Today I learned a new word on Twitter. I like to banter, but raillery has the same meaning:
rail·ler·y
n. pl. rail·ler·ies
1. Good-natured teasing or ridicule; banter.
2. An instance of bantering or teasing.
But raillery sounds like something for my twisted Monty Python sense of humor. For Python fans, please follow my madness. For the rest of you, run away!
Setting the scene…there appear knights before King Arthur in his forest.
“We are the knights that say ni!”
“What do you want, knights that say ni?” asks King Arthur.
“We want a shrubbery! One not too expensive or tall.”
“We don’t have a shrubbery with us.”
“Ni, ni, ni, ni”
“Stop, please stop, it is more than we can bear!”
“Well then you shall find us a shrubbery or we shall raillery upon you a second time! Your mother was a hamster and your father smelled of elderberries.”
Now off goes King Arthur looking for nice and inexpensive shrubbery and walks into Shrubberville. Notice my editorial control here?
“We are looking for a shrubbery!”
“Who are you?” asks the shrubbery owners of Shrubberville.
“I am your king, the king of the Brittons.”
“Who are the Brittons?”
“You are, you ninny!”
“Well I didn’t vote for you.”
“It matters not; we seek a shrubbery.”
Now King Arthur works his way back to the forest.
“Here is your shrubbery, oh good knights of ni.”
“We no longer want a shrubbery and we are now the knights that say ‘raillery ickyickypungtungatoo!’ You must now cut though the forest with the backbone of a herring and prepare our Form 1040, with schedules.”
“I will not!”
“Oh, please! At least the 1040, it is so difficult.”
At that point, King Arthur cuts off all their heads and places them on pikes as a warning to all that venture into the tax code forest of shadow.
The moral to this rambling? Do not mix raillery with the IRS for they are the knights that say “ickyickyputyourbuttinjail.” It is not a silly place and with ten thousand men you should not go there. It is pure folly.
