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. (1) ' n. A large wading bird with long legs and a long beak of the family Ciconiidae. ' -- Wiktionary
(2) ' According to European folklore, the stork is responsible for bringing babies to new parents. The legend is very ancient, but was popularised by a 19th-century Hans Christian Andersen story called "The Storks". '
-- Wikipedia { en.wikipedia.org/wiki/White_Stork#Storks_and_childbirth }
(2) ' According to European folklore, the stork is responsible for bringing babies to new parents. The legend is very ancient, but was popularised by a 19th-century Hans Christian Andersen story called "The Storks". '
-- Wikipedia { en.wikipedia.org/wiki/White_Stork#Storks_and_childbirth }
EXAMPLE:
' Harry's wife, Grace, was stretched out on a chaise longue . . . She was smoking a small cigar in a long holder made from the legbone of a stork. A stork was a large European bird, about half the size of a Bermuda Ern. Children who wanted to know where babies came from were sometimes told that they were brought by storks. People who told their children such a thing felt that their children were too young to think intelligently about {sex}.
' And there were actually pictures of storks delivering babies on birth announcements and in cartoons and so on, for children to see . . .
' Dwayne Hoover and Harry LeSabre saw pictures like that when they were very little boys. They believed them, too. '
-- From Kurt Vonnegut's 1973 novel "Breakfast of Champions" -- Chapter 15 (pages 162 - 163).
' Harry's wife, Grace, was stretched out on a chaise longue . . . She was smoking a small cigar in a long holder made from the legbone of a stork. A stork was a large European bird, about half the size of a Bermuda Ern. Children who wanted to know where babies came from were sometimes told that they were brought by storks. People who told their children such a thing felt that their children were too young to think intelligently about {sex}.
' And there were actually pictures of storks delivering babies on birth announcements and in cartoons and so on, for children to see . . .
' Dwayne Hoover and Harry LeSabre saw pictures like that when they were very little boys. They believed them, too. '
-- From Kurt Vonnegut's 1973 novel "Breakfast of Champions" -- Chapter 15 (pages 162 - 163).
by Dinkum August 28, 2013
Get the storkmug. A common delusion afflicting the self-styled "nice girl" (who may be either male or female), which consists of the mistaken belief that he/she is soooo superior to the "great unwashed" masses that he/she is excused from the indignity of being subject to the same natural bodily functions as the rest of us. One specific sense of the word denotes sexual frigidity -- i.e., "nice girls" don't have orgasms; they only submit to sexual intercourse in order to fulfill their duty to God and Country.
The girl acts as though she had a Tastee Freez dispenser up her butt. Pretends the thought of having sex has never entered her mind. Yeah, right, and nice girls shit ice cream.
by Dinkum August 12, 2013
Get the Nice girls shit ice cream.mug. A voluble, involuntary speech impairment that the political animal inflicts upon his hearing audience. When asked for the truth, he invariably responds with bullshit -- i.e., "fartspeak," which is usually not so elevated a form of discourse as to qualify either as "bullshit artistry" or as "spin doctoring."
"This is a guy who does congressional hearings, said Cessy. "I'm surprised he's letting it get under his skin."
"It's because he's lying," said Reuben.
"Oh, come on. Like they {{ the military brass }} don't lie to Congress."
"They {{ these military asshats }} spin to Congress."
"Well, he's spinning this, too, isn't he? 'I'm sure it's just a misunderstanding.' That's FARTSPEAK for 'I said it, you jerk, but you weren't supposed to tell.'"
"'Fartspeak'?"
"That's what we called it on the hill {{ Capitol Hill }}, said Cessy.
-- Orson Scott Card,
in "Empire", Chapter 10 -- "Fair and Balanced",
on page 140.
"It's because he's lying," said Reuben.
"Oh, come on. Like they {{ the military brass }} don't lie to Congress."
"They {{ these military asshats }} spin to Congress."
"Well, he's spinning this, too, isn't he? 'I'm sure it's just a misunderstanding.' That's FARTSPEAK for 'I said it, you jerk, but you weren't supposed to tell.'"
"'Fartspeak'?"
"That's what we called it on the hill {{ Capitol Hill }}, said Cessy.
-- Orson Scott Card,
in "Empire", Chapter 10 -- "Fair and Balanced",
on page 140.
by Dinkum July 1, 2013
Get the fartspeakmug. 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.