FoodBanter.com - View Single Post - Annoying sigs at end of posts (was Terry Birds "Could we please Learn to trim our posts"

writes:
>tert in seattle wrote:
>
>> what have we learned from this lesson boys & girls?
>>
>> A. reg has never used a Microsoft product
>> B. reg has had indigestion all day
>> C. A whitespace character is kind of like a McGuffin - nothing at all
>> D. all of the above
>
>Thanks for the laugh. It helped brighten up a rather dull
>day at the keyboard.
>
>I admit I don't know what a McGuffen is, though.

this is what Hitchcock said:

It might be a Scottish name, taken from a story about two men in
a train. One man says, 'What's that package up there in the baggage
rack?' And the other answers, 'Oh that's a McGuffin.' The first one asks
'What's a McGuffin?' 'Well' the other man says, 'It's an apparatus
for trapping lions in the Scottish Highlands.' The first man says,
'But there are no lions in the Scottish Highlands,' and the other one
answers 'Well, then that's no McGuffin!' So you see, a McGuffin is
nothing at all.