[Harp-L] Harpie on Pros and Contras

[Snaruhn@xxxxxxx]

Hey Dad,

it´s me, Harpie. If you would ask me, the alternative for Pro 
isn´t amateur as some listlers wrote (you included) but contra 
as I´ve learned from our family debates.

You are absolutely right, Harpie, but I don´t ask you, so, amateur 
is correct.

1/2 point for you, Dad, but turtlehill found so many Pros in the
dictionaries that there´s no place for amateurs  = 1 point for me.

That´s not an argument, Harpie. The first humans had been 
amateurs without exception because they had no universities 
to get a graduate nor did they know of special jobs to save the
livelihood and above all, the actual paleontologists didn´t find
any bones of Pro harp players or related hominids. 

So, the mankind bungled for 100 000 of years without any progress.
But then, on Independence Day July 4th 2 364 786 B.C. the chiefs
of the family clans came together and after a long palaver they
decided that some of the talented amateurs had to develop mallets
of stones, cutting instruments, spears, the first musical instruments 
of hollow bones and most important, one should invent the wheel
and another one to find out how to make fire to produce steaks and
hamburgers. The Pro was born!

That´s phantastic, Dad, how did you know that? But I have to point
to an inaccuracy. Generally, the term "Pro" is known as the
abbreviation of "professional" (German: Profi) but that isn´t correct.
Same as "amateur" is derived from the latin "amare" (to love), Pro
comes from "prodigy" (Wunderkind) and the German "Profi" is an
abreviation of "Professor". This allows the conclusion that the two guys
who invented the fire and the wheel had been professors though 
colleges and universities were founded much time later.

Harpieeee, I haven´t heard such alot of nonsense up to now. 
Me seems you are a kind of Pro derived from "prostate, prosthesis,
prostitute" or the like, respectively, you are simply a "prolongation".   

Yeah, Dad, your prolongation. 
Orrps, Harpie, this is an incredible impertinence.

Harpie