Smoke, esp. foul-smelling or pungent smoke; dense or thick vapour; fine dust suspended in the air. Also as a count noun: a quantity of smoke or dust; a stench. Also (and in earliest use) fig.It's a rare word, but not obsolete (though "chiefly Eng. regional (south-western"). And look how useful it is, especially figuratively.
I'm working up the energy to write up a post about the orations about civility at the McCain memorials and how the Democratic Senators saw fit to behave at the Kavanaugh hearings yesterday, one more post that will get my "civility bullshit" tag, a tag that stands for the proposition that calls for civility in American political discourse are always only about quieting other people down and not to be followed yourself the next time you think your side will profit from getting loud, rude, and hyperpartisan.
But sometimes I don't like to say the BS-word. When I'm feeling delicate, maybe I'll be saying "smeech."
Some historical examples of "smeech":
1899 S. Baring-Gould Bk. of West II. vii. 110 Gases escape in puffs from the furnace doors, which the men designate ‘smeeches’, and these contain arsenic in a vaporised form....
1985 in Dict. Newfoundland Eng. (1999) (Electronic ed.) Suppl. (at cited word) I fair feels the niceness and the mildness coming off me in waves like..the smeech off a pair of lumberwoods stockings.
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27 comments:
"Smeech" does not have the expressive sound of "bullshit!"
Sounds like a word a hobbit would say. I like it!
Dems emit smeech and cause global warming.
The civility-preaching Democrats in the Senate have been slow-walking all of President Trump's nominations since he became President (by defeating Hillary "Pay to Play" Clinton).
Lumberwood stockings? They probably wouldn't wear out quickly, but I don't think they'd be very comfortable.
All calls for "civility" or "high moral principle" are a load of bull UNLESS you're prepared to go after your own side first and clean up your own act first.
Morality and principle are NOT for sale, to be traded for some quid pro quo on the other side. If you believe that you must continue to act like a savage or sociopath as long as you perceive your political opponents doing the same, then you were unprincipled and amoral to begin with.
Someone of real principle doesn't look for a quid pro quo to be that way.
calls for civility in American political discourse are always only about quieting other people down and not to be followed yourself the next time you think your side will profit from getting loud, rude, and hyper partisan.
I would add, in a legal context, that the more one side screams, yells, and jumps up and down insisting that a law is "settled"…
it's not.
I'm working up the energy to write up a post about the orations about civility at the McCain memorials and how the Democratic Senators saw fit to behave at the Kavanaugh hearings yesterday
And please note that all the arrests and weird behavior at the Kavanaugh hearing are very similar to what Norma McCorvey did at the Sotomayor hearing.
The Supreme Court saying abortion is "settled law" in our country is like Kevin Bacon yelling "All is well!" in Animal House.
Joe Scarborough is the smeech that stole civility.
You perceive odor in all of this, for me it’s a sound, a noise
“Full of sound and fury signifying NOTHING!”
And this week the noise will be in the capitol, the capitol of hell:
Pandemonium
Smeeth smeek smeech...smooth smokey stench.
The hearings weren't a civility problem. It was a throwing out unwritten rules problem. A lot of unrelated stuff will stop working.
Not all unwritten rules are about politeness. Most keep the system working.
I knew that Kavanaugh eventually would be accused of being, of course, a racist.
He chose to sit in front of a woman who was giving racist hand signals to the television audience.
It sounds like a portmanteau word combining "speech" with "smoke" or "smell." Which would make it a bad kind of speech, confusing or generally odious.
Progressives support freedom of speech but not freedom of smeech. It's simple, really. You just have to know what's good and what's bad.
"Freedom of smeech"
I think smeech is what we were hearing from the crowd at the Kavanaugh hearing. Progressives are all for it.
The star bellied smeeches had stars upon thars. The first thing I thought of was a Sneetch when I saw smeech.
@Born01930 - That is exactly what I thought! Weird.
@Born01930
yes that. a profound sociological critique not given its due
If your shit don't smeech, you must impeach!
could one be besmirched with smeech, and so be 'besmeeched'?
"second- hand smeech"?
Due to the California wildfires, Colorado's skies are quite smeechy.
Civility Smeech was a Philadelphia preacher and hero of the American Revolution.
Humbug is a precise and apt word, more specific than bullshit. It is le mot juste for American politics.
'smeech' is, I think, a word used by Winston Graham in the Poldark Novels, referring to smoke from a fire. I vaguely recall it.
Now I recall. Aunt Agatha said it.
Filed under: useless things my mind holds on to.
“The star bellied smeeches had stars upon thars. The first thing I thought of was a Sneetch when I saw smeech.”
Me too.
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