What's in Anna's Vocabulary?
I like to play with words, and I like to know what I'm talking about, so when I hear a new word or phrase that strikes my fancy, I tend to practice with it for a while to learn how best to use it. Therefore, at any given time I have a couple or words or phrases that I use rather more often than I should. These are some of my current catchphrases:
- Marvelous. I picked this one up after hearing sports journalist Stephen A. Smith debate someone on the appropriateness of Serena Williams' tennis outfits. Smith's opponent (whose identity I've forgotten) suggested that Williams was making it harder for herself to be taken seriously as an athlete. Smith answered, "I don't care. I don't care. Why? Because she looks...maaaaarvelous." His hormone-laden understatement was suprisingly powerful. I only use "marvelous" with that same sleazy inflection.
- Horizontal Bop Surprise. I picked this one up from a sports journalist, too. Mike was idling around some sportswriter message board when he stumbled upon this gem. Someone had started a thread complaining about sportswriters' hours and how his law-student girlfriend was always asleep by the time he got home from work. His post was immediately stormed by sportwriters telling him to stop bragging about being in the 0.00034% of sportswriters that have someone to sleep with. Then someone else posted the advice, "Women who have to get up at 7 in the morning love it when you wake them up with a little horizontal bop surprise."
- Bioimmunoassay. The Ag Center holds monthly seminars, and the last one featured a speaker from the Entomology department who's developing a Bioimmunoassay for Dioxins (possibly the most poisonous stuff on the planet). I like to use the word a lot cause it makes me part of the intellectual elite.
- Skip to the trolls, bitch. This phrase was part of my brother's analysis of the Lord of the Rings books. He said there were a lot of songs, and every time they started another one he wanted to say to Tolkien, "Skip to the trolls, bitch!" Another application: "Mike, this is a blog posting, not your memoirs. Skip to the trolls, bitch."
2 Comment(s):
- Posted by
Rich at March 06, 2005 2:42 PM |
Permanent Link to this Comment - Posted by Rich at March 06, 2005 2:43 PM |
Permanent Link to this Comment
I object to the philosophy behind the phrase "Skip the trolls, bitch." The trolls are awesome. Unfortunately, they barely appear in the LoTR trilogy. They do make a lengthy appearance in the hobbit, though. Maybe he was referring to this book. If I was to skip any part, it would be Tom Bombadil. "Skip Tom Bombadil, bitch."
Woops, I was mistaken about your blog entry. Skip to the trolls is a good philosophy.
