Beautiful People

Left photo by Reuters; right photo by Tony Gentile / Reuters

Idris, meet Jessica. Jessica, meet Idris. In surname terms, Elba, meet Alba. Alba, meet Elba.

I’m frustrated by the seventh word on the second-to-last line above, which is hindering the synopsis for the 2013 biographical film Mandela: Long Walk to Freedom. It’s a true albatross.

We can turn this error around, though. It is, after all, reverse “able.”

Idris is not Alba-nian. He’s British, actually … and he’s Elba, actually.

Both Elba and Alba were named one of People’s 100 most beautiful people in 2007. They are each beautiful in their own way. Their surnames are each spelled in their own way.

Alba, you’re exiled. I sentence thee to the same Italian island in the Mediterranean where Napolean spent his first period of exile. That’s right, I sentence Alba to Elba.

I’d like to thank another beautiful person, my brother, for catching today’s low-flying Alba toss. I’d also like to take a moment to wish him a very happy birthday. He turns the big four-oh today. That’s forty, not fourty. May the Ninth be with you, Bro!

No Means No

Sometimes it's better not to know. This isn't one of those times.

Years ago, in the comments portion of an online article, I came across this whimsical poem:

Eye half a spell checker

It came with my PC

It plainly Marx for my revue

Miss steaks I can knot sea

I've run this poem threw it

I'm sure yore pleased too no

It's letter-perfect inn it's weigh

Four my checker tolled me sew

Spell checkers, like Little League right fielders or my spam filter, can't catch everything. Homophones are their kryptonite.

We need more than you, no. We need the verb relating to awareness or understanding. So, in the spirit of Ronald Isley and his siblings, I'll throw my hands up and shout:

I want you to know right now.

Cut From the Same Hoth

The Star Wars universe — the icy planet of Hoth, particularly — has its share of AT-ATs, those four-legged, canine combat vehicles used by the Empire. The paragraph pictured has a dissimilar "at at" in its fleet. An AT-AT is also known as an Imperial Walker. An "at at," from what I've observed, is an empirical stalker, what with the second at following the first much too closely.

You can't go wrong dressing your dog as an AT-AT (All Terrain Armored Transport) for Halloween. You can go wrong dressing your sentence similarly. Your words will clumsily collapse, like a lassoed Imperial Walker near Echo Base.

At, twice? Stop at once.

The second at must be left out in the cold.

Drop it like it's Hoth.

Toxel.com