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Smart TalkSmart TalkSMART TALK
By  Dr. Molto Breve

I SHARE YOUR CONCERNS:  At the Institute for the Linguistically Impaired, we don't usually divulge private remarks about patients, but this deserves publication.  The staff treasures this memo from Dr. Alfred Kahn, Board Member Emeritus:

"How many times have I heard this!  Sounds like a prissy YMCA secretary.  Concerns are so much more refined than fears, anxieties, irritations, anger, disgust.  When someone has me saying, unctuously, ‘I share your concerns,' it make me want to swear loudly and make obscene gestures."

We feel the same way when someone writes I read with interest whatever it was.  The writer doesn't have the backbone to say I hated what you wrote without pretending to soften the blow, much as the Brit who says meaning no disrespect just before an appalling insult.

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