Read Online Anonyponymous by John Bemelmans Marciano - Free Book Online Page B
Authors: John Bemelmans Marciano
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Pompadour was blamed for the debacle and vilified but today is more fondly remembered as having bequeathed her name to a really silly fifties hairstyle.
pro·crus·te·an adj. Ruthlessly forcing others to conform to one’s own arbitrary standards.
Procrustes ran a hostelry on the side of an empty country road that led to Athens. A conscientious host, he made sure every guest fit his bed exactly; if they were too short for it, Procrustes would have them stretched out on the rack; if they were too tall, he’d lop off part of their legs. The thing was, the bed was adjustable, the game rigged. The Attic hero Theseus turned the tables on Procrustes when he put the criminal to his own bed and, finding him too long, lopped off both his feet and head, permanently closing Procrustes’s peculiar B&B.
pyg·ma·lion n. A svengali without the malevolent intentions.
A rather different mythological character from Procrustes was Pygmalion. According to Ovid, Pygmalion was a sculptor who carved for himself the ideal woman. His statue was so realistic that Pygmalion fell in love to the point of bringing her little gifts and putting a pillow under her head when he lay her down to bed. Pygmalion prayed to Venus for a wife like his ivory girl, and the goddess, understanding what the sculptor really wanted, transformed his creation into flesh and blessed the marriage.
Taking inspiration from Ovid’s tale, George Bernard Shaw’s Pygmalion features the phoneticist Henry Higgins, who makes a bet that he can transform the speech of Cockney flower girl Eliza Doolittle to the point where he can pass her off as a duchess. In the third act, Eliza utters the line, “Walk! Not bloody likely.” At the time, bloody was not a quaint Britishism but something more akin to fuck , replaced with euphemisms like blasted , blooming , and blinking . When the word was used onstage, it caused a sensation. (Shaw even wrote in his stage direction, “[Sensation].”) Pygmalion became a synonym for curse word, and people began to say “not pygmalion likely” and “pygmalion hell!” Though this use had faded from the language, pygmalion, in the sense of a person who attempts to mold the behavior of another, endures.
quis·ling n. The native puppet of an occupying power.
Vidkun Quisling was the son of a pastor and Norway’s premier fascist. He formed the Nasjonal Samling Party in 1933 with the aim of becoming Norway’s first Fører. What he was selling, however, Norwegians weren’t buying; few joined his lonely party, and a measly 2 percent was his best showing at the polls. Frustrated by his countrymen, Quisling met Hitler to ask him if he would please invade his homeland, a request his hero promptly granted. When fascist troops arrived on Norwegian soil in April 1940, Vidkun seized the day and announced a coup over the radio.
Hitler didn’t return his devotee’s ardor, considering Quisling a loser, and removed him from power at once; however, a Reichskommisar proved little more popular than a Quisling, and Vidkun was named premier of the puppet government in 1942, a post he lasted in until his arrest in 1945. He was the same year executed, a feat not easily accomplished in any Scandinavian country, particularly one lacking the death penalty.
The adoption of the word quisling spread fast into languages across the continent and beyond, putting Vidkun in the rarified company of Judas Iscariot and Benedict Arnold as men so vilified that their very name means traitor. Vidkun, however, is the only one obscure enough to have had his name decapitalized.
rit·zy adj. High-class; fancy.
César Ritz was just another country bumpkin who came to the big city to work as a waiter, but unlike the rest of us he put his heart into it. Already by age nineteen “César le rapide” had risen to be maître d’hôtel at the posh Chez Voisin in Paris, where his legend as tastemaker to the wealthy began. It grew exponentially as he managed hotels across belle
pro·crus·te·an adj. Ruthlessly forcing others to conform to one’s own arbitrary standards.
Procrustes ran a hostelry on the side of an empty country road that led to Athens. A conscientious host, he made sure every guest fit his bed exactly; if they were too short for it, Procrustes would have them stretched out on the rack; if they were too tall, he’d lop off part of their legs. The thing was, the bed was adjustable, the game rigged. The Attic hero Theseus turned the tables on Procrustes when he put the criminal to his own bed and, finding him too long, lopped off both his feet and head, permanently closing Procrustes’s peculiar B&B.
pyg·ma·lion n. A svengali without the malevolent intentions.
A rather different mythological character from Procrustes was Pygmalion. According to Ovid, Pygmalion was a sculptor who carved for himself the ideal woman. His statue was so realistic that Pygmalion fell in love to the point of bringing her little gifts and putting a pillow under her head when he lay her down to bed. Pygmalion prayed to Venus for a wife like his ivory girl, and the goddess, understanding what the sculptor really wanted, transformed his creation into flesh and blessed the marriage.
Taking inspiration from Ovid’s tale, George Bernard Shaw’s Pygmalion features the phoneticist Henry Higgins, who makes a bet that he can transform the speech of Cockney flower girl Eliza Doolittle to the point where he can pass her off as a duchess. In the third act, Eliza utters the line, “Walk! Not bloody likely.” At the time, bloody was not a quaint Britishism but something more akin to fuck , replaced with euphemisms like blasted , blooming , and blinking . When the word was used onstage, it caused a sensation. (Shaw even wrote in his stage direction, “[Sensation].”) Pygmalion became a synonym for curse word, and people began to say “not pygmalion likely” and “pygmalion hell!” Though this use had faded from the language, pygmalion, in the sense of a person who attempts to mold the behavior of another, endures.
quis·ling n. The native puppet of an occupying power.
Vidkun Quisling was the son of a pastor and Norway’s premier fascist. He formed the Nasjonal Samling Party in 1933 with the aim of becoming Norway’s first Fører. What he was selling, however, Norwegians weren’t buying; few joined his lonely party, and a measly 2 percent was his best showing at the polls. Frustrated by his countrymen, Quisling met Hitler to ask him if he would please invade his homeland, a request his hero promptly granted. When fascist troops arrived on Norwegian soil in April 1940, Vidkun seized the day and announced a coup over the radio.
Hitler didn’t return his devotee’s ardor, considering Quisling a loser, and removed him from power at once; however, a Reichskommisar proved little more popular than a Quisling, and Vidkun was named premier of the puppet government in 1942, a post he lasted in until his arrest in 1945. He was the same year executed, a feat not easily accomplished in any Scandinavian country, particularly one lacking the death penalty.
The adoption of the word quisling spread fast into languages across the continent and beyond, putting Vidkun in the rarified company of Judas Iscariot and Benedict Arnold as men so vilified that their very name means traitor. Vidkun, however, is the only one obscure enough to have had his name decapitalized.
rit·zy adj. High-class; fancy.
César Ritz was just another country bumpkin who came to the big city to work as a waiter, but unlike the rest of us he put his heart into it. Already by age nineteen “César le rapide” had risen to be maître d’hôtel at the posh Chez Voisin in Paris, where his legend as tastemaker to the wealthy began. It grew exponentially as he managed hotels across belle
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