Gettin' Lexicographical with il

This is an actual comment I left in the survey I was sent after a visit to the Apple Store this week:



My scheduled time was pushed back a half hour or so, but I added to my wait by not hearing my name when it was called. Fortunately, my iPhone wasn't so incapacitated that I couldn't play solitaire while I waited.

On an unrelated, and possibly more important note. Donni was extremely helpful and kind, my problem was just "schmutz" in the headphone jack. I tell people this, and they ask, "Did he really say 'schmutz'?" Indeed he did. Four or five times. He also told me (possibly to ameliorate my embarassment at such a simple problem) that it happens every couple hours.

If that's true, that's dozens of utterances of the word "schmutz" daily. I can't imagine that anyone who has this problem would ever return with it again; it's an easy self fix of course. So that means he has a fresh audience each time. And if they're like me, they're likely to then broadcast their tale, a slightly embarrassing and slightly humorous incident at the Apple Store, fortunately ending with a product that once again works fine. A feel good story, if you will, the kind many people love to reiterate.

My point, and forgive me for all this pontification, is that Donni is doing a wonderful service for the lexicon. Schmutz is such a fine word. Precise but encompassing so many things. A perfect tone for accumulated debris that is neither pleasant nor unpleasant, but is nonetheless not where it should be. The words lint, dirt or goop are too precise, and not necessarily correct. Stuff, crap and shit are crude and much less specific.

Some people don't even know what schmutz means. While Yiddish in entymology, that certainly doesn't mean it can't be a legitimate English word. My dream is that Donni is the spark that can make "schmutz" a more commonly understood and used word.

I think this should qualify Donni for any kind of specially colored T-shirt that esteemed members of the Genius community might qualify for.