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Sources at the Providence courthouse report that area man Vin Donahue, who is being tried for throwing his friend out of his second-floor apartment window, seems to have done it for no reason other than to say “defenestrate.”
“Let’s see what we have here. At approximately 7:45pm, police arrived at the defendant’s multi-floor apartment building, where they found Felix Tumbley lying in shrubbery with multiple non-life-threatening injuries,” stated the judge, thumbing through a surprisingly thin case file and visibly confused by the nature of the crime. “Mr. Donahue, you stand accused of forcibly ejecting your roommate, Mr. Tumbley, from your apartment window and face charges of aggravated battery. How do you plead?”
“Objection, your honor! I believe the word you are looking for is ‘defenestrate,’” corrected Donahue as the courtroom fell silent for a moment, unsure whether to proceed or pull out a dictionary. “I will plead guilty, but never for something as disgracefully prosaic as aggravated battery. Believe me, I love my dear friend Felix and bear him no ill will, but his sacrifice was necessary.”
“When I read about ‘defenestrate’ in Buzzfeed’s ‘38 Of The Most Beautiful Words In The English Language,’ for the first time in my life, I had purpose. I knew what I was put on this Earth to articulate,” claimed Donahue, wearing a manic grin, his voice trembling with a mix of pride and unrepentant literary fervor. “I’ve waited for years, convinced that the opportunity to utter that melodic symphony of a word would arise organically. Alas, it never came. Do you know what that does to a man? Poor Felix had to take the fall.”
At press time, your friend who won’t shut up just wants to be called loquacious.
