![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
tealinEarlier this week I had a conversation in which I used a colourful euphemism, and my conversee corrected me by supplanting it with the dull, blunt word it danced around. Now correct me if I’m wrong, but I had always assumed that everyone knows what euphemisms stand for, otherwise they wouldn’t get used, or would be called symbolism or something fancy like that. When someone says ‘kicked the bucket,’ you know they don’t mean that someone literally walked up to a bucket an kicked it, you know that they expired, passed away, bit the dust, bought the farm, or otherwise died. (Please forgive me such a morbid example; euphemisms for death spring most readily to mind as there are a nearly unlimited supply.) I was also reminded of a point made by Daniel Handler in the interview to be found on the Bad Beginning audio book, in regards to the large words and sophisticated idioms found in the Snicket books:
So, in the somewhat snarky spirit of clarity and straightforwardness, I now bring you the first in what might possibly be a series of ‘Cut the Crap and Get To It!’
The original:
It is really no fun to say ‘my, what a big truck’ when you can say ‘my, what a corpulent truck.’ The English language is filled with so many marvellous words that it seems a shame not to use the good ones. For instance, to say ‘the English language is filled with good words’ is not nearly as much fun as saying ‘the English language is filled with marvellous words.’ So I think Mr Snicket, like any author worth his salt, likes to use expressions like ‘worth his salt,’ rather than ‘like any author who is good.’
So, in the somewhat snarky spirit of clarity and straightforwardness, I now bring you the first in what might possibly be a series of ‘Cut the Crap and Get To It!’
The original:
And the honest truth:What a piece of work is man! How noble in reason! how infinite in faculties! in form and moving, how express and admirable! in action how like an angel! in apprehension, how like a god! the beauty of the world! the paragon of animals! And yet, to me, what is this quintessence of dust? Man delights not me; no, nor woman neither, though by your smiling you seem to say so.
Man is really something. Being smart makes him good. He can do a lot of things. The shape he is and the way he moves is good. Whether doing something or not, he’s impressive, good-looking, and better than the other animals. But what is this thing to me? Man doesn’t make me happy – and girls don’t either, you perverts.
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
no subject
Date: 2006-01-21 10:03 pm (UTC)This is great! Will there be more of them? So many euphamisms that I didn't even notice! Skim reading is not a good idea...like "and girls don't either, you perverts". BWA HA HA! I wouldn't have realised he was saying that at all. Yayness!
Where is the original paragraph from? I know I've heard it quoted many times before, it's on the tip of my tongue...
no subject
Date: 2006-01-22 03:02 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-01-22 03:16 am (UTC)I wish I could see Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead. I've heard far too much about it to not be intrigued.
no subject
Date: 2006-01-23 02:42 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-01-23 03:24 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-01-22 03:03 am (UTC)My personal favorite euphemism (actually also from Hamlet) is "I could tell you such things, that would make your eyes, like stars, start from their spheres, and your hair stand upon its end like quills upon the fretful porpentine." It's so much better than "I went to purgatory and it's scary," especially since so many authors (including Pratchett) love to parody it.
*I don't have it in front of me, so that might not be right.
no subject
Date: 2006-01-22 02:03 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-01-23 03:26 am (UTC)I could tell you a story that would make you freak out.
I like your take on the Ancient Mariner! Watch Coleridge spin!
no subject
Date: 2006-01-25 06:17 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-01-25 06:24 am (UTC)'We are all connected to each other – and you're gonna die.'
no subject
Date: 2006-01-25 08:14 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-01-21 10:05 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-01-21 10:08 pm (UTC)I don't think it's really, underneath, done out of any sort of motivation to kill the beauty or expressiveness of the English language -- rather, it's a social statement that screams "I'm not afraid to face death, sex, and other distasteful things" (methinks those who use it do protest too much).
Although it sounds like I'm making excuses for it, I'm actually on your side -- I believe that expression and euphemism has its place. I'm just....navel-gazing about why people sometimes do that, I guess. :)
no subject
Date: 2006-01-22 03:04 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-01-22 09:19 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-01-22 10:02 pm (UTC)HAHAHA!
Date: 2006-01-24 02:33 am (UTC)---DisneyBoy
no subject
Date: 2006-01-21 10:19 pm (UTC)I'm a big fan of euphemism and implication, perhaps more so than I should be, but oh well. :)
It's fun to have fifty different ways to express one idea (especially if they are creatively worded), and I love handing people a few sketchy details and letting their own perverted brains fill in the details. Makes it harder to pin on me, for one thing. :D
no subject
Date: 2006-01-21 11:14 pm (UTC)...well, okay, that's probably true :D Imagination can definitely be a powerful too, though; good examples being all those horror films where the monster/serial killer is incredibly creepy and chilling until you actually get a good look at them and see that they're just made out of goo. Or that their mask is real cheap-looking and they have a paunch.
Besides, where would the world be without the crude-yet-sophisticated fun that is innuendo? ;)
no subject
Date: 2006-01-21 10:54 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-01-21 10:58 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-01-22 01:24 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-01-22 03:06 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-01-22 03:12 am (UTC)Plus, it is interesting to look at idioms because they can be so bizarre.
Puns
Date: 2006-01-22 02:54 pm (UTC).
.
.
There's always gloom for improvement.
A2
Re: Puns
Date: 2006-01-23 05:15 pm (UTC)As the Bright said when she married the Gloom...
Re: Puns
Date: 2006-01-23 06:39 pm (UTC)Aisle, altar, hymn
A2
no subject
Date: 2006-01-22 08:37 am (UTC)*ded*
*but still howling*
Language -- whatever degree -- is one of the great joys of life.
Brokeback Mountain
Date: 2006-01-22 09:22 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-01-22 09:51 pm (UTC)Re: Brokeback Mountain
Date: 2006-01-23 05:20 am (UTC)~DarthDylanBlue (can't login for some reason... don't know what that's about)
no subject
Date: 2006-01-23 05:52 am (UTC)And not nearly as funny as the comic strip of the same name... : )
no subject
Date: 2006-01-23 01:02 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-01-23 04:37 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-01-23 05:10 pm (UTC)Homo deranged?
Date: 2006-01-24 02:54 am (UTC)---DisneyBoy
Re: Homo deranged?
Date: 2006-01-24 06:10 pm (UTC)And people wonder why the films are not doing as well as they thought. I REALLY hope that if Disney DOES buy Pixar that the method of creating stories migrates from Pixar to Disney and not the reverse.
A2
Life imitates Art
Date: 2006-01-24 06:42 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-01-24 10:07 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-01-22 10:18 am (UTC)'Phantasmagorical' is one of my favourite words. It's a shame I don't get to use it more often.
no subject
Date: 2006-01-22 05:42 pm (UTC)Every word dripping with sarcasm and bitterness... London rain... and the wrenching twist of the euphemism of the whole film. God bless Richard E Grant.
Words are beautiful, but in this day and age they are left to decompose in the gutter of human consciousness. We should all arm ourselves with dictionaries and wage bloody war on the ignorami.
reduced shakespeare
Date: 2006-01-23 01:27 am (UTC)"Look, cut the crap, Hamlet! My biological clock is ticking and I want babies NOW!"
The (Brain) Death of the English Language
Date: 2006-01-24 04:43 am (UTC)---DisneyBoy
(Once again, I have used WAY too many words to say the same thing, not very clearly, over and over again - I'm afraid I'm not helping your cause here, but am an argument against reckless excessive verbosity! So maybe you should do yourself a favor and not actually post this - I seriously would be OK with that. Or maybe you could rephrase it in a way that wouldn't bore your loyal readers to tears. I'm too lazy ;))
no subject
Date: 2006-01-24 04:58 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-01-24 07:23 pm (UTC)I read that last night and immediately thought of your Hamlet Abridged! :D
no subject
Date: 2006-01-26 09:32 pm (UTC)For I say dumb stuff all the time and I fear the odds are against me!
no subject
Date: 2006-01-26 09:35 pm (UTC)