A Humourless Pedant Writes

As a humourless pedant I am often asked: What does a humourless pedant look like? and What is the difference between an omnivore and a creature that eats everything? To which the answers are: Me and three words or seven letters. Given a moment I could disinter the consonant and vowel differences, but that is a pleasure best enjoyed at home, in private and within reach of a box of man-sized toilet tissues.

Only yesterday on emerging from the Dorset Institute for the Precise Deployment of Vocabulary Even In Circumstances of Extreme Duress (DIPDVECED) I was accosted on the steps by a young man of uncertain age who inquired of me the precise difference between the United States and United Kingdom versions of the 1959 POX beauty soap advertising campaigns. I was able to inform him - without recourse to documentation of any kind - that they were identical save that the former featured the half profile of Hollywood actress Ms Kim Novak, whilst the latter featured Dorset's own Ms Hester Nicely-Pointy.

Perceiving a look of triumph on the young gentleman's visage, I hazarded that he was on the point of winning some form of wager - possibly with a work colleague, a relative or a member of the Liberal Democratic party at whose conventions such questions are far from otiose. "You have bested me sir", the young man replied "and in that process have exposed the true purpose of my inquiry". Further dialogue revealed that earlier in the day a "blog" (some manner of informal and, I presume, self-serving epistolatory narrative distributed through the electronic media) had, in error, printed the United States version of the advertisement claiming that the personage depicted was Ms Nicely-Pointy whereas it was obvious to anyone with even half a brain that the likeness was that of Ms Novak, (born February 13, 1933 and star of, amongst other classics, The Eddy Duchin Story (1956), Alfred Hitchcock's Vertigo (1958), Of Human Bondage (1964) and - who can ever forget her marvellous Polly Pistol - Kiss Me Stupid (also 1964). Ms Nicely-Pointy appeared in none of these. A schoolboy error.

I bid the young gentleman a hearty and spontaneous farewell, happy in the knowledge that it is for days such as this that the humourless pedant lives and remains in constant hope and expectation.

Spot the Difference: Ms Hester Nicely-Pointy [LEFT] and Ms Kim Novak [RIGHT] are both stars in their own right but, according to Denzley Smallbore, "peas from altogether

different pods". Only a humourless non-pedant would fail to spot the difference

despite the similarity in their careers.