... and I'm just seeing and being surprised that "weird and wonderful" is, officially (according to the OED) a colloquial phrase. A couple posts down, I got embroiled in the subject of what "weird" means and what's up with the people who overuse the word "weird," and I ran into this other subject that needed its own post.
The colloquial phrase "weird and wonderful" means — according to the unlinkable OED — "marvellous in a strange or eccentric way; both remarkable and peculiar or unfathomable; exotic, outlandish. Frequently ironical or derogatory."
1886 O. Wilde in Pall Mall Gaz. 1 Feb. 5/1 There is psychology of a weird and wonderful kind.This is news to me. I don't think it's a colloquial phrase in America. Or maybe it is, and I just hadn't noticed.
1908 T. E. Lawrence Let. 9 Aug. in Home Lett. (1954) 70 Their food is weird and wonderful....
1978 S. Naipaul North of South ii. vi. 227 A weird and wonderful place is Jo'burg.
From the NYT in just this past year: "a weird and wonderful coincidence," "her weird and wonderful new play," "Weird and wonderful plants are tumbling into gardens," "weird and wonderful obsession with her kids’ effluvia," "weird and wonderful supporting characters, including a sex-crazed elderly woman next-door neighbor," "an ordinary childhood that... could only come across as weird and wonderful," "a skin-contact, amphora-aged zibibbo from South Australia that’s as weird and wonderful as wine gets," etc.
That's how I tested colloquialness, and I guess the answer is... well, what makes a colloquial phrase? You can't have separate dictionary entries for every set of words that get put together with some frequency. Is "wild and wonderful" a colloquial phrase? Is "wonder of wonders"? Is "colloquial phrase" a colloquial phrase?
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109 comments:
I'm still waiting to see Benny's electric boobs along with her mohair suit. Supposedly it was in a magazine
In the Ozarks, "will wonders never cease!" was often employed.
Incredible, amazing, and wonderful are general flattery words useful in talking with another person. As they say, everybody wants to talk about themselves and hear what you think of them. Trump calls everybody “incredible” as a high complement , although it may not be one.It means the person’s reported deeds cannot be believed.
In The Philadelphia Story, everyone is hung over and looking for an antidote. Dexter says, "Well Uncle Willie's down in the cellar doing weird and wonderful things. Tell him I said one of the same."
My prom date.
"Hey, who are you going to prom with?"
"SuzieQ"
"She's weird."
She was/is gorgeous. I thought it was all sour grapes until I found myself racing across town to take her home again on prom night.
I'm pushing for "deep, dark, and dangerous" - Use three times in sentences and it's yours. Here's one: "He stared into her deep, dark, dangerous eyes and took a long drink."
Maybe it's only semi-colloquial.
Is there a difference between a colloquialism and a cliche?
"weird, wild, stuff" Dana Carvey's parody of Johnny Carson. Don't know if Carson ever said that. But it sound like him.
Sparse but sweet perigee with Wilde and Lawrence using it damn near a century apart. But if has come into general usage it is no longer colloquial but trite, and to be avoided in writing. If you follow the advice of my go-to guides to clear writing, Strunk and White (Elements of Style” and Orwell (On the English Language*).
* Typing quickly from memory I’m not certain I got the title correct but the reliability of his advice is true.
I don't remember "Weird" being used a lot in my reading of 30s and 40s literature/history. If it was used, it usually referred to something Supernatural. When did it become so commonly used, its a synonym for 'Strange'?
Mother's Day and all, so do your thing.
And focus on music.
Best not to focus on the corruption of the Obama Administration.
That will help the recovery required to vote for future Democratics.
Gell-Mann Amnesia has a thousand fathers.
Failure to forget is an orphan.
Music and words won't spy on you.
They won't contravene your God-given and Constitutionally recognized rights.
We need common sense colloquialism reform, but good luck getting that with Trump in the White House.
"weird tales" stuck in my mind because of Lovecraft. Here it is:
Weird Tales is an American fantasy and horror fiction pulp magazine founded by J. C. Henneberger and J. M. Lansinger in late 1922. The first issue, dated March 1923, appeared on newsstands February 18.[2] The first editor, Edwin Baird, printed early work by H. P. Lovecraft, Seabury Quinn, and Clark Ashton Smith, all of whom would go on to be popular writers, but within a year the magazine was in financial trouble.
I meant “pedigree” damn autofuckingcorrect ...
I hate Elton John (not really!) - I know I said I wouldn't 'plague' you again, for a weak but when you write that is, apperently, quite good, who do you call? I wanted to write to the Spectator and I thought of this:
This is an imaginitve exercise - I'm the daddy, of course! - in thinking what my son might think - I was thinking of writing to the Spectator and I came up with this:
My dad is just another whisky away from death.
What a fool! "You talk about 'social-distancing'", he says, "I've been doing that since I was born!" My mum wasn't very kind to him - nor he to her - so most of my life he's been hiding in a hole somewhere in Morecambe. Never been there, don't care to, but I know it's a shithole.
So how is he coping, this alleged 'dad' of mine? Cantankerously, badly - he, of course, thought from the beginning, it was a conspiracy, directed at him, specifically to stop him seeing me or what's left of my mum, cooked up by a confederacy of fascists. You should hear him on happy, clappy Thursdays - I'm told he just shouts out the window - he lives in an attic, cliche, I know - he just shouts out "Fascists, fascists!" His mantra being "Privatise the NHS - sack them all!" Embarrassing and I know he doesn't mean half of it but I get his point.
Which gets me to mine - my dad is drinking himself to death. Yesterday, he phoned me up - or, rather, left a message - I never answer him - saying he's got the shakes real bad. What is he, who is he, Robert Johnson?! He can't stop shaking, he says. He tried to stop drinking and went straight into cold turkey and when the earth started moving, he thought, o shit, I better go back on the sauce. Apparently, it was to late. It took a whole day before he could lift a cup without shattering his teeth or spilling his gin all over the place.
You see - he's always been in despair - at least, since he ran away from us. Never betrayed my mother, always been in love with her, lived like a stupid monk, frightened of the 'world'. But he had a kind of naive faith in his fellow British, what he calls, working class - a rude bunch of sods, he thought, illiterate, without memory or future, without purpose, but decent, obdurate, right thinking. Now they come out of their houses to praise the state!
So he's one whisky away from death.
What to do? How do you restore 'hope' to a man like him? He's very resilient, so he'll probably, eventually, restore himself - but it's gonna take some work and this time he might not survive that 'work'.
I suppose I'll have to see him. It will be disgusting but I'll have to talk to him, my dad.
this world is weird bizarre strange, devoid of logic, as we've seen in this dempanic,
'what is' not 'that is'
This song came off of Elton's magnum opus, Yellow Brick Road. It was the one that broke the White Boy Brit onto the Black American Music charts. In my hazy memories of 1974,I remember watching the fabulous dancers on Soul Train creating a cool interpretation of this quaalude beat. Weird and Wonderful!
God's teeth, people!
English locutions like W&W creep into American usage all the time--it's called cultural influence. All three examples are from men steeeeeped in English literature, but whose writings today are known only to a tiny and diminishing few. Makes them seem exotic now.
Narr
Wonderfully Weird
Weirdness is overrated.
It used to be for the kid nobody lijed now it's meant to obscure decadence.
I didn't 'run away' - she 'ran away' from me - but it's easier to take the 'burden' than cast blame.
Happy Mother's Day to all who are. I miss mine.
Narr - right!!!
This is weird and wonderful:
"Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp celebrates record low COVID-19 numbers after media, Dems predicted disaster
It's been more than two weeks since Kemp began lifting restrictions"
Let's do this.
It's an 'exhortation', of course, for all of you, to see your dads and your mums, of course, before it's to late and you regret it - see them - they may not be 'nice', you might not like them, but, they are you.
"colloquial phrase" means something in common, informal use. So "colloquial phrase" is definitely not a colloquial phrase.
The term you're maybe thinking of is "idiomatic". Dictionaries include idiomatic phrases, which means the meaning can't be deduced by looking up the meaning of the constituent words. "weird and wonderful" counts because it is not simply a combination of weird+wonderful, you have to know it's often ironic and that it is usually not describing something actually that weird and wonderful.
On Wiktionary, the defining test for idiomaticity is called the "fried egg test", because "fried egg" seems at first to be non-idiomatic -- isn't it just an egg that has been fried? But no, if you think about it, that's not right. Scrambled eggs are cooked by frying too, plus Scotch eggs. A "fried egg" refers to a specific recipe, not just any egg that has been fried.
I'm like Selenus - completely nuts - but if you nail me to your car I'll tell you who you are!
Happy Mothers Day to all you mothers! A sad one for Tim in Vermont; my own, mother of four, died in May '18; now we're down to my wife, mother of one. Son, and my last brother (two are gone), are coming to eat early lunch and cake-- son's bd was 4-15, bro's 5-5, mine tomorrow.
My wife is a cradle Dem, son and bro are millennial and late-boomer weak-tea PC zombies when it comes to the news. We'll see how that goes!
Since we're all here at the Prof's, talking about language, I'm dragging the Civil War discussion up here. But I'll make it a separate post.
Narr
Do we have a Clausewitz Clique here? Come on, don't be shy.
I guess it's a way of saying "Fabulous!" and sounding no more gay than Oscar Wilde.
"Weird and wonderful" also a way of "reclaiming" weirdness. If Portland and Austin can do it, so can you folks at home.
"Weird" is a weird word on its own. I have a feeling it has to pay substantial fines every week for violating the "i before e, except after c" law.
Is it 'Mothers Day' = I praise - we over write what is their excesses', we fail to appreciate, what they do - my mum, drunk as she always was, fed me, clothed me, worked bloody hard for all of us - little tiny mit that she was - beautiful, intelligent - she didn't need us - children from that tiny body - the pain of it - why? I only wish she can tell us - Oh, she's dead. Oh, Anne, you know how sons resent the death of their mothers -if not - you know now.
Right on BagOh20 @11:00 AM.
I know that phrase from that song which was very popular when I was in high school. Cannot recall hearing it, or reading it, in any other context.
My mum - Anna Deane - her original name was Valery - but she hated that - looked exactly Like Anne Frank - I think why she chose the name -she was tough but small - they bullied her - so she beat them up - 5 foot of damage! She met her first 'husband' at 15 at a bus stop in Liverpool - and got preggas soon after - Hamlin, as she called him he's doing, probably, the only child she ever loved. She was the 'May queen' that in Liverpool - at that time 1.3 million poeple - now, it's got smaller - she was an 'artist model' and John and Paul sketched her - absolutely beautiful - a Titian in flesh - Paul wrote a song about her - Lady Maddona - but that's she was. Beautiful, a terrible mother, hated us, resented us, but, alive, living. She did terrible damage to me but was she a lass - oh yes she was!
To those of you who have lost your moms (although that makes it sound as though you simply misplaced them),
I hope that you focus on the good memories. Although my mom is demented, and so in a way, I have lost her...I can still tell her I love her; and she responds in kind. The tone of her voice when she says she loves me is no different than it was when she was compos mentis. Although she had her moments of awfulness as a mother, I remember instead all of the ways she loved us so completely.
I ask myself, "Is it hard to be a mother?" No, in the most important way, for me, it is not. I love my children with all of myself--and nothing they could do could ever change that. Love comes easily to me. And also, yes, in other ways. Making the "right" decisions while your kids are under you care...not only is there no instruction manual, but also the choices so often seem equally bad.
I am sure that being a father is much the same, but today is Mother's Day.
Happy Mother's Day, Ann!
1994 she die - you can tell ( to who - or whom? - I haven't got that. - She was the only intelligent person I knew! )
I wish one could, retrospectively, correct ones stup comments - blogspot! - by the way my poetry is on myslet.blogspot.com - if it is still there - I haven't looked at it for years - the legend I put there being "Just for thinking, nothing else"! ('Myslet' is Czech for 'thinking)
stup for stupid!
Anne, your great - that's all I say - except I wish you my mum!
Clausewitz would be the first to say that theories and definitions should reflect empirical experience. That's one reason he didn't spend a lot of time on ancient history--in his view the distant past was too different from the present--and too unknowable without close study--to provide useful insight to practical soldiers.
So, whatever he may have written about ancient warfare, his definition of civil war is, by definition, limited to his own experience and the history he knew-- "the remembered past" as John Lukacs defines history.
But look! Clausewitz is dead by 1831. In North America a new, a weird and wonderful thing has emerged-- a federal union of states stretching across a continent, a dynamic, technocratic, republican, secular nation with an extremely diverse economic and social system embracing a harsh factory capitalism and a harsh slave regime at the same time, across a spectrum of geographic and climatic regions.
And guess what everybody was talking about, back then, when Clausewitz was cold, in public life in the USA? Civil War. Yup. North and South, abolitionist and fire-eater, read the newspapers and see how the term blanketed discourse-- Southern congresscritters freely predicted civil war if they didn't get their way.
And since 1865, in both common speech and professional historians' and librarians' usages, the term is American Civil War.
That there was no historical model for what happened in the US in 1860-1861 is quite frankly an absurdly pedantic and dilletantish approach to determining what to call it.
All due respect to my man Carl (pbuh).
Narr
How about The Civil War Like No Other? CWLNO.
'were'
'You can tell' what? I meant, you can tell I still appreciate her, no matter my 'resentment' ( and that's only be 'cause she died!), my residual stupidity. I loved and love her! It is she who gives me 'permission' to whale against - it's her 'example' I'm following. I am, as it were, 'being' her, with a few more books in my pocket and overburdened by, what she wouldn't recognise, guilt.
My hands are hers! Always 'old' before there time. Short, stubby, unadapptable - but smart, super intelligent, very clever!
Strange days indeed
https://www.americanthinker.com/articles/2020/05/january_5_2017_a_day_that_should_live_in_infamy.html
Childhood memories of your parents can be fraught with misunderstood resentments that only mature hindsight can decipher. My very intelligent mother stepped off North Georgia farm to live with relatives and work in a series of office jobs during WWII in Atlanta, leading to a bank teller's position which led to meeting my father, who was home from serving in China.From my childhood memories, I remember a woman dissatisfied and depressed with her accomplishments. However, the one thing in her life that counted the most was her children. My sister and I could rely on that throughout our lives. My father survived the Depression living with his divorced mother in Miami. He was too busy working at after school jobs to participate in sports, and developed a disinterest in them. My mother, on the other hand, wanted her 10 year old son to participate in Little League baseball. In order for me to play, I needed a glove. Dad was disinterested in springing for one, so, my sainted mother broke into her treasure trove of grocery store green stamps, no doubt intended for something else the household could use. It was a lousy leather glove, nothing like the ones my friends had. But in my adult memory, my eyes tear up over the realization that she spent her precious green stamps to provide her beloved son an opportunity to play ball like the other boys.
she had electric boobs
A bobcat suit
lucy's in a fight with linus.
What can I say about her? She was my mum. I love her. Or my dad - the bastard is still swanning around - he left me, when I was three - but there is, completely ( I was hoping I could use the excuse that he was 'nut'! But, no) - of course, 'she' chucked him out, the bastard. Typical British, Northern situation. Domestic violence - what that? You just repeat what you are told to repeat. So what do I do, when I grew up - retreat, for ever. For I know, as surely as the day is black, I'll commit the same sins my father commited. But, of course, that's impossible, by definition! So what do I do - eventualy I get cault out - I catch the glance of a woman - compelled, like an idiot, to comply, I walk towards her. I tell, quite. I'm damaged goods. She both doesn't believe that and doesnt care, even if it's true! Well, that's a story - and nothing to do with mums. Unless you still believe the Freudian crap. Which I do, I do!
Electric boots and Mohair suits feel left out.
No synergy today.
Sad.
All things bright and beautiful,
All creatures great and small,
All things wise and wonderful,
The lord god made them all.
I think somewhere along the line "wise and wonderful" became "weird and wonderful." There were prior examples, but this may have implanted it.
then there's that iconic poster of a hipster and Ellen: "Think of it Ellen, a world full of weirdos! That would be wonderful." see it at google under a search for the quote.
i actually met the artist. he was a schizophrenic and interesting. when i saw the original it was hanging on the wall in a laundromat right around the corner from his house where some friends and i hung out. i coulda bought it for less than $100. it propagated quickly.
"Wonder of wonders" comes from Fiddler on the Roof, and before that from the Hebrew phrase "Hafele va'fele," included in a song about Moses. There is also a Christian hymn "Wonder of Wonders," apparently not an old one, though I could be wrong.
"Wild and wonderful" was a popular phrase in the Romantic and Victorian Era, according to Google n-grams. "Weird and wonderful" became a phrase after 1860 and now it is more common than "Wild and wonderful" -- much more common in Britain than in the US.
"Wet and wild" is less common. It really took off after 1990 (what with the popularity of water parks), but apparently, some people actually wrote and said that in 1860. They must have been some of the few Victorians to actually have fun
"Wonder of wonders" is more common in America than in Britain. I would have thought it took off with Fiddler, but the Sixties and Seventies were low points in comparison to the early years of the 20th century, so it must not come from the musical after all.
I'd agree that this warrants a place in the lexicon only if it's unusually prone to ironic use.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kanbpbPdeQI
I'm always crashing in the same car
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-m30aaI5Yf8
If the hair cutter places dont open up soon, my wife is going to give me a haircut like his.
Anne-I-Am, that's a lovely comment.
You are becoming one of my favorite Althouse commenters.
Happy Mother's Day to you.
He needs a candelabra.
I had not noticed before but he's turned into liberace.
Still a very nice performer though
John Henry
My grandmother passed about 16 years ago, he raised me as much when my wother was at work, it happened right around mother's day, she was at an assisted living facility after she had broken her hip about a year earlier, we visited her as much as possible, I can't imagine this savage placebo that prevents their loved ones from visiting but doesn't do anything to staunch the outbreak, and we see this everywhere from los angeles to new York city from maine to Miami,
Think! Boast how you think! But, please, think first!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZpIhsGg2SJ0
I have to end on Cohen - everybody knows: everybody wan'ts a box of chocolates:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Lin-a2lTelg
Seinfeld ruined "wet and wild" for me.
Anytime I hear it I think of Kramer, peristalsis and his final, douche bag, solution.
https://youtu.be/F4vsrBfYx8w
John Henry
I knew I shouldn't end there, because I meant this - knnoec, finit, ~O I promise you, O, I promise you, please, listen:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YfPlKNNS_p0
I know everybody is trying to avoid the subject, and that's fine, but we have really great news that should be reassuring.
Georgia numbers had flattened out, but were still near peak levels two weeks ago when they started to open back up. Since then they have fallen like a rock. Deaths were averaging over 30 per day two weeks ago. The last 5 days have been low single digits and dropping. It's morning again in America.
Link to Georgia data and graphs: https://dph.georgia.gov/covid-19-daily-status-report
it really is striking how Georgia and florida, are painted like some freak show, whereas the killing fields of new York and California, are just accepted as normal, there is a certain learned category that is toxic,
take this example
https://twitter.com/LevineJonathan/status/1259322138382794753?s=20
the lawyer in the grim reaper mask, hanging around florida,
what is often left out of the story,
https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/15999/italy-china-trojan-horse
Narciso - you and your grandma are loved.
'Konec' is Czech for 'finish' - some hope!
I know, Anne, I know - I'm not, quite, an idiot.
Ones intention is to 'praise' and one is just bloody nasty! But I praise her, my mum, absolutely the most extraordinary woman I ever knew. Not because she was my mum - I'm quite detached, 'objective. If she wasn't my mum, I'd marry her - if she were still living.
Wilde was Anglo-Irish, Lawrence was English, while Naipaul was born and raised in a British possession. This looks like a rare example of a British colloquialism settling into the American language.
If "Weird and Wonderful" were a TV series what kind of TV series would it be? A soap opera for kids that teaches them about science? Travelogues about wild animals and slacker geeks in their natural habitats?
"Weird and Wonderful" seems to fit Oscar Wilde and late romantic decadence pretty well.
"There is no exquisite beauty without some strangeness in the proportion."
I thought that was Wilde or Walter Pater, but it's actually Edgar Allan Poe, paraphrasing Francis Bacon.
The difference is, Anne, you're a good, decent woman! I'm not saying my mother wasn't - just you don't get beaten up by a 'good, decent woman'. It doesn't happen!
Bloody hell, Anne - you didn't have to get rid of that post it was very sweet - and meaningful, to me - it was the only you acknowledged ne! Bleachbitted out!
It is hard, by the way, to be a mum - very hard - you have to give birth to them, for a start - such pain they cause you - and, your 'expected' to 'love' them? What absurdity, 'instinct' and all that bollocks! How women 'live' this, I can never understand!
This was after she'd had 4 of us - not me - 67!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uLRiGX3L-kw
I still love this, I still love John:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C3_0GqPvr4U
He did that in Canada, of course, Toronto - before the dispute over his 'migration' status had been worked out Yoko had no problem - a jap, weirdy kind of artist no problem - so much for 'racist US! - but who come up, but hairy Ginsburg - one of my favourite poets - though, as a person, I'd jump a mile - but then, so would you, if you saw me.
And he - John - looked beautiful then.
Did you see who's there - bloody Leonard Cohen is there - not his wife - she can't be bothere to even cognize the words!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C3_0GqPvr4U
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xLy2SaSQAtA
I know, every one hates 'him' - for his 'certainty' - what a joke- that guy was so uncertain - but he thought, 'common sense', it must be true - at least that I 'have' - he knew that was very doubtful but what else could he grab on to - the very end - shot in the back - by a moron.
My 'hero' - and he was a hero - not because of what he said, not be cause of his'music' - or the he was this or that- I love him for being 'John - whatever that means
I know I'm drunk - and I apologise - sorry, Anne - but this:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RZ2oXzrnti4
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cntvEDbagAw
I'm very drunk - so, if you eliminate I wouldn't be sorry!
Me - I'm listening to the Jam!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hf4EFDGP4yg
What a plum!
Colloquial is just one tiny step from cliched.
You know 'truth' is, Anne:
Red rose city of Petra,
Half as old as time
Every word of that is true, for him - why half as old as time? Because time, for him, only began 4000 years ago! That's truth!
what - sorry
It's really important that you, Anne, as a woman, not 'representative, but just, 'as', keep this up - I was thinking 'Why does she do it?' and I thought she must have be gun because she wanted to say what she felt - when the internet was relatively young - but now she does out of duty - maternal instinct - because we all depend on he.
Keep this up
I say what people won't say - I lack 'shame' - as a drunk - 'you nail me to my car, I'll tell who you are' - sober, 'shame' is all I have.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1SHCsgqZvQM
Have you heard of Higson-Boson blues? Idiots know this - Every cheap hotel know - every can you feel heart beat - I can
You have the wrong tag - that's Shiva Naipaul, the younger brother of VS.
There is ' a conspiracy' but it's not against you, you narcissistic bastard, Lewis - it's against themselves - the 'confederacy of dunces' is nihilism, specifically 'European Nihilism' - 'I'll tell you about the history of the next thousand years' as Nietzsche once wrote - well, it came than even he thought.
quicker!
By 'European' I think one would call it 'Western' - and no John Wayne or even Rock(!) Hudson - that's it opposite
'Active' nihilism rather than 'passive' - what 'Academics' do.
Rock Hudson was a 'raging' 'queen' but I love him - what a guy!
Anyone who has broad, beautiful shoulders like his - my mum used to talk about them - both my collar bones are broken - fights, fights, fights - but I had them!
You're always right.
'Technolgy is free' they say = google and what shit - of course, that is bollocks. But what do you do, to cheap are you.
I'm sorry - sorry
I'm sorry I was disrespectful about him, Elton John = I do love his music - I grew with it - he seemed to betray in some obscure - not his 'sexuality' - but, somehow, some way?
Poetry a merely involuntary sprinkling
Of Angel dust - you want to speak
But it is God that speaks, not you:
Humility a kind of smallness, necessary.
Your ragged shirt and your torn jacket
Just vanity - imprisoned by a guilt
You can't understand - stupid, stupid, stupid.
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