Only in English - 5

Though I like fish, I do not like fish.

On concision

"Absolutely." I nodded.

"You hear that? He said 'Absolutely.' That's four syllables of yes."

"Four syllables of his life which he will never get back. Next time, Shakespeare scholar, simply say yes and save three for 'I love you' to your young lady."

- Jon Fasman, The Geographer's Library

It's just an expression

I am concerned that I often express gratitude, but rarely show it.

Patron-ising

In The Geographer's Library Jon Fasman writes of one Dulcinius [sic. - of Tyre?], 'patron saint of the wayward, laconic, men who walk looking at the ground, and editors of manuscripts'.

It is not at all clear if those first three are distinct categories; nor if Dulcinius - alas! - ever actually existed.

On alchemy/education

Thou wilt possess the glory of the brightness of the entire world, and all obscurity will fly far away from thee.

- The Emerald Tablet, transl. Holmyard [in Jon Fasman, The Geographer's Library]

Hyperbolic to the point of insanity. But a worthy aspiration, nonetheless.

Titles gone begging - 2

Slanders & Flan: an incomplete history of the comic song

Blog-jammin'

[No kidding: this is what came up when I tried to log in to this site at work]

Access Denied This Page is Blocked
Porn Filter Test in progress. All the porn sites & out side proxies will not in this testing period. Please contact CS department if you having any difficulties to brows any other sites.

[I mean, it's not even grammatically accurate!]

Inbox classics

What's New in History Today?

(Non-)fiction

The most I can ever do is write things down. To remember them. The details. To honour them in some way.

- Chuck Palahniuk, Fugitives and Refugees: a walk in Portland, Oregon

On drinking alone

We sit down, hurt ourselves, then leave.

- Jon Fasman, The Geographer's Library

That which God hath joined together

unite
untie

Titles gone begging - 1

Bombay Satire (or, The Evils of Djinn)

InDefinition - 15

phallusy, n. abst. in conversation - or other intellectual pursuits: an opportunity to make a right prick of yourself.

Sartre - in context

Hell is karaoke.

Semantics laid bare

In Chuck Palahniuk's wilfully quirky - not to say 'patchy' - travelogue of his home town, the author offers us (should we be interested) 'a list of places to get lucky in Portland'.

Only question is whether luck, per se, has anything to do with the case where the listed premises - sex shops, clubs, brothels, etc. - are concerned (where, frankly, luck ought to be rendered moot by cash).

Is there anything more depressing

than eyeing up an attractive girl and then hearing her speak in German?

Beyond

The only trouble with the fringe is, it does tend to unravel.

- Chuck Palahniuk, Fugitives and Refugees: a walk in Portland, Oregon

Surely the bizarrest SPAM I've ever been sent

From: Rountree Colborn (valuated@tracinalc.com)
Sent: 19 September 2010 00:41:15
To: Wisniewski Bosques (competition@lizardmagazine.com)
Subject: Sence of the gentleman who had filled that situation‏

Nty in number, and so extremely fierce, that, had it not been for the
dogs which were
with them, they would probably have been attacked. Some

natives, who had accompanied
the governor, were so alarmed, that they availed themselves of their
expertness in climbing trees, and left their friends to provide

for their own safety how

Unspoken truths

I don't say a great deal that isn't true. But I also don't say a lot that is.

The problem with the life of the mind

Ulysses takes about a week to read, if you do nothing else.

- Martin Amis, The War Against Cliché: essays and reviews 1971-2000 (italics* mine)

For why would you want to do nothing else?! Larkin tried it, and look what happened to him.

* the ones in the quotation, obviously; not the title.

Get married, son;

put yourself out of your misery. Indonesia, Southern China, Vietnam - find a hot girl, marry them,* stop worrying about it.

- Advice given, loudly, in The Cricket Club

* her

InDefinition - 14

leatherette, n. pl. collective term for sex-club members: a leatherette of dominatrices.

The smaller picture

Every life is many days, day after day...

- Joyce, Ulysses

This is a day - same as any other

- Smyth

Not seen on a T-shirt

Finnegans Wake!

(Because Ulysses is for girls.)

Indefinition - 13

conquistadore, v. to get a girl you fancy into bed (negotiations may feature ambiguous statements implying exchange of gold)

Big up the British

Satire is what we, the British, have always done better than anybody. From Chaucer, Swift and Alexander Pope to Chris Morris (The Day Today, Brass Eye, Four Lions), savage and comic lampoons of the age’s ignorance, delusions and cruelties have been as much a part of what this nation is as poetry, cathedrals and binge drinking.

- Bryan Appleyard, 'On Satire'

Words heard

You know the really crappy coffee shop at Auschwitz?

- rich stupid girl, Chandos pub.

?

Similes are metaphorical; but are metaphors like similes?

Only in English - 3

can cool people be hot, and vice versa.

Forlorn hope

I'm desperate for a cold beer and a nice shallow conversation I don't have to read anything into.

- Cecil P Taylor, Good

On the need for a rhetorical-question mark

'Didn't they have terrible times,' she asked me (and there was no question mark). 'Yes,' I said. 'Didn't they.'

- Martin Amis, Koba the Dread

(Though note that a rhetorical question, curiously, is still 'asked'.)

Taciturnity/Economy

One of those dreadful books I had downloaded had mentioned that cowboys talk little and say much...

- Bryan Appleyard, 'The Magnificent One'

Like poets. Unlike hairdressers.

The potential of lost art

I just need a camera!

- DS Hilton, professional photographer

Sweet dreams

The sort of decisions we need to sleep on are rarely those which allow for much sleep.

Facebook ad

You can earn money from internet.you need to learn soemthing [sic.]

Basic spelling and syntax, for example.

ES headline

Londoners Defy Tube Strike

By driving the tubes themselves?

No.

I used to be a pretentious angry youg man

These days, I don't even bother to pretend.

Why, oh why, O Spotify (2)

‎'Fuck Tha Police' by N.W.A. immediately followed by an ad to become a volunteer special constable for the Met. Great job on those 'targeted ads', Spotify

- DS Hilton, marketing analyst

Smyth's sayings

If you want to believe that you make your own luck then you're going to have to wonder about your misfortunes.

Smyth's sayings

Adolescent text-speak acronyms - that's how I rofl!

Famous Seamus' genius

It is because his poetry lets in associations that might seem irrelevant or undignified that it is so deeply human.

- John Carey, on Heaney's latest collection, Human Chain

Sick note for mankind

The equipment for producing grammatical speech is built into every healthy human being.

- Denys Thompson and Stephen Tunnicliffe, Reading and Discrimination

Fewer complications

Don't write a novel;
a shopping list is better.

- Jarvis Cocker, Further Complications

InDefinition - 12

pedant, n. one who is right more often than we are.

InDefinition - 11

compliment, n. a fact we like about ourselves.

Only in English - 4

It actually makes sense that 'engrossed' and 'grossed out' mean more-or-less opposite things.