Hev, I love Nash but more importantly, was a Nash fiend for many of my formative years, and thus know his poems reasonably thoroughly. I don't recall that line from his work; of course that's not dispositive.

Other than that all I know is what I found from google, which duplicates what dr. bill found.

I have been amazed at the depth and breadth of everyones knowledge on a vast array of subjects. . .I've been hunkering down in my read-o-tron trying my darnest to recite Chaucer from heart. So it's kosher to travel around the web to gather significant info and then relay it?

Dear mlc: I learned your word "kosher" by asking a friend carrying a package with large black symbols I had never seen before. I asked him what the symbols meant, and he said it means the meat is Kosher. I asked him what kosher meant, and he said it meant it was meat the rabbi had pissed on.

Wrong thread, dr. bill. That post more properly belongs in the impissataion thread.

I wouldn't belong to a club that had someone like me as a member... -Milton Berle or Groucho Marx?

Groucho. Definitely Groucho. With a word-order twist:
"Any club that would have me as a member I wouldn't wanna join! [making-with-the-eyebrows]"

But I forget which movie.

PS. Is there a name for that gesture of raising-and-lowering-the-eyebrow(s)-two-or-three-times archly ?

Groucho's eyelid semaphore seemed to me to mean "Am I not right?" But I can't think of a name for it.

We had a prof who looked like Groucho, and deliberately used that bon mot signal.
I took advantage of it once. In his bacteriology class, the girl in front of me would never let me look at her notes which she typed from her shorthand. But she constantly interrupted me to ask me to tell her what was in her microscope's field. One day when we were looking at preparations from our own throat cultures, she did it once too often. I took one look, and said in a congratulatory tone: "Why, Annie, you have the Mycobacterium smegmatis in your throat culture!" Just as I knew she would, she dashed up to the prof to brag about this. And just as I knew he would, he gave her his best Groucho leer, and inquired archly: "My dear young lady, are you inviting comment concerning your extra curricular activities?" (Eyebrow semaphore) His tone told her she had been had. She slunk back to her seat, and looked it up. The back of her neck got very red, and she never bothered me again. The "botanical epithet" is in every dictionary.

[whistling-e]

Heya, Bill,

I also did a mean thing once to someone who was bullying me.

I had just moved back to KY from AK and was starting into chemistry in the new high school. There were two football players sitting near me. One of them was a really nice guy who was also in my Latin class. The other fellow was continually ragging on the new guy. I don't know why he started in on me - maybe I was just smaller or maybe he just need to vent. But I immediately became the object of his (very poorly executed) ridicule. The fellow's last name was "Duffy," however, which inspired me to return a little of what I had been getting. I turned around so I could talk to both of them, and asked, "Duffy ... hey, is that a Latin name?"

He looked at me and then at his teammate who shrugged his shoulders. "I don't think so. Why?"

"Well ... you know ... DoofUS, DoofEE, DoofUM ..." at which point he jumped up and began chasing me around the room. Meanwhile his buddy was laughing so hard he was almost in tears.

(As I relate this story, I'm thinking it must have happened at the start of the year after I got back.)

Another cute story about the nice teammate. He and I were playing chess and I was taking just about every piece he had. He looked up reproachfully at me and said, "You know, when the masters play, they don't take all of each other's pieces!" at which point I replied "That's because when masters play, they don't givem away."

In fact, these were both pretty decent guys, though.

Thanks for bringing that back to me, Dr. Bill. Words are our friends.

k

But I forget which movie.

Wofa, that would be the 1930 movie "Animal Crackers".

to someone who was bullying me.


"Adversity doesn't develop character; it reveals it."

So true about children. Their secret, I believe, is "maintaining freshness of appreciation".

Kids don't pull their punches. They don't think of them as punches....They are refreshingly honest. Take my niece, who took one look at me when I came in from a walk in the wind and said, "What happened to your hair, Auntie Mary? It's a mess!"

Ah, if only groanups could be so forthright without being insulting.....Perhaps, on the QT, something like, "What happened to your front tooth? It's green!" (for after eating broccoli or spinach) or "What happened to your shoe? it's sprouted toilet paper!"

Or....perhaps not.

You're right about kids being forthright; however, I disagree strongly that they're not being insulting. (That you are mature enough not to take offense at a child's observations is good, but irrelevant.) They are not always trying to be insulting, but very often are.

All you gotta do is watch the he-said/she-said for a little while to realize that very often the kids say things that are truly mean, sometimes knowing full well that it's mean, but very often not realizing it until it's pointed out to them. Further, kids very easily get their feelings hurt. A lot of the turmoil they go through, though, is learning that "Yes, words can be hurtful. I should be careful what I say and how I say it. I know this because I've gotten my own feelings hurt and didn't like." Well, this is the theory anyway. I was always a slow learner.

k

I offer without comment, just to hilight what FF says above:

"Yes, words can be hurtful. I should be careful what I say and how I say it. I know this because I've gotten my own feelings hurt and didn't like." Well, this is the theory anyway.

As FF says, kids can make very shrewdly mocking remarks, yet be very vulnerable to them. Sometimes you get a flash of real humor from small kids. One of my cousins at about age five when I had correctd him said:" I'll cut off your head and throw it in your face!" With a grin that proved he was aware of the incongruity. One time he made palm prints in fresh paint when I was painting his father's house. When I deadpan asked him who had done it, he replied with an equally straight face: "Ella Maud Rowe did it." She was a little African-American girl. When I asked him how he knew she was the culprit, he repllied " 'Cause it was dark, and I couldn't see her."