This post intentionally left blank.

[arethinn]

There's not a lot to do in the staff room while one waits for the microwave to heat one's food. There's a smattering of magazines like Woman's Day and catalogues like Eddie Bauer and the like, and a staff directory from 2002. So I pick that up and randomly flip through it. I come across a page which says only [This is a blank page.] Obviously untrue; there's something printed right on it!

Now, I know what it really means; it's just a signal that they didn't leave out a bunch of data by mistake. Usually I see it written "This page intentionally left blank"*, which is of course similarly paradoxical. "This page intentionally printed with only 'This page intentionally printed with only..." would start to make more sense, except you'd have to infinitely recurse it, and well, you'd run out of paper. Wouldn't it be more sensible, and work out to be actually true, to do something like print "Next page intentionally left blank" on the previous page, and then really leave the page in question blank? (Call me literal...)

My ex-boyfriend's father used to have some pun with the French, "This page intentionally rive (sp?) gauche" - "This page intentionally left bank" - but I can't really remember what was funny about it.

* - Bonus points for recognizing the Zorkish significance.

Comments

[shalora.livejournal.com]

There is some major thing in Paris about the left and right banks of the Seine, which flows straight through the city. One side is more artsy, one more businesslike, stuff like that. I forget which is supposed to be the "cooler" side, I think it's the left bank but don't quote me on that.