I was very surprised how little the audience laughed at the hilarious thirties' movie-slang. Words are funny. Language is funny. The fat banker character, J.B. Ball (Edward Arnold), is trying to get a room at the Hotel Louis. His character is always grumpy and shouts every line in the film. He's hitting the bell at the front desk impatiently, and shouts out, "What do you have to do to get a room in this shebang?" Kristy and I thought this was the funniest line in spoken history. No one around us did, which made us laugh even harder but also feel stupid. I'm giggling right now just reading about it. On second thought, "giggling" is an emasculating word. Let's say I'm tittering. No, even worse. Guffawing? Chortling? Chuckling? Hee-hawing? Snickering? Sniggling? Tee-heeing? None of these words are manly, with the exception of "chortling." But "chortling" is too frat-macho, too business fat-cat for consideration. We need a word for small, mischievous laughter that doesn't sound like I'm sprinkling pixie-dust on myself and dancing around in a pink tutu. Does anyone have any suggestions? That gives me the idea for a contest. Come up with a tougher word for "giggling" by Nov. 15 and I will use the best one in a sentence at some point in the future. Pretty awesome prize, am I right?
1 comment:
Oh my god, I was just going to post a comment to your last post about "shebang." That was hilarious, and I screamed out a laugh before I realized that the rest of the theatre was dead silent. What's wrong with those jerks, anyway, don't they know a hilarious word when they hear it?
Also, everything that Louis Louis, proprietor of the Hotel Louis, said was comedy gold.
As for your giggle word: smorgeling -- its kind of like smirking, chortling, and giggling together in a less pansy word form.
Also, I'm super sleepy. Someone do something exciting to wake me up.
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