I Say It's Spinach (And The Hell With It)
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I Say It's Spinach (And The Hell With It)
I say it's spinach (sometimes given in full as I say it's spinach and I say the hell with it or further abbreviated to just spinach) is a twentieth-century American idiom with the approximate meaning of "nonsense" or "rubbish". It is usually spoken or written as an anapodoton, thus only first part of the complete phrase ("I say it's spinach") is given to imply the second part, which is what is actually meant: "I say the hell with it." Rose and White's cartoon The phrase originated as the caption of a gag cartoon published in ''The New Yorker'' on December 8, 1928. Drawn by Carl Rose and captioned by E. B. White, the cartoon shows a mother at table trying to convince her young daughter to eat her vegetable, the dialogue being ''Mother'': "It's broccoli, dear." ''Daughter'': "I say it's spinach, and I say the hell with it." (Broccoli was a relative novelty at that time, just then being widely introduced by Italian immigrant growers to the tables of East Coast cities.) Catching o ...
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Anapodoton
An anapodoton (from Ancient Greek ''anapódoton'': "that which lacks an apodosis, that is, the consequential clause in a conditional sentence), plural anapodota, is a rhetorical device related to the anacoluthon; both involve a thought being interrupted or discontinued before it is fully expressed. It is a figure of speech or discourse that is an incomplete sentence, consisting of a subject or complement without the requisite object. The stand-alone subordinate clause suggests or implies a subject (a main clause), but this is not actually provided. As an intentional rhetorical device, it is generally used for set phrases, where the full form is understood, and would thus be tedious to spell out, as in "When in Rome o as the Romans" or " If the mountain won't come to Muhammad uhammed will go to the mountain" Anapodota are common in Classical Chinese and languages that draw from it, such as Japanese, where a long literary phrase is commonly abbreviated to just its condition. For ...
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Winterset (play)
''Winterset'' is a play by Maxwell Anderson. A verse drama written largely in poetic form, the tragedy deals indirectly with the famous Sacco-Vanzetti case, in which two Italian immigrants with radical political beliefs were executed. Its plot follows Mio Romagna's quest to prove his father's innocence in the years after Bartolomeo Romagna is executed for a robbery and murder that he did not commit. Mio's quest is complicated by his love for Miriamne Esdras and the difficult ethical decisions that result from his connection with her family. A highly political play, with reflections on faith, truth, justice, love, and duty, it frequently alludes to William Shakespeare and Judaic philosophies. The Broadway production, produced and directed by Guthrie McClintic, opened on September 25, 1935, at the Martin Beck Theatre, where it ran for 195 performances. The cast included Burgess Meredith, Margo, and Eduardo Ciannelli. It won the first New York Drama Critics' Circle Award for Bes ...
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Comedy Catchphrases
Comedy is a genre of fiction that consists of discourses or works intended to be humorous or amusing by inducing laughter, especially in theatre, film, stand-up comedy, television, radio, books, or any other entertainment medium. The term originated in ancient Greece: in Athenian democracy, the public opinion of voters was influenced by political satire performed by comic poets in theaters. The theatrical genre of Greek comedy can be described as a dramatic performance pitting two groups, ages, genders, or societies against each other in an amusing '' agon'' or conflict. Northrop Frye depicted these two opposing sides as a "Society of Youth" and a "Society of the Old". A revised view characterizes the essential agon of comedy as a struggle between a relatively powerless youth and the societal conventions posing obstacles to his hopes. In this struggle, the youth then becomes constrained by his lack of social authority, and is left with little choice but to resort to ruses which en ...
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Quotations From Comics
A quotation is the repetition of a sentence, phrase, or passage from speech or text that someone has said or written. In oral speech, it is the representation of an utterance (i.e. of something that a speaker actually said) that is introduced by a quotative marker, such as a verb of saying. For example: John said: "I saw Mary today". Quotations in oral speech are also signaled by special prosody in addition to quotative markers. In written text, quotations are signaled by quotation marks. Quotations are also used to present well-known statement parts that are explicitly attributed by citation to their original source; such statements are marked with ( punctuated with) quotation marks. Quotations are often used as a literary device to represent someone's point of view. They are also widely used in spoken language when an interlocutor wishes to present a proposition that they have come to know via hearsay. As a literary device A quotation can also refer to the repeated use of unit ...
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Editorial Cartoons
A political cartoon, a form of editorial cartoon, is a cartoon graphic with caricatures of public figures, expressing the artist's opinion. An artist who writes and draws such images is known as an editorial cartoonist. They typically combine artistic skill, hyperbole and satire in order to either question authority or draw attention to corruption, political violence and other social ills. Developed in England in the latter part of the 18th century, the political cartoon was pioneered by James Gillray, although his and others in the flourishing English industry were sold as individual prints in print shops. Founded in 1841, the British periodical ''Punch'' appropriated the term ''cartoon'' to refer to its political cartoons, which led to the term's widespread use. History Origins The pictorial satire has been credited as the precursor to the political cartoons in England: John J. Richetti, in ''The Cambridge history of English literature, 1660–1780'', states that "Eng ...
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American English Idioms
American(s) may refer to: * American, something of, from, or related to the United States of America, commonly known as the "United States" or "America" ** Americans, citizens and nationals of the United States of America ** American ancestry, people who self-identify their ancestry as "American" ** American English, the set of varieties of the English language native to the United States ** Native Americans in the United States, indigenous peoples of the United States * American, something of, from, or related to the Americas, also known as "America" ** Indigenous peoples of the Americas * American (word), for analysis and history of the meanings in various contexts Organizations * American Airlines, U.S.-based airline headquartered in Fort Worth, Texas * American Athletic Conference, an American college athletic conference * American Recordings (record label), a record label previously known as Def American * American University, in Washington, D.C. Sports teams Soccer * Ba ...
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A Dictionary Of Slang And Unconventional English
''A Dictionary of Slang and Unconventional English'' is a dictionary of slang originally compiled by the noted lexicographer of the English language, Eric Partridge. The first edition was published in 1937 and seven editions were eventually published by Partridge. An eighth edition was published in 1984, after Partridge's death, by editor Paul Beale; in 1990 Beale published an abridged version, ''Partridge's Concise Dictionary of Slang and Unconventional English''. The dictionary was updated in 2005 by Tom Dalzell and Terry Victor as ''The New Partridge Dictionary of Slang and Unconventional English'',"As Slang Changes More Rapidly, Expert Has to Watch His Language"
Vauhini Vara, ''The Wall Street Journal'', May 27, 2011
and again in 2007 as ''The Concise New Par ...
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Cassell's Dictionary Of Slang
A slang dictionary is a reference book containing an alphabetical list of slang, which is vernacular vocabulary not generally acceptable in formal usage, usually including information given for each word, including meaning, pronunciation, and etymology. It can provide definitions on a range of slang from more mundane terms (like " rain check" or "bob and weave") to obscure sexual practices. Such works also can include words and phrases arising from different dialects and argots, which may or may not have passed into more common usage. They can also track the changing meaning of the terms over time and space, as they migrate and mutate. Famous slang dictionaries 17th and 18th centuries Slang dictionaries have been around for hundreds of years. The Canting Academy, or Devil's Cabinet Opened' was a 17th-century slang dictionary, written in 1673 by Richard Head, that looked to define thieves' cant. ''A New Dictionary of the Terms Ancient and Modern of the Canting Crew'', was fir ...
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Oxford English Dictionary
The ''Oxford English Dictionary'' (''OED'') is the first and foundational historical dictionary of the English language, published by Oxford University Press (OUP). It traces the historical development of the English language, providing a comprehensive resource to scholars and academic researchers, as well as describing usage in its many variations throughout the world. Work began on the dictionary in 1857, but it was only in 1884 that it began to be published in unbound fascicles as work continued on the project, under the name of ''A New English Dictionary on Historical Principles; Founded Mainly on the Materials Collected by The Philological Society''. In 1895, the title ''The Oxford English Dictionary'' was first used unofficially on the covers of the series, and in 1928 the full dictionary was republished in 10 bound volumes. In 1933, the title ''The Oxford English Dictionary'' fully replaced the former name in all occurrences in its reprinting as 12 volumes with a one-v ...
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David Copperfield
''David Copperfield'' Dickens invented over 14 variations of the title for this work, see is a novel in the bildungsroman genre by Charles Dickens, narrated by the eponymous David Copperfield, detailing his adventures in his journey from infancy to maturity. It was first published as a serial in 1849 and 1850 and as a book in 1850. ''David Copperfield'' is also an autobiographical novel: "a very complicated weaving of truth and invention", with events following Dickens's own life. Of the books he wrote, it was his favourite. Called "the triumph of the art of Dickens", it marks a turning point in his work, separating the novels of youth and those of maturity. At first glance, the work is modelled on 18th-century "personal histories" that were very popular, like Henry Fielding's ''Joseph Andrews'' or '' Tom Jones'', but ''David Copperfield'' is a more carefully structured work. It begins, like other novels by Dickens, with a bleak picture of childhood in Victorian England, f ...
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Charles Dickens
Charles John Huffam Dickens (; 7 February 1812 – 9 June 1870) was an English writer and social critic. He created some of the world's best-known fictional characters and is regarded by many as the greatest novelist of the Victorian era.. His works enjoyed unprecedented popularity during his lifetime and, by the 20th century, critics and scholars had recognised him as a literary genius. His novels and short stories are widely read today. Born in Portsmouth, Dickens left school at the age of 12 to work in a boot-blacking factory when his father was incarcerated in a debtors' prison. After three years he returned to school, before he began his literary career as a journalist. Dickens edited a weekly journal for 20 years, wrote 15 novels, five novellas, hundreds of short stories and non-fiction articles, lectured and performed readings extensively, was an indefatigable letter writer, and campaigned vigorously for children's rights, for education, and for other social ...
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