Duh, okay Knuckles

Gordon (Knuckles) Reid, Toban Staff

Hey-diddley-ho, neighbours! I could bore you with some "gem" of my wisdom or some irrelevant anecdote here, but why bother? I'm feeling rather slothful today, so I'll let your letters fill up the space I'm allotted.

Dear Knuckles,
When someone calls you a "motherfucker," is it because you suffer from an Oedipus complex or is it just because you're the biggest fucker of them all?
-- Joel Zemcak, Engineering I

Well Joel, I consider myself to be an expert at getting called nasty things. What you do in your home is none of my business, so I don't want to assume anything about your relationship with your parents. What is important is that whatever you wind up doing is consentual and doesn't cause any permanent brain damage. Thus, avoiding your parents for help in anything -- especially Dynamics homework. That's what did in my Pa -- well, that and the raccoons.

I'll never forgive those raccoons for what they did to us. I swear, if I see one of those little bastards...

Dear Knuckles,
Why do all the professors pronounce the word "schedule" as [`shed-yül], yet everyone else in the universe pronounces it as [skej-ül]? Is it part of their contract? If so, will the strike have any effect on this pronounciation?
-- Lynn Gayowski, Science II

To be frank, the current strike has nothing to do with academic freedom or administrative downsizing. UMFA hit the picket lines solely to protest the alteration of Article 143.8, the infamous "schedule clause."

The administration, frustrated by UMFA's stalwart refusal to change their pronounciation of the word to the administration's prescribed pronounciation, [`kräch-les 'swim-war]. While the issue has been placed on the back-burner, it remains the main unresolved point in negotiations between UMFA and the administration.

The university has prescribed all students to adopt the new pronounciation (see above) immediately. Any registered student found using the old pronounciations of "schedule" will be subject to fines or expulsion.

This week's prize goes to "Gerbil Girl." You know who you are, so get your rodent-butt over to the Manitoban office at 105 University Centre to claim your exercise wheel (or prize substitute). Drop off your questions at 105 University Centre or e-mail me at umreid12@cc.umanitoba.ca.

This article first ran in The Manitoban, Vol. 83, No. 12 (November 1, 1995). By this, the third installment in the series, I had adopted many of the column's trademarks. Shameless pandering to the audience. Cheeseball pop-culture references (à la Ned Flanders). Fraternity in-jokes.

Joel's question allowed me my first use of gratuitious profanity in print. The funniest thing about my response to his question wasn't the hints of incest (always a riot), not the admittedly bizarre reference to raccoons, but the fact that Joel's mother is a very handsome woman, and an object of lust for many of my fraternity brothers. Ooh, Madame Zemcak!

Lynn typed up the classified ads on a weekly basis for the paper. Later on, we worked together for Convergys. On occasion, she would rollerblade to work wearing Daisy Dukes. Yum. I miss you (and your legs), Lynn.