







 |
The Lot
As I look through the menu at a takeaway shop
I think, “The one with the lot, that’s the shot”, but wait, stop!
There’s also ‘the lot with extras’
“What?!! That’s insane!” I exclaim with nomenclaturic pain
And the lady says, “Please explain?”
“Well, ‘The Lot’ should be one with everything, the Dalai Lama
So these ‘extras’ are high drama, semantically
It’s a culinary grammar calamity!
’Cos if it’s called ‘One with the Lot’ that should be what it’s got
Every possible option in the shop, piled up on top
Nothing dropped, nothing cropped, nothing lopped
’Cos if it were ‘a lot’ that’d be passable, but you’ve used the definite article
So any extras are farcical
It’s either ‘One with the Lot’ or it’s not”.
İMal Webb 2013
This is a true story... sort of. On the hamburger
menu of a takeaway shop in Mostyn Street, Castlemaine , they had 'The
Lot'*, but below that, they also had 'The Lot with extras'.
When I questioned the woman in the shop, she said "'the lot' doesn't
have beetroot or pineapple". I asked, "But shouldn't 'the lot' have
every possible option on it?" to which she replied, "No, that'd be 'the
works'". This irritated me so much, I said, "'The Works', 'The Lot'...
it should be the same thing! It's not just a hamburger with 'a lot',
it's with 'the lot'...it's the definite article!" at which point her
dull gaze led me to tie up my rantette and order 'the lot with
extras'... hurumph! The resultant song is a very short and punchy
acapella number, featuring that classic Pauline Hanson line.
*For people from UK, etc. who don't know the term, means a hamburger with everything on it... kind of obvious really).
|