The Slangalator by Ian Courter - Short, Sketch Comedy, Fauxmercial - Can't understand the serviceman or woman in your life?! Get the Slangalator! 3 pages - pdf, format

@Ian,

Not too much to say here.  I found this piece somewhat amusing.   The collar bit was funny for sure.   Atleast CO and TDY -- I think most military wives know what they stand for.   But I get it.  The first rule of grammatical criticism is that one is guaranteed to make a grammatical error.  I'm sure it's just a typo, but page#1...

Code    ANNOUNCER (V.O.) Compatible with any smartphone], its so easy to use, you'll never want to be without it.

If you mean it has, or in this case it is, then use an apostrophe.

Good Luck

Ghost

Thanks, Ghost. Yep, no matter how good the proof, there will be one or two that slip by.

Ian,
Sorry, but I didn't get the story

Tony

I had to google one of the translations: fob-goblin... it's not in the dictionary. I now realise that it wasn't a translation, but a response in milaterese provided by the translator.

I get the humour, it's just not my humour. I think this would work best with people that have had lives in the US armed forces.

Tony and Dustin,

Yep, I understand that many people won't get the humor. My wife has lived this for two decades, which was part of the inspiration for my doing it. While this won't be my only military-themed script, I learned lessons from this one, Planemo, and Jacked Up.

Thanks for the read. I look forward to reading your works in the future.

Ian

Hi Ian,

A fine sketch there. Reminds me of the Monty Python banter sketch.

I understood it all and it made me smile, nothing much more I can say apart from, Top-hole. Bally Jerry, pranged his kite right in the how's-your-father; hairy blighter, dicky-birded, feathered back on his sammy, took a waspy, flipped over on his Betty Harpers and caught his can in the Bertie!

-Mark

Thanks, Mark. Glad you liked it.

My parent were anglophiles, so I was exposed to British humor from an early age. Never really thought about that as an influence, but it is quite possible.

Ian

Ian

I liked the term “militarese” Seems your last couple of shorts have been preoccupied with all things army!

“Flyboy holds up a hand to do a high-five as the others quickly disperse.”

- “Disperse” as in leave the room or just leave him hanging for the hi-five? The former would be a bit extreme, wouldn’t it?

This had some laughs. The central idea is amusing, there is a lot of comedy here to mine like broadening it to other cliques who communicate extensively in shorthand; sports, musicians, politicians. A funny faux commercial could definitely be made out of this.  

However, one thing that let me down, similar to your “Where Bad Ideas come from” script, was the “profanity filter” at the end. This was just silly in that why would these men (especially of this macho ilk) ever let their wives put an electrical charged dog collar on them? Doesn't really make much sense even within the context of the script's ridiculousness.

Col.

Hey Col,

Thanks for the feedback. I'll just go down the line and address your points.

Militarese just seemed appropriate and I have used it for years. Really can't remember if I heard it somewhere or it just came to me. It only seems as if I have been preoccupied with all things Army because the sequence of uploading just happened that way. Not intentional on my part and I am broadening my selection of topics, characters, etc. I have even been using Lorraine Sanchez as a way of building believable female characters (See the trilogy of shorts listed at the bottom of this post).

As for the "disperse"... yep, they left him hanging. The extremity of the action is a play on the stereotypes of the different branches. When I worked with British forces, I noticed there was a degree of that as well, but it seems more pronounced in the U.S. services.

A fauxmercial is exactly what I had in mind for this. I have family in other fields (law enforcement, fire and rescue, medical, etc.) and they all have their own specialty lingo. During get-togethers I have always felt we need a translator. This was an outgrowth of 20+ years of musing on how to portray it.

As for the profanity filter, it is the result of my own experience of being around family too soon after coming home from a deployment. The social filter that normally inhibits profanity or discussing certain topics is temporarily disabled and we sometimes say inappropriate things in social situations. I saw it also with friends after they came back from deployment I was not on. Many a wife sometimes wishes they had something like this, especially around her parents and kids. Think of an older (elderly?) relative that is uninhibited in social situations, for example, discussing bowel issues at the dinner table or telling you about some weird growth on their [insert location here].

Thanks again for the read and observations.