Orinoco Womble (tidy bag and all)’s Comments (group member since Sep 20, 2013)

Orinoco Womble (tidy bag and all)’s comments from the Net Work Book Club group.

Do they have particular phrases that "sound" OK and actually mean "move on you dozy berk"?
In the old days before the blow dryer, it was "Oh I can't go out with you tonight (this weekend, whatever)...I have to wash my hair." Which really did entail sitting still for an hour or more under a bubble dryer, in those days. Either that, or sitting near a heating vent/gas fire combing through it, waiting for it to dry.

Okay...yeah, so it's what I thought. The dark corners, nooks and crannies. The "short cuts" no one in their right mind would take.

This isn't a "love," just a question. And I may have asked it before but this thread is too long to go back and check in detail. Anyway.

Where are "the back streets"? I remember an ad for the old Persuaders! TV series that went, "From the French Riviera to the back streets of Naples..." blablabla. Would that be innercity alleyways, or the outskirts?

mrbooks wrote: "I'm confused (I don't know why I'm with you)"

That's a new one! I knew you'd have some good ones if you weighed in on this MrBooks, cause we're all ladies participating so far, and what we hear is from the fellows. What do the women say?

"I need to find myself." (I need to find myself a new hookup, usually.)

This is not a joke, but a curious coincidence, if it is one. I've been reading some of Agatha Christie's less well known (today) short stories from the 1920s. In one from 1926 ("The Rajah's Emerald"), she has a character named--wait for it--James Bond.

The stories were published in popular magazines of the day, now long defunct. I wonder if Ian Fleming read it and retained the name?

Top hate and source of mockery: "It just wasn't meant to be." (Yeah. You're an adult and a university graduate, but you let "fate" make your decisions for you.)

Okay, let's have a little fun. Let's talk about those "Standard Dating Phrases" that say one thing and mean another.

Like: "It's not you, it's me." (Oh, yeah. It's you. It is sooo you.)

"I just need some space." (Without you in it.)

"I'm not angry with you or anything." (Riiight.)

"We'll do this again." (No we won't. Ever.)

"I'll call you." (I've erased your number from my mobile and blocked out the memory of your name from my brain.)

"I think we should see other people." (Because, like, I already am.)

I'm sure you can think of some more!!

I tell my students that, when they have trouble with the arbitrary, arrogant university profs Seville U is notorious for throughout Europe. I tell them, five years from now you will be living your life, doing whatever you do...and this tiny arrogant person will still be in the same office, correcting papers and thinking he's tall if he chops people's heads off.

Oh, she'll throw him the diplodocus legbone and any scraps that are going!

I don't know if I've posted this here, but on a forum about 5 years ago a young school teacher told me there is "no point" to reading Dickens or Austen, etc "because they're old."

!!!!!!


And this person is teaching our children.

Sounds like something Wilma would whip up for Fred on a Sunday!

Drives me crazy when here on GR someone reviews a title written in the 1950s or the 1970s (or even the 90s) and talks about how "dated" the text is--simply because there are no cellphones or technology! I quote "Many older references are thrown around throughout the story." Yeah, well the fact that the book was written 45 years ago may have something to do with that, ya think??

And in ten years' time, the "cosy fiction" written today will have "dated" even faster, because there's not much more there than surface.

Here endeth the rant.

Also, if you know your history, the Cretans were known as liars and creeps right back in the days of the New Testament. I believe Paul actually quotes the common saying in those days, "All Cretans are liars." So maybe all Cretans were cretins!!

Cut him some slack--you don't see the word "cretin" written so much any more.

HRHDogMatix wrote: "Being English, I don't pretend to understand your strange American ways, but I thought that calling a female "Miz" was a form of respect, I mean, in the films set in the Southern states, the slaves..."

It is in the South, yes...but there's a whole different culture north of the Mason Dixon Line. Nowadays feminists or whatever insist on being Miz instead of Miss or Mrs, esp if they are divorced. My brother's first ex insisted on being Miz O'Keefe and she is from Boston! Of course now she has remarried she may have decided to be Mrs again.

Yes but "Miss plus name" or rather "Miz Anna", "Miz Ruth" or "Miz Groovy" at least among white Southerners puts you in the grandma class!

I remember the big deal in the media when Jimmy Carter was elected and they felt they had to explain why people called his mother Miz Lillian (spelled Miss Lillian in the press). Since my father was an Arkie, we were all like, "Yeah, so?" LOL

Oh, I don't know, Groovy, I remember being adressed as "mama" by young black guys who wanted to chat me up. They thought it would charm me, I guess.

Now, I remember when I was working as a translator at a women's conference and the lady who was in charge introduced me to her kids as "Miss Anna." When you get called "Miss--" by a southern person, you know you are no longer young.

"Mick" is a term for an Irishman, thought in some parts to be stupid--kind of like Polacks back home. Although I did have a friend of Polish extraction in college who, when he heard some guys cracking Polack jokes asked them, "Say, can either of you speak Polish?"
"No."
"So how's it feel to be dumber than a Polack?"

This was also during the days of Lec Walesa and the Polish pope, so it had more bite.

Does a dinosaur have a tiger in his tank?
No, just fossil fuels.

I just made that joke up, I'm sure it shows but I thought I'd tri-lo-bite.