Arnold reminded us here
of how the Piranha Brothers learned to
blackmail with conditionals. But my all-time second favorite
enucleation of the terrifying power
of language comes only later in the same sketch. (Number
one, also Monty Python of course, centers on the deadly German
joke
Wenn ist das
Nunstück git und Slotermeyer? Ja! ... Beiherhund das Oder die
Flipperwaldt gersput. Number three, beloved by all geeks, linguists, and thus, a fortiori, linguist geeks, is Adams' Babel Fish,
"which by
effectively removing all barriers to communication between different
races and cultures, has caused more and bloodier wars than anything
else in the history of creation." But I digress.)
For in
the years after the
Pirhanas' discovery of blackmail by conditionals, and while Dinsdale
perfected new extremes of physical violence, Doug Piranha took a tack
that was at once more fearsome, and yet more pragmatic:
Vercotti
[...] one night Dinsdale walked
in with a couple of big lads, one of whom was carrying a tactical
nuclear missile. They said I'd bought one of their fruit machines and
would I pay for it.
Interviewer
How much did they want?
Vercotti
Three quarters of a million pounds. Then they went out.
Interviewer
Why didn't you call the police?
Vercotti
Well I had noticed that the lad with the
thermo-nuclear device was the
Chief Constable for the area. Anyway a week later they came back, said
that the cheque had bounced and that I had to see Doug.
Interviewer
Doug?
Vercotti
Doug (takes a drink) I was terrified of him. Everyone
was terrified of
Doug. I've seen grown men pull their own heads off rather than see
Doug. Even Dinsdale was frightened of Doug.
Interviewer
What did he do?
Vercotti
He used sarcasm. He knew all the tricks, dramatic
irony, metaphor, bathos, puns, parody, litotes and satire.
Presenter
(voice over) By a combination of violence and sarcasm,
the Piranha
brothers by February 1966 controlled London and the South East. In
February, though, Dinsdale made a big mistake.
So, the brothers' early failed attempt at intimidation "they selected another victim and
threatened not to beat him up if he didn't pay them", as discussed
by Arnold,
prefigured the terrible acts of litotes that followed.
The original scene (enough material for an entire pragmatics course) follows, in two parts. The snippet above is at 2'50s in the
second clip.