She has tied her own record, with nine assists,” the guy broadcasting the basketball game informed his radio audience. “With just one more assist she will have the record all to herself. …”

Being no longer tied with herself would undoubtedly be a huge load off the lady’s shoulders, I mused. Still, something seemed not quite right with the equation. I jotted the information on the back of an old envelope and placed it in my tickler file for possible use in some future column dealing with the dubious things that people say when they are left without adult supervision. It joined other notes and clippings languishing there in hopes of one day getting unleashed upon an unsuspecting public.

Alas. No such opportunity has presented itself. Now, with official Spring at our doorstep and fresher material arriving daily, the items must be kissed off in the mandatory ritual that is the semi-annual purging of the file.

First, though, a housekeeping matter. Under the give-credit-where-due category, an admission of omission: “Surf the Internet for dumb-crook material and you won’t be disappointed,” I advised readers in a column last Saturday concerning what may await crooks who fail to adequately plan ahead. I cited several examples found on the Internet, but neglected to credit the Web site, www.dumbcrooks.com, for those citations.

I hate when that happens. But on with the purge…

Among the flotsam to be jettisoned is a photo caption from the Bangor Daily News of Jan. 20, 1978 – the proofreader’s day off – which I lifted from an Associated Press booklet containing flubs from the nation’s daily press:

“After years of being lost under a pile of dust, Walter P. Stanley III, left, found all the old records of the Bangor Lions Club at the Bangor House. On Jan. 18 he donated them in a presentation to Lions Club President Earl Black.”

On the must-go list to prevent it from becoming lost forever under a pile of dust is a notation I placed in the file on Valentine’s Day a year ago after viewing a feel-good television story about a lovey-dovey elderly couple – one male, one female. “Both are widows,” the reporter had announced. Which one had had the sex-change operation was not disclosed.

Included in the material to be thrown out with the bath water is an e-mail message from Eagle Lake resident Donald McEdward, presently wintering in Arizona. He was responding to a column lamenting the excessive “ya knows” that pollute so much speech these days.

“I once gave a ride to a gentleman in the 20’s range of age, and he talked all the time, throwing the words ‘you know’ into his dissertation at frequent intervals,” McEdward wrote. “I never got the chance to intervene and say that I didn’t know. It became so tedious I finally stopped and let him out. He may still be standing in the middle of the Maine woods, for all I know. …”

From the Not-Much-On-Geography Department is a jotting about a follow-up news report on a national network concerning a major fire at a Worcester, Mass., warehouse in which several firemen had died a week earlier – a report that, incredibly, never once mentioned Worcester. The fire had occurred “near Boston,” the reporter informed the masses, Worcester – 48 miles to the west with its population of roughly 173,000 – apparently not to be trusted with a dateline of its own.

Also expunged: An e-mail message from an up-country reader noting that a BDN reporter had written about “Canadian geese,” when he meant “Canada geese,” a common mistake that tends to set a normal person’s teeth on edge. The lady wondered if the Canadian geese the reporter wrote about go, “Honk, eh?” Good one.

Freed at last is a passage from a column concerning clever retorts, written by John Berendt for the October 1991 issue of Esquire. It tells of a self-important old English duke, annoyed by the slow service at his London club, who called a waiter over and harrumphed, “Do you know who I am?” The waiter replied coolly, “No, sir, I do not. But I shall make inquiries and inform you directly. …”

Berendt quoted historian Russell Lynes in observing that if an insult is such that you cannot ignore it, top it, or laugh at it, it is probably deserved. The late great writer Edna Ferber was up to the task in putting down the actor and dramatist, Noel Coward. “You look almost like a man,” said Coward upon encountering Ferber, who was dressed in a tailored suit. “So do you,” replied Ferber.

Ouch.

NEWS columnist Kent Ward lives in Winterport. His e-mail address is olddawg@bangordailynews.net.