Topic 6 (session A) - Style and Style variation > Reregistration > Task B

Reregistration

Task B - Register borrowing (tenor) - B. S. Johnson's Christie Malry's Own Double Entry

You may well feel the need for a dictionary in this task!

In the novel from which the next extract comes, a man called Christie, who is a clerk, and also keeps a careful account (via the double entry book-keeping method - hence the book's title) of those who do not treat him well, is secretly undermining the firm he works for, and the people in it, to get his own back on them. He has been instructed by his section head, Wagner, to deliver a letter to another section head, Skater. But Christie has secretly destroyed the letter. Matters now come to a head when Skater, angry that no action appears to have been taken in spite of his letter, rings Wagner to find out what is going on.

In the text below the humour comes about because of a marked contrast between the character of the conversation and the language used to represent it.

We have highlighted five small stretches of text for you to work on. How is the humour of the passage conveyed through the language/situation contrast in these parts of the text? You can compare your conclusions with ours by clicking on the relevant portion of text.

Skater's assertive roar when he was told that no letter had arrived could be heard several more desks away; his proposal was that (if he were there) he would defenestrate Wagner. Christie's Section Head was riled at this, and, forgetting he was putting the company's reputation in jeopardy, he suggested that were Skater to come within a hundred yards of him he would (before he could carry out his threat) be subjected to a rapid process of trituration. Skater responded with a distinctly unfair (for it was accurate) divination, from Wagner's telephone, of the Section Head's helminthoid resemblances. Wagner snapped back with the only word he could think of at the time, cryptorchid, though as he had never had the necessary opportunity of observing, let alone carrying out a count, Christie felt that his superior had compromised his integrity at this point. And with sounds of gulping incapacitation at both ends of the line the conversation lapsed without any sign of an eirenicon.

(B. S. Johnson , Christie Malry's Own Double Entry, p. 42)

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