I ran across it just now because, writing about a perfectly healthy woman who'd undergone assisted suicide, I'd stumbled across a 2011 piece in The New Yorker that brought up the word "meh," which naturally sent me to the OED.
According to its etymology page, "meh" probably came from the Yiddish word "me" — which means "be it as it may, so-so" — and, we're told, "It is unclear whether there is any direct connection with (earlier) mneh."
The OED's quote for "mneh" was what you see in the post title, W.H. Auden, in 1969, poetically dumping on the trip to the moon.
The poem, "Moon Landing," begins:
It's natural the Boys should whoop it up forso huge a phallic triumph, an adventure
it would not have occurred to women
to think worth while...
I know I myself, a woman, looked askance at the trip to the moon at the time, so it's funny to me now reading Auden going on about masculine pride. But let's skip ahead to the appearance of "mneh," the possible ancestor of "meh":
Homer's heroes were no braver than Armstrong,
Aldrin, Collins, but more fortunate: Hector
was excused the insult of having
his valor covered by television.
Worth going to see? I can well believe it.
Worth seeing? Mneh! I once rode through a desert
and was not charmed: give me a watered
lively garden, remote from blatherers
about the New, the von Brauns and their ilk, where
on August mornings I can count the morning
glories, where to die has a meaning....
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27 comments:
The Interlocution Will Not Be Televised
The poem, "Moon Landing," begins:
It's natural the Boys should whoop it up for
so huge a phallic triumph, an adventure
it would not have occurred to women
to think worth while...
I know I myself, a woman, looked askance at the trip to the moon at the time, so it's funny to me now reading Auden going on about masculine pride.
Going to the moon. Pft.
Now writing Poems on the other hand is meaningful work.
And memorizing them. Also important.
Super important. I assume this most worthwhile and accomplished woman was a professor somewhere or was married to some man who did similarly unimportant stuff that made a lot of money.
Most women probably didn’t care for Columbus exploits, except Isabella of Castile and Leon.
I could imagine these same Wordle Sudoku intellectuals saying "meh" at the sight of a nearby mushroom cloud in the moment before being hit by the pressure wave.
Besides Auden's commie sour grapes, his poetry is nothing but the geometry on the printed page. What a lazy writer he must have been.
Traveling without a destination is like intercourse without conceiving a child. Can you imagine if NASA had aborted the mission, because someone complained about the burden that lay below, beyond? The hardest job...
I thought Lisa Simpson coined this word.
WH Auden was in many ways a great poet, but not much of thinker. This comes off as the sour musings of a worn out old man, with some Freudian nonsense thrown in.
From what I've read all the intellectual "elite" back then, either sneered at the Moon landing or yawned. Even then you had people Norman Mailer talking about "white men" and souless triumph. Or how we needed to fix things on Earth, instead of going into space etc. And the use of American flag really stuck in their craw.
My first experience with this came in an Archie Bunker rerun, where Mike, seconded by Archie's black neighbor calls the Apollo Program a waste of money and wants the money to be spend here on earth for Social problems. Archie of course is all for the moon landing. Which shows you what Liberal Hollywood thought. Today, these same types are willing to waste hundreds of Billions to kill people in Gaza and the Ukraine.
So anyway, like Spainish civil war poetry, Auden was just going along with the crowd. Today, no one cares about these losers - they're proud we went to the moon. At least the men are.
Having previously shown us a nude Phryne, Althouse balances with the nearly naked body of Hector.
"I thought Lisa Simpson coined this word."
From the OED etymology: "Probably popularized by the U.S. cartoon series The Simpsons, in which its earliest use was in the episode Sideshow Bob Roberts, first broadcast on 9 Oct. 1994."
OED also has: "1992 Meh... Far too Ken-doll for me. Re: Yes, I actually watched Melrose Place in soc.motss 10 July (Usenet newsgroup, accessed 15 Jan. 2015)"
That predates the first Simpsons use, and you can see it's used in a way that suggests the word was already familiar.
"Having previously shown us a nude Phryne, Althouse balances with the nearly naked body of Hector."
Thanks for noticing! I meant to do that. Hope you appreciated the male and female ideals.
Going to the moon was more of a poetic act than utilitarian one.
I grew up in the '40's and '50's, the end of the Golden Age of Science Fiction, and on into the '60's when it was starting to look like science was catching up with the fiction. I thought it likely -- almost certain in fact -- that in my adulthood I could be a tourist to a Space Station or the Moon. I'm now in my 80's, and I'm still Earthbound. I feel sorry for those who disdain such dreams.
But I saw the first humans land on the Moon.
"an adventure it would not have occurred to women to think worth while..."
What adventures have occurred to women to think worthwhile (not counting quests undertaken to win their favor)? Semi-serious question, actually.
"where to die has a meaning...."
So, dying on the way to/from the moon would not have had any meaning? I don't believe Auden believed that.
The guy wrote a whole poem about taking it up the ass, before taking it up the ass was cool.
I thought the Flash Gordon moon landings were cool on early TV. They had to go after Ming.
No flag plantings or sententious first words either.
Housman had a very fine nettle poem
Their seed the sowers scatter
Behind them as they go.
Poor lads, ’tis little matter
How many sorts they sow,
For only one will grow.
The charlock on the fallow
Will take the traveller’s eyes,
And gild the ploughland sallow
With flowers before it dies,
But twice ’twill not arise.
The stinging-nettle only
Will still be found to stand:
The numberless, the lonely,
The filler of the land,
The leaf that hurts the hand.
It thrives, come sun, come showers;
Blow east, blow west, it springs;
It peoples towns, and towers
About the courts of Kings,
And touch it and it stings.
That puts moon landings to shame.
Has anyone mentioned yet how that so-called poem doesn't even rhyme?
I don't know why I've thought this, but I've always thought that the 'Meh' comment is something that started out as a New York City expression; a kind of jaded, disinterested, 'seen it all before', all-purpose expression favored by late middle-aged ladies with a strong NYC Jewish ('Lon-Guy-Landt') accent.
rhhardin said...
I thought the Flash Gordon moon landings were cool on early TV. They had to go after Ming.
No flag plantings or sententious first words either.
***********
All the real early sci-fi movies and TV had the rockets landing the way Musk and spaceX finally figured out some 75 years later.
pious agnostic said...
Has anyone mentioned yet how that so-called poem doesn't even rhyme?
***********
It's called "free verse".
"Free verse is an open form of poetry, which in its modern form arose through the French "vers libre" form. It does not use consistent meter patterns, rhyme, or any musical pattern. It thus tends to follow the rhythm of natural speech." --- Wikipedia
"BarrySanders20 said...
The Interlocution Will Not Be Televised"
First thing that came to mind was Whitey On the Moon
There is a story I read that when Ronald Reagan announced plans for the Strategic Defense Initiative, Gorbachev asked his advisors if such a thing was possible. Their reply (reportedly) was that the Americans had managed to journey to the Moon and back. So maybe it was useful after all.
Pshaw. I can make disgusted noises as well. Mine are more reserved for those who think small. If the progress of mankind was left to men like him, we would still be huddling fearfully in caves somewhere, afraid to leave. I have no patience with men who gladly partake of mankind's greatness, while scoffing at those who brave the unknown. And to belittle courage, and exalt kindness over courage, I say without courage, there can be no kindness, only capitulation.
I'm old enough to remember Richard Armour and his light verse (as well is his "It All Started With . . . " books).
Shake and shake
The catsup bottle.
None will come
And then a lot'll.
(Often misattributed to Nash)
OR
Nothing attracts
The mustard from the wiener
As much as the slacks
Just back from the cleaner.
OR (for an appearance on You Bet Your Life)
Most poets write of meadowlarks
I sing instead of Groucho Marx
His lustrous eyes, each one a star
His noble brow, his sweet cigar
His many stride, his soft mustache
His easy way with sponsors' cash
His massive shoulders, brawny arms
his intellect, his many charms
In short, unless the truth I stray from
A man to keep your wife away from.
Idiots not conforming with humanity or civilization.
Auden lived by the creed: "pardon him for writing well." And he was an indeed a great writer. But the perversity underlying his philosophy is insurmountable, especially considering to whom he applied it.
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