- By Jim Evans
- Entertainment
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SMART TALK by Dr. Ced Riley
HAVE A NICE DAY: This is just a long way to say goo'day, and we're sick of hearing it, but it can be fun. "Nice" has some unpleasant meanings, so we staff at the Institute for the Linguistically Impaired like to use "Have a nice day" as much as a curse as a blessing. Our target, of course, has no idea of this.
Other meanings of "nice," most of them obsolete, are lascivious, senseless, dainty, strange, easily exhausted, tiny, and trivial. We at the institute, knowing this, find "Have a nice day" to have a similar depth as the supposedly Chinese curse: "May you live in interesting times."
My colleague Dr. Will S. Sert has a handicap that allows him the privilege of special parking. When he sees a car with no validating hang tag in such a spot, he slips a note under one of the wiper blades:
"When I see a car illegally using a space for the physically disabled, I want to smash its headlights with my cane. So far, I've resisted this impulse. I hope you need this space as much as I do. Have a nice day."
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