I was told that airline employees consider it an affront for a passenger to utter the words "two for tea me" or "won Twain tea me"..

An alternate strategy is to identify a flight that would get you there faster and ask for a ticket change. Explain quietly (in English, not math) that your assigned flight is delayed and the flight you chose should get you there more according to schedule and therefore you should not be charged any fare increase or fee.

Incidentally if you show up early anticipating a storm ready to stand by for an earlier flight , and the airline denies you boarding and the earlier flight departs with empty seats and your scheduled flight is cancelled because of the storm, then the airline did not use its best efforts to transport you.

Travel tips:
http://members.aol.com/ajaynejr/travel.htm