Antonio A. Antonio

Suspect:  First of all, I really am a professor.  Professor of drawing, ornate and free-hand styles, at the Holy Redeemer night school. Inspector:  Well, isn't that nice.  Good for you, but it says here, "Pyschiatrist!" Suspect:  Yes, but after the period!  Don't you know anything about syntax and punctuation?  Look carefully:  Professor Antonio A. Antonio. Period.  Then there's a capital P. Psychiatrist.  Now, you'll admit it isn't acting under false pretenses to say:  "I am a psychiatrist."  It's like saying, "I'm a psychologist, botanist, vegetarian, arthritic."  Do you have a knowledge of Italian grammar and language?  You do?  Well, then you should know that if someone describes himself as an archaeologist, it's as though he had written "Milanese."  It doesn't mean he has a degree in it! Inspector:  All right, but what about that "The Former Professor from the University?" Suspect: There, you see--excuse me, but this time you're the one who's acting under false pretenses: you told me that you know Italian language and syntax and punctuation, and then it comes out that you don't even read correctly. Inspector: What do you mean, I don't know-- Suspect: Didn't you see the comma after "The Former"? Inspector: Oh, yes, there is a comma.  You're right, I hadn't noticed. Suspect:  Aha, "I hadn't noticed" . . . And you, simply because you "hadn't noticed," would throw an innocent man in prison? Inspector: You know, you really are crazy.  What does the comma have to do with it? Suspect:  Nothing, for someone who doesn't know Italian language and syntax! Which reminds me, I'd like to know where you got your degree.  And who granted it to you . . . let me finish!  The comma, remember, is the key to everything!  If there's a comma after "The Former," the entire meaning of the phrase changes at once.  After the comma, you have to catch your breath . . . take a brief pause . . . Because "the comma always denotes a pause."  Therefore, it should be read, "The Former, Professor," meaning, "the aforesaid, the one already mentioned, NOT the professor."  In fact, I haven't been a professor for some time.  So that could even be read with a little ironic chuckle: heh, heh.  So the correct reading of that phrase is as follows:  The Former, Professor, heh, heh.  Pause.  From the University of Padova.  Just the same as if you read "retired dentist, from the city of Bergamo."  Because I am from the University of Padova, in the sense that it was the last place I visited:  I had just recently come from there when I, ah, took up my psychiatric practice.  Any other reading of the phrase would be entirely false and misleading; only an idiot would make such an error.                                                 Back To More Sides