Doonesbury by Garry Trudeau for February 13, 2021

Nothing hurts business more than an honest bureaucrat.

I actually prefer “Ain’t I?” to “Aren’t I?”

A few days ago I wrote: “Bribe him, as usual”. It wasn’t a good suggestion. I admit.

If only.

I imagine Duke will be off to rule some small country ASAP!

My advice to Duke yesterday was run. May be too late… Or was really hoping to make a new ‘friend’. Of course, every ‘friend’ cuts into the profits.

Duke needs to put on some pants since he is going to meet another “friend”.

Talking about having “a really bad day”, did anyone listen to Trump’s defense team at Impeachment Two?

Duke is from the old school where everyone in government was bribable, now it’s only most of them.

I don’t remember this storyline but have always hoped to see Duke in jail, looking forward.

For all Trudeau fans, he will be giving a virtual talk at the virtual Tucson Festival of Books on March 7th at 1:00 p.m. https://tucsonfestivalofbooks.org/?id=67 I recommend going to the website to see if any other favorite authors are appearing. This is a wonderful book festival. When I went, there were over 90,000 visitors and by 2019, there were 140,000! Now that it’s virtual, it’s a little easier to make your way around.

Duke always gets the honest ones.

Oops. Guess I was wrong, Duke. He did suspect something.

Growing up in Ireland, the preferred locution was “amn’t I”

Yup, another great idea exposed for the really crappy idea it really was. Reality, sux.

Honey probably already has the motor running in the escape vehicle and Duke’s lawyer on the phone. I bet his lawyer just asks “Civil or criminal?”.

Duke should have said: Plata or plumo ? (Silver or lead)

‘Aint’ is originally from ’haven’t’. Maybe from a lack of teeth, a few hundred years ago English-speakers used to drop out ‘v’. and so said ’e’en’ for ‘even’, ’e’er’ for ‘ever’, and ’o’er’ for over. (Later, poets found these metrically useful and so they became high-falutin whereas they had previously been low-falutin.) ’Haven’t’ became ’ha’ent’ then ’hain’t’ and finally ’ain’t’. ’Isn’t’ and ’aren’t’ had become something like ’in’t’ and ’an’t’ which can still be heard is some parts of England. They were attracted to ’ain’t’ and were assimilated.. I suppose the same thing happened to ’amn’t’ if it every existed. This sort of pedantry saves me from having to think about Trump. The guy next door howls and shouts all day. I think my way is better.