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#12570 12/13/00 08:13 PM
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>>>how about SWMBF (she who must be followed).<<<

It's a good thing you included an explanation with this teD. When I first saw it my interpretation was Single White Male, Black Female. (swf, swm, etc being common abbreviations in personal adds in the newspaper.)


#12571 12/18/00 01:54 PM
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swf, swm, etc being common abbreviations in personal adds in the newspaper.

And here I thought you were happily married. Does Mr Xara know?


#12572 12/18/00 03:27 PM
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>>>And here I thought you were happily married. Does Mr Xara know? <<<

quite happily married, thank you. i used to read them occasionally just for the humour of it. people say some funny things in the personals.

colour me clueless, but i still haven't figured out what SWMBO means.


#12573 12/18/00 03:35 PM
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SWMBO

...and as a fully-paid up member of this three ring circus you think the personals have some oddities, xara?!!

I think the phrase "She Who Must Be Obeyed" is an Arthur Daly-ism, from a popular 1970s(?) Brit TV show called Minder where Arthur is a 'dodgy geezer' who wheels and deals on the fringes of complete criminality but kow-tows to this wonderful unseen Mama Ex Machina.


http://www.tales.ndirect.co.uk/COLE.HTML

#12574 12/18/00 04:08 PM
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>>>...and as a fully-paid up member of this three ring circus you think the personals have some oddities, xara?!!<<<

that's why i said i used to read them. i've moved on to better things!

>>>Mama Ex Machina.<<<
seems as though i miss quite a bit not watching brit tv. i'd have to watch more old brit sitcoms that anything else to catch all the subtle humour that flies around this place. aah well...


#12575 12/18/00 05:28 PM
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Maverick thought: I think the phrase "She Who Must Be Obeyed" is an Arthur Daly-ism, from a popular 1970s(?) Brit TV show called Minder where Arthur is a 'dodgy geezer' who wheels and deals on the fringes of complete criminality but kow-tows to this wonderful unseen Mama Ex Machina.

No, Arfur Daley used to refer to "'er indoors". SWMBO came from Rumpole of the Bailey a legal sitcom of the same period. Rumpole either referred to his wife as Mrs Rumpole, or "she who must be obeyed".





The idiot also known as Capfka ...
#12576 12/19/00 09:19 AM
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Hmmm...

CK says: SWMBO came from Rumpole of the Bailey a legal sitcom of the same period. Rumpole either referred to his wife as Mrs Rumpole, or "she who must be obeyed".

We've had this somewhere else, of course, if only I could find the reference, and as I noted, dear ol Lumpore (as the author John Mortimer is sometimes referred to in parts of South East Asia), got the reference himself from H Rider Haggard's classic late 19th century novel She, in which the 'she' in the title was short for She-who-must-be-obeyed, which is what her subjects called her.

cheer

the sunshine warrior


#12577 12/19/00 12:50 PM
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shanks suggests: dear ol Lumpore ... got the reference himself from H Rider Haggard's classic late 19th century novel She, in which the 'she' in the title was short for She-who-must-be-obeyed, which is what her subjects called her.

And he may well have gotten it from the same source as Professor Gay Robins (http://www2.cc.emory.edu/HART/directory.htm#robins) who claims that it was a title of The Women of the Palace, i.e., the Pharaoh's Mother and his Principal Wife (http://www.per-sekhmet.org/perankh/royal_wmn.html).


#12578 12/20/00 09:26 AM
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And he may well have gotten it from the same source as Professor Gay Robins who claims that it was a title of The Women of the Palace, i.e., the Pharaoh's Mother and his Principal Wife.

Excellent! Thanks for that. The story goes back further and further. The Egyptians, of course, being a boot-strapping civilisation, I presume we can expect to find no precedents to their usage?


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