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."

19 comments:

Curious George said...

I said it yesterday.

Jay Vogt said...

Pettish is to Peeve :: Scantily is to Clad

Earnest Prole said...

Yesterday I wrote "a counterrevolution is not a dinner party" in a comment, googled it, and concluded it must be my own coinage.

tcrosse said...

Scantily is to Clad :: Woefully is to Inadequate

Gabriel said...

"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.

Fernandinande said...

I eschew my food.

Lucid-Ideas said...

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.

Bob Boyd said...

"Pettish heiress sushi fungat, Ossifer, I shwerta gawd!"

Bricap said...

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.

robother said...

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.

James Graham said...

" 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!"

AZ Bob said...

I have a pettish sister. And I should use that phrase more often.

AZ Bob said...

Come to think of it, she thinks she is an heiress.

tcrosse said...

To calm a pettish heir, pet his hair.

Leslie Graves said...

“Slowly and bitterly came the conviction that all was really over.”

Awesome t-shirt for the day after an election.

Ken B said...

“Eschew triteness” is trite. It's also pettish. Eschew it.

Ambrose said...

"... peckish sir"

ceowens said...

Eschew obfuscation.

Steven Wilson said...

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.