IVIV 'Actually I'm a marine lawyer"

[alice wellintown]

Otto wrote:
>
>> I like Doc's habit of taking the words literally:
>>
>> "People are always telling me I need a 'criminal lawyer,' which,
>> nothing personal, understand, but--" (27)

If, while speaking with a German,  I say,

"Don't take this personally, My MAn, but all Germans are stupid,"

 how can a German not take offense?

Well, the German could assume that I'm an idiot.

Or, he could be a self-loathing German and agree with me.

Or, he could assume that, as Deborah Tanner might explain, I didn't
mean what I said.

Now, if Aunt Reet sez to Larry, "Mickey ....is stoned out of his
fucking mind, nothing personal," (8)

how is Larry to take her meaning?

Well, again Tanner helps us a bit here, Aunt Reet is a female talking
to a male hippie-type about his staying safe and sober and in touch
with his mother. The context helps too. But we need to read what
people mean and not what they say. That's not easy in a work loaded
with irony. Moreover, the language is so loaded with idiomatic fads
and business and Tv talk and so on that it is quite difficult for
readers to understand even though the language seems, in the Romantic
sense, vulgar, or the language of the common person. The Vulgar tongue
betrays our meaning. Communication suffers. People willingly accept,
even buy, the language and thus the meaning of the Business & Media
Kartel.

Turn off the Tube?