ahem
(knock at door)

Prince George: Enter!

Edmund: Dr. Johnson, Your Highness.

Prince George: Ah, Dr. Johnson! Damn cold day!

Dr. Johnson: Indeed it is, sir, but a very fine one, for I celebrated last night the encyclopedic implementation of my pre-meditated orchestration of demotic Anglo-Saxon.

Prince George: (nods, grinning, then speaks) Nope -- didn't catch any of that.

Dr. Johnson: Well, I simply observed, sir, that I'm felicitous, since, during the course of the penultimate solar sojourn, I terminated my uninterrupted categorization of the vocabulary of our post-Norman tongue.

Prince George: Well, I don't know what you're talking about, but it sounds damn *saucy*, you lucky thing! I know some fairly liberal-minded girls, but I've never penultimated any of them in a solar sojourn, or, for that matter, been given any Norman tongue!

Edmund: I believe, sir, that the Doctor is trying to tell you that he is happy because he has finished his book. It has, apparently, taken him ten years.

Prince George: Yes, well, I'm a slow reader myself...

Dr. Johnson: (places two manuscripts on the table, but picks up the top one) Here it is, sir: the very cornerstone of English scholarship. This book, sir, contains every word in our beloved language.

Prince George: Hmm.

Edmund: Every single one, sir?

Dr. Johnson: (confidently) Every single word, sir!

Edmund: (to Prince) Oh, well, in that case, sir, I hope you will not object if I also offer the Doctor my most enthusiastic contrafribularities. (or maybe `contrafribblarities', coming from the word `fribble'. A closed-caption decoder would help here.)

Dr. Johnson: What?

Edmund: `Contrafribularites', sir? It is a common word down our way...

Dr. Johnson: Damn! (writes in the book)

Edmund: Oh, I'm sorry, sir. I'm anispeptic, frasmotic, even compunctuous to have caused you such pericombobulation.

Dr. Johnson: What? What? WHAT?

Prince George: What are you on about, Blackadder? This is all beginning to sound a bit like dago talk to me.

Edmund: I'm sorry, sir. I merely wished to congratulate the Doctor on not having left out a single word. (J sneers) Shall I fetch the tea, Your Highness?

Prince George: Yes, yes! And get that damned fire up here, will you?

Edmund: Certainly, sir. I shall return interfrastically
(Halfy By light alone, Tue 27 Jan 2009, 10:39, Reply)