Althouse: "We don't talk about the commerce of squirrels."

May 27, 2020

"We don't talk about the commerce of squirrels."

Said Meade, just now, long into a conversation that began when he read the previous post, which was published 40 minutes ago.

27 comments:

Wince said...: It’s like Fight Club?; 5/27/20, 7:53 AM
Lucid-Ideas said...: You should. The acorn:pine nut exchange ratio is ludicrous right now. You could make a killing converting garbage ETFs to acorn futures in anticipation of the Spring crop report.; 5/27/20, 7:58 AM
Meade said...: My mistake for not making air quotes with my 4 fingers. What I spoke would be correctly written: "We don't talk about 'the commerce of squirrels.'"; 5/27/20, 7:59 AM
Ralph L said...: Commerce of squirrels sounds like a euphemism for squirrely sex.; 5/27/20, 8:08 AM
TreeJoe said...: What about their trading partners?; 5/27/20, 8:08 AM
tcrosse said...: Where I come from we talk of little else.; 5/27/20, 8:09 AM
Rory said...: "Commerce of squirrels sounds like..."

...a great name for a band.; 5/27/20, 8:22 AM
Ann Althouse said...: "Commerce of squirrels sounds like a euphemism for squirrely sex."

Ralph is probably thinking about Gibbons v. Ogden: "Commerce, undoubtedly, is traffic, but it is something more: it is intercourse."; 5/27/20, 8:27 AM
Bob Boyd said...: Not just squirrels. We need to raise awareness about the scourge of rodent trafficking in general. Do know you how many rodents go missing every year in this country? Well...I don't either, but it's a lot.; 5/27/20, 8:33 AM
Whiskeybum said...: No!no!no!
The collective noun for squirrels is 'scurry' or 'dray'. It's a 'commerce of bankers' in this instance!; 5/27/20, 8:41 AM
Lurker21 said...: A group of squirrels is called a scurry or dray. But most of those designations were probably invented by playful lexicographers. "Murder of crows," my foot!

Speaking of words (and with words) do you ever wonder if the expressions that come to mind are still in use and will be understood anymore? "My foot!" I'm pretty sure somebody said that on Bewitched or Petticoat Junction back in the Sixties, but do people still talk that way?; 5/27/20, 8:43 AM
DanTheMan said...: This comment has been removed by the author.; 5/27/20, 8:48 AM
Lurker21 said...: The Commerce of Squirrels: They are always collecting and exchanging nuts because the one with the biggest nuts gets to reproduce.

I believe it was Charles Darwin who discovered that.; 5/27/20, 9:11 AM
Howard said...: Squirrel stock is up versus rats.; 5/27/20, 9:11 AM
Ralph L said...: com•merce kŏm′ərs
n. The buying and selling of goods, especially on a large scale, as between cities or nations. synonym: business.
n. Intellectual exchange or social interaction.
n. Sexual intercourse.; 5/27/20, 9:20 AM
JZ said...: The whole post along with the comments has gone “over my head”.; 5/27/20, 9:29 AM
Meade said...: You're all nuts.; 5/27/20, 9:33 AM
Ralph L said...: Eat me!; 5/27/20, 9:37 AM
Temujin said...: tcrosse- that was pretty funny.; 5/27/20, 10:12 AM
walter said...: Talk is cheap.
Put 'em to the test; 5/27/20, 11:10 AM
todd galle said...: All I know is that squirrels screw up commerce in my neighborhood by self-immolating in our electric transformers, knocking out power. We've been overrun on our street with chipmunks, rabbits, and squirrels recently. Praying for the red-tailed hawk to return, as the family who let their cat out at night has apparently moved, and neighbors are too close to allow me to shoot them. Squirrels are Asshole!; 5/27/20, 11:35 AM
Lurker21 said...: If you stay in one place for a while you notice trends and cycles. Once there were squirrels but few chipmunks and no mice or rabbits. Then a black squirrel appeared and we had feisty aggressive black squirrels. Then the squirrels were gone and you had plenty of chipmunks and some field mice. Now the chipmunks and field mice are still here, and the squirrels are back, and rabbits, rarely seen before, are also a plague. I hate the chipmunks the most, though the woodchuck also gets on my nerves. He self-identifies as a groundhog.; 5/27/20, 12:06 PM
Richard Dolan said...: Commerce (in every sense) is so 2019. It's dangerous and unhealthy and anti-social, or so we're told. Welcome to the brave new world of 2020.; 5/27/20, 12:09 PM
Anthony said...: I had to pick up a second dead rock squirrel from our neighborhood street yesterday. =(

I put it in some bushes so it could be returned to Mother Earth without me having to see the poor thing in the road for several hours.; 5/27/20, 1:17 PM
mikee said...: Squirrel commerce? You mean like even a blind squirrel finding a nut now and then?
Or more like how squirrels fight over everything and nothing, running up and down and around their trees, lightning fast but for no discernable reason other than two squirrels bad, one squirrel good?

Yes, both of those are worth not talking about, all the time. I shall begin now.; 5/27/20, 2:39 PM
RobinGoodfellow said...: “Blogger Rory said...
"Commerce of squirrels sounds like..."

...a great name for a band.”

I saw Commerce of Squirrels open for the Turtles.; 5/27/20, 4:09 PM
ken in tx said...: "My foot..." is short for "Kiss my foot", which is the Southern Ladies way of saying "Kiss my a$$."; 5/27/20, 9:19 PM