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Umm... Jackie?
No, I won't tell you. It's so refreshing to see your innocence.
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old hand
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[quote=Faldage]Gazornen something or other, what was it? Gazornenplatz seems most likely but where did I hear it and what did it mean? Well, to be orthographically correct it should be Gesornenplatz
Back in the '60s, I think it was, comedian Bob Newhart had a schtick about an infinite number of monkeys with typewriters reproducing Hamlet. One of them typed, "To be or not to be: that is the gesorgenplatz." I've quoted it many times over the years. Sorry to have taken so long finding this thread. Discombobulated is definitely part of my vocabulary, and I use it without pretense. Its connotation is that something is so hopelessly tangled or damaged beyond repair that it's almost funny, that maybe if we give it a good whack it will right itself, but not likely. Peter
Last edited by Tromboniator; 02/05/11 10:26 PM.
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"To be or not to be: that is the gesorgenplatz."
ha! I'd forgotten this bit. not surprisingly, I find this via google with another spelling: "To be, or not to be, that is the gesornenplatz..."
but this is just a quiddle[sic], and it serves to remind me of another comedy bit, from the Blackadder series:
Blackadder: Oh, well, in that case, sir, I hope you will not object if I also offer the Doctor my most enthusiastic contrafibularities. Dr. Samuel Johnson: What? Blackadder: '"Contrafribularites", sir? It is a common word down our way. Dr. Samuel Johnson: Damn! [writes in the book] - Edmund Blackadder, Blackadder the Third
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It's so refreshing to see your innocence. Hmph. I say, even if you're posting pornography, it ought to be spelled correctly! With correct punctuation.
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gesorgenplatz!! I use that word all the time! I have always wondered where I picked it up.
formerly known as etaoin...
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While we're giving Earliest Printed Appearances: In 1940-41 Robert Heinlein wrote, and Astounding SF published, a three-part serial named Sixth Column, reprinted by Signet Books in 1951 as "The Day After Tomorrow," a novel about USA after being conquered by the (thinly-veiled) Japanese, and the remnants of the Army fighting back under the Occupation, masquerading as a religion. Using slang to confound the eavesdropping authorities (who can hear only his end of the conversation), right here on Page 124 of the paperback the Commander says to his staff,
"Look, cherubs--mamma wants baby to go to the nice man. It's all hunkydory as long as baby-bunting carries his nice new rattle. Yea, verily, rattle is the watchword--you don't and they do. Deal this cold deck the way it's stacked and the chopstick laddies are stonkered and discombobulated. The stiff upper lip does it." [emphasis mine]
Which the guy at the other end of the line translates, just in case the reader didn't get it either, "Check me if I'm wrong, Chief. You want the priests to give themselves up, and to rattle the PanAsians by their apparent unconcern. You want them to carry it off the way you did, cool as a cucumber, and bold as brass. I also take it that you want them to hang on to their staffs [clandestine super-weapons], but not to use them unless you tell them to. Is that right?"
"Elementary, my dear Watson."
(And so the rebellion proceeds.)
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I don't think anyone had claimed earliest (until just now) - that credit would have to go to one of these: discombobulated or even one of these: 1834 Sun (N.Y.) 21 Mar. 2/3 May be some of you don't get discombobracated. 1838 J. C. Neal Charcoal Sketches 14 While you tear the one, you'll discombobberate the nerves of the other.
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It's so refreshing to see your innocence. Hmph. I say, even if you're posting pornography, it ought to be spelled correctly! With correct punctuation. Umm... Yeah. Innocence. That's the way it's normally spelled given the meaning.
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I discussed this word with a German yesterday. He said he did not know of this word as a German word. I told him of the British Nanny thing. He said it must be "gesnorgenplatz" the place where one snores.
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