Tuesday, July the 1st, 2008
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The following was posted as a comment on Hunched Among These Shimmerings… but it raises such an important point that I decided to place it here on the main page. R wrote:
I wonder if Mr Key would be kind enough briefly to clarify about the ‘industrial funnel manufacturing compound’? Is this a manufacturing compound where industrial funnels are brought into being, or is it rather an industrial manufacturing compound whose output happens to be funnels?
Lest I seem to be splitting hairs, I should perhaps add that the former instance might well be a case of two amiable widows occasionally meeting in, let's suppose, a disused pig-pen or similar compound where they desultorily pop a few more rivets into their long lives' work, a single immense funnel of statuesque and sturdy conception; whereas the latter case might imply a colossal foundry or other such satanic installation which churns out, in their tens of thousands, minute funnels of such a definitively non-industrial calibre that they buckle, or actually wither to dust, under the mere weight of the potential customer's scrutiny.
R is quite right to draw attention to the ambiguity, and I am happy to clarify that the industrial funnel manufacturing compound to which I referred was indeed a disused pig-pen wherein two widows popped rivets into a single immense funnel. I'm glad we've cleared that one up.