Dinkum's definitions
(1) In Greek mythology, the shirt given to Hercules after the poisonous blood of the slain centaur Nessus had been smeared on it .
(2) ' Used allusively, to denote any destructive or expiatory force or influence.' -- Oxford English Dictionary {This dictionary is far and away the very best, the most complete dictionary of the English language. See www.oed.com }.
{From the Oxford English Dictionary}:
Nessus, n.
{ ‘ Used allusively in compounds and phrases (as Nessus-robe, Nessus shirt; Nessus' shirt, shirt of Nessus), to denote any destructive or expiatory force or influence. }
Etymology: < Nessus (classical Latin Nessus, ancient Greek Νέσσος), the name of the centaur slain by Hercules, in classical mythology, whose blood later poisoned Hercules after he was given a garment smeared with it to wear.
(2) ' Used allusively, to denote any destructive or expiatory force or influence.' -- Oxford English Dictionary {This dictionary is far and away the very best, the most complete dictionary of the English language. See www.oed.com }.
{From the Oxford English Dictionary}:
Nessus, n.
{ ‘ Used allusively in compounds and phrases (as Nessus-robe, Nessus shirt; Nessus' shirt, shirt of Nessus), to denote any destructive or expiatory force or influence. }
Etymology: < Nessus (classical Latin Nessus, ancient Greek Νέσσος), the name of the centaur slain by Hercules, in classical mythology, whose blood later poisoned Hercules after he was given a garment smeared with it to wear.
EXAMPLES:
(1) "A shirt with NIKE on it -- OK; a shirt with Nessus on it -- not OK. No Nessus shirt for me." -- Dinkum
(2) Citations collected in the incomparable Oxford English Dictionary:
1616 SHAKESPEARE. "Antony & Cleopatra" (1623) iv. xiii. 43 The shirt of Nessus is vpon me.
1664 THOMAS KILLIGREW. "Parsons Wedding" v. iv, in Comedies & Trag. 153 Take it; would 'twere Nessus his shirt, for you and your Poets sake.
1835 THOMAS CARLYLE. "Lett. to his Wife" (1953) 108 It is now almost my sole rule of life: to clear myself of Cants and formulas, as of poisonous Nessus' shirts.
1905 S. J. WEYMAN. "Starvecrow Farm" xxxii. 297 Remorse is the very shirt of Nessus. It is of all mental pains the worst.
1924 ROBERT GRAVES. "Mock Beggar Hall" 10 The Nessus-robe that beauties wear, Burning away their beauty.
1957 EDITH SITWELL. "Coll. Poems" 414 Then the heart that was the Burning-Bush May change to a Nessus-robe of flame.
1980 PATRICK O'BRIAN. "Surgeon's Mate" vi. 177 A Nessus' shirt might be more apt.
(1) "A shirt with NIKE on it -- OK; a shirt with Nessus on it -- not OK. No Nessus shirt for me." -- Dinkum
(2) Citations collected in the incomparable Oxford English Dictionary:
1616 SHAKESPEARE. "Antony & Cleopatra" (1623) iv. xiii. 43 The shirt of Nessus is vpon me.
1664 THOMAS KILLIGREW. "Parsons Wedding" v. iv, in Comedies & Trag. 153 Take it; would 'twere Nessus his shirt, for you and your Poets sake.
1835 THOMAS CARLYLE. "Lett. to his Wife" (1953) 108 It is now almost my sole rule of life: to clear myself of Cants and formulas, as of poisonous Nessus' shirts.
1905 S. J. WEYMAN. "Starvecrow Farm" xxxii. 297 Remorse is the very shirt of Nessus. It is of all mental pains the worst.
1924 ROBERT GRAVES. "Mock Beggar Hall" 10 The Nessus-robe that beauties wear, Burning away their beauty.
1957 EDITH SITWELL. "Coll. Poems" 414 Then the heart that was the Burning-Bush May change to a Nessus-robe of flame.
1980 PATRICK O'BRIAN. "Surgeon's Mate" vi. 177 A Nessus' shirt might be more apt.
by Dinkum August 24, 2013
Get the Nessus shirt mug.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.An early Christian saint and martyr (died c. 288). The Roman emperor Diocletian had Sebastian shot full of arrows. When this failed to kill him, and he continued to be critical of Diocletian, the emperor had him clubbed to death.
EXAMPLE:
' Mary Alice was smiling at a picture of Saint Sebastian, by the Spanish painter El Greco . . . Saint Sebastian was a Roman soldier who had lived seventeen hundred years before . . . He had secretly become a Christian when Christianity was against the law.
' And somebody squealed on him. The Emperor Diocletian had him shot by archers. The picture Mary Alice smiled at with such uncritical bliss showed a human being who was so full of arrows that he looked like a porcupine.
'Something almost nobody knew about Saint Sebastian, incidentally, since painters liked to put so many arrows into him, was that he survived the incident. He actually got well.
' He walked about Rome praising Christianity and bad-mouthing the Emperor, so he was sentenced to death a second time. He was beaten to death by rods.
' And so on. '
--- 1973. KURT VONNEGUT. "Breakfast of Champions, or, Goodbye Blue Monday." Chapter 19 (Pages 217 - 218).
' Mary Alice was smiling at a picture of Saint Sebastian, by the Spanish painter El Greco . . . Saint Sebastian was a Roman soldier who had lived seventeen hundred years before . . . He had secretly become a Christian when Christianity was against the law.
' And somebody squealed on him. The Emperor Diocletian had him shot by archers. The picture Mary Alice smiled at with such uncritical bliss showed a human being who was so full of arrows that he looked like a porcupine.
'Something almost nobody knew about Saint Sebastian, incidentally, since painters liked to put so many arrows into him, was that he survived the incident. He actually got well.
' He walked about Rome praising Christianity and bad-mouthing the Emperor, so he was sentenced to death a second time. He was beaten to death by rods.
' And so on. '
--- 1973. KURT VONNEGUT. "Breakfast of Champions, or, Goodbye Blue Monday." Chapter 19 (Pages 217 - 218).
by Dinkum February 27, 2014
Get the Saint Sebastian mug.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 communicate mug.(1) ' Mineral rights are property rights that confer upon the holder the right to exploit an area for the minerals it harbors. Ownership of mineral rights is the right of the owner to exploit, mine, and/or produce any or all of the minerals lying below the surface of the property. The mineral estate of the land includes all organic and inorganic substances that form a part of the soil.' -- Wikipedia.
(2) Selling a mining company the rights to whatever minerals might lie beneath your land is a "Shylock's bargain" because in selling your mineral rights you agree that the mining company has the legal right to destroy all your property above the ground while the miners dig down to where the minerals supposedly are. If only William Shakespeare's Portia* were a real woman lawyer, she would have gotten the miners' case thrown out of court lickety-split -- as is only right and proper, considering how idiotic and truly insane the notion of "mineral rights" really is. And yet, it unbelievably is the law of this great country of ours, where EVERYONE is said be equal, NOT just the billionaire owners of mining companies. -- Dinkum
* Portia is a character in Shakespeare's play "Merchant of Venice".
PLOT SUMMARY: Shylock makes Antonio a loan which says: if Antonio is unable to repay, Shylock may take a pound of Antonio's flesh. Shylock takes Antonio to court; if Shylock wins, he intends to cut out enough of Antonio's heart as would satisfy the terms of the loan -- and kill Antonio.
(2) Selling a mining company the rights to whatever minerals might lie beneath your land is a "Shylock's bargain" because in selling your mineral rights you agree that the mining company has the legal right to destroy all your property above the ground while the miners dig down to where the minerals supposedly are. If only William Shakespeare's Portia* were a real woman lawyer, she would have gotten the miners' case thrown out of court lickety-split -- as is only right and proper, considering how idiotic and truly insane the notion of "mineral rights" really is. And yet, it unbelievably is the law of this great country of ours, where EVERYONE is said be equal, NOT just the billionaire owners of mining companies. -- Dinkum
* Portia is a character in Shakespeare's play "Merchant of Venice".
PLOT SUMMARY: Shylock makes Antonio a loan which says: if Antonio is unable to repay, Shylock may take a pound of Antonio's flesh. Shylock takes Antonio to court; if Shylock wins, he intends to cut out enough of Antonio's heart as would satisfy the terms of the loan -- and kill Antonio.
EXAMPLE:
' "Don't matter if you care," the old miner said, "if you don't own what you care about." He pointed out that the mineral rights to the entire county in which they sat were owned by the Rosewater Coal and Iron Company, which acquired these rights soon after the end of the Civil War. "The law says," he went on, "when a man owns something under the ground and he wants to get at it, you got to let him tear up anything between the surface and what he owns."
' The truth was that Rosewater . . . had been among the principal destroyers of the surface and the people of West Virginia. '
-- From Kurt Vonnegut's 1973 novel "Breakfast of Champions" -- Chapter 14 (page 125 - 126).
* Portia's closing argument at trial: In court, Antonio's lawyer is a woman in lawyerly disguise, who just happens to be Portia, friend of Antonio. Portia deftly appropriates Shylock's argument for 'specific performance', and points out that the contract only allows Shylock to remove the flesh, not the "blood", of Antonio. Thus, if Shylock were to shed any drop of Antonio's blood, his "lands and goods" would be forfeited under Venetian laws. Further damning Shylock's case, she tells him that he must cut precisely one pound of flesh, no more, no less; she advises him that "if the scale do turn, But in the estimation of a hair, Thou diest and all thy goods are confiscate."
' "Don't matter if you care," the old miner said, "if you don't own what you care about." He pointed out that the mineral rights to the entire county in which they sat were owned by the Rosewater Coal and Iron Company, which acquired these rights soon after the end of the Civil War. "The law says," he went on, "when a man owns something under the ground and he wants to get at it, you got to let him tear up anything between the surface and what he owns."
' The truth was that Rosewater . . . had been among the principal destroyers of the surface and the people of West Virginia. '
-- From Kurt Vonnegut's 1973 novel "Breakfast of Champions" -- Chapter 14 (page 125 - 126).
* Portia's closing argument at trial: In court, Antonio's lawyer is a woman in lawyerly disguise, who just happens to be Portia, friend of Antonio. Portia deftly appropriates Shylock's argument for 'specific performance', and points out that the contract only allows Shylock to remove the flesh, not the "blood", of Antonio. Thus, if Shylock were to shed any drop of Antonio's blood, his "lands and goods" would be forfeited under Venetian laws. Further damning Shylock's case, she tells him that he must cut precisely one pound of flesh, no more, no less; she advises him that "if the scale do turn, But in the estimation of a hair, Thou diest and all thy goods are confiscate."
by Dinkum September 6, 2013
Get the mineral rights mug.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 Drano mug.{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
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