Comments on: Serious Only Need Apply

By: Cyberquill

Cyberquill — Thu, 11 Mar 2010 23:33:52 +0000

Sounds great. I'll put it on my bucket list, together with The Sound of Music, Jennifer's Body, and The Godfather (neither installment of which I've ever been able to sit through in its entirety, which makes me wonder if I'm a real man).

By: Cyberquill

Cyberquill — Thu, 11 Mar 2010 19:30:55 +0000

Oops—was I dangling again? Doesn’t matter, as both of us are rather ruseless. (A little pun for German speakers.)

By: Cheri

Cheri — Thu, 11 Mar 2010 14:42:17 +0000

I AM listless.

By: Thomas Stazyk

Thomas Stazyk — Thu, 11 Mar 2010 05:20:05 +0000

Yes about the clowns. Especially Killer Clowns from Outer Space, one of the most wonderfully horrid movies of all time. Check it out.

By: Cyberquill

Cyberquill — Thu, 11 Mar 2010 05:07:09 +0000

Exactly. The line doesn’t say what one is supposed to be serious about. An applicant may be extremely serious about checking his Facebook page every two minutes. Does that count?

In my case, on those rare occasions when I do land a job, it never takes long for me to be informed by the brass that I’m “too serious” and that I should “lighten up” and “smile more.” So whenever I see “Serious Only Need Apply,” I’m thinking to myself Be careful what you ask for, Mr. Employer—you might get it, and then bitch about it!

I disagree about the clowns. Being a good clown is serious business.

By: Thomas Stazyk

Thomas Stazyk — Thu, 11 Mar 2010 04:02:13 +0000

Plus we’re not sure what ‘serious’ really means. We assume it means serious about getting a job. But it could refer to the applicant’s personality. Jobs where you want serious people:

–Undertaker
–Hit person
–Immigration officer

Jobs for the non-serious:

–Clown
–Traffic cop (as in, ‘you can’t be serious”)
–US Congressman

By: Cyberquill

Cyberquill — Mon, 08 Mar 2010 01:37:07 +0000

Yeah, plus all job ads discriminate against the illiterate. Posting a picture-only version of each ad ought to be required by law.

By: Cyberquill

Cyberquill — Mon, 08 Mar 2010 01:28:09 +0000

Mysteriously, the episode issue cleared itself up. Perhaps it’s a new word these days that I haven’t used yet. (No one knows what we’re talking about.)

By: Nolanimrod

Nolanimrod — Mon, 08 Mar 2010 00:23:09 +0000

That line could get the prospective employer in hot water if he went through the Labour Exchange in the UK. It is prima facie evidence of blatant job discrimination against the non-serious.

By: Nolanimrod

Nolanimrod — Mon, 08 Mar 2010 00:18:29 +0000

Episode. EPISODE. episode

By: Cyberquill

Cyberquill — Wed, 03 Mar 2010 18:57:46 +0000

In spite of being listless, you’re making me laugh.

By: Cheri

Cheri — Wed, 03 Mar 2010 15:00:55 +0000

I only wish I had kept a list of the hilarious dangling modifiers my students have written.

“Burning on the barbeque, I removed the hamburgers immediately.”
“Hoping for vindication, the DVD was introduced into evidence.”

And the like…

By: Cyberquill

Cyberquill — Tue, 02 Mar 2010 19:11:04 +0000

As one of the sharpest minds in the country, the purveyor of one the most riveting blogs of the 21st century, and a person who understands the meaning of Dankbarkeit, I thank you for weighing in on the deplorable—and often involuntarily comedic—ambiguity created by danglers.

By: Andreas

Andreas — Tue, 02 Mar 2010 16:33:33 +0000

Danglers — whether a stray “only” or any modifier — make for hilarious reading in the English language.

I regularly get emails (intended to be ass-kissy) from PR people that start with “As a pre-eminent writer in this field, I thought you should know…”

Really? You, the PR person, want to sell yourself as a pre-eminent writer in the first sentence? Or, as the rest of the email makes clear, you were trying to do something else and failing, because you were, well, not a pre-eminent writer.

By: Cyberquill

Cyberquill — Mon, 01 Mar 2010 18:16:12 +0000

Sure. Just make sure a #2 pencil was used, or I’ll flunk it sight unread.