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The Signs of the Apocalypse Issue
March 2007

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Reasons for believing we are, in fact, no longer in Kansas

  1. Munchkins (60.3%)
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A linguistic phenomenon

By Paul Preston

In a landmark accomplishment for science and language, University spokeswoman Amanda Love triumphantly announced Friday that a crack team of physics professors and English majors had successfully created an isolated simulation of the previously theoretical “Triple Entendré.”

“This is a triumph for everyone who has ever believed in the power of shameless puns,” Love declared. “At long last, we have redrawn the boundaries of potential conversational humor!” “English speakers have been limited to having their humorous reflexive syntagmaticoverlap coincidence terms contained to a single syntactical relationship between forms,” said senior linguistics major Hugh Jorgen. “For instance, if something ursine was committing an act that I could not tolerate, I could call it “unbearable,” exploiting the synchronic match between the words ‘bear’ the animal and ‘bear’ to tolerate.

“Now we have unveiled three-way syntagmatic relations, which, naturally, requires a fantastic amount of energy to harness. Yes, there was great risk, but fortunately we had one of those foreign exchange students on hand.”

Sitting in a bulletproof, soundproof, odor resistant observation cubicle with recording equipment running and the collective breath of the linguo-scientific community held, Swedish exchange student Jack Søfenklas read from the script that had taken three months and twelve researchers to complete. “I must say,” Søfenklas began, “the paleontologist’s story of the extinct species of subhuman superior primates was so indirect and leisurely, I’d say it was more of a… meandertale!”

Though Søfenklas suffered minor lung damage from exposure to high literary energy, the experiment was declared a complete success.

Physics major and research team member Hung Lo gloated at the announcement. “Oh yes, Sir. Best three hundred grand this university has ever spent.”