Far from trite, "pettish heiress" hasn't been (googlably) used since 1891, in "Mr. Zinzan of Bath, Or, Seen in an Old Mirror."
November 2, 2018
Something made "pettish" seem like the right adjective with "heiress," so I wondered if "pettish" was to "heiress" as "scantily" is to "clad."
I don't want to write in clichés. I eschew triteness here. I wrote "pettish heiress" and felt artistically compelled to Google the phrase...
Far from trite, "pettish heiress" hasn't been (googlably) used since 1891, in "Mr. Zinzan of Bath, Or, Seen in an Old Mirror."
Far from trite, "pettish heiress" hasn't been (googlably) used since 1891, in "Mr. Zinzan of Bath, Or, Seen in an Old Mirror."
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19 comments:
I said it yesterday.
Pettish is to Peeve :: Scantily is to Clad
Yesterday I wrote "a counterrevolution is not a dinner party" in a comment, googled it, and concluded it must be my own coinage.
Scantily is to Clad :: Woefully is to Inadequate
"scantily" doesn't seem to go with anything but "clad" these days but "clad" is found with others, "lightly clad" I see from time to time. And of course "ironclad" if you think that counts.
I eschew my food.
The coquettish haberdasher, scantily clad in Cornish corset, intrigued in low-tones with Lord Cardigan, much to the consternation of the pettish Brudenell heiress.
Fill in the rest of the screenplay, hire Dame Julie Andrews for narration, instant box office hit.
"Pettish heiress sushi fungat, Ossifer, I shwerta gawd!"
LA, Hollywood, and the Sunset Strip
Is something everyone should see
Neon lights and the pretty pretty girls
All dressed so scantily
That was the tune that came to mind for me. Searching for more, every other instance that came back in the query had scantily dressed or scantily clad as well.
No song lyrics containing pettish, apparently.
Below that result was mention of Edward Taylor's poem Upon a Spider Catching a Fly, which contained this verse:
I saw a pettish wasp
Fall foule therein:
Whom yet thy Whorle pins did not clasp
Lest he should fling
His sting.
Now, if you'd written "swanning around like a pettish heiress" you'd be verging on cliché territory. The swanning around of the upper classes is beyond tired.
" I eschew triteness here."
I happened to be in Karachi during a very tense period when another war with India seemed a real possibility.
Strung across a major avenue was a sign reading in its entirety "Eschew Rumour!"
I have a pettish sister. And I should use that phrase more often.
Come to think of it, she thinks she is an heiress.
To calm a pettish heir, pet his hair.
“Slowly and bitterly came the conviction that all was really over.”
Awesome t-shirt for the day after an election.
“Eschew triteness” is trite. It's also pettish. Eschew it.
"... peckish sir"
Eschew obfuscation.
Of late, actually for several years, I have noticed that close and proximity travel so near to each they have, in effect, become a single word. People who write righteously and condescendingly of cliches have been known to employ close proximity as a unit.
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