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Dinkum's definitions

snarf

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".
by Dinkum August 13, 2013
mugGet the snarfmug.

Star-Spangled Banner

(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
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).
by Dinkum August 20, 2013
mugGet the Star-Spangled Bannermug.

military school

A military academy. Or, as more loosely used, any kind of strict educational institution where, you -- the conscriptee -- can expect to receive lots and lots of discipline. Enrollment in such a hellhole is something parents (especially fathers) use to threaten their unruly or nonconformist sons.
EXAMPLE:

' Bunny was sent away to military school, an institution devoted to homicide and absolutely humorless obedience, when he was only ten years old. Here is why: He told { his father } Dwayne that he wished he were a woman instead of a man, because what men did was so often cruel and ugly.

' Listen: Bunny Hoover went to Prairie Military Academy for eight years of uninterrupted sports, buggery and Fascism. Buggery consisted of sticking one's penis in somebody else's asshole or mouth, or having it done to one by somebody else. Fascism was a fairly popular political philosophy which made sacred whatever nation and race the philosopher happened to belong to. It called for an autocratic, centralized government, headed up by a dictator. The dictator had to be obeyed, no matter what he told somebody to do. '

--- 1973. KURT VONNEGUT. "Breakfast of Champions, or, Goodbye Blue Monday." Chapter 17 (Pages 179 - 180).
by Dinkum February 24, 2014
mugGet the military schoolmug.

charm

' A scheme for making strangers like and trust a person immediately. '

--- 1973. KURT VONNEGUT. "Breakfast of Champions, or, Goodbye Blue Monday." Chapter 2 (Page 20).
EXAMPLE:

' In 1972, Trout . . . made his living as an installer of aluminum combination storm windows and screens. He had nothing to do with the sales end of the business -- because he had no charm. Charm was a scheme for making strangers like and trust a person immediately, no matter what the charmer had in mind.

' Dwayne Hoover had oodles of charm.

' I can have oodles of charm when I want to.

' A lot of people have oodles of charm. '

--- 1973. KURT VONNEGUT. "Breakfast of Champions, or, Goodbye Blue Monday." Chapter 2 (Page 20).
by Dinkum December 7, 2013
mugGet the charmmug.

Breakfast of Champions

(1) The trademarked slogan for the General Mills breakfast cereal "Wheaties", a product that has been marketed since 1924.

(2) The title of Kurt Vonnegut's 1973 novel "Breakfast of Champions, or Goodbye Blue Monday".

(3) A ironically humorous expression that is used to indicate a food or beverage that isn't very good for you.
EXAMPLE of senses (1) and (2) :

' The expression "Breakfast of Champions" is a registered trademark of General Mills, Inc., for use on a breakfast cereal product. The use of the identical expression as the title for this book is not intended to indicate an association with or sponsorship by General Mills, nor is it intended to disparage their fine products.'

-- Kurt Vonnegut, being ironical on page 1 of the Preface to his 1973 novel "Breakfast of Champions", a tongue-in-cheek admonition he repeats verbatim in Chapter 18 (on page 195).

EXAMPLE of sense (3):

' I now had Bonnie MacMahon, bring more yeast excrement to . . . Karabekian. Karabekian's drink was a Beefeater's dry martini with a twist of lemon peel, so Bonnie said to him, "Breakfast of Champions."

' "That's what you said when you brought me my first martini," said Karabekian.

' "I say that every time I give anybody a martini," said Bonnie.

' Doesn't that get tiresome?" said Karabekian. "Or maybe that's why people found cities in Godforsaken places like this -- so that they can make the same jokes over and over again, until the Bright Angel of Death stops their mouths with ashes."

' "I just try to cheer people up," said Bonnie. "If that's a crime, I never heard about it till now. I'll stop saying it from now on. I beg your pardon. I did not mean to give offense." '

-- From Kurt Vonnegut's 1973 novel "Breakfast of Champions", Chapter 19 (pages 208 - 211).
by Dinkum September 2, 2013
mugGet the Breakfast of Championsmug.

Kentucky Fried Chicken

KFC (Kentucky Fried Chicken) is a fast food restaurant chain which specializes in fried chicken. The first "Kentucky Fried Chicken" franchise opened in 1952. KFC was founded by Harland Sanders. By branding himself as "Colonel Sanders", Harland Sanders became a legendary figure of American cultural history, and his image remains prominent in KFC advertising. The company is famous for the "It's finger lickin' good" slogan, which originated in the 1950s. The trademark on that slogan expired in the United States in 2006. In 2011, the "finger lickin' good" slogan was dropped in favor of "So good".
EXAMPLE:

"Here was the problem: Dwayne wanted Francine to love him for his body and soul, not for what his money could buy. He thought Francine was hinting that he should buy her a Colonel Sanders Kentucky Fried Chicken franchise, which was a scheme for selling fried chicken.

"A chicken was a flightless bird . . . The idea was to kill it and pull out all its feathers, and cut off its head and feet and scoop out its internal organs -- and then chop it into pieces and fry the pieces, and put the pieces in a waxed paper bucket with a lid on it . . ."

-- From Kurt Vonnegut's 1973 novel "Breakfast of Champions" -- Chapter 15 (page 157 - 158).
by Dinkum September 3, 2013
mugGet the Kentucky Fried Chickenmug.

clitoris

' The clitoris is the sweet spot of the entire female apparatus. The jewel of the Nile! So threatening is the mighty clitoris that it must be relegated to a backseat to the vagina in a play that has nothing to do with female parts! The vagina is nothing more than a baby-making tube that has nothing to do with real sexual pleasure in a woman! '

--- 2012. Roseanne Barr. "Roseannearchy: Dispatches from the Nut Farm." (Page 126).
EXAMPLE:

' She was always doing loyal things like that, always rooting for her man, always rooting for Dwayne.

' And Dwayne tried to reciprocate in little ways. For instance, he had been reading articles and books on sexual intercourse recently. There was a sexual revolution going on in the country, and women were demanding that men pay more attention to women's pleasure during sexual intercourse, and not just think of themselves. The key to their pleasure, they said, and scientists backed them up, was the clitoris, a tiny meat cylinder which was right above the hole in women where men were supposed to stick their much larger cylinders.

' Men were supposed to pay more attention to the clitoris, and Dwayne had been paying a lot more attention to Francine's, to the point where she said he was paying too much attention to it. This did not surprise him. The things he had read about the clitoris had said that this was a danger---that a man could pay too much attention to it.

' So, driving out to the Quality Motor Court that day, Dwayne was hoping that he would pay exactly the right amount of attention to Francine's clitoris. '

--- 1973. KURT VONNEGUT. "Breakfast of Champions, or, Goodbye Blue Monday." Chapter 15 (Pages 150 - 151).
by Dinkum March 4, 2014
mugGet the clitorismug.

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