The latest of  Nordlinger's Impromptus proves that Couth is a word.   And here Alex and I thought we made it up standing in the line for Ghost Bar: "Just got Couth, Don't got Thumbs!".     I don't remember the context though. Probably Alex was making fun of someone's outfit. 

Okay, sports fans, we're going to close with some milkshakes. I know we did milkshakes last summer, pretty thoroughly. But we're doing just a smidge more — and no more.

A reader says,

Jay,

I was intrigued by your milkshake story, and wondered if you knew how to properly order "the spillover in the silver canister," as you put it. [The reader is referring to Monday's Impromptus, here.] Next time you order a homemade milkshake, ask for the "dividend," in addition to your order. That is the proper term for the spillover. Now they know you have couth, and they don't toss the "spillage," as they normally would.

Glad to have the tip. Couth! Me!

Hey! I just followed the link in that Nordlinger graft and found this

More nuttiness from Britain? I'll simply quote from the Daily Telegraph:

The word "fail" as a verdict on children's exams and other school work should be abolished and replaced with the term "deferred success," a teaching union official is proposing. Liz Beattie . . . believes that some children find "failure very hard to cope with" and that it can lead them to becoming depressed.

Call it "deferred success" if you want, but . . .

And what is the most famous American use of the word "deferred"? In the Langston Hughes poem, quite right.

 

I know that poem: "What happens to a dream deferred",  but the real reason I post this is because he used the word "Nuttiness".     Its catching on!

Steyn commented on this  "Deferred Success" in this article.

After the Ohio vote, Dem pollster Stan Greenberg declared that "one of the biggest doubts about Democrats is that they don't stand for anything." That might have passed muster two years ago. Alas, the party's real problem is that increasingly there's no doubt whatsoever about it.

.....

Fortunately, the Dems have found a new line of attack to counter the evil election-stealing moron. A few days ago, the Democratic National Committee put out a press release attacking Bush for being physically fit. It seems his physical fitness comes at the expense of the nation's lardbutt youth. Or as the DNC put it:

"While President Bush has made physical fitness a personal priority, his cuts to education funding have forced schools to roll back physical education classes and his administration's efforts to undermine Title IX sports programs have threatened thousands of women's college sports programs."

Wow. I noticed my gal had put on a few pounds but I had no idea it was Bush's fault. That sonofabitch chicken hawk. Just for the record, "his cuts to education funding" are cuts only in the sense that Hackett's performance in the Ohio election was a tremendous victory: that's to say, Bush's "cuts to education funding" are in fact an increase of roughly 50 percent in federal education funding.

Some of us wish he had cut education funding. By any rational measure, a good third of public school expenditures are completely wasted. But instead it's skyrocketed. And the idea that Bush is heartlessly pursuing an elite leisure activity denied to millions of American schoolchildren takes a bit of swallowing given that his preferred fitness activity is running. "Running" requires two things: you and ground. Short of buying every schoolkid some John Kerry thousand-dollar electric-yellow buttock-hugging lycra singlet, it's hard to see what there is about "running" that requires increasing federal funding.