I got a precious comment on my MySpace space, a relayed message from the littlest grandguy. He wanted his mom to tell his Grandaddy that he “pooped in da potty free times.” He had no news for me, unfortunately. (sigh) But then, I’m the one who makes him take naps when he comes to visit. Oh well. They’re cute, whatever they do.
I am also amused by a sentence out of this story which has apparently been around for 30 or 40 years, touted as “The Worst Story Ever Written.” I don’t know whether it actually lives up to its billing–I’ve read a lot of really bad stories–but it is pretty bad. It was apparently written by a 16-year-old fan boy who swore never to write another–and didn’t–because this one was so thoroughly vilified. Poor kid. Anyway, this is the sentence in question:
The barbarian seated himself upon a stool at the wenches side,
exposing his body, naked save for a loin cloth brandishing a
long steel broad sword, an iron spiraled battle helmet, and a
thick leather sandals, to her unobstructed view.
That loin cloth brandishing the “long steel broad sword” made me chortle, because so much early, purple-prosed romance fiction used identical imagery and euphemisms. I’m not sure how the loincloth also brandished a helmet and sandals at the same time, but I’m willing to suspend my disbelief.
What are your favorite (or least favorite) euphemisms?
Ever since senior year AP English, when we noticed that the speaker in the section of The Symposium which we were analysing in class spent two sentences talking about lesbians, a paragraph or so about straight couples, and then ran right off the page talking about gay men, I’ve thought “studying The Symposium” would be a hilarious euphamism for any kind of guy-on-guy action. Unfortunately I have yet to find a good context to use it.