Dinkum's definitions
(1) ' n. Any of various poisonous American snakes, of genera Crotalus and Sistrurus, having a rattle at the end of its tail. ' -- Wiktionary
(2) According to Kurt Vonnegut, the rattlesnake is a creature so inimical to humankind that it makes you wonder about the vaunted benevolence of the Creator of the Universe.
(2) According to Kurt Vonnegut, the rattlesnake is a creature so inimical to humankind that it makes you wonder about the vaunted benevolence of the Creator of the Universe.
EXAMPLE:
' Dwayne mimicked her cruelly in a falsetto voice . . . He looked about as pleasant and relaxed as a coiled rattlesnake now. It was his bad chemicals, of course, which were compelling him to look like that . . .
' The Creator of the Universe had put a rattle on its {the rattlesnake's} tail. The Creator had also given it front teeth which were hypodermic syringes filled with deadly poison.
' Sometimes I wonder about the Creator of the Universe. '
-- From Kurt Vonnegut's 1973 novel "Breakfast of Champions" -- Chapter 15 (page 159 - 160).
' Dwayne mimicked her cruelly in a falsetto voice . . . He looked about as pleasant and relaxed as a coiled rattlesnake now. It was his bad chemicals, of course, which were compelling him to look like that . . .
' The Creator of the Universe had put a rattle on its {the rattlesnake's} tail. The Creator had also given it front teeth which were hypodermic syringes filled with deadly poison.
' Sometimes I wonder about the Creator of the Universe. '
-- From Kurt Vonnegut's 1973 novel "Breakfast of Champions" -- Chapter 15 (page 159 - 160).
by Dinkum August 28, 2013
Get the rattlesnakemug. (Interrogative, colloq.) African-American English for "Why", or more emphatically, "What for?"
NOTE: The expression "the right word" is the English equivalent of the French "mot juste" -- "n. The perfectly appropriate word or phrase for the situation." -- Wiktionary.
NOTE: The expression "the right word" is the English equivalent of the French "mot juste" -- "n. The perfectly appropriate word or phrase for the situation." -- Wiktionary.
EXAMPLE:
' "I guess that isn't the right word," she said. She was used to apologizing for her use of language. She had been encouraged to do a lot of that in school. Most white people in Midland City were insecure when they spoke, so they kept their sentences short and their words simple, in order to keep embarrassing mistakes to a minimum. Dwayne certainly did that. Patty certainly did that.
' This was because their English teachers would wince and cover their ears and give them flunking grades and so on whenever they failed to speak like English aristocrats before the First World War. Also: they were told that they were unworthy to speak or write their language if they couldn't love or understand incomprehensible novels and plays about people long ago and far away, such as "Ivanhoe".
' The black people would not put up with this. They went on talking English every which way. They refused to read books they couldn't understand -- on the grounds they couldn't understand them. They would ask such impudent questions as, "Whuffo I want to read no "Tale of Two Cities"? Whuffo?
-- From Kurt Vonnegut's 1973 novel "Breakfast of Champions" -- Chapter 15 (page 138).
' "I guess that isn't the right word," she said. She was used to apologizing for her use of language. She had been encouraged to do a lot of that in school. Most white people in Midland City were insecure when they spoke, so they kept their sentences short and their words simple, in order to keep embarrassing mistakes to a minimum. Dwayne certainly did that. Patty certainly did that.
' This was because their English teachers would wince and cover their ears and give them flunking grades and so on whenever they failed to speak like English aristocrats before the First World War. Also: they were told that they were unworthy to speak or write their language if they couldn't love or understand incomprehensible novels and plays about people long ago and far away, such as "Ivanhoe".
' The black people would not put up with this. They went on talking English every which way. They refused to read books they couldn't understand -- on the grounds they couldn't understand them. They would ask such impudent questions as, "Whuffo I want to read no "Tale of Two Cities"? Whuffo?
-- From Kurt Vonnegut's 1973 novel "Breakfast of Champions" -- Chapter 15 (page 138).
by Dinkum August 28, 2013
Get the Whuffo?mug. A Christian saint from Egypt (ca. 251–356). One of the "Desert Fathers," St. Anthony is considered by some to be "The Father of All Monks." The "temptation of Saint Anthony" has long been a favorite subject of Catholic art.
EXAMPLE:
' I made a . . . duplicate on my Formica tabletop of a painting by Rabo Karabekian, entitled "The Temptation of Saint Anthony."
' . . . I had Beatrice Keedsler say to Rabo Karabekian, "This is a dreadful confession, but I don't even know who Saint Anthony was. Who was he, and why should anybody have wanted to tempt him?"
' I don't know, and I would hate to find out," said Karabekian . . .
' . . . Saint Anthony, incidentally, was an Egyptian who founded the very first monastery, which was a place where men could live simple lives and pray often to the Creator of the Universe, without the distractions of ambition and sex and yeast excrement { Vonnegut's neologism for "alcohol" }. Saint Anthony himself sold everything he had when he was young, and he went out into the wilderness and lived alone for twenty years.
' He was often tempted during all those years of perfect solitude by visions of good times he might have had with food and men and women and children and the marketplace and so on. '
--- 1973. KURT VONNEGUT. "Breakfast of Champions, or, Goodbye Blue Monday."Chapter 19 (Pages 207, 209, 211 - 212).
' I made a . . . duplicate on my Formica tabletop of a painting by Rabo Karabekian, entitled "The Temptation of Saint Anthony."
' . . . I had Beatrice Keedsler say to Rabo Karabekian, "This is a dreadful confession, but I don't even know who Saint Anthony was. Who was he, and why should anybody have wanted to tempt him?"
' I don't know, and I would hate to find out," said Karabekian . . .
' . . . Saint Anthony, incidentally, was an Egyptian who founded the very first monastery, which was a place where men could live simple lives and pray often to the Creator of the Universe, without the distractions of ambition and sex and yeast excrement { Vonnegut's neologism for "alcohol" }. Saint Anthony himself sold everything he had when he was young, and he went out into the wilderness and lived alone for twenty years.
' He was often tempted during all those years of perfect solitude by visions of good times he might have had with food and men and women and children and the marketplace and so on. '
--- 1973. KURT VONNEGUT. "Breakfast of Champions, or, Goodbye Blue Monday."Chapter 19 (Pages 207, 209, 211 - 212).
by Dinkum February 27, 2014
Get the Saint Anthonymug. A guy who derives pleasure from running around sniffing girls' bicycle seats. (Not to be confused with a "twerp").
"Do you know what a twerp is? When I was in Shortridge High School in Indianapolis 65 years ago, a twerp was a guy who stuck a set of false teeth up his butt and bit the buttons off the back seats of taxicabs. (And a snarf was a guy who sniffed the seats of girls' bicycles.)
-- Kurt Vonnegut, in "A Man Without a Country".
-- Kurt Vonnegut, in "A Man Without a Country".
by Dinkum August 13, 2013
Get the snarfmug. (1) ' The national anthem of the United States, based on the poem, "Defence of Fort McHenry", written in 1814 by the 35-year-old lawyer and amateur poet, Francis Scott Key, who witnessed the British Royal Navy's Chesapeake Bay bombardment of Fort McHenry during the War of 1812. The poem -- set to the tune of a popular British song, and renamed "The Star-Spangled Banner" -- soon became a well-known American patriotic song. With a range of one and a half octaves, it is known for being difficult to sing. Although the poem has four stanzas, only the first is commonly sung today. "The Star-Spangled Banner" was recognized for official use by the Navy in 1889, and by President Woodrow Wilson in 1916, and was made the national anthem by a congressional resolution on March 3, 1931 (46 Stat. 1508, codified at 36 U.S.C. § 301), which was signed by President Herbert Hoover. ' -- Wikipedia
(2) According to Kurt Vonnegut, the American national anthem is "pure balderdash", "gibberish sprinkled with question marks". (Which still doesn't prevent me from waxing sentimental over "Old Spangles", but then again I remain fond of ""Waltzing Matilda" -- once called "the unofficial national anthem of Australia" -- the jolly swagman's song now axed by the newly prim-and-proper Ozzies). -- Dinkum
(2) According to Kurt Vonnegut, the American national anthem is "pure balderdash", "gibberish sprinkled with question marks". (Which still doesn't prevent me from waxing sentimental over "Old Spangles", but then again I remain fond of ""Waltzing Matilda" -- once called "the unofficial national anthem of Australia" -- the jolly swagman's song now axed by the newly prim-and-proper Ozzies). -- Dinkum
EXAMPLE:
' Trout and Hoover were citizens of the United States of America, a country which was called America for short. This was their national anthem, which was pure balderdash, like so much they were expected to take seriously:
' "O, say can you see by the dawn's early light
What so proudly we hailed at the twilight's
last gleaming,
Whose broad stripes and bright stars,
thru the perilous fight
O'er the ramparts we watched were so
gallantly streaming?
And the rockets' red glare, the bombs
bursting in air,
Gave proof through the night that our
flag was still there.
O, say does that star-spangled banner
yet wave
O'er the land of the free and the home
of the brave?"
' There were one quadrillion nations in the Universe, but the nation Dwayne Hoover and Kilgore Trout belonged to was the only one with a national anthem which was gibberish sprinkled with question marks. '
-- From Kurt Vonnegut's 1973 novel "Breakfast of Champions" -- Chapter 1 (pages 7 - 8).
' Trout and Hoover were citizens of the United States of America, a country which was called America for short. This was their national anthem, which was pure balderdash, like so much they were expected to take seriously:
' "O, say can you see by the dawn's early light
What so proudly we hailed at the twilight's
last gleaming,
Whose broad stripes and bright stars,
thru the perilous fight
O'er the ramparts we watched were so
gallantly streaming?
And the rockets' red glare, the bombs
bursting in air,
Gave proof through the night that our
flag was still there.
O, say does that star-spangled banner
yet wave
O'er the land of the free and the home
of the brave?"
' There were one quadrillion nations in the Universe, but the nation Dwayne Hoover and Kilgore Trout belonged to was the only one with a national anthem which was gibberish sprinkled with question marks. '
-- From Kurt Vonnegut's 1973 novel "Breakfast of Champions" -- Chapter 1 (pages 7 - 8).
by Dinkum August 20, 2013
Get the Star-Spangled Bannermug. A person suffering from or subject to coprolalia, the obsessive and uncontrollable use of scatological language. (Compare with such like back-formations as insomnia and insomniac; hypochondria and hypochondriac; coprophagia and coprophagiac; coprophilia and coprophiliac).
The "jailin' it" droopy-drawers doofus was a COPROLALIAC: he suffered from "the Black man's disease", the utter inability to assemble even the simplest English sentence without lavishly larding his utterances with a plethora of "fuckers", "motherfuckers", "motherfucking", . . . and, well, you get the picture. It was almost as if "motherfucker" was the only word he knew and he was bound and determined to make the most of it -- as a noun, a verb, an adjective, an adverb, an imperative, and, of course, as an interjection! Yeah, good ol' Droopy Drawers, he's cheesin' it as he's sleazin' it -- he's a real kool kitty, a regular "copro-cat".
by Dinkum September 2, 2013
Get the Coprolaliacmug. DEFINITIONS:
(1) Any toothless, crazy old bag lady who stumbles down the street yelling at passersby. She specializes in speaking to people no one else can see, sincerely believing all the while that she is completely capable of simultaneously addressing a "parliament" of owls, a "murder" of crows, AND a congress of crocodiles.
(2) By extension, any government official or self-appointed "authority" who says you must do something when they have only some toothless law or ordinance to back up their words. (Better do what I say, or I'll gum you to death!)
(1) Any toothless, crazy old bag lady who stumbles down the street yelling at passersby. She specializes in speaking to people no one else can see, sincerely believing all the while that she is completely capable of simultaneously addressing a "parliament" of owls, a "murder" of crows, AND a congress of crocodiles.
(2) By extension, any government official or self-appointed "authority" who says you must do something when they have only some toothless law or ordinance to back up their words. (Better do what I say, or I'll gum you to death!)
EXAMPLES:
(1) We met a crackhead in Cleveland who went by the name "Queen No-teef-ah."
(2) Last time I had a toothache I couldn't see a dentist. I had to get it pulled down at Killer County where they used what looked like the bone from a rat's rib to pry it out my mouth. Had two pulled since then, so now I feel like Queen No-teef-ah.
(3) Durham county has laws on the books requiring that all citizens and businesses recycle -- but seldom if ever are these laws enforced. So, without enforcement, these laws remain toothless, like crazy ol' Queen No-teef-ah. What do they plan to do, gum us to death?
(1) We met a crackhead in Cleveland who went by the name "Queen No-teef-ah."
(2) Last time I had a toothache I couldn't see a dentist. I had to get it pulled down at Killer County where they used what looked like the bone from a rat's rib to pry it out my mouth. Had two pulled since then, so now I feel like Queen No-teef-ah.
(3) Durham county has laws on the books requiring that all citizens and businesses recycle -- but seldom if ever are these laws enforced. So, without enforcement, these laws remain toothless, like crazy ol' Queen No-teef-ah. What do they plan to do, gum us to death?
by Dinkum March 5, 2014
Get the Queen No-teef-ahmug.