|
Tuesday, 23 September 2008
Cry fowl?
 The piece in yesterday's Times on the caducity of words brought this response from a John Burscough of Brigg, Lincs: My late uncle, a Roman Catholic priest, every morning picked an obscure word at random from the dictionary, then tried to sneak it into as many conversations as possible throughout the day. He was finally rumbled after attempting to shoehorn the word "spatchcock" into a sermon on humility. He should have done it the other way round. Posted on 09/23/2008 7:09 AM by Mary Jackson
Comments
23 Sep 2008
 Hugh Fitzgerald
Errata Sheet: For "He was finally rumbled after attempting to shoehorn the word "spatchcock" into a sermon on humility." Read "He was finally rumbled after attempting to inkhorn the word "surquidry" into a sermon on humility." 23 Sep 2008
reactionry Spatchcock, Crosspatch & Dan Patch
Or: Flat As A Spatchcock
Or: Spatchcocks of a Father Frock Together
From Poe's The Tell-Tale Chicken Heart: "Nevermore!" quoth the spatchcock.
Handyman: I can just spatchcock that tell-tale crack.
Star Trek: Engineering, this is the bridge. Engage the spatchcock!
Engineering: Spatchcock me through to the bridge
Hubert Horatio Hornblower: Open the spatchcocks!!
Lorena Bobbit: Let's see the docs spatchcock this one.
The Fraternity of Man: Don't spatchcock that joint, my friend, Pass it over to me.
To a cranky child: Don't be such a spatchcock!
To a Sergeant: Just spatchcock the barracks.
French Cuisine: Spatchcock Dan Patch
Vladimir Nabokov's unpublished A Crazy Quilty Of Spatchcock Designs & Disguises
The favorite French cuisine of Stanley Kubrick and Anthony Burgess: A Spatchcock l' Orange
Pirate Pervert: Want to see wot's under me spatchcock?*
Julius Caesar in Romeo & Coquelet: Cry "Spatchcock!" and let slip the poussins of war.
From South Africa's Alan Paton: Cry, The Beloved Spatchcock
French Cinema: Kissing Cousin Cuisine Poussin (betcha' thought I wuz gonna' say, "spatchcock")
"A bird prepared for cooking by flattening"? We all calls that Road Kill.
Made famous by Rush Limbaugh and perfect for shoehorning sticky food recrement into the trash compactor: Spatchcock City**: * Hat tip to Bill Cosby for his old intoxicated Lone Ranger bit: Want to peek under my mask?
** You're spot on if you spatchcocked the misrepresentation
That Roman Catholic priest, although already celibate, should have been despatchcocked.
I seem to be at spatchcock purposes; about time to disengage.
23 Sep 2008
reactionry Architeuthisphiles Of The World, Unite!****
Or: The Surquidry of Squiddity
Or: Fibs of HisNibs*
(That there Hugh shore ain't no mere greenhorn or cheeky little printer's devil.)
Mr. Fitzgerald can call upon his vasty deep of knowledge, and others, upon denizens of the vasty deep** for recycling, and so can any man. A writer allegedly attempted to shoehorn an entry for Architeuthis into Wikipedia, but due to a slip of the nib, his piece on the squid, The Quiddity of Squiddity*** was left as a squib.
* Nibtip to Mary Jackson
** Hat tip to Shakespeare and Hornblower And The Hotspur
**** Hat tip to Arty 23 Sep 2008
Mary Jackson That's six quid you owe me. 23 Sep 2008
reactionry Re "Road Kill" -oops; I almost stepped in "Why did the spatchcock cross the road?" 23 Sep 2008
reactionry "six quid"?
As in squid pro quo?
And for those Portnoys, who in suffering the refrigerator madness of Kto kogo Piblokto, complain of a desire for a piece of liver or cod piece:
In for a pene, in for a pound of calamari |