Smart Alec answers to daft questions

I left a screwdriver on our kitchen table today. My wife asked, "What's this doing here?". I said "Obeying Newton's first law".

Bob Dylan loved to mess with reporters. When he said that all of his songs were protest songs a reporter asked how many protest singers exist.

Dylan: "About 136".
Reporter: "You say about 136 -- or exactly 136?"
Dylan: "Either 136 or 142"

One more example. The Beatles never missed an opportunity to mess with the press:

Reporter: "Does it bother you that you can't hear what you sing during concerts"?
John Lennon: "No, we don't mind. We've got the records at home."

Any pedants here who can do better than that?

I don't know about "better," but another Dylan quote that I love (which may or may not strictly apply here) came in a Rolling Stone interview. Referring to one of Dylan's later albums, the interviewer said, "Many reviewers thought you were writing about your mortality on that album."

To which Dylan replied (I'm paraphrasing), "I love it when reviewers say I'm writing about my mortality as if they think they're never doing to die."

"If I asked for a new bicycle would you say 'no'?"

These challenges are similar to finding a wish that the Devil can't twist to his own advantage.

>4 darrow: as a father myself my answer to your question would be "No, I would say yes, you can not have a new bicycle (or a pony)."

Dylan must have been making fun of demands for specificity (1). About him I read somewhere that an interviewer chided him for
dissing Time Magazine, saying sternly:
"How can you criticize Time when you donʻt even READ it!?"

Dylan: "Oh I DO read it. Itsʻ just that I WOULDNʻT read it if I wanted to find out anything."

>3 Collectorator: "Must I go without a new bicycle?" : "No, but I won't be the one to buy it for you".

>5 John_Vaughan: Dammit. We need the definitive bicycle question.

How about, "If I asked you to buy me a bicycle would you refuse?".

I always wind my kids up when they ask can I rather than may I.

Kids: Dad, can we watch X-factor?
Me: Yes, I'm sure you would be able to watch X-factor if you could wrestle the remote control from me.

I'm probably going to hell aren't I?

"No, I would say yes, you cannot"

Iʻm reminded that in Tongan English, for a question like
"Youʻre not leaving early, are you?, the NEGATIVE answer is "Yes!" (Meaning Thatʻs right (I am NOT). Iʻm not sure what the unlikely affirmative answer would be.
, but the negative answer to
that kind of question that has a negative in it "Yes, ..."

I always answer negative questions that way. It annoys the hell out of my wife but she's got used to it.

In Dublin I find that shop assistants at the checkout will tell the customer the price as follows: "That will be eleven euros. Is that alright?"

I always respond: "No!"

The look of shock on their faces is priceless. For everything else I have MasterCard.

"Did you find everything you were looking for, sir?"

"No. I was looking for a big breasted blonde nymphomaniac who owns a pub".

Does she have a sister?

#13> As a shop owner myself, I would call that a smart alec answer to a reasonable question. :)

>15 rocketjk:
A reasonable question in a civilised world. But not in a big store when you've just been queueing to pay for ten minutes and have already had ample opportunities before joining the queue to ask the roving shelf-stackers and assistant-managers where they've hidden the muesli this week.

#16> Sadly, one cannot always find roving shelf-stackers and/or assistant managers, especially in large stores that are trying to punch up the bottom line by cutting staff. Knowing this, the checker may well want to be sure the customer isn't going out without something they meant to buy. Also, it's reasonable for store employees to be instructed to ask that question to be sure each customer's check-out total is maximized. Maybe a quick run to Aisle 5 by a bagger for a box of muesli will do that, while making the customer feel less frustrated overall. It is also reasonable for store management to want to interact with customers in that way, to at least give the appearance of caring whether the customer found everything he or she needed. If the answer to the question is, "Well, I couldn't find the muesli, and there was nobody around to ask," enough times, or some equivalent thereof, it's reasonable for the store management to want to know that customers are having frustrating experiences. Perhaps they might even care and want to do something about it. It could happen.

Fry's Electronics checkout staff always ask if I found everything I was looking for. Last time I was there I said "no" and the assistant just smiled and said nothing.

I had already asked for the item before I got to the checkout. They didn't stock it.

>17 rocketjk:, >18 darrow:
Yes, it's like all these customer relations formulae. Fine when someone uses it because they mean it and are interested in the customer's answer, pathetic and silly when employees are forced to use it as part of a standard protocol. After the second or third time you hear it, it just confirms to you that the company doesn't see either employee or customer as individual human beings.

I worked for a retail chain that wanted us to greet any customer we encountered in the aisles and ask if they were finding everything ok. It worked pretty well except during the holiday shopping season when there were so many staffers on the floor that the customers ran into them every time they turned a corner. One lady answered me with, "Stop! Just stop! I can't stand being asked that one more time!"

>19 thorold: You have reminded me of one of Groucho Marx's quotes. To me it states the objective of all the Customer Relationship Management (CRM) systems being used and implemented.

"Sincerity is the key. If you can fake that you've got it made."

>21 pgmcc:
Spot on, as usual!
I've replied to hundreds of complaints in my time, and that's always been my experience. Give people the idea that you've taken the time to understand their problem, and there's a reasonable chance that they will go away happy. Reply to them with a standard letter that doesn't quite fit the case and they will be convinced you don't care.

Your feedback is important to us. It keeps our recycling bins full.

>22 thorold: There is a great book called, The Scapegoat by the French author Daniel Pennac (English translations available) in which the main character works as a "scapegoat" in a department store. When an irate customer is complaining they bring along the scapegoat to address the customer's complaint. The scapegoat agrees with the customer, empathises with the customer and then starts to point out how pathetic his own position is, so much so that the customer ends up empathising with the scapegoat and comforting him as he starts to cry. It is a great example of the SPIN sales technic.

It is a book worth tracking down.

For the sake of clarity, the book is a comedy, not an instruction manual for Customer Service personnel.

In the spoken variety of 'English English' that I know as 'Sloppy English' (SE) it is common for shop sales assistants to ask 'Would you like any thin kelse?'

I'm always tempted to answer 'Don't you have anything thicker?'.

The late, great humor columnist Molly Ivins once wrote about the people employed by a newly-opened office of Air France in Texas. She said they were trained to pronounce Air France with a credible French accent, which meant if you telephoned, your call would be answered with a cheery "Air Frawnce, kin ah hep you?''

When customer services say "Bear with me" I always ask "Brown, polar or grizzly?".

Ambrose Bierce says that, if
someone tells you "You are
MISTAKEN", your answer should be:
" People think Iʻm somebody else!? For WHOM am I ʻbeing* mistakenʻ?"

*A. B. says the correct English for what your opponent is trying to say is "You MISTAKE!"

>23 pgmcc:
I found Au bonheur des ogres on the Kobo store. Looks like fun, so far. The darling buds of May plus French swearwords and real explosions.
I'm sure I've seen that idea of the professional scapegoat somewhere else. Maybe in one of the Wodehouse Hollywood stories or something like that?

#27>

In one of his films (I forget which), Groucho Marx is sitting at a restaurant table with two other people.

Someone approaches and asks, "May I join you?" to which Groucho replies, "Why? Am I coming apart?"

>24 CliffordDorset: What particularly annoys me is when I have selected ONE item to purchase, taken it to the counter, and said "Just this please", and the checkout assistant still asks "Anything else?"

Maybe I should start saying the same thing in a more elaborate way so that it actually registers: "This product and no others, please."

>28 thorold: thorold, what pgmcc's post made me think of was a Maugham short story, though that's certainly not what you're remembering. Maugham's story was about a blunt and flirtatious woman invited to a weekend in the country, as I remember, in order to draw upon herself the disdain & wrath of the other women in attendance and so draw together the others in their dislike of her. Because as you know women are shallow back-biting creatures who can get along together only when they've a scapegoat. Well, perhaps as you know if you're a jumped-up closet case like Maugham . . .

>30 dtw42: But that assumes they're listening. After dealing with customers all day, every day, rote behavior might be the only way to save one's sanity.

>28 thorold: When I first heard the professional scapegoat story it was ascribed to Gordon Selfridge, who was said to have an employee who would be summoned, blamed, and 'dismissed' in front of the aggrieved customer.

On a related matter, I used to work alongside a very large consultancy organisation that would identify two potential scapegoats at the beginning of each project; one worked for the consultancy and one for the client. This process was kept very quiet indeed.

>33 TheoClarke: Ah, yes. Gordon Selfridge - that must be the connection in which I came across it.