Well I Ask You, Have We Finally Lost All Our Sense Of Humour?

[anotheoldgit]

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2286391/Headmasters-message-announcing-teachers-retirement-hid-coded-insult-spotted-colleague.html

For setting out this message on the retirement of a teacher at a £13,000 year prep school, the headmaster has been forced to step down from his top job..

/// It is with mixed feelings that I announce the retirement of Mr Roger Clark at the end of this term, ///

/// WE ALL NOW KNOW EVERY REALLY great teacher has to finish one day and Mr Clark will do so at the end of this term. ///

Apparently the recipient noticed that the first letters of the first six words in the second sentence, spelled out a word that he didn't take kindly to.

[mrs_overall]

Genius!

[Sqad]

LOL................

[TheOtherHalf]

So To Use Perfect Insults Do you have to spell it out ?

[woofgang]

Well he has had his fun, now he's paying for it....

[Baldric]

Looks like it, and it's happened to others before;

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:JamesMayAutocar.jpg

[ludwig]

I agree with the following reader's comment from beneath the article...

These Words Are Trite! Shame He Instigated This; Because Of Lax Laws, Our Country's Keeling Sideways.

[anotheoldgit]

Why didn't he just put it down to a coincidence?

[Gromit]

// WE ALL NOW KNOW EVERY REALLY great teacher has to finish one day //

That's terrible grammar, as an headmaster, he should be ashamed of himself.

[Quizmonkey]

"Terrible grammar"? Please explain what you consider to be ungrammatical.

[TheOtherHalf]

at least I dont think any of us Abers havost our sense of humour, thank goodness

[andy-hughes]

I have to confess that I would not have spotted this 'insult' if it had been aimed at me in this format.

Why could the head have not claimed innocence? Surely he has had to own up in order to be dismissed?

As to us losing our sense of humour - I have debated this concept before with AOG and I will reiterate my views that just because someone takes offence at something 'humourous' does not mean that the offended party is humourless, or that the insult was humourous - it's a ppor defence to simply accuse someone of a lack of humour because they are upset by something written or said about them.

Frankie Boyle makes a living out of that argument - it doesn;t work for him, and it doesn;t work here.

[bazwillrun]

you need a sense of humour on here, but it seems theres plenty who have had humour -by-pass ops

[woofgang]

Andy I agree, its a bully's defence to say "it was just a joke, where's your sense of humour?"
I suspect that the headmaster was so pleased with his cleverness that he pointed it out to somebody........

[sp1814]

Possibly the headmaster and the teacher involved had a very bad relationship - so the teacher was scanning the notice for anything derogatory?

But I have to admit - I wouldn't have spotted it, if it were not repeated in capital letters.

And as andy-hughes has said, if I were the head, I would've claimed ignorance. How could it be proven?

[sandyRoe]

You don't often see acrostics used like that.

[ludwig]

I agree with the bullying comments. It was a nasty and childish thing to do, especially for someone in his position. Being called a w7nker isn't particularly funny when you're on the receiving end, and it clearly wasn't done in a friendly manner.

AOG - you are the first to complain at any perceived insult. Maybe you should work on your own sense of humour?

[gness]

I worked for a head who did that in special assemblies and speeches. No daydreaming during an assembly for us......we hung on to his every word hoping to be the first member of staff to spot the slight change in his voice that announced....Here it comes!

[anotheoldgit]

ludwig

There are direct insults, which are wildly used on this site, which is an entirely different matter to a rather cleverly disguised insult such as the one under discussion.

This was in no way bullying and we do not know enough about the relationship between the two to accuse the Head of making a direct insult, and how could you possibly know it wasn't done in a friendly, clever, and humorous manner?

In fact if it is interpreted as it is laid out, it doesn't make sense enough to be become a direct insult,

/// 'W7nker' great teacher has to finish one day and Mr Clark will do so at the end of this term. ///

[LazyGun]

@AoG -The point is that the acrostic is used to disguise an insult; not that the sentence, once the acrostic is decoded, makes grammatical sense.

Since the retiring teacher taught english, I would imagine he would have been somewhat puzzled at the rather oddly worded sentence, and then the penny dropped.

Does seem a rather odd and churlish and frankly rather petty thing for a headmaster to do to a retiring colleague.....

[ladyalex]

I agree with you, Lazygun.
Petty.

Clever-cloggsy but petty.
Tend also to agree with the contributor who thought that the head probably couldn't resist pointing out his cleverness, hence his dismissal.