DULL AND/OR BORING?

[Valentine Mark Herman]

DULL OR BORING?

I am a member of the British-based Dull Men's Club (DMC) – which also includes women, and, indeed, claims to have 35,000 + members worldwide. ([e-mail])

The DMC's “mission statement” is to 'celebrate the ordinary... the life-changing magic, of simple, everyday, run-of-the-mill things'. (www.dullmensclub.com)

It's current Blogs include:

• Car Parks

• Telegraph Pole Appreciation Society

• Manhole Covers

• Wet Floor Signs

• Drainspotters

• Post WW2 prefab houses

• (forthcoming: a blog by yours truly on French shutters)

One of the current Blogs features a British postcard collector who reckons that he has well over a million postcards amassed over 50 years, He admits “..I’m obsessive at times. Last year in Berlin I picked up 114 postcards of the old Berlin Television Tower, the tallest structure in Germany, third tallest in the EU. It was constructed in 1965 by the German Democratic Republic.”

Which makes my, our, and Martin Parr's collection of Boring Postcards look pretty meager

One of the DMC's FAQ's (too many acronyms here!) asks:

“8. Are dull men the same as boring men?

“Yes and no. Boring men are dull men. But not all dull men are boring men. Boring men are dull men who don’t know when to stop; they go on and on and on. ”.

This dull/boring distinction led me to consult a book that I have been carrying around for 50+ years: The Nuttall Dictionary of English Synonyms and Antonyms. (No doubt the 'Net will have zillions of other sources, but I will stick to my Old Favourite.)

“Dull: Tiresome, boring, dry, uninteresting, barren, jejeune, fatiguing, tame, vapid, meagre, plain, dreary.

“Bore [but not 'boring']: Tire, weary, fatigue, vex, annoy, worry.”

So, and in conclusion, are our Postcards Dull and/or Boring? And, as I have argued from Day 1, do our Dull and/or Boring Postcards at some stage become Interesting Postcards?

[Bradford]

with Honors.

[Katerina Nikoltsou (MomKat)]

Thank you, gentlemen, thank you,

I thank you,

Coriolanus thanks you:

Shakespeare thanks you, 

Dickens thanks you,

and Homer says ΕΥΧΑΡΙΣΤΩ!

[Bradford]

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