the birds, but not Hitchcock's

[sergebroom]

A bird in the hand is better than two birds in the bush.

You can kill two birds with one stone.

Which two birds does the stone kill? The two in the bush? Or did the person with one bird in one hand also have have one bird in the other hand? Or maybe there was also a little old lady next to him also with one bird in one hand and, when the stone hit her bird and made it explode in a cloud of feathers and of fleshy bits, the old lady fainted.

Comments

Knowing how fragile

[dragonet2.livejournal.com]

Birds are, this is a weird question.

Re: Knowing how fragile

[serge-lj.livejournal.com]

Yeah... Sorry if that post sounded like I endorse the killing of birds. I was just thinking about those old sayings and how silly they sound when one bundles them together. Really, I don't like killing. Proof of that? I'm a programmer. When a job is running that needs to be stopped prematurely, most people refer to it as killing the job. I call it terminating it.

Re: Knowing how fragile

[sajia.livejournal.com]

Icon-love!

Re: Knowing how fragile

[serge-lj.livejournal.com]

It's not that I have any compunction about ending a program prematurely, especially if it's in the process of wrecking our database. But that casual non-jokey use of the word 'kill' bothers me. Does that make sense?

Re: Knowing how fragile

[sajia.livejournal.com]

Kind of. I sometimes am exceedingly sensitive to language.

Re: Knowing how fragile

[serge-lj.livejournal.com]

Well, words do matter. That's why, from the very beginning, I hated the expression 'politically correct' and its faux iconoclasm, and I haven't changed my mind about it.

[fledgist.livejournal.com]

That depends on the stone, and who gets the contract for the stone. Or it could be that someone has been given the bird. Or perhaps, that a bird has given herself to someone.

[serge-lj.livejournal.com]

Being given the bird... I will not make jokes about that.

[fledgist.livejournal.com]

I say nothing, nothing....

[serge-lj.livejournal.com]

And now, I shall do my Colonel Klink impersonation...

[fledgist.livejournal.com]

Ja?