syn. facetious, humorous, scintillating, jocose
From Lucinda Rosenfeld's "How to Dump a Friend":
I guess Ehrekranz wouldn't have approved of the way I "broke up" with my best friend and roomate in college-- namely by writing a string of expletives in the memo line of a check I owed her for back rent. In my own defense, things had already gotten pretty hairy by then, with my roomate padlocking her bedroom door with the telephone we shared behind it, and then moving to her boyfriend's for the week.
It's also important to know whom you're dumping before you dump. If you're saying so long to a vindicitive psycho, put the blame on yourself. For example, instead of "Here's the thing, Sally/Bob, I look at you and start to feel sick," you might want to offer a more conciliatory "I have my own boundary issues right now, Sally/Bob, and I just don't have time for anyone else's."
Also be especially delicate when you and your dumpee have friends in common. This is the time to resort to euphemism, cliché and therapy-speak-- for example, "I just feel as if we're at different points in our lives," as opposed to "Your presence casts a pall on every room you enter." Otherwise, prepare to burn bridges where traffic once flowed freely, as well as gain a reputation for unrestrained venality.
Through her casual use of intelligent diction and sidesplitting puns, Lucinda Rosenfeld successfully creates a witty commentary on the proper way to show a friend the door. In the first paragraph of this excerpt, she calmly relays a personal anecdote in which she dumped a friend. Her wry description of the amusing situation is funny, especially when she comments that Ehrekranz, a psychoanalyst, "wouldn't have approved" of her method, which was writing a "string of expletives" to her friend. Next, she cleverly juxtaposes humorous insults with more "conciliatory" comments simultaneously, creating an amusing effect. In addition, Rosenfeld refers to the dumpee as a "vindicitive psycho", instead of merely calling him "annoying", and uses the phrase "unrestrained venality", instead of simply "duplicity". Her obscure, passionate word choice adds to the overall laughable quality of the passage.
Rosenfeld, Lucinda. "How to Dump a Friend." The Bedford Reader. Ed. X. J.
Kennedy, Dorothy M. Kennedy, and Jane E. Aaron. 8th ed. Boston:
Bedford/St.Martin's, 2002. 281-283.