All the high-rated comments say just about exactly the same thing. I chose that one to quote because it features my favorite word: flummox. It's a colloquial and vulgar word, according to the OED. "The formation seems to be onomatopoeic, expressive of the notion of throwing down roughly and untidily; compare flump, hummock, dialect slommock sloven."
The oldest appearance is 1837 in Dickens's "Pickwick Papers": "Ve got Tom Vildspark off that 'ere manslaughter, with a alleybi, ven all the big vigs to a man said as nothing couldn’t save him. And my 'pinion is, Sammy, that if your governor don’t prove a alleybi, he’ll be what the Italians call reg’larly flummoxed, and that’s all about it."
Italians?! Is that like saying "Pardon my French"?
"Pardon my French" or "Excuse my French" is a common English language phrase ostensibly disguising profanity as words from the French language. The phrase is uttered in an attempt to excuse the user of profanity, swearing, or curses in the presence of those offended by it, under the pretense of the words being part of a foreign language. Although the phrase is often used without any explicit or implicit intention of insulting the French people or language, it can nevertheless be perceived as offensive and belittling by Francophone speakers. However, most users of the term intend no such belittlement....
Required cultural reference:
Bonus fact (from the above-linked Wikipedia article, "Pardon My French"): The word for a French kiss in French is "une pelle." It means "a shovel." Please use that knowledge wisely!
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21 comments:
French letters versus English letters.
The Washington Post is an evil entity managed by evil people owned by an evil person whose only purpose is to lie to the American people and divide us.
"All hair problems are First World Problems."
-- Johnny Gutts
Many years ago I heard a woman say, "Excusez-moi, motherfucker".
Another type of French kiss is the bisou, a friendly peck on the cheek.
Caterpillar eyebrows, hikimayu, were a big thing among the married women of the royal court in Japan during the days of the Shogunate, when the royal court was powerless in Kyoto and Tokugawas ran the country. With nothing else to do, the married women of the upper classes took to this exotic look, retreived from the early days of empire, to symbolize their status, despite their relative poverty and impotence in national affairs.
Comparisons to this style in America are of course completely without basis.
The Federalist used to be the same when they allowed comments -- puff pieces on topics related to women were disparaged. Right or Left, people read articles with no meaning for them just so they can rag.
What's hilarious is how the cosmeticians are excited to see these jungle-like overgrown brows and all the creative possibilities therein. I'm still laughing.
Blank pages all
https://mobile.twitter.com/Ayjchan/status/1357856080110510080
Many years ago I heard a woman say, "Excusez-moi, motherfucker".
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I would have guessed Samuel L. Jackson.
What a morning it's been—-lots of smile laughing with some tears even. I woke up with Bill Evans, I will say Goodbye playing in my Head.
My partner informed me that our week long effort to push back a starling invasion is looking to be a success, so instead of sitting at the breakfast table facing the bird feeders, ready to jump up at any moment to grab the air rifle and give them what for, I am able to put the bird feeders at my back as I usually do for my morning coffee.
Andrew Cotter has a tweet up that reminds me I need to stop procrastinating, call the Labrador Retriever breeder, and get going on that new yellow lab puppy that we see in our future.
And then I find a paragraph to end all paragraphs quoted by Althouse from the Pickwick Papers, moving it to the top of my reading list. And a bit of Ferris Bueller, a movie I first saw when law school friends showed up at my summer law job where I was working on a Saturday and convinced me to play hooky, me having no idea what the movie was about.
I predict this will be a good day.
Like Eskimo words for snow, the French have a lot of words for kiss.
My Parisian ex gf tried to explain.
1. I forget the name for the double ear kiss. never had a reason to use it.
2. tcrosse said...
Another type of French kiss is the bisou, a friendly peck on the cheek.
This is how you kiss your mother.
3. Baiser is a romantic kiss
4. So a French kiss might be : baiser français
Didn’t bother to read it. Just another fluff piece typical of the tripe we will see in the next four years to distract from the total fuck-up of the Bidenharris administration. Did the writer manage to put in a jab at the Trumps somewhere in there?
"French letters versus English letters."
'Days of Dutch courage, just three French letters, and a German sense of humour.'
- Elvis Costello
Not every woman is blessed with the soft luxuriant brows of Lily Collins that so stir the loins of eyebrow fetishists. Who wouldn't want to get lost forever in her lush forest of follicles? Such brows are a gift from the heavens. I suppose with eyebrow pencils and conscientious trimming something acceptable can be worked out for a good looking woman like Lily James, but a beautiful woman without lush eyebrows is like a latte without froth.
"New York Times!"
"Washington Post!"
These are the new phrases that could get someone fired, no matter what the context. "Pardon my French."
"I browse for Trump stuff - nothing. What'll I write about?"
"You do speak French, don't you, Inspector Drebin?"
"Unfortunately, no - but I do kiss that way."
"For dinner we have...Franch fries...and...Franch dressing...and...Franch bread...and to drink...taa-daa...Peru." ... "Gee I'm real sorry your Mom blew up Ricky. Doctor said she'll be OK. I guess she just won't be able to eat any spicy foods for awhile."
I prefer to honor my roots by using the phrase “excuse my Bronx” when I am about to unload a shit ton of profanity.
Norwood, represent!
True fact: whereas Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor was Cardinal Spellman HS Class of ‘74, I was Class of ‘78.
Nothing really matters... Such a burden. Not that "burden".
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