external) event of today. There’s no point complaining. Let us carry on without further comment, and proceed to the next section.
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Lodging a Complaint
“No, I don’t read much these days. I don’t have as much time as I used to.”
Bert has returned from the Belmont branch of Barnes and Noble with a book. Presently he settles down in his favorite armchair to read it by the light of a lamp. After a few pages he decides to put down the book and see what’s on TV.
Sometimes the goods and services we purchase do not meet with our unqualified approval. We encounter unforeseen imperfections, we feel let down in our expectations, a snort will escape from the nostrils—first steps along the road to a more pervasive disaffection.
Homework assignment!
Student has to imagine he is Bert and has to compose an irate, rambunctious letter to the regional manager of the Barnes and Noble bookstore in Belmont, expressing—in no uncertain terms—his disappointment with his purchase, asking for an assurance that this sort of stuff will not appear in the shop window ever again. The letter of complaint will take the form of a dust jacket blurb, which student feels more accurately represents the book than the blurb that persuaded him to buy the book in the first place. By special agreement with the management of the bookshop chain, the publishing house in question has kindly agreed to forthwith replace the existing blurb with student’s suggested alternative, with immediate effect. The bookstore will let the student choose between a refund, exchange, or some form of token. In certain cases, the house in question will be happy to pulp the book directly upon publication.
“Yes, I’ve taken up reading too. It’s quite trendy these days!”
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How often did I myself not stop to admire that glittering window display at the Belmont Barnes and Noble.
Only a few days ago—yesterday, in fact—I was returning to the office from the menswear department of the super new multistore with a nice new sober necktie. It was still in its box, not around my neck yet. When I was buying it, I had the idea of getting Matilda a little surprise, so I was now making a beeline for the bookstore. Outside, their beaks, I mean noses, pressed against the bookstore pane, a little crowd had gathered. What frolicking roll-call we could have here of the Mother’s Days, Father’s Days, Christmas days, Easter Sundays, Valentine’s Days, back-to-schools, Halloweens, High-Five Days, Thanksgivings, Labor Days, Mardi Gras days, and any number of other suchlike saturnalian dispensations—commemorated so diligently by the bookstore proprietors in that window display space. I went up to join the little crowd. There behind the vast pane of reflect-proof (and, who knows, bulletproof?) plate glass was a studious-looking mannequin of Bob T. Hash III in pajamas, a tweed-checkered bathrobe, and a pair of matching slippers. To the left of the fire tongs, and leaning against the side of the mantelpiece clock, were—no, stop rushing me—not piles of Forward with English! (the new eighth edition), but, rather, a murder mystery—what Ragioniere Brambilla would call a giallo. The cover had a woman in a red dress outside a window—a sort of fluttering flambé femme fatale. There was a copy in the mannequin’s lectern hand. His elbow resting on the mantelpiece of an avuncular hearth side, the mannequin was reading away at it while puffing on his Sherlock Holmes pipe.
But look, Rex—did that page not turn on its own? Was not that wisp of fake smoke in bromidian motion after all? Did not that eyebrow rise when it spied my arrival?
I did not linger long. I did not make a purchase. I did not go back to the office. I proceeded forth to the correctorium on the swiftest of casters.
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“Could Have Done”/“Was Going to Do”
The past of “could” (do, be, etc.) is “could have” (done, been, etc.). We use “could have done” to say that we had the ability or the opportunity to do something, but that we did not in the event actually do it. This is related to “wanted to (do/be, etc.),” meaning “I desired something but was prevented (thwarted by circumstances, by fate, etc.) from achieving it,” and is also related to “was going to (do, etc.),” which we use in situations of aborted projects, where we perhaps set out with the best of intentions that for our own good reasons we elect to abandon before reaching completion. For a more emphatic sense of regret (the infamous “kicking oneself”) use “should have (done)” or, conversely, “should not have (done).”