One hundred and forty characters just cannot accommodate a proper tirade! I suppose the pub and the bus-stop still have a function in the world.
To name a tirade after a Frenchman, le Gascon or inhabitant of Gascony, may seem rude and insensitive of the English. However, they adopted it directly from the usage of the northern French. What is it about Northerners? It must be the awful weather! VEXED BY THE VARIETY OF VOCABULARY? PETER THE PROOFER WILL UNVEX YOU!
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It sounds like that, doesn't it? And it does mean the corruption of a jury by inducements, but not necessarily involving any hugging at all.
The problem is the French, as is often the case. Norman legal French in this case. Embracery comes from 'embraser'- to set alight- while 'embracer' is the hug. So, in order to make that as clear as mud, the English rendered both into the 'c' form. I continue to find it astonishing, indeed inspiring, that le Chunnel was ever built! ASTONISHED BY ENGLISH VOCABULARY? PETER THE PROOFER HAS SEEN IT ALL! Great care should be exercised by non-Yiddish speakers when using Yiddish insults correctly, so I've done my homework.
Schmuck is probably the safest to use. It just means a fool. A schlimazel is somebody with chronic bad luck. He makes his own probably. A schlemiel is a klutz, a bumbling fool, a banana-skin finder. A meeting of the three would probably involve a hare-brained idea from the schmuck, enacted with all possible accidents by the schlemiel, which accidents would all befall the schlimazel. VEXED BY VOCABULARY? PETER THE PROOFER WILL UNVEX YOU! Now that marriage is the In Thing, let's keep a few things straight.
Your nuptials are the ceremony- you know, the party where you released doves into an unfamiliar habitat and balloons containing Earth's last bit of helium into the dinner of a Canadian goose. Connubial is the adjective applied to the bliss or agony, or the love or hate, or indeed anything else, of marriage. Often used quaintly by drunk uncles in blue jokes. Conjugal is the sterner, more legalistic, adjective applied to the married state. A husband used to be able to forcibly get his 'conjugal rights' if he was violent enough. Now conjugal rights are mainly the rights to pay the mortgage and mow the lawn. CONFUSED BY CHOICE IN AN AGE OF CONSUMPTION? PETER THE PROOFER WILL NARROW YOU DOWN! If you're not the marrying kind of either kind, and hate the very thought of marriage, you are a misogamist.
Shame on you in this day and age! Wedding pics are so tweetable. Buy stocks in toaster manufacturers! TWENTY-FIRST CENTURY CONUNDRUM ? PETER THE PROOFER CLEARS EVERYTHING UP! It seems churlish to be disappointed by a visit from Cole Porter, unless it's his French cousin, the colporteur.
You may or may not be bored by colporteurs, depending on how you felt about the comics, magazines, or religious tracts which they peddled from door to door. Another charming custom of yore bites the dust, along with encyclopaedia salespeople. BEFUDDLED BY THE LINGO? PETER THE PROOFER WILL UNFUDDLE YOU! I can simply never place her face, so I just turn over and read the number.
Face-placing is an over-rated talent. It holds you up in the supermarket! IS IT ALL GREEK TO YOU ? PETER THE PROOFER WILL SAVE HOI POLLOI ! No, the Scots haven't brought their oxen as mascots.
Your oxter is your armpit in Britain's northern reaches. From the Middle English, unsullied by continental refinement. DOES LATITUDE AFFECT YOUR ATTITUDE? PETER THE PROOFER LIVES ON THE EQUATOR! No, that is not some eccentric utopian socialist splinter group from 1848, although it would sound right.
Whatever I think, I still grind my teeth in my sleep! After all, the daily grind is the main determinant of politics. IS MONDAY TOO SOON TO BE WRITING? PETER THE PROOFER WILL FIX IT BY TUESDAY! Honestly, if everybody just stayed in bed the crime rate would be slashed and the road toll would disappear.
Clinophiles understand this in a profound way. IS IT ALL GREEK TO YOU? PETER THE PROOFER WILL SAVE HOI POLLOI ! |
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December 2017
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