(You think that communicating is a cinch? Think again. Emailed by a friend, the inter-office memos below are guaranteed to force a rethink. And some famous "put downs," which follow the memos, show skillful examples of communicating regrets. Apparently, so do gravestones - of all things. Enjoy-JLM)

Chief Executive Officer memo! "To the Manager Today at 11 o'clock there will be a total eclipse of the sun. This is when the sun disappears behind the moon for two minutes. As this is something that can not be seen everyday, time will be allowed for employees to view the eclipse from the parking lot.

"Staff should meet at ten to eleven, when I will deliver a short speech introducing the eclipse and give some background information. Safety googles will be made available at moderate cost."

Clear? OK. Now, read this implementing memo from Manager to Department Heads: "Today at ten to eleven, all staff should meet in the car park. This will be followed by a total eclipse of the sun, which will appear for two minutes. For a moderate cost, this will be made safe with goggles. The CEO will deliver a short speech before hand to give all of us some information. This is not something that can be seen every day."

May be follow-up memo from Department Heads to Floor Managers is even clearer: "The CEO will deliver a short speech to make the sun disappear for two minutes in the form of an eclipse. This is something that can not be seen every day. So, the staff will meet at the car park at ten or eleven. This will be safe if you pay a moderate cost."

But nothing beats the final memo for clarity. From Floor Managers to Supervisors: "Ten or eleven staff are to go to the car park where the CEO will eclipse the sun for two minutes. This does not happen everyday. It will be safe. As usual, it will cost you." As they would say in the land of Luciano Pavarotti: Capito?

The "put down," or rejection, is even tougher to communicate. But there have been some who excelled in this art, as the examples below show:

The playwright-author George Bernard Shaw, for example, sent this letter to Winston Churchill: "I am enclosing two tickets to the first night of my new play. Bring a friend - if you have one."

Churchill scribbled a one line response: "Regret cannot possibly attend first right. Will attend second - if there is one." Bingo!.

Then, there was Lady Astor who, in a moment of pique, snapped: "Winston, if you were my husband, I'd put poison into your coffee." To which Churchill calmly replied: "Madam, if you were my wife, I'd drink the coffee."

But Churchill firmly denied that he said this of his rival: "An empty taxi arrived at 10 Downing Street. And when the door was opened, (Clement) Atlee got out." But he admitted, in an interview with the Chicago Tribune, that Atlee was "a modest man who has much to be modest about." In fact, he added: Atlee was a "sheep in sheep's clothing."

Margaret Thatcher was known as the "Iron Lady." And these statements explain why. "I don't mind how much my Ministers talk, as long as they do what I say." And following a close vote, she added: "We really got a good consensus in the last elections.

Consensus behind my convictions."

Then, two great writers exchanged these barbs. "He has never been known to use a word that might send a ready to the dictionary," William Faulkner cracked about Ernest Hemingway who replied: "Poor Faulkner. Does he really think big emotions come from big words?"

It was Mark Twain, of course, who counseled young writers they should use "five cent words" in lieu of polysyllables. "Why do you sit there looking like an envelope without any address on it?" he once asked a friend. And when informed of the death of a politician he disliked, Twain admitted: "I didn't attend the funeral. But I sent a nice letter saying I approved of it."

Other glittering "put downs" include these: "He has no enemies," Oscar Wilde said of a colleague. "But he is intensely disliked by his friends." And the New York Times James "Scolty Reston wrote of Richard Nixon: "He inherited some good instincts from his Quaker forebears, but by diligent hard work, he overcame them." And the irrepressible Mae West snapped about a suitor: "His mother should have thrown him away and kept the stork."

"I've had a perfectly wonderful evening, "Groucho Marx told an over-fussy host "But this wasn't it." And Australian politician Paul Keating dismissed his rival, saying: "He is simply a shriver looking for a spine to run up." Jack Leonard, on the other hand, dismissed a critic saying: "There's nothing wrong with you that reincarnation won't cure."

But did you know that gravestones "communicate?" Here are some random samples: "Antonio R. Perdices: Age 102. The Good Die Young." In a Maryland, cemetery: "Here lies an Atheist - All dressed up but no place to go." In a Uniontown, Pennsylvania, cemetery: "Here lies the body of Jonathan Blake. Stepped on the gas instead of the brake."

This is lawyer's epitaph in England: "Sir John Strange. Here lies an honest lawyer, and that is Strange." In a cemetery in Scotland: "On the 22nd of June, Jonathan Fiddie went out of tune." And in a cemetery in Novaliches: "Remember man, as you walk by, As you are now, so once was I. As I am now, so shall you be."

(E-mail: juan_mercado@boholchronicle.com)