The Thiccctionary

To: All parties concerned, present and future

From: The undersigned, aboard the Margaret IV, position approximate

Re: The establishment of an enterprise of cataloguing

Dear all,

The undersigned, having considered the matter at length, declares the founding of an enterprise. The enterprise shall concern itself with the documentation of objects, vehicles, structures, and produce whose physical presence exceeds expectation. The enterprise will be called The Thiccctionary, after a printer's error of 1971 which the undersigned has elected to honor.

Purpose

The publication shall maintain a catalogue. The catalogue shall be a register of subjects whose girth, mass, or displacement warrants formal documentation. The catalogue shall not entertain submissions of persons, mammals, or living vertebrates. The catalogue shall not concern itself with metaphor.

The publication will employ a single Senior Cataloguer, who will be hired with discretion and retained without enthusiasm. The Senior Cataloguer will maintain the catalogue and will be permitted a great deal of latitude in the editorial direction, with one exception: the catalogue must remain readable to a person not employed by the publication.

Premises

The publication shall be located in Manhattan, at a rented office above what is currently a dry cleaner. The office shall include one desk, one file cabinet, one credenza, and a working telephone. The lease shall be sixty-two dollars per month, fully serviced. The undersigned has negotiated this lease in person.

The Founder's Standing Position

The undersigned will retain the title of Publisher in perpetuity, or until the Margaret IV is otherwise indisposed. The Publisher will draft memos as the spirit and the postal system allow. The Publisher reserves the right not to be reachable by telephone.

On the Matter of Decline

The publication shall be considered to have peaked at no point earlier than 1986, and no point later than the Senior Cataloguer's retirement, whichever comes first. The Publisher acknowledges that this clause is, in the literal sense, premature, but he prefers it on the record.

The enterprise must carry on.

So filed, this twelfth day of April, in the year nineteen hundred and seventy-four.

Bertram Whitmore
Publisher, At Sea