Dinkum's definitions
(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. 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).
"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
Get the Kentucky Fried Chickenmug. ' 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).
--- 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).
' 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
Get the clitorismug. A failure to communicate occurs when the lines-of-communication are so broken down that you might as well be attempting to convey information not by means of the spoken word, but rather by some obscure and arcane non-verbal dialect comprised solely of farts and tap dancing.
'The story . . . was entitled "The Dancing Fool." Like so many Kilgore Trout stories, it was about a tragic failure to communicate.
'Here was the plot: A flying saucer creature named Zog arrived on Earth to explain how wars could be prevented and how cancer could be cured. He brought the information from Margo, a planet where the natives conversed by means of farts and tap dancing.
'Zog landed at night in Connecticut. He had no sooner touched down than he saw a house on fire. He rushed into the house, farting and tap dancing, warning the people about the terrible danger they were in. The head of the house brained Zog with a golfclub.'
-- From Kurt Vonnegut's 1973 novel "Breakfast of Champions" -- Chapter 5 (page 58).
'Here was the plot: A flying saucer creature named Zog arrived on Earth to explain how wars could be prevented and how cancer could be cured. He brought the information from Margo, a planet where the natives conversed by means of farts and tap dancing.
'Zog landed at night in Connecticut. He had no sooner touched down than he saw a house on fire. He rushed into the house, farting and tap dancing, warning the people about the terrible danger they were in. The head of the house brained Zog with a golfclub.'
-- From Kurt Vonnegut's 1973 novel "Breakfast of Champions" -- Chapter 5 (page 58).
by Dinkum September 2, 2013
Get the failure to communicatemug. {n.} The degree to which a male possesses the capacity for raising a flaccid, favorite organ to an upright or distended positon (e.g., a man's "sleeping" penis or -- as is the case with a male sage grouse or frigatebird -- an uninflated gular sac).
EXAMPLE:
' A unique physical feature of male great frigate birds was also bound to attract the attention of immature human males concerned with erectile performances of their own sex organs. Each male great frigate bird at mating time tried to attract the attention of females by inflating a bright red balloon at the base of his throat. At mating time, a typical rookery when viewed from the air resembled an enormous party for human children, at which every child had received a red balloon. The {Galápagos} island would in fact be paved with male great frigate birds with their heads tilted back, their qualifications as husbands inflated by their lungs to the bursting point—while, overhead, the females wheeled.
' One by one the females would drop from the sky, having chosen this or that red balloon.
" After Mary Hepburn showed her film about the great frigate birds, some student, . . . almost invariably a male, was sure to ask, sometimes clinically, sometimes as a comedian, sometimes bitterly, hating and fearing women: "Do the females always try to pick the biggest ones?"
' So Mary was ready with a reply: "To answer that, we would have to interview female great frigate birds, and no one has done that yet, so far as I know. Some people have devoted their lives to studying them, though, and it is their opinion that the females are in fact choosing the red balloons which mark the best nesting sites. " '
-- From Kurt Vonnegut's 1985 novel "Galápagos" -- Ch. 20 (p. 114).
' A unique physical feature of male great frigate birds was also bound to attract the attention of immature human males concerned with erectile performances of their own sex organs. Each male great frigate bird at mating time tried to attract the attention of females by inflating a bright red balloon at the base of his throat. At mating time, a typical rookery when viewed from the air resembled an enormous party for human children, at which every child had received a red balloon. The {Galápagos} island would in fact be paved with male great frigate birds with their heads tilted back, their qualifications as husbands inflated by their lungs to the bursting point—while, overhead, the females wheeled.
' One by one the females would drop from the sky, having chosen this or that red balloon.
" After Mary Hepburn showed her film about the great frigate birds, some student, . . . almost invariably a male, was sure to ask, sometimes clinically, sometimes as a comedian, sometimes bitterly, hating and fearing women: "Do the females always try to pick the biggest ones?"
' So Mary was ready with a reply: "To answer that, we would have to interview female great frigate birds, and no one has done that yet, so far as I know. Some people have devoted their lives to studying them, though, and it is their opinion that the females are in fact choosing the red balloons which mark the best nesting sites. " '
-- From Kurt Vonnegut's 1985 novel "Galápagos" -- Ch. 20 (p. 114).
by Dinkum August 25, 2013
Get the erectile performancemug. ' To be thoroughly equipped with weapons. ' -- Wiktionary.
To visualize this, just imagine a boarding party of pirates leaping onto the deck of the merchant ship they mean to plunder, each pirate with a dirk clenched firmly between his teeth, each armed with a cutlass and a brace or two of flintlock pistols. (The real-life pirate Blackbeard further jazzed things up by twisting the ends of his bushy black beard into tendrils, which he then dipped into hot tallow. And just before he leaped from his ship onto the hapless merchantman, he would set his improvised candles on fire. The ignited candles transmogrified his face into the terrifying nightmare spectacle of the arch-demon escaped from Hell).
To visualize this, just imagine a boarding party of pirates leaping onto the deck of the merchant ship they mean to plunder, each pirate with a dirk clenched firmly between his teeth, each armed with a cutlass and a brace or two of flintlock pistols. (The real-life pirate Blackbeard further jazzed things up by twisting the ends of his bushy black beard into tendrils, which he then dipped into hot tallow. And just before he leaped from his ship onto the hapless merchantman, he would set his improvised candles on fire. The ignited candles transmogrified his face into the terrifying nightmare spectacle of the arch-demon escaped from Hell).
EXAMPLE:
' She was already dressed for the party at the Country Club, already dominating a distinguished company she had yet to join.
' As she handed Paul his cocktail, he felt somehow inadequate, bumbling, in the presence of her beautiful assurance . . .
' The expression "armed to the teeth" occurred to Paul as he looked at her over his glass. With an austere dark gown that left her tanned shoulders and throat bare, a single bit of jewelry on her finger, and very light make-up, Anita had successfully combined the weapons of sex, taste, and an aura of masculine competence.
' She quieted, and turned away under his stare. Inadvertently, he'd gained the upper hand. He had somehow communicated the thought that had bobbed up in his thoughts unexpectedly: that her strength and poise were no more than a mirror image of his own importance, an image of the power and self-satisfaction the manager of the Illium Works could have, if he wanted it. In a fleeting second she became a helpless, bluffing little girl in his thoughts, and he was able to feel real tenderness toward her. '
-- From Kurt Vonnegut's 1952 novel "Player Piano" -- Chapter IV (page 35).
' She was already dressed for the party at the Country Club, already dominating a distinguished company she had yet to join.
' As she handed Paul his cocktail, he felt somehow inadequate, bumbling, in the presence of her beautiful assurance . . .
' The expression "armed to the teeth" occurred to Paul as he looked at her over his glass. With an austere dark gown that left her tanned shoulders and throat bare, a single bit of jewelry on her finger, and very light make-up, Anita had successfully combined the weapons of sex, taste, and an aura of masculine competence.
' She quieted, and turned away under his stare. Inadvertently, he'd gained the upper hand. He had somehow communicated the thought that had bobbed up in his thoughts unexpectedly: that her strength and poise were no more than a mirror image of his own importance, an image of the power and self-satisfaction the manager of the Illium Works could have, if he wanted it. In a fleeting second she became a helpless, bluffing little girl in his thoughts, and he was able to feel real tenderness toward her. '
-- From Kurt Vonnegut's 1952 novel "Player Piano" -- Chapter IV (page 35).
by Dinkum August 26, 2013
Get the armed to the teethmug. EXAMPLE:
' But now Midland City looked unfamiliar and frightening to Dwayne. "Where am I?" he said.
' He even forgot that his wife Celia had committed suicide, for instance, by eating Drano --- a mixture of sodium hydroxide and aluminum flakes, which was meant to clear drains. Celia became a small volcano, since she was composed of the same sorts of substances which commonly clogged drains. '
--- 1973. KURT VONNEGUT. "Breakfast of Champions, or, Goodbye Blue Monday." Chapter 6 (Page 65).
' But now Midland City looked unfamiliar and frightening to Dwayne. "Where am I?" he said.
' He even forgot that his wife Celia had committed suicide, for instance, by eating Drano --- a mixture of sodium hydroxide and aluminum flakes, which was meant to clear drains. Celia became a small volcano, since she was composed of the same sorts of substances which commonly clogged drains. '
--- 1973. KURT VONNEGUT. "Breakfast of Champions, or, Goodbye Blue Monday." Chapter 6 (Page 65).
by Dinkum February 15, 2014
Get the Dranomug.