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| These are Ralph Lauren underpants, I suspect they are expensive.. I did once wear Hilfiger pants but they were a gift from my mother-in-law and were remaindered in a sale. The elastic was tight. |
This will shock US citizens. As if I'd I'd fought on the same side as Hitler. Or confessed to spitting in church. Yes, I'm known to be an oddity but not that damned odd! Why I might have... infected people.
As far as I know my Father did wear underpants but then his life was a closed book to me. He was an adult at the time (as was Hitler), I was 5 - 10 years old.
But why? you will ask. Why did I risk the health of a nation? You've got to understand, since I didn't wear underpants I didn't question their absence. Any more than I wondered why there were no bananas or Coca Cola. Perhaps there were simply no underpants for kids. Perhaps - and this is comically possible - kids' underpants were thought to be a luxury in the traditionally under-privileged north of England.
Dimly I remember the transition period when I started to wear them (because I do of course wear them now). Can't say the year, time isn't important to kids. But there was a new bulkiness in and around my groin, as if I were over-dressed down there. A certain discomfort. But then kids were born into discomfort and I had other fardels to bear (WS quote!)
I buy underpants by the half-dozen and I am influenced by the pattern. I find this astonishing; I’d like to think I was above plaids and fuchsias alternating with lobelias but I’m not. This awareness cheapens my aspirations as a writer; my mind should be on words beginning with meta-. I am at heart trivial.
Oh how modest you are regarding your triviality.
ReplyDeleteA rare juxtaposition of punctuation after "meta" but inevitably correct.
I was there with (or behind) you at the time of course and have no recollection of my progress through underpant evolution, but I had other problems at the time.
I realise it is not relevant to the thrust of your evocative piece, but in Nick Crane's Two Degrees West there is an extended story about underpants, too long to insert here, and much better read in the context of the whole book, but it is on my list of most humorous literary anecdotes; ok it's a bit of a spoiler, but in amongst the story he uses the verb slotting - I'll say no more. The whole book is an entertaining journey with unique, what we call bloggers' gifts, arising one after another.
Hilarious post! Not only did I laugh when I read "Why did I risk the health of the nation?" but I learned another word, fardels. I think we need to do some research into the history of underpants. Is there really any good reason for young boys to wear them? Except maybe in Scotland when they are wearing kilts? As for the trivial, I'm pretty sure that it is by indulging in the trivial that we stumble upon the sublime. With new awareness, if we are lucky. lol
ReplyDeleteSir Hugh: The subject is neither here nor there; this was an attempt to fashion a conceit, inadequately defined in my dictionary as "an elaborate, unusual, and cleverly expressed figure of speech". Inadequate in that it seems to imply just a handful of words; I am not alone in believing a conceit can be quite a bit longer, although brevity is part of the equation.
ReplyDeleteIt is also an example of RR in dictatorial mood. Too many bloggers wait for something to happen so they may write about it. Far better to create a happening and regard that as the raw material. It doesn't take much, happenings can occur when two disparate sentences are conjoined.
A conceit is also recognised by its style. It doesn't need an ending - nor, for that matter, a beginning and/or a middle. In that sense it differs from an anecdote.
Were you to be tempted to do a conceit, a good starting point would be why you passed through WW2 without any underwear memories. But avoiding a mechanistic approach. The first sentence could include a reference to hygiene and groins, but the second could deconstruct the phrase "pauper spirit" for which you are well equipped.
Colette: Did you honestly and truly laugh? If so my life's work is over: a laughing reaction is one of the few proofs that communication between two individuals has occurred. Cause and effect. When my late brother Nick was less subject to Alzheimers I deliberately spoke to him of past events rigged up in facetiousness. A flicker of his lips, a widening of his eyes and I was happy. I hope he was too.
The other word is, of course, from Hamlet. Two weeks ago I saw my twentieth Hamlet (Perhaps, but who's counting?) and "fardel" popped out like a pebble, sea-polished to look like a gemstone. And in such a beautiful setting:
For who would bear the whips and scorns of time,. Th' oppressor's wrong, the proud man's contumely,. The pangs of despised love, the law's delay,. The insolence of office, and the spurns. That patient merit of th' unworthy takes,. When he himself might his quietus make. With a bare bodkin? Who would fardels bear.
The word doesn't deserve its obscurity, it's too elegant. Shall we make a pact to mention fardel four times a year in accordance with the terms of the legal year: Hilary, Easter, Trinity and Michaelmas.
There's a conceit there.
Oddly, I rather like knowing that you wear lobelia boxers...
ReplyDeletePerhaps you need to start The Fardels Club, in which members will pledge to assiduously use "fardels" in common speech and writing. Auto-correct is sure I mean "gardens" when I mean "fardels." So perhaps you also need to correct auto-correct and induct its robotic presence into The Fardels Club.
Not only did I laugh, I related the blog post and that particular sentence to my husband while we walked around an alligator infested pond this morning. He laughed out loud, too.
ReplyDeleteAs for the Fardel Club (which I am very much in favor of joining), you will first have to explain to me what days/holy days/holidays are Hilary and Trinity. Sorry, American here. Thick as a brick. I grabbed my 60 year old St. Joseph Missal and hope Hilary doesn't refer to Jan 14, the feast day of St. Hilary, that guy who squashed the Arians? I’m pretty sure Jesus himself would have been on the Arian’s side. But since the other holiday is probably Trinity Sunday, I guess it is. Oh well, I still want to join the club. just think, like Marly infers, the word should be used more often. Contumely is pretty darn good, too.
These nether garments and their gender allocations have always been a struggle - linguistically - for me. What are briefs then?
ReplyDeleteDid I want to know about not wearing any? Well, now I do. And you are still here.
Marly: I hadn't thought of that - that patterned boxers might make me seem more human. I could go further, single-colour underpants seem so disappointing. But really I should be above such onsiderations. The time I spend on contemplating these garments could better be spent on noun clauses. Do you remember them? Adjectival and adverbial clauses were easy-peasy. Noun clauses were hard.
ReplyDeleteI'm pleased to welcome you aboard The Fardels Club. A small warning. When using the word it's important you also imply you understand its meaning. That it isn't, as you hint, a typing error. We live in censorious times.
Colette: In shooting terms that's called a left and a right. One assumes a double-barrel shotgun with which closely consecutive shots twice bring home the bacon. Making your husband laugh as well formalises the whole thing, turning my casual post into the equivalent of The Declaration of Independence (with signatures). I have moved into the big leagues of humour, joining S. J. Perelman and Mark Twain's anti-Fenimore Copper essay. Cremation is no longer an option. I must be interred with a tombstone at my head; inscribed "He caused the Colettes to laugh (in unison)."
My apologies for misleading you regarding Hilary, etc. You are not a thick US brick, most Brits would be equally unaware. Britain is packed to the gills with arcane procedures and phrases which persist only to allow practitioners to sneer at those "who are not in the know." For reasons I wot not of the legal calendar is divided into these four parts. Judges, for instance, do not sit continuously throughout the year but for these named periods, with lengthy soul-searching rests in between. The names, nevertheless, have an odd attraction and I thought they should be more widely publicised. It was a lousy idea.
Sabine: A linguistic struggle for me too. I can never remember which are boxers and which are briefs, though I think the latter are those more vestigial pouches which are favoured by men who imagine they are better endowed than most.
The aim was to pick an utterly mundane subject and write it up in a manner that entertained. Alas I failed with you. I would have had it otherwise. I will try harder.
Well, you certainly entertained me, RR. I confess to only wearing plain boxers or briefs and,no, I do not consider myself "more well endowed than most" (I have never looked to make a comparison - not since our pubescent showers at grammar school, anyway).
ReplyDeleteLike Marly, the thought of you walking around in flowered underpants will keep me warm whilst walking the dog on this inclement morning.
I can thoroughly recommend Nick Crane's "Two Degrees West" (Sir Hugh's comment). A wonderful new concept to walking.
Avus: So you alternate between boxers (ah the freedom) and briefs (ah the manliness). That surely indicates a well-tuned mind, able to accommodate the two physical states without lapsing into schizophrenia. During the last Christmas market but one (in Cologne) I suffered catastrophic failure of the elastic and was forced into Primark for a replacement. It may have been my fault but I contrived to buy a trio of pants that were half a size too small. This meant that I could get them on but never felt entirely comfortable. Back home I would work my way through the laundered pile of pants and it seemed that the Primark/Cologne pants cropped up more often than was mathematically likely. I started to moan and VR, ever impatient about such matters, told me to discard them.
ReplyDeleteI temporised. For one thing I didn't know whether nearly-new pants went into the green wheelie bin or the black. For another my soul revolted against the waste. After a massive internal dialogue I managed to discard two of them (though into which bin I have forgotten) but the remaining pair seems equal to the challenge and recurs far too frequently. I suffer, how I suffer.
Underpants are far from being a casual purchase. Why am I convinced that your wife buys yours?
You must unconvince yourself, RR. Ever since we were married I have bought my own. Whatever gave you that idea, I wonder?
ReplyDelete