[lit-ideas] Re: Short-Bread: The Argy-Bargy
- From: David Ritchie <ritchierd@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- To: lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
- Date: Fri, 24 Apr 2009 17:42:39 -0700
On Apr 24, 2009, at 4:42 PM, Jlsperanza@xxxxxxx wrote:
-----
As in 'shortbread', not-tall bread, as Argies would say.
J
Excerpted from an upcoming manuscript to be presented at a panel on
"Foregrounding Postmodern Health Outcomes and Just Desserts" at the
Annual Meeting of American Society for the Advancement of Global
Warming by Means of Relatively Harmless Gaseous Exudation:
In some cases "short" means tart or laconic, which implies that if
you're too short with me, I will crumble. A crumble of course isn't,
strictly speaking, a tart at all, but it can still be called a just
dessert. By contrast, there is evidence injustice in the fact that
"short" has come to be synonymous with crumbly kinds of pastry, hence
"shortening" and the "short" of the shortbread biscuits, which are
neither bread nor, in the American sense, biscuits at all. "Long"
would seem to fall into the category of opposite but alas no such
simple nosological scheme will get us to our intended destination,
for "long" and "loud" are the opposites of "mumbly," not crumbly.
Resolution may be sought, and indeed found, in the acronym "NPO,"
which is short for nothing by mouth, long in its sense of injustice
and hunger, and resonant of that weird state of mind in which you are
convinced that even hospital mince is edible. It is the crisp
strength of the wafers which we are offered when we emerge from such
a regimen that prevent us from falling for good into the pit of
despair associated with the Gricean category "crumbly," and which
thus properly should be called "bread for short-tempered people," or
"shortbread" for short.
I hope this clears matters up?
David Ritchie,
Pontificate, near Clacton
Other related posts:
