It is not really about speed. – Chap. 6, Act 4, Strip 99

Poor Mopey, the Admiral slightly ruined her badass moment by taking her just a bit too literally.

It’s probably just that English isn’t the Admiral’s first language, and these figures of speech don’t really translate easily. Basically, when somebody says “Not so fast.” in this sort of context, they mean plainly “Not.”, and the “So fast.” is more of a rhetorical flourish, a pretense of politness by avoiding an absolute statement.

This sort of language properly belongs to confrontations such as this, so the blame isn’t Mopey’s. It’s clearly the Admiral’s fault. Had he run into Clint Eastwood instead of Mopey, he’d probably answered his question by pointing out that he prefers classical music to punk, and that, on the whole, he DOES feel kinda lucky: interesting job, good pay, nefarious plans working out, brainwashed grandson…little more that he could be asking for.

Anyway, the take-away for this episode is that Mopey has managed to catch up with the Admiral, just before he could manage to escape into his command room.

More on Thursday.







Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.