– In which Dorn tries on some new descriptors.
This post is called part 1, not because I have more to say on the subject that I’m saving for later–it’s debatable whether I’ve got anything worth saying now on the subject–but because it seems like a topic that could lend itself well to revisiting. It’s my short list of words or phrases that seem like they would contribute more to the English language if they were used as expletives or epithets. My rule for eligibility is that they have to be real words or phrases that I actually heard said or saw written recently.
My list is pretty short, but hey, this is only part 1!
1. “Horseradish mayonnaise“. Stuff and nonsense. (source: Deb Naylor, reporting on her lunch at a Netherlands restaurant, April 2019)
Used in a sentence: “Your argument for global warming is just so much horseradish mayonnaise.”
This phrase has the same meaning, and falls in the same class of food-based epithets, as “gammon and spinach”, which found its way into the chorus of the nursery rhyme, “A Frog He Would A-Wooing Go”. I found this 1885 drawing of Froggie, Mr. Rat and Miss Mousie from the rhyme, where they actually seem to be dining on roly-poly, gammon (ham) and spinach, so I’m not sure if the phrase was actually being used epithetically in that poem.
(I grew up with a different version of the rhyme, Frog went a-courtin’ on an old Burl Ives record of folk songs and nursery rhymes. I used to love that record, but that song didn’t have “gammon and spinach” in it.)
My first acquaintance with “gammon and spinach” clearly used as an epithet (decrying the basing of work choices on anything other than gain) was probably in the 1951 B&W Christmas Carol movie starring Alister Sim. When I was growing up, this was the scariest, and I thought the best, Christmas Carol version available on TV.
“Gammon and spinach” has pretty much fallen out of the English lexicon, as food epithets have evolved over the years. I’m sure it’s a direct antecedent of the theme song of the 1990s show Frazier, “Tossed salad and scrambled eggs”.
In “horseradish mayonnaise”, the next generation can now carry on the noble tradition of food epithets. And because when my good friend Deb Naylor reported this phrase, she helpfully provided the Dutch translation (mierikswortelmayonaise), it is ready-made to be used as a bilingual epithet when needed.
2. “Epithetic”. Worthy of being described by a (derogatory) epithet. (source: the dictionary, looking up the definition of “epithet”, the other day)
Used in a sentence: “Our state representative is so epithetic!”
The official meaning of epithetic is just the adjective form of the word “epithet”, but it sounds so much like a fusion of epithet, pathetic, and apathetic that I think it deserves to be an epithet in itself.
The antonym of epithetic, meaning being so blameless as to be hard to apply a derogatory epithet to, would be “hypo-epithetical”.
When trying to thing of a sentence to use for an example of this epithet, I found that all the subjects that came to mind were from the Federal government. This may say something negative about my own feelings. Or it may simply be that our current governing officials are all just epithetic.
3. “Honey nut cluster crunch”. A disastrously mishandled situation or undertaking. (source: a store brand breakfast cereal box, June 2019)
Used in a sentence: “The initiative at work quickly degenerated into a total honey nut cluster crunch.”
Military types will recognize “cluster crunch” as a G-rated version of the term for an operation in which multiple things have gone horribly wrong. The military term, as I understand it, is sometimes abbreviated “Charlie-Foxtrot”, with a more serious disaster termed a “Royal” (charlie-foxtrot).
In the 20 years I spent working for the Navy, I learned to respect the military’s mastery of epithets, especially their way with acronym-epithets. Many of these, such as SNAFU, FUBAR and BOHICA, have worked their way into mainstream language.
4. “St. Lucy’s eyeballs“. I’m shocked! (source: Kathleen describing a piece of jewelry, April 2019)
Used in a sentence: “St. Lucy’s eyeballs! You nearly gave me a heart attack!”
This expletive falls in the category containing saint evocations, which includes “Great Caesar’s ghost!” (from the 1950s Superman TV show), “St. Dan in a pan!” (from Serafina, a very good YA book about a girl trying to negotiate a peace between humans and dragons), and the doubly-euphemized “Jiminy Christmas!” (heard in the 1937 movie Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, and again in 1939’s The Wizard of Oz). It is also related in some way to the expletive “My eyes! my eyes!” (as heard on Friends, and a million other places).
St. Lucy is a legitimate saint in the Catholic canon. Her name can mean “light” or “lucid”, and she is the patron saint of the blind. Icons often portrayed St. Lucy with her identifying attribute, her disembodied eyes. Her eyeballs are a motif represented in jewelry, and even in recipes. If “St. Lucy’s eyeballs!” hasn’t been used as an expletive before now, it really should have been!
That’s my list…. so far!
-Dorn
7/13/2019