Mini-Lesson: Style
Example: Sex therapy isn't just for weirdos who fuck pumpkins anymore.
The placement of "anymore" leads to ambiguity. Does it mean the weirdos don't fuck pumpkins now but did in the past (did they need the sex therapy then or now?) or does it mean that sex therapy is now also for people who do not fuck pumpkins (sounds misguidedly exhibitionistic anyway).
Revison: Sex therapy is no longer just for weirdos who fuck pumpkins.
And that way you get to end with the "clever" fuck-pumpkins image.
The placement of "anymore" leads to ambiguity. Does it mean the weirdos don't fuck pumpkins now but did in the past (did they need the sex therapy then or now?) or does it mean that sex therapy is now also for people who do not fuck pumpkins (sounds misguidedly exhibitionistic anyway).
Revison: Sex therapy is no longer just for weirdos who fuck pumpkins.
And that way you get to end with the "clever" fuck-pumpkins image.
G Bitch at 11:14 PM
10 Comments:
Futher clarification is needed.
When you refer to pumpkin-fuckers, do you mean those who penetrate pumpkins, or do you mean those who jam pumpkins in their squeakholes for the purposesof secual gratification?
(There's a piehole joke in there somewhere, as well, but I am too tired to come up with it.)
I'll never look at a Jack-o-Lantern the same way again. I'll always wonder where it's been and who it's been with. Thanks, G. I guess...
Happy Halloween, Adrastos!
I am pretty sure the writer of the sentence didn't think it through in as much detail as us English/composition profs so I'm unsure what he (and I am assuming it is a he for valid reasons) thought he was saying. He probably didn't visualize it. Cutting a hole in the side and humping a pumpkin (hence my assumption the writer is male--WTF am I supposed to do with a pumpkin?) is what I originally thought he meant but how pleasurable can that be? I refuse to touch the inside of a pumpkin (yet I changed plenty of diapers and have at this point had almost all possible bodily fluids on me and/or my clothes) but from what others have told me, it doesn't sound very erotic, unless you have a wet-and-messy fetish (I can see the insides of a pumpkin qualifying as gunge).
If I had refered to pumpkin-fuckers, you would've had a crystal-clear mental image of what I meant.
spew!!!!!!!!!! hahahahah!!!!! OMG, bitch, i am totally teaching writing rhetoric right now, and it's just too bad that I can't use this example in class!!!!! hahahahhaha
BFP, some of the best examples are too obscene for a classroom. Though when you can slip one in, they never forget it (or the rule).
One of my colleagues does research into the use of "anymore" in this and other ways, and has convinced me that there's a dialectic/regional issue in play. What sounds utterly wrong to me sounds normal to speakers in the upper midwest.
I know... I've totally lost the fun of fucking pumpkins, but I just can't go there on this Saturday... there were lots of little squash at the local farmer's market today, too, so I suppose lots of options for those so inclined.
If the squash are too little, they're no fun.
A couple of points:
1) "Example: Sex therapy isn't just for weirdos who fuck pumpkins anymore."
There's no such word as "anymore".
2) "OMG, bitch, i am totally teaching writing rhetoric right now, and it's just too bad that I can't use this example in class!!!!!"
While you're at it, could you please teach your students to not say "totally" all the time? Thanks!
anymore
Main Entry: any·more
Pronunciation: "e-nE-'mor
Function: adverb
1 : any longer [I was not moving anymore with my feet -- Anaïs Nin]
2 : at the present time : NOW [hardly a day passes without rain anymore]
usage: Although both anymore and any more are found in written use, in the 20th century anymore is the more common styling. Anymore is regularly used in negative [no one can be natural anymore -- May Sarton], interrogative [do you read much anymore?]and conditional [if you do that anymore, I'll leave] contexts and in certain positive constructions [the Washingtonian is too sophisticated to believe anymore in solutions -- Russell Baker]. In many regions of the United States the use of anymore in sense 2 is quite common in positive constructions, especially in speech [everybody's cool anymore -- Bill White] [every time we leave the house anymore, I play a game called "Stump the Housebreaker" -- Erma Bombeck]. The positive use appears to have been of Midland origin, but it is now reported to be widespread in all speech areas of the United States except New England.
I did not say, I don't want anymore tequila, which is incorrect.
It is also beyond the scope of any composition/rhetoric teacher to change student speech. It is up to the young adult to grow the fuck up at some point. Nobody gets paid enough to make anyone grow up. If "totally" annoys you, lead your own crusade elsewhere. (Does it bother me? Hell yes. Am I worried about it when I am not grading a paper? Fuck no.)
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