Filed Replies, Vol. 9
From D. Okonkwo, Brisbane:
I submitted a pumpkin for consideration six weeks ago and have heard nothing. The pumpkin has since been eaten. Does the catalogue accept submissions for subjects that no longer exist?
The pumpkin was gone before I opened your envelope. That is not a procedural edge case; that is a fruit bowl situation. The Style Guide, Section II, requires a subject to be measurable at time of review, which is why the Atlantic Giant Decision (March 2009, Precedent 2009-03, available at /about/documents/atlantic-giant-2009/) specifies that cultivated subjects be documented with dimensioned photographs taken prior to harvest. A photograph of a pumpkin consumed in Brisbane in June does not satisfy Section II. Filed objection to the submissions desk on the grounds that six-week turnaround at this office is, in fact, fast, and that this letter implies otherwise.
From P. Harrington, Leeds:
Is it true the Thiccctionary has never catalogued anything from the Southern Hemisphere? My neighbor says you're biased toward northern girth.
Your neighbor is wrong, and I will not be filing a courtesy note to that effect because I do not have your neighbor's address. The 1991 Liebherr T 282B entry (documented in full at /about/documents/liebherr-memo/) concerns a haul truck manufactured in Germany but assessed at an active site in the Pilbara, Western Australia, which is, by any atlas available to this office, in the Southern Hemisphere. Seventeen years of replies to letters like this one, and I am still explaining that geography is not a criterion. Girth is the criterion. Section I of the Style Guide. Page one.
From W. Nkemdirim, Toronto:
The office ficus appears in the background of every photo on your website. Has it been catalogued?
The ficus has not been catalogued. The ficus will not be catalogued. I have raised this with Constance Pribyl (Director of Editorial Operations) in writing, specifically in Grievance No. 44, currently in the Personnel File at /about/documents/personnel-file/, on the grounds that allowing a houseplant to appear in official photographic records creates an implied editorial endorsement of its standing as a Subject. Constance's response, dated the following Tuesday, opened with "Hi Bart!" and contained the phrase "brand warmth." The ficus remains. I remain.
From T. Achterberg, Rotterdam:
Your office coffee machine has been broken since March, according to your own publication's footnotes. It is now July. This seems like a fixable problem.
It is March 2026 now in the sense that the machine is still broken, but I want to be precise: the machine first broke in March 2023, and I want that on record, because Constance has been parking-lot-ing my repair requests since 2018 and I will not allow the timeline to compress. Grievance Nos. 22, 31, and 38 in the Personnel File address the machine specifically; Nos. 41 and 47 address Constance's Q3 review process, which has produced no Q3 review but has produced, in my estimation, six Post-it notes. The credenza in my office currently holds a 1.5-liter bottle of cold tap water and seventeen years of institutional memory. I manage.
From R. Szczepański, Warsaw:
The European Union recently proposed new tariff schedules affecting goods described, in the official documentation, as "of substantial dimension." Does the catalogue have a position?
The catalogue does not issue positions on trade policy. I, Bartholomew Whitmore, Senior Cataloguer, will note the following as a matter of professional observation: "substantial dimension" is not a defined term. It has no threshold, no measurement protocol, and no silhouette requirement. Under Amendment 1991-08 (available at /about/documents/amendment-1991-08/), the Thiccctionary adopted a Silhouette Test precisely because unmodified adjectives like "substantial" invite the kind of jurisdictional sprawl that turns a customs schedule into a credenza drawer. If the relevant EU working group wishes to consult the Style Guide, Sections I through IV are publicly available at /about/style-guide/. Teddy could send a laminated copy, though he is currently occupied with the Saturn V brief and has been since 2011.