Tuesday, January 05, 2010

writing this blog post was a non-challenge!

My friend CM came over to my house over the weekend. I heard him laughing in the kitchen, while I was in another room.

Me: "What's so funny?"

CM: "I love your cheerios!"

Me: "What, no, don't eat those! I can't even remember how old they are! They need to be thrown out."

CM: "I didn't eat them."

He came over and showed me the box of Cheerios.



CM: "What a succinct, catchy slogan! [in his booming theatrical voice] Great taste helps make lowering cholesterol a non-challenge!"

Me: [laughing]

CM: "Doesn't that just make you want to repeat the slogan to all your friends?" [turning the box around]



CM: "They decided this catchphrase is so effective that they want to emphasize it. Splitting a dessert: non-challenge! Shooting hoops: non-challenge!"




I think we should all use this to praise people in the future. Some example situations:

"Do I look good in this outfit?"
"Looking at you is a non-challenge!"


"Do you still love me?"
"Being with you is a non-challenge!"

etc.

6 comments:

Christopher said...

I am reminded of the hackish sense of "non-trivial", and surprised to see a similar construction in mainstream advertising.

Perhaps non-local negations are non-trivial, but hyphenation makes them a non-challenge (he opined non-chalantly).

Michelle said...

laughing at this blog post was a non-challenge!

Joanna said...

The Chinese already says this at the tip of the tongue.

May yo wen ti.

N said...

"没问题“ is "No problem", which is very different from "That's a non-challenge".

inneedofcoffee said...

Reading your blog is a non-challenge!

Joanna said...

It depends.
On whether one considers a problem a challenge.
On whether one is playing with words.

"Do you love me?"
"No problem."
"That's not a problem."
"That's a non challenge."

These do not appear to be "very different."