Thesaurus Day
Lynn Johnston could not have delivered a much better snarking opportunity from today’s For Better or For Worse strip than the April list of synonyms for being drunk. Admittedly, this is a repeat joke from a much earlier For Better or For Worse strip, but I was not snarking back then. A long time ago, I used to rely heavily on Roget’s Thesaurus for synonyms, but with the advent of on-line reference books, I must admit that it is rare when I crack open a dictionary anymore. Particularly today, when virtually every April’s Real Blog character took to using lists of synonyms for conversation. My characters were doing a lot of cutting and pasting from on-line thesauruses.
The exceptions to these were when Howard used synonymous phrases for female orgasm in his post. The thesaurus was not as good for listing sexual euphemisms, so I had to scour sex slang websites for the terms. Even then, the vast majority of synonymous phrases for orgasm were definitely male, which I guess tells you something linguistically about the relative importance of the other. I grew up in an age where the prevailing thought was that a man was not successful with a woman if she did not get off at least once and preferable more than once. I do not know if that is the underlying motivation with the modern male generation, but I could tell that the bulk of female orgasm lingo (at least the ones that had origin dates associated with it on the website) started during the 1980s. There was virtually nothing dated prior to that point, which I suppose means that there may be a whole language of female sex slang that was lost or women just didn’t talk about those things (which I doubt).
The second exception was Constable Paul Wright’s series of synonyms for drinking using the Ojibway language. My free Ojibway-English translator did a fine job of finding more than one term for drinking too much or being drunk, which unfortunately backs up the concept that drunkenness is a problem among the Ojibway. I tried to do a general internet search for Ojibway drinking slang and found numerous articles talking about the problems with alcoholism among 1st Nations folks. If I can believe the statistics quoted in those articles, the leading cause of death among Ojibway people is alcoholism or alcoholism-related. If the good constable is a real straight arrow and anxious to turn around this particular aspect of his kinsfolk, then he may actually take a negative view to Liz’s hangover. But, the character development of him in the strip is so shallow at this point, i.e. we don’t know how seriously he takes his job or his people; I opted to play him as being forgiving of Liz’s intoxication. He is in love with her after all.
Tomorrow’s strip appears to a continuation of Liz’s hangover. It was kind of funny for one day, but after the vacuum and the zits sequences, I fear we may actually have an entire week of hangover jokes. Anyway, this strip was of interest because it appears that we finally have an explanation of why Dr. John Patterson has no close friends. Apparently, his former close friends enjoyed partying heavily over the holidays and Dr. John stopped enjoying that as much. I actually have some sympathy for this position. Shortly after our first child was able to walk, we went to a Memorial Day party at our neighbour’s house (who did not have kids, and her house was not child-proofed at all, i.e. lots of glass breakables in easy-to-reach locations). We spent most of the time at the party, guarding the neighbour’s house from our child and the other neighbours’ children, while the neighbours who had the kids got drunker and drunker and drunker. After a time, it appeared that there was no other purpose to the party than to get drunk, and as much as I do not like being a martyr, keeping track of their children hell-bent on destruction while they got more sloshed did not make for a very fun party for us. Afterwards, I recollected that there was a time when I went to parties where the purpose of the party was mainly to drink, but it was like I had outgrown that phase of my life after I had a kid. Unlike, Dr. John, however, I have since established friends, that also have kids, and we occasionally go to parties with them, and have a pretty good time without getting sloshed. The question in my mind is why hasn’t the good doctor done this? Why isn’t he going out with Elly to a party where the Poiriers or the Nichols are present? Surely April is old enough to stay at home by herself now. Of course, the answer is that if John and Elly did those things, then they would not be able to take the judgmental, "no partying is good" moral high ground with Liz when she is hung over. I am losing sympathy for John now.
The exceptions to these were when Howard used synonymous phrases for female orgasm in his post. The thesaurus was not as good for listing sexual euphemisms, so I had to scour sex slang websites for the terms. Even then, the vast majority of synonymous phrases for orgasm were definitely male, which I guess tells you something linguistically about the relative importance of the other. I grew up in an age where the prevailing thought was that a man was not successful with a woman if she did not get off at least once and preferable more than once. I do not know if that is the underlying motivation with the modern male generation, but I could tell that the bulk of female orgasm lingo (at least the ones that had origin dates associated with it on the website) started during the 1980s. There was virtually nothing dated prior to that point, which I suppose means that there may be a whole language of female sex slang that was lost or women just didn’t talk about those things (which I doubt).
The second exception was Constable Paul Wright’s series of synonyms for drinking using the Ojibway language. My free Ojibway-English translator did a fine job of finding more than one term for drinking too much or being drunk, which unfortunately backs up the concept that drunkenness is a problem among the Ojibway. I tried to do a general internet search for Ojibway drinking slang and found numerous articles talking about the problems with alcoholism among 1st Nations folks. If I can believe the statistics quoted in those articles, the leading cause of death among Ojibway people is alcoholism or alcoholism-related. If the good constable is a real straight arrow and anxious to turn around this particular aspect of his kinsfolk, then he may actually take a negative view to Liz’s hangover. But, the character development of him in the strip is so shallow at this point, i.e. we don’t know how seriously he takes his job or his people; I opted to play him as being forgiving of Liz’s intoxication. He is in love with her after all.
Tomorrow’s strip appears to a continuation of Liz’s hangover. It was kind of funny for one day, but after the vacuum and the zits sequences, I fear we may actually have an entire week of hangover jokes. Anyway, this strip was of interest because it appears that we finally have an explanation of why Dr. John Patterson has no close friends. Apparently, his former close friends enjoyed partying heavily over the holidays and Dr. John stopped enjoying that as much. I actually have some sympathy for this position. Shortly after our first child was able to walk, we went to a Memorial Day party at our neighbour’s house (who did not have kids, and her house was not child-proofed at all, i.e. lots of glass breakables in easy-to-reach locations). We spent most of the time at the party, guarding the neighbour’s house from our child and the other neighbours’ children, while the neighbours who had the kids got drunker and drunker and drunker. After a time, it appeared that there was no other purpose to the party than to get drunk, and as much as I do not like being a martyr, keeping track of their children hell-bent on destruction while they got more sloshed did not make for a very fun party for us. Afterwards, I recollected that there was a time when I went to parties where the purpose of the party was mainly to drink, but it was like I had outgrown that phase of my life after I had a kid. Unlike, Dr. John, however, I have since established friends, that also have kids, and we occasionally go to parties with them, and have a pretty good time without getting sloshed. The question in my mind is why hasn’t the good doctor done this? Why isn’t he going out with Elly to a party where the Poiriers or the Nichols are present? Surely April is old enough to stay at home by herself now. Of course, the answer is that if John and Elly did those things, then they would not be able to take the judgmental, "no partying is good" moral high ground with Liz when she is hung over. I am losing sympathy for John now.
posted by howard at 9:50 PM
1 Comments:
Laura (do you prefer this or qnjones?),
My experience is a little different from yours with your parents.
My parents divorced when I was 11, so the aspect of them socializing together was somewhat lost. My dad was a university faculty chairman and most of his friends when I was younger were other university professors with kids the same age as I or my sisters. With these persons, he still keeps in close contact via e-mail or other methods (usually work-related conventions) and has done so for decades. My step-mom however, has always been of the dinner party variety and wherever she has lived, she has established friends quickly and regularly throws parties in their home with these friends invited.
My mother had strong church connections (church organist) and also established friendships from selling Mary Kay, teaching school, and joining an adult women's sorority. She still keeps up with all these folks and has gone to holiday parties with them all her life.
That is my perspective, so that is why I find John and Elly's lack of socializing mysterious. It sounds like they are much more like your parents, but I do not know if I can ascribe their behaviour as being associated with a particular generation, given the example of my parents.
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