I'm reading The Time Machine over at bartleby.com and in the third chapter, first paragraph is the sentence "I suppose a suicide who holds a pistol to his skull feels much the same wonder at what will come next as I felt then." This sentence says to me that a suicide is a person, not an action. Is the word used incorrectly here or has the meaning slightly changed.
Dear JazzO: My dictionary gives as third definition " A person who commits suicide."
From Gilbert and Sullivan:
On a tree by a river a little tom-tit
Sang "Willow, titwillow, titwillow!"
And I said to him, "Dicky-bird, why do you sit
Singing 'Willow, titwillow, titwillow'?"
"Is it weakness of intellect, birdie?" I cried,
"Or a rather tough worm in your little inside?"
With a shake of his poor little head, he replied,
"Oh, willow, titwillow, titwillow!"
He slapped at his chest, as he sat on that bough,
Singing "Willow, titwillow, titwillow!"
And a cold perspiration bespangled his brow,
Oh, willow, titwillow, titwillow!
He sobbed and he sighed, and a gurgle he gave,
Then he plunged himself into the billowy wave,
And an echo arose from the suicide's grave--
"Oh, willow, titwillow, titwillow!"
I've seen patricide employed as a noun as well and just assumed it was an archaic usage. Didn't occur to me that they might be contemporary until I noticed the definition of verbicide.
k
Funnily enough the other references to suicide in that dictionary are all to do with sport What? No
suicide blonde? I wondered at the phrase, used in an INXS song*, until I saw the phrase, with punchline, in a movie made in about 1930.
*
Suicide Blonde
Suicide blonde was the colour of her hair
Like a cheap distraction
For a new affair... http://www.lyricsdomain.com/lyrics/11964/
Now I feel just as sure as I'm sure that my name
Isn't Willow, titwillow, titwillow,
That 'twas blighted affection that made him exclaim
"Oh, willow, titwillow, titwillow!"
And if you remain callous and obdurate, I
Shall perish as he did, and you will know why,
Though I probably shall not exclaim as I die,
"Oh, willow, titwillow, titwillow!"
It's an affecting tale, and quite true. I knew the bird intimately. His devotion was something extraordinary.
Résumé
Razors pain you;
Rivers are damp;
Acids stain you;
And drugs cause cramp.
Guns aren't lawful;
Nooses give;
Gas smell awful;
You might as well live.
Dorothy Parker
German proverb on suicide: Why do it today, you can always do it tomorrow.
One of my favorite poems is about suicide.
I don't know remember who wrote it or where
I heard it. I've tried to find it on the
web, but no luck. It goes something like
To the Student Humorist, a Suicide at 30
We celebrate your ribald memory
oh dour-face youth who carved the mourner's bench
with knife of wit for weary eyes to see,
your agile turn of phrase designed to wrench
chuckles from teachers, chortles from the crowd,
your friends, your enemies in boredom's chains
eager to break their bondage, laugh aloud.
I now recall your grin, reward for pains to lift the load,
to turn the fun side out, to poke the rib of joy , evoke a shout,
prick vanity's balloon, shoot greed's kite down.
Your pungent wit we savored for a while,
and even now, remembering, we smile.
k
She made a M*A*S*H out of that!
Dear TEd: I had both fun and frustration out of your post. I found a lot about Dorothy Parker I didn't know before. But what I did find makes me seriously doubt that she has any connection to M*A*S*H.
Prove me wrong.
Bill:
The movie is about a dentist who wants to commit suicide because he can no longer perform in the sack. The rest of the crew gives him a fake suicide pill in a funny and macabre scene during which is sung the song:
Suicide is painless
And brings on many changes....
It seemed to fit quite well with Parker's witticism.
If you have not seen the movie you owe it to yourself to rent it. I would put it in the top ten funniest movies of the last century.
TEd
