The Legend of le Tuff: (4) The enigmatic epigrammist
I really must tell of my first visit to Scrotsmuir, as I promised, but first an aside about one particularly touching side of the much-copied but never-equalled le Tuff personality.
The Holy Bible, Shakespeare, Emerson, Franklin, Wilde: their famous apothegms so fill the quotidian language of learned and unschooled alike that we scarce know who first penned them. The oft-quoted truism "An intangible yesterday is the compliment you pay to the fool and the rebuke to the wise man" is such an one of these. Most think it is from Scripture. Not so; it is a le Tuffism.
"A forgotten inkstand in the nose: no disgrace."
"Mercies are to the fisherman what spite is to the standing."
"People who dine by partridges need no alms makers."
"There is many a slip betwixt Fleet Street and the blood of the chimneysweep."
"Yeah, stick another two fingers in. No you fool, I meant the bourbon."
Each and every scintillating adage by Baz le Tuff!
You doubt me? Oh, but see She who was nigh Singapore, now is comelier: Gentle thoughts and crude for the yearning youngster (le Tuff, Baz, OULP, 1987, 684 pp). Be amazed, and be illuminated by these familiar epigrams that improve the mind and character, as you discover that all these commonplace maxims come from the one outstanding intellect.
I leave you with just a few more randomly chosen examples of over 4,700 proverbs from the teeming brain of the greatest epigrammist of the 20th and 21st centuries:
"Forget thou that ye hast sniffed until the morning night."
"None knows the hour of the spite of doo-wah-diddy."
"A full bottle of Scotch; half a bottle of scotch; blahdy blahdy."
"Look before you buy; try before you leap; inkstands."
"As you make your partridge, so you must spite your hahaha nose."
"Do as I say, not as the partridge must spite your too fucking much nose."
"None knows the hour the partridge wearily spites the nose of the bloody chimneysweep."
"Whack it up your sleeve. I'll hold the belt."
"Desperate diseases call for desperate inkstands."
"Stupid publishers: stupider people. Set them on fire I say."
"Something about inkstands. Chuck anything in here. Bloody belch."
"Don't count your chickens to spite your whatever partridge-stand."
"A great big, big, big, big bosom. Try it with ice. Nup better straight. Partridges yeah yeah."
"Dah de blah de dum partridges Johnny Walker something something."
Baz le Tuff, thank you, sir!
(Excepts from She who was nigh Singapore, now is comelier: Gentle thoughts and crude for the yearning youngster (le Tuff, Baz, OULP, 1987, 684 pp) reproduced with kind permission of Oxford University Little Press.)
To be continued ...
I really must tell of my first visit to Scrotsmuir, as I promised, but first an aside about one particularly touching side of the much-copied but never-equalled le Tuff personality.
The Holy Bible, Shakespeare, Emerson, Franklin, Wilde: their famous apothegms so fill the quotidian language of learned and unschooled alike that we scarce know who first penned them. The oft-quoted truism "An intangible yesterday is the compliment you pay to the fool and the rebuke to the wise man" is such an one of these. Most think it is from Scripture. Not so; it is a le Tuffism.
"A forgotten inkstand in the nose: no disgrace."
"Mercies are to the fisherman what spite is to the standing."
"People who dine by partridges need no alms makers."
"There is many a slip betwixt Fleet Street and the blood of the chimneysweep."
"Yeah, stick another two fingers in. No you fool, I meant the bourbon."
Each and every scintillating adage by Baz le Tuff!
You doubt me? Oh, but see She who was nigh Singapore, now is comelier: Gentle thoughts and crude for the yearning youngster (le Tuff, Baz, OULP, 1987, 684 pp). Be amazed, and be illuminated by these familiar epigrams that improve the mind and character, as you discover that all these commonplace maxims come from the one outstanding intellect.
I leave you with just a few more randomly chosen examples of over 4,700 proverbs from the teeming brain of the greatest epigrammist of the 20th and 21st centuries:
"Forget thou that ye hast sniffed until the morning night."
"None knows the hour of the spite of doo-wah-diddy."
"A full bottle of Scotch; half a bottle of scotch; blahdy blahdy."
"Look before you buy; try before you leap; inkstands."
"As you make your partridge, so you must spite your hahaha nose."
"Do as I say, not as the partridge must spite your too fucking much nose."
"None knows the hour the partridge wearily spites the nose of the bloody chimneysweep."
"Whack it up your sleeve. I'll hold the belt."
"Desperate diseases call for desperate inkstands."
"Stupid publishers: stupider people. Set them on fire I say."
"Something about inkstands. Chuck anything in here. Bloody belch."
"Don't count your chickens to spite your whatever partridge-stand."
"A great big, big, big, big bosom. Try it with ice. Nup better straight. Partridges yeah yeah."
"Dah de blah de dum partridges Johnny Walker something something."
Baz le Tuff, thank you, sir!
(Excepts from She who was nigh Singapore, now is comelier: Gentle thoughts and crude for the yearning youngster (le Tuff, Baz, OULP, 1987, 684 pp) reproduced with kind permission of Oxford University Little Press.)
To be continued ...
Pip Wilson posted item above at 8:24 PM | Permalink
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