Challenging Word of the Week: pecksniffian

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Pecksniffian

(pek SNIF ee un) adjective



This wonderfully expressive word is applicable to any hypocrite endeavoring to impress upon his fellows that he is a person of great benevolence or high moral standards. It comes from a character named Seth Pecksniff, in Martin Chuzzlewit (another great name) by English novelist Charles Dickens (1812-1870), who described Pecksniff as having “…affection beaming in one eye, and calculation shining out of the other.” The American writer and critic H.L. Mencken (1880-1956), in The American Language, called Philadelphia “the most pecksniffian of cities.” He was quite the inventor of words; for example, bibliobibulus, menaing “one who gets drunk on books” (biblio-, as in bibliophile, plus bibulous, addicted to drik): “There are some people who read too much: the bibliobibuli. I know some who are constantly drunk on books, as other men who are drunk on whiskey or religion.” This passage is from his Mencken Chrestomathy.





From the book, “1000 Most Challenging Words” by Norman W. Schur, ©1987 by the Ballantine Reference Library, Random House.



My example: The candidate’s call for impeachment was a blatantly pecksniffian move to energize potential supporters.



I post a weekly “Challenging Words” definition to call more attention to this delightful book and to promote interesting word usage in the blogosphere. I challenge other bloggers to work the current word into a post sometime in the coming week. If you manage to do so, please leave a comment or a link to where I can find it. Previous words in this series can be found under the appropriate Category heading in the right-hand sidebar.

That left a mark

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Sometimes humility hits you right between the eyes.

Yesterday I went up into our garage attic to get a few small things I needed. I get into the attic by pulling down a panel in the ceiling to reveal a segmented ladder/stairs, the bottom third of which pivots so as to reach the garage floor. After retrieving my items I descended again with these carefully balanced in my left hand.

Refolding the ladder and closing the attic is usually a two-handed operation, but I did’t want to set anything down so I used my right hand to refold the bottom section, then shifted my grip to the bottom of the panel so I could hoist it back in place. In so doing, however, the lower section of the ladder began to swing out and down again. That was not what I wanted to see, but I quickly repositioned my right hand so that it grasped one of the steps in the ladder.

Unfortunately, in my haste, I grabbed one of the fixed steps in the ladder, leaving the hinged section to continue its downward arc, which I witnessed up close and personal-like as the lowest step gracefully impacted my forehead, smack between my eyebrows — which for the next few days at least will look like one long eyebrow.

Sweet magic 8-ball, I should have known that would happen. I seem to have escaped serious damage (there’s a reason why the forehead bone is the thickest one in your skull) but my brain hurt the rest of the day. Serves it right for falling down on the job.

(Create your own Einstein message here. H/T Uncle Ben.)

I saw the light

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Via The Llama Butchers, by way of CalTech Girl, who got it from LadyGunn, who may have found it laying in a manger:

How Many Christians Does It Take to Change a Light Bulb?

Go to CalTech Girl to see her own Orthodox addition to the list and an entry from a commenter describing the experience for Non-denominational Evangelicals.

Best not to ask what was in the breakfast cereal

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The news of new MOB Deputy Mayor Fluffenstuff reminded me of the time a couple of years ago when the Mall Diva and I were doing some late night channel surfing. An episode of the Krofft Brothers HR Pufnstuff show suddenly appeared.

“Oh, wow,” I said. “I remember watching this when I was a kid! It was kind of weird, but fun and pretty popular.” We stopped surfing and let the show play out a bit. After 10 minutes MD turned to me in all seriousness.

“Drugs were a real problem back in the 70s, weren’t they?”

I told her I couldn’t remember.

This was not a hallucination.

Hmmm, I do recall, however, that HR Pufnstuff was the mayor of an alternative reality island. Whoa, and Doug is mayor of the MOB, an island of reality in an alternative universe. Heavy, man, heavy; hey, don’t bogart the magic flute!

Btw, there is a HR Pufnstuf blog.

My sob story for the Big Meanies

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The Barnacle Boys have been bugging me.

So, let’s set the record straight, shall we? I’ll even start at the beginning. Here we go:

The crud has been going around at my work for practically a month now, and a lot of the ladies I work with have been coming down with it. I swear I had already gotten it back in February, and I wouldn’t get it again, but noooo, of course I got it. And it was worse this time.

On Monday I was feeling fine, my throat was just feeling kind of tickly, but as the day went on I began to feel worse. I had to work from six to close. I ended up going home at a quarter to eight.

Tuesday I woke up bright and early at six and spent, like, an hour in the bathroom being violently ill. After that I was so weak I could barely drag myself the three feet back to my bedroom. I spent the rest of the day sleeping and being extremely sore all over. I didn’t stand up for fear of falling over.

(By the way, Tiger Lilly is very good at taking care of people when they’re sick so you can keep in mind that if she beats you up. If you hurry and get on her good side, she might nurse you back to health.)

Wednesday was a little better. I actually went down the stairs with out falling, and I ate a pieace of toast. That wore me out. Going back up the stairs was scary. I stayed in bed.

Thursday, I actually went to work. I worked with my boss, and we were both sick. She thought it was kind of funny. I could hardly lift dresses to put them away. It was hard to breathe. I went home. We went to Keegan’s and kicked butt, the highlight of my day. Ben! Stop making faces at me!

Today I feel better, though this cold is trying to take me down and I’m still sore. But I’m going shopping! Yay!

Friday Fundamentals in Film: The Quiet Man

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I can’t believe I missed the opportunity last Friday, St. Patrick’s Day, to feature John Ford’s The Quiet Man, a classic Irish tale and my favorite John Wayne film. Oh well, like the train to Castletown, better late than never.

This is a delightful and beautifully photographed movie with great performances by Wayne, Maureen O’Hara, Ward Bond and the quirky Irish cast. The depiction of the Irish as colorful but short-tempered folk much given to drinking and fighting is perhaps a bit politically incorrect in this day and age, but very entertaining and as it is Ford’s tribute to his homeland, though I’m not Irish, it gets a pass from me (not unlike Tim Story’s effort with Barbershop – stereotypes can be effective). Definitely not politically correct is the bit where a woman hands Wayne a stick “to beat the lovely lady” but it’s played for humor and within the context of the story.

The interesting contrast for me between this film and others in the series is that in other movies the main character doesn’t quite know what he is capable of and is unsure of what may happen when pushed to the brink. In this movie, Wayne (as Sean Thornton) is fully aware of what he is capable of and fears that it might happen again. He plays an American prizefighter who has killed an opponent in the ring and since retired and immigrated back to Ireland to buy the cottage where seven generations of his family lived. He is resolved to control himself and live quietly — even to the point of allowing people to think he’s a coward — but his pursuit of the cottage and the lovely and fiery-tempered Mary Kate Danaher (O’Hara) sets him on an inevitable collision course with Mary Kate’s brother, Will Danaher, the biggest, roughest and richest man in the county.

Sean’s patience and self-control in the face of the offenses and goads of the Danahers is admirable, but hardly to be seen in his courting of Mary Kate where he is more than a little forward. No doubt the script was written this way to accentuate the cultural differences between America and Ireland, but it does open the door for discussion with young viewers on proper behavior. The story also reminded me of some of the things my wife and I learned recently about why the Bible emphasizes that a husband love his wife but that a wife respect her husband. In this story Sean loves Mary Kate despite her temper and faults but fails to understand how important her things and dowery are to her. Mary Kate on the other hand loves her husband but struggles to respect him, at one point even leaving Sean, telling Michaleen Oge Flynn, “I love him too much to go on living with a man I’m ashamed of,” as he drives her to Castletown to catch the Dublin train. Both, however, come to understand each other and make a formidable team.

Despite the personal tensions and strife in the movie it is mainly a comedy and when the inevitable fight comes at the end of the movie the release is thoroughly enjoyable. All in all it is a very fun movie with some excellent performances and more than a few good points to make.

Questions to answer:

  1. Why were Mary Kate’s possessions and dowry so important to her? Was it a matter of greed or something else? What was the significance of these things, given the place of women in that culture?

  2. Why was Sean afraid to fight? What did he value more than his reputation?

  3. Describe the differences between Sean’s American ways of courting and the Irish customs. What purpose do you think the Irish ways served, and do they have value today?

Great Quotes:
Michaleen: “What do they feed Irishmen in Pittsburgh to make them so big?”
Sean: “Steel, Micheleen, and pig iron in furnaces so hot a man forgets his fear of hell. And when you’re hard enough, and strong enough, other things.”

Mary Kate: “What manner of man have I married?”
Friend: “A better one than I think you know, Mary Kate.”

About Fundamentals in Film: this series began as a class I taught to junior high and high school boys as a way to use the entertainment media to explore concepts of honor, honesty, duty and accountability. The movies were selected to demonstrate these themes and as a contrast to television that typically either portrays men as Homer Simpsons or professional wrestlers, with little in between those extremes. I wrote questions and points to ponder for each movie to stimulate discussion and to get the boys to articulate their thoughts and reactions to each movie. I offer this series here on this blog for the benefit of parents or others looking for a fun but challenging way to reinforce these concepts in their own families or groups. As the list of films grows each week, feel free to use these guides and to mix and match movies according to your interests or those of your group. I’m also always open to suggestions for other movies that can be added to the series. You can browse the entire series by clicking on the “Fundamentals in Film” category in the right sidebar of this blog.

Oops, we did it again

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The “Dazed and Confused” team of Barry from Water Cooler Wisdom and Dan from Northern Alliance Wannabe, the Mall Diva and myself staggered to an amazingly low-scoring 16 point tie for first place in Thursday night’s trivia contest at Keegan’s.

Booya! Free drink (or dessert, in MD’s case) tickets and entries into the drawing for the trip to Boston. Best of all, though, was sitting across the table from Ben, Kevin, Scott and Chris and rubbing it in (or, in MD’s case, wagging her finger).

St. Paul City Council hostile to Pagans

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Religious activists were outraged today after the St. Paul City Council removed a stuffed rabbit, colored eggs and a sign saying “Happy Easter” from its offices. “This is blatant religious discrimination and another blow against diversity,” said Dru Idish, spokeswoman for People Against God and Nuance (PAGAN), who’s organization staged a demonstration outside City Hall. “I guess the City Council thinks it’s okay to offend Pagans because we usually don’t go around chopping people’s heads off, but we’re simply not going to take it anymore.”

Idish explained that Easter is named after Eastre, or Eostre, the Saxon goddess of dawn, spring and fertility whose symbols are the hare and the egg. “Dyed eggs have been used as part of pagan rituals since the dawn of history in the Near Eastern civilizations, yet the City Council appears to have no regard for history or tradition, or even community standards which have long honored the Easter Bunny,” Idish said.

Idish and her group appeared to have at least one officially sympathetic ear as City Council member Dave Thune said “it’s a shame” to remove the items. “This has just gone too far,” he said. “We can’t celebrate spring with bunnies and fake grass?* Still, I guess it’s better to nip this in the bud before we have someone use tobacco plants in an Independence Day display.”

When asked if other, more mainstream, religions might also identify with the significance of rebirth and renewal, Idish reacted strongly. “Jesus Christ, let them get their own day,” she said.

* Actual quote.