Tag Archives: expression

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Decidedly Bad One-Liners

I just need one more bad decision….
….and I’ll have the complete set.

I told people I wanted to be a comedian….
….but everyone just laughed at me.

My entire life is out of whack….
….More whack have been ordered.

The baseball player shut down his website….
….because he wasn’t getting any hits.

No man goes before his time….
….unless the boss leaves early.

I was going to do a post about anti-climaxes….
….

….but in the end, I didn’t.

Words can’t express how much….
….I hate World Emoji Day.

I love crossing bridges, so I did a post about it….
….Now it’s been targeted by trolls.

I can’t even be bothered….
….to be apathetic these days.

I want to get rid of crosswalks….
….and replace them with happy walks.

Hedgehogs should learn….
….to share the hedge.

I bet they call it almond milk….
….because nobody can say “nut juice” with a straight face.

My wife texted me, “I wish you were here.”….
….She does that every time she visits the cemetery.

There’s nothing like sitting around an open fire….
….watching the evidence burn.

Emotional baggage is….
….just a griefcase.

If you try to correct my grammar….
….I will think fewer of you.

My dentist asked me to open up….
….and now I can’t stop crying.

The opposite of formaldehyde….
….is casualdejekyll.

I am excited!  I got the first item on my bucket list….
….I have the bucket.

Success is 1% inspiration….
….98% perspiration….
….and 2% attetion to detail.

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’24 A To Z Challenge – I

Not to sound too negative or anything, but this week’s word is one of those words that doesn’t seem to have a positive.  I’m talking about

INEFFABLE

There, I said wrote it.  It does seem to be one of those negative words, that doesn’t have a positive for.  I have a whole list of them that I’m gonna do a post about – after I finish my procrastination practice.

Actually, the word effable does exist, although it’s even more rare than ‘ineffable’.  I thought at first that it was to describe many people’s driving skills, but it turns out to mean, utterable, expressible.  Too many of them have the word/name ‘Jesus’ on the back of their cars, so that’s the expression that I utter.  “Jesus!!  Who the eff taught you to drive – Crash Bandicoot??”

Ineffable then, just means that a thing is too…. something – holy, or horrible, to be expressed or described in words.  That’s when I resort to sign language, one finger at a time.  Thumbs-up to you though, if you show up here on Friday.  😀

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’21 A To Z Challenge – M

 

THANKS FOR THE MAMMARIES

Truth, freedom of expression, and lack of censorship seem to be good ideas, but…. there’s something to be said for the more subtle, understated ways of yesteryear.

Let me re-introduce you to Marilyn Monroe.  When guys got a look at her, they often went

MMMMMMM

Back in the 1950s, and early ‘60s, there were a coterie of female movie starlets labelled as sweater girls.  They primly, modestly, covered up what they had, but emphasized it by stuffing it into tight sweaters.

Mamie van Doren

This was a time when female celebrities’ costumes were measured in yards of fabric, not yards of bare skin poking out.  Someone asked, “What’s the big deal about sweater girls??  Take away their sweaters, and what do they have?”

Anita Eckberg

As one of many such, the English language took the word milch from German.  In German, it is the noun, milk.  In English, it became the adjective, milk.  When a dairy-cow has been bred, delivered her calf, and is ready, again, to provide milk, she has been ‘freshened.’  She is referred to as a milch-cow.

Gina Lollobrigida Known to Mad Magazine as Gina Lottabazooma

The Germans also gave us a delightful, sweet, white wine, called Liebfraumilch – dear/beloved-woman/wife/lady-milk.  It’s good that there is no actual milk involved, so that der frau would need to be a milkmaid, and the cream come from her cows.  A woman, working in a big office, had to put a note on her Tupperware container of liquid in the communal lunchroom refrigerator – To whoever is using this to cream their coffee;  This is my breast milk, that I pump for my baby.

Jayne Mansfield Mother of Mariska Hargitay of Law And Order: SVU

Well, that was an outstanding post, if I do say MMMMMM myself.

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’20 A To Z Challenge – C

A To Z ChallengeLetter C

 

 

 

 

 

 

Technological obsolescence! It’s a term to describe things that we no longer do or own, because our rapidly accelerating science-driven lifestyle has replaced them with something newer, although not always better. (Remember Windows Vista?) 😯 We’re on generation 12 of Smart phones, and the Chinese are providing the 5G cell phone system to run them on, as well as COVID19.

The telephone operator lost her job when dial phones came into existence. The dials turned into push-buttons, and the push-buttons morphed into touch screens. The poor English language is having trouble keeping up with it all.

Let me introduce you, and then say good bye, to

CHIROSPASM

Spasm of the muscles of the hand, as in writers’ cramp.

Now there’s an expression that you don’t hear any more. It was common for hundreds of years, from religious monks inscribing Bibles, up to school children frantically composing essays for English class all desperately, tightly, clutching quills, pens and pencils, till their hands cramped.

Then, along came the electronic age, with its word-processors and keyboards. Archaic old chirospasm and writer’s cramp have been replaced by hunched-over-the-keyboard data-entry shoulders, and your cell-phone-toting grandson’s texters’ thumb.

Fortunately, I have never sprained or strained either of my middle fingers, the ones so necessary to communicate with taxi drivers and politicians. That would be the only physical disability which might affect my capacity to express myself, although I am just an amateur, compared to some of the old masters.

Salmon Arm Salute IISalmon Arm Salute

From his seat inside a private rail car during a vacation in Salmon Arm, BC with his children on August 8, 1982, Pierre Trudeau, then the Prime Minister of Canada, gave the finger to protesters in Salmon Arm, British Columbia, earning the incident the nickname the “Salmon Arm salute”. The gesture itself has also been nicknamed the “Trudeau salute.”

Trudeau

Our young drama teacher ski instructor Prime Minister learned at the knee of one of the (self-described) greatest.

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Poetry In Motion

Poetry

I am a Philistine. I don’t know what great art is, but I know what I like.  The same applies to poetry.  I have been exposed to some of the ‘Great Poetry’, The Rime of The Ancient Mariner, The Twa Sisters O’ Binorrie, La Belle Dame sans Merci, William Blake’s, The Tyger, and many of Shakespeare’s sonnets.  I still like the poems that begin, “There was a young man from Kent.”

I express myself on this site though prose. When I check to ‘see what others are writing about,’ I find an interesting number of bloggers who express themselves in – poetry(?).  Some of the poems are actually quite good.  Others….are more a pretentious stream of unconsciousness.

Song lyrics, written out, should make sense. I feel the same should apply to poetry, even if it’s only published on WordPress.  Here’s an example.  See if you agree with me.  The first is how it would look/sound, if it were simply written as prose.

writing

The morning adrenaline in class essay exam detailing the ways to restore lost dynamic to man. Caffeine fumes, school bus, Drive, write your heart out!  With speed, with force, believe, you were born for this thrill of academics.

Speaking scholars and students inspired. This is my arena, my work, brain on display.  Bare, stuttering, but speaking again.  Grasping at straws, texts, engaging in every aspect.

The parkway was packed by 4:30 and given recent attacks, at night, plus rush hour fears from the kid who sped into my lane last year as evident by 3 bulging cervical discs. Thought it best, surely, safer to wait out traffic elsewhere.

***

The following is how it was actually published. Does it make any more sense?  Is it significant?  Artistic?

***

writing

The morning adrenaline
in class essay exam
detailing the ways
to restore lost dynamic to man.

Caffeine fumes, school bus,
Drive, write your heart out!
With speed, with force,
believe, you were born for this
thrill of academics.

Speaking scholars
and students inspired.
This is my arena, my work,
brain on display.
Bare, stuttering, but
speaking again.
Grasping at straws,
texts, engaging
in every aspect.

The parkway was packed by 4:30
and given recent attacks, at night,
plus rush hour fears
from the kid who sped into my lane
last year
as evident by 3 bulging cervical discs.

Thought it best, surely, safer
to wait
out
traffic elsewhere..

When ‘an artist’ throws paint-soaked sponges at a sheet of plywood, the resulting mess on the wood is not the Art.  The action, the process, is the art – performance art – like 12 clowns getting out of a tiny car at the circus.

I’m sure that many of these blog-poets are serious, and are struggling, as I do, to get their feelings out. When I come across something like the above, I just get the feeling that I’ve missed the real performance, and my only reaction is, “Huh!”  How about you?  😕