A Post-Post

At the Southampton Writers Conference this last July, while playing pitch-and-putt golf on a small private course giving directly on the Atlantic Ocean, Billy Collins and his co-faculty members kept up the kind of banter that those of us who don’t play golf have heard about and maybe envied–a little like poker banter, of which Mr. Collins is also a master. Clubs, looking like a possible flush: “Members only.” Jacks are “Jacquelines.” Etc. On the ultra-green pitch-and-putt gem, it was “Circle of friendship” to signal that the ball of another player lay close enough to the hole to allow the player to forgo tapping it in. But the best–and most incessant–was “That’s what she said,” in response to just about anything.  “It’s a little short,” “That’s a long one,” “It’s getting hot,” “Can you move your ball,” “Well-played,” “I have to improve my approach,” and so on.

These kinds of repeated jokes have three stages. 1. They’re very funny. 2. They’re tiresome. 3. They’re very funny again.

But an equally if not more amusing verbal byplay came from the creeping group realization–and then the overemployment–of the fact that doubled nouns are spreading virally in our language. “My son has his first job. His first job-job, I should say.” “He’s a friend but not, you know, a friend-friend.”  “I like e-books OK but I still prefer book-books.”  “I’d like something to drink but not a real drink-drink.” The same three stages applied to this collective overuse, especially as it spread to adjectives, as in “This is scary enough but not quite scary-scary.” And “You’re hungry but are you hungry-hungry?”

Where did this come from, I wonder.  (That’s what she said.)