I just opened this week's Time magazine. The first thing I always read is the letters to the editor. They're usually either hilariously bigoted or very good.
AnnaStrophic has obviously been busy spreading the use of English in Atlanta, because an Atlanta resident, Susan J. Berlin came up with this line as a response to Dubya being chose by Time as Person of the Year:
Choosing George W. Bush is like writing a restaurant review after you've ordered your meal but before it has been servedAn American pal said in an email the other day that in his view:
GWB has all of Forrest Gump's faults but none of his charms.
Anybody else got great one-liners they'd like to share?
I always wanted to be a procrastinator, but never got around to it.
My inferiority complex is not as good as yours.
I have kleptomania, and when it gets really bad, I take something for it.
A bit of an oldie, but:
I used to be indecisive but now I'm not so sure!
Choosing George W. Bush is like writing a restaurant review after you've ordered your meal but before it has been served Thanks, CapK, for the credit,
but I don't get it
Although they are not "new" as Capital Kiwi's sayings are I venture to offer these two favorites which I have quoted whenever the appropriate occasion arose, They are both by Finley Peter Dunne from his series of "Mr. Dooley" newspaper columns which were written in an immigrant Irish accent, hence the spellings as I am quoting accurately.
"A fanatic is a man that does what he thinks th'Lord wud do if He knew th' facts iv the case."
And one that has come in handy lately : "No matter whether th' constitution follows th' flag or not, th' supreme coort follows the iliction results."
And to give credit where it is long overdue,
and in modern English, it was Dunne who said :
Trust everybody but cut the cards.
wow
Anything uttered by Groucho Marx.
Among my favorites:
"You have the brain of a three-year-old, and I bet he was glad to get rid of it."
"I wouldn't join any club that would have me as a member."
['waggling eyebrows' emoticon]
....Dubya being chose by Time as Person of the Year: Ah!!! I get it now!!! (read for context, Anna, just as you have admonished others to do)
Max, may I borrow your flagellation stick?
['taking horlicks and blankie to bed now' emoticon]
A spoonful of Horlicks in a glass of Scotch and I'll be fine. - J. Cleary
My favorite Mae West line is "Why don't you come up and see me? I got nothing on but the radio."
I also like liked Lois Wyse's line. She has an Ad agency in NY, she ran it with her husband, and when he died, suddenly (and very young) she keep the agency going, and made it a success. Some years later at a party she met a very interesting man, and told him-- "You seem to be very much like my second husband" He asked, How many time have you been married, and she replied "Once".
(they later married--)
Today is the 100th anniversary of the death of Queen Victoria. (This ought to be commemorated by an appropriate thread, I don't know what off hand. If anyone else has one, go to it.) In her honour (Brit. spelling for the occasion), I submit: WE ARE NOT AMUSED.
Since this thread started in a political vein, I love the pithy and brilliant:
"George W Bush, the President Dan Quayle we never had."
"George W Bush, the President Dan Quayle we never had."
I'm not gonna say anything, I'm not gonna say anything, I'm not gonna say anything. . . .
Wasn't it Marilyn Monroe who when asked what she wore in bed replied 'Chanel No. 5'?
One of my other favourites (I've got a vague recollection of it being attributed to Churchill and I suspect that I'm about to misquote horribly here, but hey! [insert shrugging emoticon])is:
Sir, you are drunk.
Yes madam, and you are ugly, but in the morning I shall be sober!
I may be wrong but I think W.C. Fields said that.
this is one of those stories with so many variations that one wonders about the veracity of any of it... but one version that got posted was ostensibly from someone who was there and claims that Bessie Braddock said this to Churchill. "Now of course Bessie would never have said such a thing under ordinary circumstances, because no matter what you think about the English, it is not true that they are so stupid or naive as to be surprised when a
person becomes drunk at a party, and particularly not when the person is a vulgar, sensual man like Winston Churchill. In fact he was drunk, and the last time he had been drunk at one of Bessie's parties he had behaved very badly." he goes on to say that Churchill and his friends made up the story of the response the next day. "It does little credit to Winston that this was what he wished he had said, because once you get past the idea that it was a clever thing to have said on the spur of the moment (which it would have been had he said it on the spur of the moment and not made it up the following day while hung over) you realize just how devoid of real wit or quality the remark is." other versions claim that the lady in question was Lady Astor (they aren't, by some weird English coincidence, the same person, are they? :)
oh well, I would have been delighted to have thought of it the next day....
It was on this Board that I read:
I want to die in my sleep, like my grandpa; not yelling and screaming like his passengers.
That line still tears me up. I love it and keep it posted on my bulletin board. People usually read it once, don't quite get it (thinking it is somehow kinda deep and sincere) and then, realizing what is really said, burst out laughing.
We are going through a lot of changes where I work. So many, in fact, that the powers that be brought in a "guest speaker" to deliver a pep talk on "change management" to help the hapless employees deal with all of the organizational changes.
A couple of weeks after the speech, which basically said, "We are changing and if you don't like it, don't let the door hit you in the butt as you leave," we were called into a meeting to ask our reactions to the speech. I stood up and said, "I was extremely disappointed, because I had had great expectations and they were dashed."
Supervisor, "What do you mean, Ted?"
Ted: "I was really hoping the first word in change management was a verb."
TEd !
Are you still working there? If I were in charge I'd have promoted you!
wow
W.C. Fields said that...(vulagarity alert for the over-sensitive):
He was indubitably the author or the following, when offered a pollutant draught in his pure whisky:
"
Water? I never touch the stuff - fish fuck in it!"
(Sorry, Max!
)
Upon hearing someone utter an unintentional, and probably best not worth mentioning, pun, and saying, "No pun intended."
Replying, "None taken."
Well, OK. Maybe "great" is overstating it a little.
I worked (in Oz) with a "good ol' boy" geologist from Tucson some years ago. He had a whole collection of sayings which kept me in fits of laughter, so much so that I wrote them all down and try to use them as often as possible - complete with good ol' boy accent of course!! I presume they weren't his own, but I've not heard them elsewhere. Examples are:
"Well, ain't that just slicker'n cat shit on linoleum!" (or substitute the cat dung reference for "snot on a brass door handle!").
If there was a lot of something, it was "ass-hole deep to an 8 foot Indian".
Finally, and showing my geoscience roots again, LURV the bumper sticker-esque saying I noted at a mineral and fossil dealer's website the other day...."COPROLITES HAPPEN".
Look it up!
stales
Thanks for your consideration, maverick, it is very much appreciated. However, I'm not quite
that sensitive. I woould not like to think my personal mores were intruding others' freedom of expression.
DAMN I wish was as quick thinking as that! Ted, that was exceptional, at least the equal of any of the other offerings in this thread.
>DAMN I wish was as quick thinking as that!
Uh, well, among friends, I will make an admission. I had a whole week to come up with that. I will admit, though, that I very carefully chose the timing of the delivery for maximum amusement effect. My pappy taught me that in delivery and sex timing is everything. Pappy was a wise man.
Water? I never touch the stuff - fish f*ck in it
Mav, that should have been the least of his worries.
Given the initials W.C., you'd have expected him to suss that one.
I want to die in my sleep, like my grandpa; not yelling and screaming like his passengers.Likewise, love that one bel
I'd heard it with a "peacefully" just after "die" which adds a certain hmmm, I don't know,
je ne sais quoi I suppose.
P.S. The "you are drunk sir, very drunk" I'd heard attributed to Lady Astor (rather than Bessie wotsit) and Churchill.
Is that a gun in your pocket, or are you just glad to see me?Here's a variant, Cap..
A renowned wag at work (call him Bill), on seeing another colleague (Ben) walking back from the canteen with a banana in his pocket, piped up:
"Is that a banana in your pocket, Ben, or are you pleased to see me?"
to which came the reply:
"It's a banana, Bill - I'm never pleased to see
you."
Blinding.
Her name was Nancy Witcher Langhorne. She is also reputed to have referred to the soldiers who took part in the invasion of Italy as D-Day Dodgers (or at least something that could be interpreted with that phrase) and got a mention in the song D-Day Dodgers to honour* the occasion.
*Brit spelling to honor the fact that she was a Brit, as were the D-Day Dodgers.
I think she came from the US, but married an Englishman.
Bingley
yes, your right there-- it was the fashion for robber barons to send daughter to Europe to marry poor lords/dukes/earls/what ever. Churchill's mother was Jenny Jerome-- Jenny's father was a NY land speculator, and owned a race track (now site of reservoir)- there is also a major street named after him– Jerome Avenue. Jenny was sent for "Finishing" to europe and married well..
Her name was Nancy Witcher Langhorne. She is also reputed to have referred to the soldiers who took part in the invasion of Italy as D-Day Dodgers
If her Ladyship did, indeed, say this ... I say SHAME!
This hits a very sore spot for me .. I had relatives in the 8th Army and an uncle who was among the men who fought in the three battles for the Kasserine Pass and a neighbor's son was killed at the battle of Monte Cassino. Hell on earth found itself a fact in those places. Too many brave decent American and British boys went through that hell called The Italian Campaign to ever be described as Lady Astor allegedly did.
For more info in UK and world wide, consult "The Oxford Companion to World War II" published in 1995 by Oxford Press -- in US the ISBN is 0-19-866225-4
Wow
Dear of troy: I recently read biography of Churchill that said he had a brother apparently sired by one of his mother's lovers, and that his father died of syphilis contracted as result of college classmates as a prank (Ye Gods, what a prank) putting a diseased prostitute in bed with him when he was intoxicated. So perhaps Jennie Jerome was no bargain as a bride. I was mildly appalled that this information appeared in an otherwise good book.wwh
wow adds:
If her Ladyship did, indeed, say this ... I say SHAME!I whole-heartedly agree, wow. My uncle was in the 442nd. They spent most of their duty in Italy.
A couple of slightly different versions of the song:
http://www.warlinks.com/jackcull/ddodgers.htmhttp://www.acronet.net/~robokopp/english/ddaydodg.htmI have trouble maintaining composure while reading the last verse.
More available by googling "d-day dodgers"
In reply to:
and that his father died of syphilis
Well, that is old new to me, as for his brother not being quite his brother-- a blood test would tell for sure.
and as for Jennie being no bargain, on the scales of things, making a man wear horns, or giving your wife a (at the time ) untreatable, deadly disease-- i think Jennie got the worse half of the bargain!
I think if i knew my hubby had syphilis, i would have all my children via (disease free) lovers! congential syphilis is a very ugly disease...
"Never judge a man until you have walked a mile in his shoes. If you still don't like him, he's a mile away with no shoes."
When asked if I would rather have hot dogs for fingers or no bottom jaw (don't even ask how that came up in conversation!), my reply was:
"I'd like to have both. That way, if I was tempted to eat my fingers, I couldn't. Because, hey, I have no bottom jaw."
The 'mile away with no shoes' bit reminded me of it ~ it has that Jack Handy ring.
If someone with multiple personalities threatens to kill himself, is it considered a hostage situation?
Fortunately for Winston, his father would no longer have been infectious by time he got married, though the jolly little corkscrews (spirochetes) were taking a long rest before destroying his brain.
see as how you have an MD after your name, I'll believe you, but i thought syphilis could continue to be contagous even after the inital chanker had healed..
<<Is that a gun in your pocket, or are you just glad to see me?>>
A dear female friend of mine used to respond to lame pickup lines with, "Is that a Chap Stick in your pocket or are you just glad to see me?"
Oof!
Ted: "I was really hoping the first word in change management was a verb."
New CEO slogan (unfortunately not my CEO...)
'If you can't change the people, change the people.'
Here's a poster slogan for businesses: "We put the K in Kwality."
I wish I had come up with the word "doi." Maybe I just wish it were popular to say that again.
I have another one which I still giggle insanely over. It concerns Fox (the English Prime Minister, and I assume a Tory) and Lord North (who I assume was the Leader of the Opposition and, obviously, a Whig). The conversation is reputed to have occurred in Parliament during a debate, but I can't find the reference to confirm any of the above.
North: "Fox, you will either be hanged or die of the pox!"
Fox: "That depends on whether I embrace your Lordship's policies or your mistress!"
This has to be one of the greatest rebuttals/putdowns ever uttered ...
And it seemed to fit with both the basic thread and the side-discussion on STDs.
Thanks for that one CapK, I had forgotten all about that gem. By the way, How's the vieux main? (apologies to BelMarduk and TEd
)
It is a good one, but misascribed. The parties were actually the Earl of Sandwich (attitude to bananas unknown, to me at least) and John Wilkes.
Bingley
Bingley corrected:
It is a good one, but misascribed. The parties were actually the Earl of Sandwich (attitude to bananas unknown, to me at least) and John Wilkes.Which, no doubt, is why Google didn't give me any clues ... did I at least get the political parties correct?
MaxQ: Don't know mon droit de mon gauche (equally with apologies to all viewing francophones).
This reminds me of the terrible times the management at the German national airlines was having. It got so bad that the right hansa didn't know what the Lufthansa was doing!
I was reminded by a note in today's newspaper of a lady who said to Winston Churchill, "Winston, if I were married to you, I'd poison your coffee," to which he immediately replied, "and if I were your husband I'd drink it."
I just remembered another presidential one-liner.
Calvin Coolidge, who was notorious for brevity, came back from chuch one Sunday. His wife was at home, not having felt well, and she asked, "What was the sermon about?" Coolidge replied, "Sin." She asked, "Well, what did he say?" Cal replied, "He was against it."
Who had that other great White House oneliner? Bess Truman? Eleanor Roosevelt? She said something to the effect of, "If you don't have anything nice to say about someone, come sit beside me."
Alice! I think she was Teddy daughter or maybe granddaughter-- cousin to Eleanor and Franklin
I can't remember who was meant to have said it to whom - some society beauty to a leading politician - but the conversation was along the lines of:
'We should consider marriage. Consider - a child with my looks and your brains.'
'No thanks! Consider a child with my looks and your brains.'
I was fool enough to apply this once to someone who was boasting about his mother who had a doctorate and father who had played rubgy at an international level...
I think the best one-line I ever came up with was just two words long...
I was being interviewed for a job by the President and Vice-President when they decided to ask a physcological question (I guess they must have read some book that said they should). The point of those is to see how you react as much as what you answer. This is what they asked...
"If you were stuck on a desert island and you could have one thing with you, only one thing...what would it be"
I replied...
"a boat"
I met Alice Roosevelt Longworth when I was a young kid living in DC. Somehow my parents wangled an invitation to a party and I somehow wangled an invitation to go with them. She was a very nice little old lady who ruled DC's social scene for many yers, along with a lady named Perle Mesta.
Alice was TR's daughter and from the pictures of her in her youth darn fine looking. She married a guy named Longworth who was very much her senior and who is the person for whom the Longworth House Office Building is named.
Alice's birth caused the death of TR's first and much adored wife, whose name I think might have been Anne. TR was distraught as he had married very much for love, and farmed out Alice because there was just too much pain involved in even holding her in his arms. When she was much older TR resumed his parental relationship with her.
I don't remember what she and I talked about, as I was only 7 or so, but somewhere around there's a picture of me and her together. I think my younger brother has it.
a child with my looks ...
It was George Bernard Shaw and Isadora Duncan.
There is a story that at one White House party, Mrs Longworth lit up a cigarette at a reception and was approached by frowning functionary who admonished her that there was no smoking allowed in the White House. She reportedly replied "Young man I was smoking in the White House before you were born, now get me an ashtray." Word has it he did.
wow
Having seen the film "The Dish" recently, as I posted in another thread, I was reminded of Neil Armstrong's immortal words:
"That's one small step for man, one giant leap for mankind".I admire the (intended) sentiments, allegedly Neil's own words, not those of NASA or the US government, but it has always bugged me that he left out the critical article "a", thus seriously undermining the meaning. Indeed the quote is sometimes rendered as:
"That's one small step for [a] man, one giant leap for mankind".I have heard Armstrong claim that he said the "a", but that it was nabbed by gremlins in the communication system. I tend to believe the alternative theory that in his nervous state he fluffed the line. But hell, who can blame him? I go weak at the knees on a stepladder.
Post-script: Thought I'd google the subject before posting. Here's just one of the thousands of results:
http://www.straightdope.com/classics/a3_362.html
That reminds me of advice I heard for a job interview: When they asks what you consider your weaknesses to be, reply - with a straight face - "Kryptonite."
Yes, I have noticed that the [a] gets left out a lot. I think I may have believed the [a] was not in there for some time, though I eventually learned the truth.
Yes, I have noticed that the [a] gets left out a lot. I think I may have believed the [a] was not in there for some time, though I eventually learned the truth. Even now I sometimes forget.
Whoops, sorry. I thought of something to add at the last second and pushed the "stop" button - guess I pushed it too late.
In reply to:
Having seen the film "The Dish" recently, as I posted in another thread, I was reminded of Neil Armstrong's immortal words:
"That's one small step for man, one giant leap for mankind".
I admire the (intended) sentiments, allegedly Neil's own words, not those of NASA or the US government, but it has always bugged me that he left out the critical article "a", thus seriously undermining the meaning. Indeed the quote is sometimes rendered as:
"That's one small step for [a] man, one giant leap for mankind".
All of which simply goes to prove that the whole Moon landing was a giant hoax, a fraud involving tens of thousands of people who managed to keep the secret without any leaks over several decades.
Of course! And you know the earth has got to be flat, no matter what they try to tell us!
..."COPROLITES HAPPEN".
Which is precisely why I howl with laughter at the Chevrolet truck advertisements exclaming, "Like a rock!"
For all interested in this thread I highly recommend the book, "The Portable Curmudgeon" by Jon Winokur. He also has a sequel, "A Curmudgeon's Garden of Love," which is just the ticket for Valentine's Day.
Thanks, Geoff; good idea, esp. since I bought my husband "The Portable Curmudgeon" a couple of years ago.
(I vill say nothink...nothink!)
So you might call it a Port-a-mudgeon?
Just a thought...
Port-a-mudgeonSounds like an excellent repository for an old fossil's
coprolites!
Ooh, the mileage I could get out of
that one!
