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alt title(s): Sophisticatedas Fuck Language is linear. Use and context establish tone, with an expectation for its continuation. When one suddenly uses a register, dialect, or vocabulary at a significant distance from that previously employed, the effect is frickin' weird.
There's a certain humour in playing with different levels of language use, and the common trick is to mix "sophisticated" language (such as Spock Speak or Antiquated Linguistics) with "unsophisticated" language (such as the Cluster F Bomb or Totally Radical) with the necessary awkwardness on both sides. Common examples include:
- A quote (mis)attribution ("In the words of the great Oscar Wilde, STFU n00b")
- Suggesting a "technical", "professional", or obscure foreign term, followed by slang or profanity ("Your engine is what we in the business describe as 'completely screwed'." "He's what Freud used to call 'spooky'." "As the French say, you, my friend, are an utter cock.") or following a lengthy formal or descriptive analysis
- Slang speech or vulgarity is quoted in an official capacity or environment ("Following the officer's formal warning, the accused threatened to 'pop a motherfuckin cap'" in the officer's posterior.)
- Slang delivered innocuously in a formal speech, especially from someone upperclass.
- An attempt at Jive Turkey slang couched in academic or formal terminology, often drifting into Totally Radical.
- A normally formal character resorting to profanity due to intense circumstances. (see:Precision F Strike).
The Turkey City Lexicon provides this classic example; "There will be bloody riots and savage insurrections leading to a violent popular uprising unless the regime starts being lots nicer about stuff." The formal term for this kind of disjunction in vocabulary is bathos; the difference, however, is that the TCL's bathos is caused by character (or writer) incompetence (see Narm), while Sophisticated As Hell — and, for that matter, real bathos — is completely intentional and, when employed by a talented writer, is what industry experts refer to as "totally awesome".
Compare Buffy Speak, Jive Turkey, Shlubb And Klump English, Bread Eggs Milk Squick. Not to be mistaken by name for Wicked Cultured. Precision F Strike is a subtrope of when this is done well.
Examples:
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Anime & Manga
Comic Books
- Transmetropolitan features a lot of this, usually from the mouth of its Anti Hero, Spider Jerusalem. An example:
Spider: Watch it, or she'll defenestrate you. And you wouldn't want anything to happen to your fenestrates, would you?
- Naturally, since Spider is basically Hunter Thompson, squared, IN THE FUTURE!
- Calvin And Hobbes has done this at least once. Bill Watterson commented that he liked Calvin's ability to precisely articulate stupid ideas using smart language.
Hobbes: Whatcha doin'?
Calvin: Looking for frogs.
Hobbes: How come?
Calvin: I must obey the inscrutable exhortations of my soul.
Hobbes: Ah, but of course.
Calvin: My mandate also includes weird bugs.
- Don't forget Calvin's eloquent poem about a spider's web which abruptly ends in "Eew, look at that spider suck out that bug's juices!"
Commercials
- There was a series of commercials for a classic-rock radio station which included unlikely people (a very old man, a nun, a school teacher) reading rock lyrics deadpan. Hilarious. This happens quite often. A local radio station had people reading out the lyrics of pop songs, sometimes ironic to the situation, other times just not what you expect. (i.e. An elderly gentleman saying, "With a rebel yell, she cried 'More! More! More!' ")
- T-Mobile had a commercial in which a couple calls up a librarian when they have a dispute about the lyrics to "Pour Some Sugar On Me." Cue librarian, in an absolutely deadpan voice, reciting, "Pour some sugar on me. I'm hot, sticky sweet."
- Similarly, a Canadian commercial for Nortel had, while the music for the song played in the background and was apparently not heard by the characters, a Nortel executive calling a press conference...and his speech being the lyrics of "Come Together". Mixing up the funkiest lines from every verse, even.
- A Schick commercial pairs this with Totally Radical (and you can see it from there), where an old scientist is officially testing the razor to see if it really is "off the heezy".
Fan Fic
- The opening paragraphs of John Biles' late-2008 Mai-HiME fic The Sword of the Lord start off sounding like a work by H.P. Lovecraft — until the Narrator relaxes into her normal pattern of speech:
In the dark corners of the world, things are breeding, ancient things, which ruled this world before man. There are things within only a few miles of some major cities that, if set free, would turn the blood of men to ice and fire, which would shatter the thin veneer which is all that holds mankind separate from its savage ancestors.
Their power is rising, and the stars moving into place. Their prophecies speak of their inevitable victory, that the time comes when mankind shall be as the Great Old Ones, 'free and wild and beyond good and evil, with laws and morals thrown aside and all men shouting and killing and revelling in joy'.
I have felt it myself, the call of the darkness that seeps into your soul when it seems there is only pain and death in the world, the temptation to cast all rules aside and live only for your own pleasure, your own vengeance. Power without responsibility inevitably leads to the abuse of power, a spiral down into the darkness.
That's why, these days, I kill these motherfuckers and take their stuff.
- "Yea verily, though I charge through the valley of the shadow of death, I shall fear no evil, for I am driving a house-sized mass of "fuck you.""
- Aeon Natum Engel is full of these. One of the milder examples:
Parapsychics were treated in a manner similar to that members of socially unacceptable subgroups had been in a less enlightened time, with the fear of the different and of the unknown. The metaphor was imperfect, due to the fact that gays, for example, lacked the ability to set people on fire with their mind.
Film
- Monty Python And The Holy Grail:
Brother Maynard: "And Saint Attila raised the hand grenade up on high, saying, 'O Lord, bless this Thy hand grenade that, with it, Thou mayst blow Thine enemies to tiny bits in Thy mercy.'"... "Once the number three, being the third number be reached, then lobbest thou thy Holy Hand Grenade of Antioch toward thy foe, who, being naughty in my sight, shall snuff it.' ...May thy magnanimity and benevolence hurt like hell."
- In Star Trek
- In Star Trek IV, Spock (still recovering from having his mind and body reunited) somewhat misunderstands Kirk's explanation of 20th century profanity, leading to him making normally out-of-character statements such as "One damn minute, Admiral."
- Star Trek First Contact, Data, someone who is very formal most of the time, says in response to the possibility of mutiny charges for ignoring orders: "I believe I speak for everyone on the ship when I say: 'To hell with our orders'."
- An inversion from the recent Star Trek film:
Scotty: She is one well-endowed lady. I'd like to get my hands on her ample nacelles, if you'll pardon the engineering parlance.
- He really is talking about ample nacelles...
- Played straight in a mild example earlier, when Kirk is being grilled for passing Spock's test.
Bureaucrat: To use academic vernacular, you cheated.
- Used in Batman Forever, where Dr. Chase Meridian, based on two of the riddles the Riddler left for Bruce Wayne, diagnoses Nygma as "A total whacko."
Bruce: "...is that a technical term?"
Meridian: " 'Subject suffers from acute obsession with possible homicidal tendencies'. Does that work better for you?"
Bruce: "So...what you're saying is, this guy's a total whacko."
- In Snatch, Brick Top defines nemesis as "a righteous infliction of retribution manifested by an appropriate agent. Personified in this case by a 'orrible cunt."
- Terminator has this exchange:
Sarah: So is Reese crazy?
Silverman: In technical terminology...he's a loon.
- Steve Martin in Dirty Rotten Scoundrels: "I've got culture coming out of my ass."
- Talladega Nights: The Ballad of Ricky Bobby starts with a black screen illuminating the quote "America's about speed. Hot, nasty, bad-ass speed." and then in a few seconds appends "— Eleanor Roosevelt"
- Jay And Silent Bob Strike Back: "The internet is a communications tool used the world over where people can come together to bitch about movies and share pornography with one another."
- Michele's formula for the glue on Post-its from Romy and Michele's High School Reunion. Given Michele's character and unsophisticated language she uses throughout the rest of the film, the last thing we expect from her is a plausible, highly detailed answer. Of course, we later find out this was only her dream of what happened. At the real reunion they get humiliated for claiming to have invented Post-its:
Michele: Actually, I invented a special kind of glue.
Christie: Oh, really? Well, then I'm sure you wouldn't mind giving us a detailed account of exactly how you concocted this miracle glue, would you?
Michele: No... Um — Well, ordinarily when you make glue, first you need to thermoset your resin... and then after it cools, you mix in a, um, epoxide. Which is really just a fancy-schmancy name for any simple oxygenated adhesive, right? Then I thought: maybe — just maybe — you could raise the viscosity by adding a complex glucose derivative during the emulsification process. And it turns out, I was right. [chuckles]
Girl: Huh? I don't believe it! You must be the most successful person in our graduating class!
Michele: Uh-huh... and you're not. Bye.
- Hell, Lisa Kudrow herself certainly qualifies; who would seriously have thought that the portrayer of two of the greatest ditzes of our time, Michele Weinberger and Phoebe Buffay, would have a chemistry degree?
- Inverted and Subverted in the Stoner Flick Smiley Face: The protagonist is baked out of her mind, and somehow winds up at a meat processing plant. When the manager finds her, she claims to be organizing a union, and, as triumphant music plays, gives an uncharacteristically impassioned and articulate speech to explain herself.
Manager: Ma'am, I am going to ask you one time, nicely. Tell your people that we are not interested!
Jane: I'll tell my people, all right. But first, I have a little message for you to tell your people. You tell your people, the slaughterers of pigs, the profiteering cowards who dishonestly hide their dirty business behind the sweet, happy logo of a cute little pig while they manufacture misery and death-
Manager: Ma'am!
Jane: Please! Sir! Allow me to finish. Just look around you. Do you see it? Can you hear it? And you, sir, stand here in this warehouse of death, and you have the audacity to tell me that you have a "generous benefit package"? And them? (points to workers) Do they have a "generous benefit package"? I think we all know the answer to that, don't we? It is a tale as old as man. The history of all hitherto existing society is the history of class struggle. Free man and slave, lord and serf; in a word? Oppressor and oppressed. Stood in constant opposition to each other. Carrying on an uninterrupted fight, a fight that, each time, ended in either revolutionary reconstitution of society at large or in its complete and total ruin! You tell your people that!
- At least, it seems that way; turns out it's an Indulgent Fantasy Segue. Her real speech?
Jane: You think you're so... um... aaaaahhh... Jesus! And then you go on and on and on about this and that and all this other bullshit! And all I have to say is... fuck, man! I mean... this situation... is totally fucked! With a capital! ... I mean, have you ever... Do you, like, even... Well, do you? You tell your people that!
- The Big Lebowski gives an inverted example: "Nihilists? Well, fuck me. I mean, say what you will of the tenets of National Socialism, but at least it's an ethos."
- A dialogue from The Toxic Avenger Part 2:
Apocalypse Inc. Chairman: "Neither a borrower, nor a lender be..." Shakespeare.
- "I was thinking of the immortal words of Socrates, who said, '...I drank what?'"
- Blazing Saddles has a narrative song provided by the god-fearing citizens of Rock Ridge at their church. It ends thusly:
Now is a time of great decision
Are we to stay, or up and quit?
There's no avoiding this conclusion...
Our town is turning into shiiiiiiiiiit....
- In War Games, the general in charge of NORAD delivers this opinion: "Mr. McKittrick, after very careful consideration, sir, I've come to the conclusion that your new defense system sucks."
- Don't forget the very next lines which lampshade this:
McKittrick: I don't have to take that, you pig-eyed sack of shit.
General Beringer: Oh, I was hoping for something a little better than that from you, sir. A man of your education.
- Hollywood in general is very fond of mixing Bible and bathos — especially Psalms 23:4. You know the one. Here's from Deep Blue Sea :
Preacher: Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I shall fear no evil for thou art with me. Thy rod and thy staff, they comfort me. Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life, because I carry a big stick and I'm the meanest motherfucker in the valley!
- A minor character gets a moment of this in The Last Samurai:
- Dustin Hoffman's character in Outbreak indicates that he is disinclined to acquiesce to a military officer's request not to interfere in the bombing of a small town:
- A mild but effective example: "Frankly, my dear, I don't give a damn.'
- "The price you pay for bringing up either my Chinese or American heritage as a negative is: I collect your fucking head."
- In Mel Brooks' High Anxiety, an entire discussion on penis envy in a psychological conference is, due to one psychologist bringing his children, conducted using such technical terms as the peepee, balloons, and hoo-hoo.
- In This Is Spinal Tap, Nigel is playing a quiet composition of his on the piano.
Nigel Tufnel: You know, just simple lines intertwining, you know, very much like — I'm really influenced by Mozart and Bach, and it's sort of in between those, really. It's like a Mach piece, really. It's sort of...
Marty DiBergi: What do you call this?
- While it works as a joke, it's also a Genius Bonus: Mozart, in addition to his symphonies, also composed such works as "Leck mich im Arsch", lit. "Lick me in the Ass". Nigel's being true to his source.
- It degrades into this whenever Detective Carter in Rush Hour tries to be official.
Det. Carter: Ladies and Gentlemen, can I have your attention please? We have just received a threat on the building. We ask if you please exit the building as soon as possible and please do not panic.
Det. Carter: Din't you hear what I jus' said?! Get yo' shit an' get out the door!
- Sir, what we have here is what we call a non-repeating phantasm, or a class-5 free roaming vapor...real nasty one too!
Literature
- From the mouth of Harry Dresden:
"And again I say unto thee: Bite me."
"I ooze class from my every orifice," when called on this.
- Much of Douglas Adams's work plays off this, often using overly formal tones to describe something mundane. The Hitchhikers Guide To The Galaxy, however, often sounds more chummy than an encyclopaedia should. (This is said in the series to be part of its appeal.)
- The Gaunts Ghosts novel First and Only has this from Commissar Vay to Major Brochuss, who is about to have Vay, Gaunt and Milo beaten to death in an abandoned area of the city they're in:
"After due consultation with my colleagues I can now safely say, burn in hell you shit-eating dog."
- More amusing is that Vay had seconds before said that Gaunt "was never a diplomat, and that insulting them is not going to help their mood." During their escape Gaunt replies, "You're right, Vay, I never could've been that diplomatic."
- The First Person Smartass narration of The Chronicles Of Amber tends to veer from the modern colloquial to the formal and slightly archaic and back — sometimes in the same paragraph. The fact that all the Amberites are centuries-old interdimensional travellers might justify some of this, as they travel between areas where the language is more or less formal, and might pick up mannerisms from all manner of different eras.
- Steven Brust's Dragaera series was influenced by the above and also uses this a lot as Vlad and the other Jhereg sometimes alternate between somewhat courtly language and typical "wiseguy" talk. This is probably because they are simultaneously aristocrats and members of that world's equivalent of The Mafia.
- Happens quite a lot in the Discworld series, particularly any book set in Ankh-Morpork, with characters alternating between formal English and street vernacular in order to make better jokes and or points. Of particular note is when the Patrician screwed this up (as, in fact, he often does when attempting to employ slang, despite having majored in languages in school) by threatening someone with the "sisal two-step" (when of course he meant the hemp fandango — i.e., being hanged; a clerk quietly corrected him).
- Many people notice something quite comforting about Lord Vetinari, such as the fact that they can't see any weapons around, or, indeed, his apparent inability to grasp the nuances of slang and euphemism... until they remember that he was educated at the Assassin's Guild, at which point the thought turns on them, and turns out to have plenty of teeth and a full eight limbs tipped with razor-sharp claws.
- And often a paragraph written in standard florid fantasy style ends with a word like "bugger".
- FABRICATI DIEM, PVNC.
- "No, sir! You may put it where the sun does not shine, sir!"
- "Where, that little cave in Slice? Why would I put it there?"
- Vimes is particularly good at this. At the end of 'Feet of Clay' when the religious leaders all call for the destruction of the golem Dorfl, he carefully considers their opinions, gives it a lot of thought, and gives Vetinari the following response — "Arseholes to the lot of 'em, sir."
- This was almost a trademark of Mid-20th Century wit, raconteur and poet Dorothy Parker:
- From her poem "Indian Summer"
 :
But now I know the things I know
And do the things I do
And if you do not like me so
To hell, my love, with you!
- Her poem "Comment":
Life is a glorious cycle of song,
A medley of extemporanea.
And Love is a thing that can never go wrong,
And I am Marie of Roumania.
- "Theory":
Into love and out again,
Thus I went and thus I go.
Spare your voice, and hold your pen:
Well and bitterly I know
All the songs were ever sung,
All the words were ever said;
Could it be, when I was young,
Someone dropped me on my head?
- "Coda":
There's little in taking or giving,
There's little in water or wine:
This living, this living, this living,
Was never a project of mine.
Oh, hard is the struggle, and sparse is
The gain of the one at the top,
For art is a form of catharsis,
And love is a permanent flop,
And work is the province of cattle,
And rest's for a clam in a shell,
So I'm thinking of throwing the battle —
Would you kindly direct me to hell?
- and "Love Song":
My love runs by like a day in June,
And he makes no friends of sorrows.
He'll tread his galloping rigadoon
In the pathway or the morrows.
He'll live his days where the sunbeams start
Nor could storm or wind uproot him.
My own dear love, he is all my heart —
And I wish somebody'd shoot him.
- T.S. Eliot wrote a poem addressed to his critics (which he never released to the public). It was a ballade (a classical form of poetry). It started with "If you think my poems are" and continued in a flowery manner, describing all the criticisms that might be made of his writing style. The last line of every verse was "For Christ's sake stick it up your ass."
- That poem is called The Triumph of Bullshit, no?
- The Roman poet Gaius Valerius Catullus did a few similar ones too.
- Latin has an astonishing variety of dirty words, and being a highly inflected tongue, this makes it uniquely suited for this kind of poetry, at which Catullus was legendary. Catullus 16 is so explicit that it wasn't fully translated into English until relatively recently; the opening line loosely translates as "I'll jam it up your ass and down your throat", but any translation loses the true flavor of the original. (Though one interpretation, "I'll sodomize and Clintonize you", does rise to the level of a decent Woolseyism.)
- Thomas Pynchon has a lot of fun with this in The Crying of Lot 49. "Otherwise he will, with great reluctance, hand his ass to him."
- In Only You Can Save Mankind, the normally eloquent Captain of the Scree Wee fleet pulls this while explaining why she wanted Johnny to bring them a crapload of fast food and breakfast cereal.
Captain: Normally we eat a kind of waterweed. It contains a perfect balance of vitamins, minerals, trace elements to ensure a healthy growth of scale and crest.
Johnny: Then why-
Captain: But, as you would put it, it tastes like poo.
- Neal Stephenson does this a lot. Take for example, the first paragraph of the first chapter of Cryptonomicon:
Let's set the existence-of-God issue aside for a later volume, and just stipulate that in some way, self-replicating organisms came into existence on this planet and immediately began trying to get rid of each other, either by spamming the environment with rough copies of themselves, or through more direct means which hardly need to be belabored. Most of them failed, and their genetic legacy was erased from the universe forever, but a few found some way to survive and to propagate. After about three billion years of this sometimes zany, frequently tedious fugue of carnality and carnage, Godfrey Waterhouse IV was born [...] to Blanche, the wife of a congregational preacher named Bunyan Waterhouse. Like every other creature on the face of the earth, Godfrey was, by birthright, a stupendous badass, albeit in the somewhat technical sense that he could trace his ancestry back up a long line of slightly less highly evolved stupendous badasses to that first self-replicating gizmo — which, given the number and variety of its descendants, might justifiably be described as the most stupendous badass of all time. Everyone and everything that wasn't a stupendous badass was dead.
- W.E.B. Griffin's Brotherhood of War series includes the motto for the 73rd Heavy Tank Battalion commanded by one of the main characters. It eventually showed up ("translated" into polite military jargon) as ''Your participation is encouraged and expected. Our disappointment will be made manifest by the violent insertion of sporting equipment into the rectal cavity." The original wording? " You will play ball with the 73rd, or we'll stick the bat up your ass."
- The Poet Martin Silenus in Hyperion is both the most eloquent and sophisticated narrator in the book, and by far the one who cusses most. Best exemplified here:
Martin Silenus: The right hemisphere was not without some language — but only the most emotionally charged units of communication could lodge in that affective hemisphere; my vocabulary was now down to nine words. For the record, here is my entire vocabulary of manageable words: fuck, shit, piss, cunt, goddamn, motherfucker, asshole, peepee and poopoo. A quick analysis will show some redundancy here.
- Francisco d'Anconia in Atlas Shrugged is described as speaking precise and cultured English, deliberately mixed with slang. It makes him feel like the most sophisticated character in the novel, which he is.
- Then the prophet spake: saying "Frak this, for my faith is a shield proof against your blandishments." -Alem Mahat, The Book of Cain, Chapter IV, Verse XXI
- From Good Omens: '"Your fate will be whispered by mothers in dark places to frighten their young," said Hastur, and then felt that the language of Hell wasn't up to the job. "You're going to get taken to the bloody cleaners, pal," he added.'
- This is the entirety of every Robert Rankin book ever written. His style consists of nothing but the juxtaposition of childish or coarse words with grand-sounding, Biblical phraseology.
- Similarly happens in John Dies At The End, especially with the sequel (which is/was only half finished, and found on the website) which has a the opening chapter musing upon the nature of the universe then finishes with something along the lines of "...so, the 5 words that have made people break down and run screaming at their very mention..." and starts the next chapter with "So there I was, naked."
- In one of the Spellsinger books: "I'll have you know, me elephantine kitten, that my language is as fucking refined as anyone's!"
Live Action TV
- Jack Handey had a tendency to do this in his "Deep Thought" segments on Saturday Night Live. Speaking with a deeply philosophical tone, accompanied by contemplative music in the background, he would deliver the strangest thoughts imaginable (because hey, free dummy). It was even released in book form. Well you see, I've got these sacks...
- The Ladies' Man segments from SNL also used this trope. Leon Phelps was notorious for mixing sexual slang with romantic euphemism in an occasionally idiotic manner.
- Or as the movie put it: "What is love? What is this longing in our heart for togetherness? Is it not the sweetest flower? Does not this flower of love have the fragrant aroma of fine fine diamond? Does not the wind love the dirt? Is not love not unlike the unlikely knot it is enlikened to? Are you with someone tonight? Do not question your love. Take your lover by the hand. Release the power within yourself. You heard me, release the power. Tame the wild cosmos with a whisper. Conquer heaven with one intimate caress. That's right, don't be shy. Whip out everything you got, and do it in the butt."
- Deadwood uses this a lot, mixing philosophic descriptions and complex compound sentences with the Cluster F Bomb. One fan, posting to Television Without Pity, gave a lengthy and dead-on imitation of the show's style, ending with, "On a personal note, having immersed myself in the world of Deadwood, I have found my own manner of speech and written communication (though perhaps not in this instance) improving and, what is more, proving to be most intellectually refreshing, as I now spend a little longer searching for the right word or the right turn of phrase instead of just spitting up the first fucking thing that springs to mind."
- Law And Order has an episode where a rock star is accused of rape. His lyrics with indications of misogyny are read in court with a deadpan tone, and repeated in Ben Stone's closing arguments.
"One more time on the kitchen floor, your tank's on empty but I want more / I get what I want, it's a one way trip / You ain't a lady, you my bitch."
- Dead Ringers spoofed the "hip" BBC remake of Robin Hood by making all the characters speak in this manner: "Robin of Sherwood, I do fear that the Sheriff wishes to pop a cap in your ass".
- The radio version did it with announcer Charlotte Green's refined accent applied to pop songs: "BBC Radio Four, I'm Charlotte Green. My milkshake brings all the boys to the yard, and they're like, it's better than yours/Damn right, it's better than yours. More on that story later."
- Friends, "The One Where No One's Ready":
Chandler: So, in the words of A.A. Milne, "Get out of my chair, dillhole!"
- Ally McBeal: "Let the record show: Dammit."
- A Bit of Fry and Laurie does this sort of thing quite frequently.
- The Firefly episode "Jaynestown" opens with Kaylee and Simon having a talk about language. Kaylee claims the proper, well-dressed doctor never swears, and Simon says he does when "it's appropriate". Kaylee counters by saying that it's not supposed to be. A few minutes later, upon seeing a statue in the town square dedicated to Jayne, the ship's muscle and resident Jerk Ass, he can only manage, "Son of a bitch."
- Rumpole Of The Bailey gets one of these.
Horace Rumpole: [angrily] And I would advise you, Ballard, if you can find a taxidermist willing to undertake the work, to get stuffed!
- Used various times in The Wire. For example:
Bubbles: You're equivocating like a motherfucker, man; Proposition Joe: I do carry some burdensome niggers...; Cheese: This one ho was pullin' guns out her pussy! Shit was unseemly, yo; Bodie: Man, better go on before I lose my composure out this bitch! Carv: Did you just use word 'habitat' in a sentence?
- Not to mention the infamous gangster board meeting scenes in the third season. Conducted according to Robert's Rules of Order no less.
Poot: Does the chair recognize we gonna look like some punk-ass bitches?
- British impressionist Rory Bremner does a great bit with newsreaders reciting music lyrics in the same manner they read the news.
- Mad Men:
"I wanna tell you something because you're very dear to me. And I hope you understand it comes from the bottom of my damaged, damaged heart. You are the finest piece of ass I ever had, and I don't care who knows it."
- On Dimitri Martin's Comedy Central special, one of his bits went, "I wonder what the most intelligent thing ever said was that started with the word 'dude.' 'Dude, these are isotopes.' 'Dude, we removed your kidney. You're gonna be fine.' 'Dude, I am so stoked to win this Nobel Prize. I just wanna thank Kevin, and Turtle, and all my homies.'"
- House has this line:
Chase: Hey, Foreman. Yo mama's so fat, when her beeper goes off, people think she's backin' up.
- Which is doubly funny when you realize that it's in response to an insult hurled by Foreman at Chase ten minutes earlier, and Chase is just now coming up with an insult to throw back.
- And funnier still when you see Foreman's expression.
House: Well, like the philosopher Jagger once said, "You can't always get what you want."
- In a Monty Pythons Flying Circus sketch, Michael Palin plays an anchor giving the News for Parrots, reading every word in the same stentorian tone:
The Minister of Technology today met the three Russian leaders to discuss a £4 million airliner deal. None of them went in the cage, or swung on the little wooden trapeze or ate any of the nice millet seed, yum, yum.
- Who could forget this exchange from the X Files episode, "Jose Chung's From Outer Space", after relating the story of Rocky the mechanic encountering Lord Kinboat, inner earth inhabitant?
DANA SCULLY: ...now Rocky is what we refer to as a fantasy-prone personality.
JOSE CHUNG: Oh, Agent Scully, you're so kind. He's a nut! I don't know what I found more disturbing about his "manifesto" — his description of the inner earth alien sex orgy, or the fact the whole thing was written in screenplay format!
- Among the most beautiful examples of all time is Black Adder — How the War started.
- Russell Brand. After Rob Brydon insulted his outfit on the Big Fat Quiz Of The Year:
Rob! Why have you elected to attack my apparel? I have these appurtenances and I look grand, and fine, and pleasant. Whereas you look like you've robbed C & A in an 'urry.
- The Big Fat Quiz Of The Year also frequently features this by having high-brow presenters reading from or describing something low-brow, such as Dr David Starkey describing Jedward as if they were a medieval legend, Sir Ian McKellan reading nonsensical passages from the "auto"biographies of minor celebrities, and Jon Snow describing the events of a song ("It transpired that she was just 'bluffing with her muffin'... witnesses later described her expression as 'unreadable'") as if was a news story.
-
Cookie Monster Alastair Cookie of Monsterpiece Theatre does this a lot, saying things like "Anyway, me digress."
- "I have finesse! I have finesse coming out of my bottom!" And countless, countless other examples.
- Dr. Sweets from Bones talks exclusively in this manner.
Caroline: Use your fully grown-up words.
Sweets: I assure you I will be totally, awesomely mature on the stand.
- The Daily Show used to have a segment entitled "Great Moments in Punditry as Read by Children," which is Exactly What It Says On The Tin: little kids reading transcripts from Rush Limbaugh, Bill O'Reilly, Keith Olbermann, and their ilk. Sadly, the segment hasn't been seen in years.
- The Young Ones scene in which Neil's flatmates help him write a letter to his bank manager asking for a loan. Alternating between subservient pleading and resentment for The Man, it's a strong contender for the show's Crowning Moment Of Funny.
Darling Fascist Bullyboy,
Give me some more money, you bastard.
May the seed of your loin be fruitful in the belly of your woman,
Neil
- Alex Trebek is prone to this on Jeopardy!, seamlessly shifting from his highly sophisticated tone to dry, self-deprecating humor and swift pop culture references.
- Sam from The West Wing has this wonderful line about The Declaration of Independence:
"We jumped out from behind bushes while the British came down the road in their bright red jackets, but never has a war been so courteously declared. It was on parchment with calligraphy and, "Your Highness, we beseech you on this day in Philadelphia to bite me, if you please."
- Shortly after Sarah Palin retired as Alaska's governor, Conan O'Brian introduced a segment on The Tonight Show featuring Palin's farewell speech read as beat poetry by "Emmy Award winner and master thespian William Shatner." Indeed, a Crowning Moment Of Awesome.
- Armstrong and Miller have a recurring pair of characters who are WW 2 pilots. Their accent and diction is old style, slightly upperclass English, but their actual words are all, like, utterly modern slang and shit, isn't it. For example
- In a flashback in Red Dwarf, after Lister fed Rimmer hallucinogenic mushrooms as a prank and was sentenced to two weeks of painting the ship's hull as punishment:
Rimmer: Two weeks?
Captain Hollister: (shrugs) That's enough.
Rimmer: Two smegging weeks?
Captain Hollister: I said that is enough!
- The Mystery Science Theater 3000 episode Werewolf invokes this trope when antagonist Yuri (not exactly a model of sophistication himself) berates a romantic rival.
Yuri: I mean, he's got no class at all.
Crow: That mook's got no freakin' class!
- Yes Minister, 'Open Government',
Chief Whip: In politics you have to learn to say things with tact and finesse, you berk!
- A similar one from Father Ted:
Bishop Brennan: You will address me with my proper title, you little bollocks!
Music
- The spoken segment in Pink Floyd's "Sheep":
"The Lord is my shepherd; I shall not want. He makes me down to lie. Through pastures green He leadeth me the quiet waters by. With bright knives He releaseth my soul. He maketh me to hang on hooks in high places. He converteth me to lamb cutlets. For lo, He hath great power and great hunger. When cometh the day we lowly ones, through quiet reflection and great dedication, master the art of karate; lo, we shall rise up, and then we'll make the bugger's eyes water."
- The Capitol Steps do this with a single word in a faux-Shakespearean reenactment of the Hillary Clinton presidential campaign: "Yo-eth!"
- And then there's Nine Inch Nails with their ode to existential crisis in the form of loneliness, "Closer", whose chorus starts: "I wanna fuck you like an animal!" Charming.
- This is arguably the amusing part of covers which drastically change the genre of the original song. There's something bizarre about hearing Alanis Morissette's My Humps with a soft piano backing, Jonathan Coulton's Baby Got Back on acoustic guitar, and everything by Richard Cheese and Lounge Against the Machine, who take songs like the aforementioned Closer by Nine Inch Nails and then play them with jazzy, lounge-style instrumentals.
- In a similar vein, Ben Folds' piano ballad cover of "Bitches Aint Shit"
- And Dynamite Hack's acoustic cover of "Boyz-n-the-Hood"
- Or for something a little more obscure, Emm Gryner's vaguely Tori Amos-esque piano-ballad versions of songs such as "Pour Some Sugar On Me."
- For that matter, Tori Amos' cover of Slayer's "Raining Blood". No, I'm not making this up.
- And her cover of Eminem's "'97 Bonnie & Clyde".
- Weird Al Yankovic's polka medleys — two- or four-line snippets from several songs redone in a polka style and duct-taped together — are another good example.
- The Chasers War On Everything once featured a "lounge version" of Cannibal Corpse's "Rancid Amputation." Hearing is believing.
- Honest Bob and the Factory-To-Dealer Incentives covered Head Like A Hole by Nine Inch Nails, complete with a talkdown in the middle.
- Max Raabe and Palast Orchester cover modern pop songs in 1920s band style.
- Cole Porter fit this in quite nicely with his penchant for name-dropping. The verse of "Just One Of Those Things" attributes slangy break-up lines to legendary lovers, after inverting the trope by quoting Dorothy Parker (see above) as having said "fare thee well" to her boyfriend. In "Hey, Good Lookin'," the line "as Elizabeth Barrett Browning once said" immediately precedes the refrain (and Title Drop).
- First Impression by Ice-T.
- The Offspring's song "When You're In Prison" is in the style of a 1930's radio crooner (complete with crackles and static), and features lyrics such as:
Oh don't be no one's bitch, be no one's bitch
It's bad for you
Oh don't be no one's bitch, be no one's bitch
They won't help you make it through.
- Tom Lehrer:
Lehrer: I find that if you take the various popular song forms to their logcal extreme, you can arrive at almost anything from the ridiculous to the obscene, or, as they say in New York, sophisticated.
- The Coup, "We Are The ones"
"Now philosophically, you'd be opposed To inhaling coke via mouth or the nose
But economically, I would propose
That you go eat a dick as employment froze"
- Garfunkel And Oates have "This Party Took a Turn For the Douche":
Did my last keg stand like General Custer
And I'm assessin' the damage like a claims adjuster
I ain't your Daddy but I'll call you son
Yeah I get metaphysical like fuckin' John Donne
- The pseudoquote variant occurs in the opening lines of "If You Knew Susie", a song popularized by Eddie cantor in 1925: "I have got a sweetie known as Susie/ In the words of Shakespeare, she's a wow!"
- Poet Saul William's "Coded Language" (set to music by DJ Krust) is full of this — though in a far more subtle way:
Whereas, breakbeats have been the missing link connecting the diaspora community to its drum-woven past.
Whereas, the quantized drum has allowed the whirling mathematicians to calculate the ever-changing distance between rock and stardom.
Whereas, the velocity of the spinning vinyl — cross-faded, spun backwards, and re-released at the same given moment of recorded history, yet at a different moment in time's continuum — has allowed history to catch up with the present.
We do hereby declare reality unkempt by the changing standards of dialogue.
Theatre
- The protagonist in Wit, an English professor struggling with terminal cancer, notes that her vocabulary has "taken a turn for the Anglo-Saxon" after a violent spell of vomiting. "God, I'm going to barf my brains out... If I actually did barf my brains out, it would be a great loss to my discipline."
- In Bob Carlton's Forbidden Planet musical adaptation, Return to the Forbidden Planet, the robot Ariel consults Miranda as to her attempts to win over the Captain by saying, "Ah, Mistress, that will never work, for in that dress you'll miss. He'll not be swayed by haute couture." "Honestly?" "No shit!"
- In the stage musical version of Dirty Rotten Scoundrels, the first verse of Freddy's song "Great Big Stuff" runs:
I thought I'd seen it all,
I thought I knew the score.
But coming here, I've found a world
I'd never seen before.
Now I know where I belong —
A life of taste and class
With culture and sophistication
Pouring out my ass.
Video Games
- A certain mission in City Of Heroes includes a scene where a group of Steam Punk villains attempt to ally with a group of Cyber Punk villains.
"I assure you, my good man, Nemesis is most definitely 'down with the street'. Word up, my homey, as it were."
- Also, a Circle of Thorns mage sums up his exile from Oranbega for not trusting the Circle's defenses: "I must use your vulgar modern vernacular to properly compound insult upon indignity and state: This blows."
- Metal Wolf Chaos has otherwise fairly normal newscaster call the hero "meaner than Satan."
- This commercial for Mercenaries 2, in which a gangsta-style song of vengeance is sung, show tune-style, with appropriate piano music.
- The title character of American Mc Gees Grimm is something like this. Grimm's voice-overs combine erudite sarcasm and Lampshade Hanging of tired fairy tales with a gleeful delight in bathroom humor and Bloody Hilarious Amusing Injuries inflicted on those who deserve it (and a few who don't).
- I Have No Mouth And I Must Scream has this:
Human. Relinquish the Totem of Entropy. Do not relinquish it, and your ass is MINE.
- Coffin Guy from the Baroque roguelike RPG often uses the words "please" and "goddammit" in the same sentence.
- Bio Shock gives us this nugget:
- The default answer is, of course, "No, I'm afraid murdering him kindly would be impossible." Of course, there is Subtext here: the use of "Would you kindly" is justified a short time later in plot. The use of "son of a bitch" is justified in that the speaker is royally poshed.
- "I am Sinbad of the Seven Seas! Adventurer of adventurers! ... Who the heck are you?"
- Maechen, the resident Exposition Man in Final Fantasy X, is a little prone to this trope. Speaking with a very learned English accent, he says things such as "The water it sucks through its schnozz somehow supports its considerable size."
- Kain from Legacy Of Kain, voiced extremely well by the very British Simon Templeman, spends the whole series speaking in pseudo-Shakespearian dialogue. At the very end, when presented with the Elder God in all his squiddy glory, he is so taken aback he can only blurt out "What in hell?"
- Kingdom Hearts II has an odd example:
Seifer: That was undeniable proof that we totally owned you lamers!
- In Fallout, when the Vault Dweller manages to sneak into the Theives Guild hideout, he's greated by their well spoken leader, Loxley. After some pleasant introductions...
Loxley: Quite pleased to make your acquaintance actually...for now. Let's get the other bit of politeness taken care of, shall we? What the bloody, bloody, bloody hell are you doing here?!
- The Heretic manual does this, possibly by design but also rather jarringly, as it alternatingly and even simultaneously tries to sound appropriate for a high fantasy setting ("They stood solemnly, surrounding seven candles, each flame tied irrevocably to the flow of Earth's breath") and to assure people this is a game for those who want to see blood and guts ("Watch 'em scream and burn — it's great!") Sometimes the styles blend together so that you can't draw a line between them, but it still sounds odd. "These hideous abominations of the dark world move bloody fast and possess deadly sharp blades for appendages."
Webcomics
- T-Rex From Dinosaur Comics does this a lot, such as describing literary or logical techniques in textbook levels of detail then describing them as "awesome". When discussing logic:
T-Rex: For example, "T-Rex is a pretty sweet dude because he's always so friggin' awesome!" This is actually formally valid: If the premise is true and I'm friggin' awesome, then it follows that I'm a pretty sweet dude. However, I've provided no logical support for my "T-Rex is awesome" premise, but only made a conclusion (T-Rex = pretty sweet) which relies on the premise being true.
- The authors of Holy Bibble do the same thing in The Rant occasionally. For example, Cannan explains Correlation does not imply causation using his skillz with teh ladiez here. The resulting effect is like if David Morgan-Marr had spent his formative years perusing internet forums.
- MS Paint Adventures is also notorious for this, in which the narration can be fluid and verbose one second and abruptly switch to badass (by any given standard) one-liners the next.
- In Something Positive, Mike's therapist informs him "Mike, you are what we in the profession call "fucked up"."
- This Penny Arcade strip
Quest Giver: Hail, Grey Warden. Your master once made a promise. Will you abide by that promise? Player: Word. I'm always abiding by shit.
- These two early xkcd strips.
- Achewood basically uses this to an extremely refined form as the primary source of its humor.
- Dominic Deegan gives us an instance where experimental "fire monkeys" are running around. It later turns out the monkeys were not only hamming up their actions, but speak in a very refined, charming fashion. Lookie here.
Dominic and Luna: "DRAGON DRAGON OHMYGOD OHWOW DRAGON DRAGON!"
- Shortly thereafter, they visit Olde Tucklebruck Island and Luna tastes some of the native halflings' famous beer. After impressing the innkeeper with her connoisseurship and eloquent commentary on the beer, he lets her try his finest, most prized brew: "The Orion." Her response?
Luna: SWEET LEAPING BASTARD MONKEYS IT'S GLORIOUS!
- "Then we must endeavour to find some common ground. For instance, I posit that ladies' bosoms are rad. Do you agree?"
- The Inexplicable Adventures Of Bob has Molly, a furry bipedal creature who essentially sprang from an experimental genetic serum spilled into a jar of peanut butter. She has a supergenius level IQ, yet is chronologically less than two years old — and has a tendency to ping-pong from sophisticated to simplistic in her speech... sometimes two or three times in a single sentence.
- Though Order Of The Stick mixes characters with modern day speech patterns with High Fantasy tropes, it only rarely indulges in this.
Miko: My master has ordered their execution for deeds they have committed against his interests. Soon, they shall taste the bitter fruits of their deeds.
Weasel: Awesome.
- Aetheria Epics inverts it with the black mage gang at Eastveil Academy:
Max: "Go ahead, man."
Vol: "Sure, bro. Ahem...'Twas not 3 midmornings ago that the momentous encounter took place that would forever change our most illustrious organization..."
Western Animation
- In Transformers Animated, after the defeat of the Headmaster, who usually talks in l33t/gamer speak, the usually scientific Professor Sumdac comments, "I believe the phrase is 'total 0wnage, n00b'."
- Transformers Generation 1 has Computron, after defeating the Decepticon Terrorcons, say "Estimated probability of Terrorcon victory over Computron: 4.1 percent. Scoot!" The Decepticons make a break for it, as do the other bad guys, the Quintessons.
- This exchange in the Simpsons:
Gangsta: Yo boy, this class is tight. You go from slopper to proper.
Bart: Cool!
Socialite: Welcome to my etiquette class, The Proper Young Man.
Bart: But the black man said ...
Socialite: Are you accusing my husband of misleading you? Good gracious, I should bust a cap in your ass.
- Let's not forget the socialite woman's reaction to Homer pushing her aside to catch an elevator: "How dreadfully rude! I do hope someone stabs him in the eye."
- Then there's Lisa's description of Mr Burns as a "monopolistic, self-aggrandising... umm... stinky-pants!"
- A tamer version shows up in a Treehouse of Horror episode. Homer finds himself in a mysterious 3D realm (or as he says "has anyone seen Tron?") this happens:
Homer's Brain: "Oh glory of glories! Oh, heavenly testament to the eternal majesty of God's creation!"
Homer: (Out loud) "HOLY MACARONI!!!"
- Forced on Brain in an episode of Animaniacs. As "Noodle Noggin", he'd talk in the way he usually speaks... on a kids' show. So an established character on the show would bop him on the head mid-sentence and he'd switch over to speaking like Pinky. Apparently, the fake Show Within A Show made a Running Gag of this.
- From the Phineas And Ferb episode "Nerdy Dancin'":
Phineas: So, brother of mine, what endeavor shall we engage in today?
Jeremy walks up to Phineas and Ferb
Phineas: Hey, Jeremy. What's the haps, big guy?
- From the 1949 Droopy short "Outfoxed":
Droopy: Hello, Mr. Fox. Now can I catch you?
(Very) English Fox: As they say in America... Are you kiddin'?
Other
- As noted above, Yahtzee has a tendency to do this. When asked whether he thinks video games contribute to violent activities in youth, the screen flashes, "No, and I consider your argument misinformed," but he says, "No, and go fuck yourselves, you ignorant scaremongering cockbags."
- The actual link to the video in question. It's worth noting that there was another entry here, but it was wrong, unrelated, and can therefore, in the spirit of this trope, fuck off.
- Two words: George Carlin.
- The You Tube video "How to Write a Fugue" by Danny Pi.
"'Oops I Did It Again' marks the end of Britney Spears's transition from her 'sweet Catholic ingenue' phase to her 'impetuous skanky youth' phase."
- Steve Allen's dramatic readings of insipid pop lyrics during his time as host of The Tonight Show.
- Cracked.com articles tend to be like this. For example, Five Superpowers Science Will Give Us In Our Lifetime describes future scientific breakthroughs with the glee of a child and the mind of an adult:
A group of Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute scientists working with nanolayers (molecular chains of carbon molecules with elements such as silicon, oxygen or sulfur) accidentally found that heating nanolayers of commercially available glue sandwiched between copper and silica, it created a bond that one researcher called "As strong as a motherfucker."
- Two more words: Dave Barry.
"What, exactly, is the Internet? Basically it is a global network exchanging digitized data in such a way that any computer, anywhere, that is equipped with a device called a "modem" can make a noise like a duck choking on a kazoo."
- The British adult-humour comic Viz does this on occasion.
- This is one of many tropes that FATAL provides an example of how not to use. The historically and mythologically accurate scholarship is interspersed with vulgarity that would make a drunken frat-boy wince, with a note that this was added for humorous effect.
- The A.V. Club column "IMDBates" examines internet flamewars with the same detail and language one might use to document a trial. For instance "Reducing [the Joker] to such a base interpretation of "Omigod he's hawt!!!" robs him of his effectiveness, and reveals a shallow understanding of the film. Plus, all you ladies are sicko pervs."
- Hell, this trope in general is what makes The Onion hilarious, with its deadpan, well-articulated descriptions of banal/vulgar/stupid things. One memorable example, from Elementary Schooler Clearly Just Learned to Swear; "In the past two days, Schweder has composed a ribald song titled 'Shit Shit Boobies,' covered three sheets of notebook paper with scatological malediction, and attempted to tell a joke about 'a girl who saw a boy's pussy'."
- Of all the mastery of this trope in The Onion, perhaps the most memorable is the columnist Smoove B:
Lay your body down, and I will show you love. I will drape you in the finest black silks. I will travel to the finest Asian nations to attain this silk. Then, I will run my fingers through your hair. I will caress your body slowly and whisper in your ear while I do so. I will tell you such things as, "You are the most beautiful woman in the world" and "Your skin is like the most expensive Swiss chocolate money can buy" and "Your eyes are like windows to paradise," and other romantic things that will make you tremble with desire. I will hit you doggy-style.
- "Supreme Court Rules Death Penalty Totally Badass".
- Humorist Lore Sjoberg, author of among other things The Book of Ratings, combines Sesquipedalian Loquaciousness and formal diction (often rather more formal than his topic would seem to merit) with slang and profanity.
- Uncyclopedia does this when assigning appropriate quotations to Oscar Wilde. Well, for some definition of "appropriate".
- Badass Of The Week pretty much runs off this trope.
- This is Lieutenant Rzhevsky's (a recurring character of Russian joke stories) preferred manner of speech.
- It's fairly common to start a rendition of The Aristocrats joke in a sophisticated manner. The punchline itself is sort of an example, with performers of unspeakable acts describing themselves as aristocrats (or in some versions of the joke, "sophisticates").
- This is actually used as a call-in contest by a radio station in Edmonton, Alberta. The announcer, in a complete monotone, gives a line from a popular song (but not a signature line, such as from the chorus) and the caller has 10 seconds to get the song. Because of the complete lack of context in rhythm and tone, it's actually damn hard.
- Discussing the semantics of the phrase "Shut the fuck up": "The main syntactic problem is to determine whether the fuck is being used as an pleonastic (semantically empty) direct object of shut or as a pre-head modifier of the preposition phrase (PP) headed by up."
- There are some other instances, of course, but mostly interfixing in English occurs in very specialized circumstances. Despite that, it follows rules. For instance it always occurs on word boundaries, rather than morpheme boundaries. We all possess very clear intuitions regarding the validity of 'im-fucking-possible' and 'inpossi-fucking-able'.
- Furthermore, while our minds are able to recognise the point where the bound morpheme ends and the free morpheme begins (as evidenced in the above example, considering that most interfixes in English do tend to be of a similar nature) there are cases where a word may be one lexical morpheme where a few of the letters resemble a derivational morpheme (or may be mistaken for an allomorph of a derivational morpheme), leading people to either add an interfix at that juncture or to replace a portion of the word with the interfix. For example, I could take the word ridiculous and replace the letters dic with an interfix of cock, resulting in a new word — ricockulous — used like so: That's fucking ricockulous! Indeed, such a practice is quite ricockulous.
- The above example is misleading, as the interfix in "im-fucking-possible" does indeed occur at a morpheme boundary; to clarify, it is placed between the negation morpheme "im-" (a prefix) and the root adjectival morpheme "possible." An interfix, as in the above, occurs by definition at morpheme boundaries. The counterexample, "impossi-fucking-able" is actually an infix, which occurs within a single morpheme. This particular example, however, wouldn't occur, because in English, such infixes rather tend to occur preceding stressed syllables. This troper's professor was fond of using "Cali-fucking-fornia" as an example; because "California" is one word, and for that matter one morpheme (in English, at least), the placement of the infix cannot be determined by morphemic boundaries and therefore must be determined by phonology (in this case, by the suprasegmental feature of stress).
- Similrly, the Wikipedia article for "fuck."
- From Have I Got News for You:
Paul Merton: (On Boris Johnson) It's just a disaster, isn't it? He's going to go off and do something surprising and extraordinary, and people are going to go: "Oh no, he's a fucking idiot."
- Three Minute Philosophy runs on this trope:
Aristotle transformed the landscape of western thought with his revolutionary theories of philosophy and science, which was an amazing achievement although the bulk of his theories are already discovered to be nigh-incomprehensible bullshit.
- Commentary The Musical from Dr Horrible, "Zack's Rap". After a normal, profanity-laden rap song, Zack Whedon devolves into artistic rambling:
Not to mention my whole Moist storyline
Where he gets caught selling blow at a rest stop and serves time
And then he gets out and tries to get his shit together and teaches art to underprivileged kids at the local high school, but things take an interesting turn when an old gambling buddy comes to collect. See it's his former life coming back to haunt him. You can't outrun your past. See? Get it? That's the point, Joss. It's compelling! What's going to happen to these kids?!
- The always-deadpan Steven Wright rarely curses, but when he does...
"When I was a kid, my parents would always follow up bad words by saying 'Pardon my French.' Well, recently, I was walking down the street, and this old lady comes up to me and asks, 'Do you speak French?' 'Certainly,' I said. 'Can you say something in French for me?' ' Fuck you, you fucking asshole.' I caught the teeth as they went flying out of her mouth."
- Dave Barry recounts Winston Churchill saying to a woman at a party, "Madam, I may be drunk, but BBLURUGHUH" all over her evening gown.
"I do like the starkness of the visual aesthetic, if you'll forgive the degree of faggotry in that phrasing." — Ben 'Yahtzee' Croshaw, on Mirrors Edge
"While Hitler's plan was not in itself a bad one, Russia is what advanced military strategists term as 'very very big.'"
— An Utterly Impartial History of Britain, or Two Thousand Years of Upper-class Idiots in Charge on the subject of Hitler's invasion of Russia
Real Life
- There was an article about swearing that mentioned how forced this trope can be in reality. "At one point in college a friend of mine pointed out that we had started cursing a lot when we were having intellectual conversations, as though trying to prove we were still cool. Talking about, say, "motherfucking post-structuralists" began to seem annoying, a facile combination of high and low that now seems like it belongs on Stuff White People Like. So as not to be assholes, we were forced to cut it out."
- This actual answer to a threatening letter from an American company to the Swedish bitTorrent site ThePirate Bay ended with
As you may or may not be aware, Sweden is not a state in the United States of America. Sweden is a country in northern Europe.
Unless you figured it out by now, US law does not apply here.
For your information, no Swedish law is being violated.
Please be assured that any further contact with us, regardless of medium, will result in
a) a suit being filed for harassment
b) a formal complaint lodged with the bar of your legal counsel, for sending frivolous legal threats.
- Similarly, in the libel case of Arkell vs. Pressdram (the company that publishes Private Eye), Arkell's lawyers sent Private Eye a letter informing the Eye that "Our client's attitude to damages will depend on the nature of your reply". Pressdram sent a letter back which read "We would be interested to know what your client's attitude to damages would be if the nature of our reply were as follows: Fuck off". Ever since, Arkell vs. Pressdram has become a Running Gag for Private Eye; anyone who presses what Pressdram regards as a baseless law suit gets the reply, "We refer you to the reply given in the case of Arkell v. Pressdram"
- This House Concurrent Resolution (no. 29) put forth by the Idaho State Legislature, commending Jared and Jerusha Hess for the writing and production of Napoleon Dynamite. The turning point comes long about page 2, line 4, though one should at least start with line 2 on the same page: "WHEREAS, any members of the House of Representatives or the Senate of the Legislature of the State of Idaho who choose to vote 'Nay' on this concurrent resolution are 'FREAKIN' IDIOTS!' and run the risk of having the 'Worst Day of Their Lives!'" It was passed 69-0, one member absent, by a voice vote.
- In 1976, Alabama State Attorney General Bill Baxley re-opened Birmingham's 16th Street Church bombing case (the basis for Spike Lee's 4 Little Girls and a turning point in the American Civil Rights movement). He received threatening letters from the state's still-powerful Klu Klux Klan chapter. Baxley's full written response, on official state letterhead:
My response to your letter of February 19, 1976 is — kiss my ass.
- The 1985 resolution in the Ohio General Assembly that made "Hang On Sloopy" the state rock song (there's a reason why you hear it at every Ohio State football game) had lines such as:
WHEREAS, Adoption of "Hang On Sloopy" as the official rock song of Ohio is in no way intended to supplant "Beautiful Ohio" as the official state song, but would serve as a companion piece to that old chestnut
WHEREAS, If fans of jazz, country-and-western, classical, Hawaiian and polka music think those styles also should be recognized by the state, then by golly, they can push their own resolution just like we're doing
WHEREAS, "Hang On Sloopy" is of particular relevance to members of the Baby Boom Generation, who were once dismissed as a bunch of long-haired, crazy kids, but who now are old enough and vote in sufficient numbers to be taken quite seriously
WHEREAS, Adoption of this resolution will not take too long, cost the state anything, or affect the quality of life in this state to any appreciable degree, and if we in the legislature just go ahead and pass the darn thing, we can get on with more important stuff
WHEREAS, Sloopy lives in a very bad part of town, and everybody, yeah, tries to put my Sloopy down
- Of course, if you're not a big fan of the song, you might disagree with that "affect the quality of life in this state" thing.
- In 1984, Joschka Fischer, then member of the German Parliament, addressed the President of the Parliament with "Mit Verlaub, Herr Präsident, Sie sind ein Arschloch." Translation: "With respect, Mister President, you are an asshole."
- Some correspondence during the Battle of the Bulge of WWII as described in Stephen E. Ambrose's "Band of Brothers."
To: the USA commander of the encircled town of Bastogne; from: the German commander; there follows a four-paragraph message demanding an "honorable surrender to save the encircled USA troops from total annihilation."
To: The German commander; "NUTS!" — The American commander
- Unconfirmed sources usually listed as "my granddad" or "my granddad's war buddy" say NUTS! was actually a result of the translator either unwilling or unable to translate the actual one word interjection sent as a reply by the American commander.
- There are some who feel that if they attack us, that we may decide to leave prematurely. They don't understand what they're talking about. There are some who feel like the conditions are such that they can attack us there. My answer is, "Bring 'em on." — President George W. Bush
- Lenny Bruce performed after being arrested for obscenity in Chicago and complained about testimony in his case consisting of a policeman reciting his act.
- In An Utterly Impartial History of Britain, or 2000 Years of Upper Class Idiots In Charge, John O'Farrell discusses the effect that Norman domination of Saxon England would have hundreds of years down the line:
That is why you will never hear a BBC newsreader saying, 'Several British beaches have lost their blue flags after EC inspectors detected unacceptably high levels of shite. The Prime Minister described the decision as "bollocks."'
- Barack Obama's speaking style is practically built on this. The man can switch from talking like the Harvard-educated master orator that he is to down-homey simplicity so fast it gives English majors whiplash. From the 2008 Alfred E. Smith charity event: "If I had to name my greatest strength, it would be my humility. My greatest weakness: it's possible that I'm a little too awesome."
- Mozart wrote two canons whose titles can be loosely translated as "kiss my ass."
- This trope is seen even more prevalently in the edit war on the canon's Wikipedia page, where reasonably intelligent and sophisticated people are arguing over whether the more appropriate translation is the literal "lick me in the ass", the British-ized "lick me in the arse", or the looser, more contextualized "kiss my ass".
- Attend any gathering of philosophy students, especially if there's alcohol involved, and you'll hear this trope in spades. Actually, it even makes its way into the classroom sometimes; I myself have described our position of verificationism were correct as being "epistemically fucked" in a graduate-level seminar.
- Computer Scientists are even worse; our entire jargon is based on this kind of thing. The result of an "infinite recursion causing total memory allocation," for instance, may be that your system will proceed to "barf."
- Biologists get so few of these, although some of the more proper lecturers find the Sneaky Fucker strategy awkward to explain.
- Whaddaya mean few? Half of the proteins out there are named either for laughs or after a videogame character. Pikachurin, Sonic Hedgehog, Coitus Interruptus, CRAP... The list goes on. There's even an R2D2 protein. And yes, every one of those is both real and intentional.
- Not to mention actors. "Billy, I love you. I was too scared to say it before... but I'm saying it now. I love you." *attempts to put his head in her lap* "Jesus Christ, you're heavy!"
- Only one American publication I know of is more skillful at employing this trope than The Onion: The Weekly World News. Nearly every paragraph of an average issue uses it, usually to great effect. In fact, this deeply misunderstood and underappreciated institution produces top-notch journalistic satire, not to mention a deliciously surreal view of American life that would please Charles Fort and Aleister Crowley as well as John Waters and P.T. Barnum. For decades, behind a smokescreen of anonymity, in a newsroom where awards, fame, and journalistic integrity meant nothing at all, young writers with nothing to lose, mature writers who just wanted to blow off steam, idealists who refused to play the game, burn-outs who played the game too hard, Hiassenesque Tough Guys who got screwed by the corrupt system, and pale, tense young men who believed every word have produced a weekly journal of the U.S.'s greatest hopes, its darkest fears, and above all its strangest and most inexplicably haunting dreams. To lump The Weekly World News in with the vicious, puerile, hate-mongering tabloids that surrounded it in the checkout line is to disregard a true American original. From jazz to rap, from Willie Nelson to the Residents, from comic strips to the American Beauty rose, American art has always grown best when its roots are dirty. Furthermore, Batboy could kick your ass.
- Of course, these days it's been reduced to a pull-out insert in The Sun (not the British version). Sic transit gloria mundi.
- Since we're including journalism here, Hunter S. Thompson was the undisputed king of this. He could mix in one ecstatic run-on Biblical pronouncement, scholarly analysis, down-home country expressions, and a magnificent Cluster F Bomb in a way never surpassed.
- In The Unknown Marx Brothers, a cooperative real-life example of this pops up when Dick Cavett relates an anecdote (and it definitely helps to hear him tell this in his calm, mannered delivery) about Chico Marx being a notorious womanizer, and a crude one at that. He is to meet Tallulah Bankhead, "a great aristocratic beauty", at a fancy party of some sort, and everyone's worried about Chico making an embarrassing pass at her and causing a scene. He promises he'll behave. The day comes, he meets her, they converse pleasantly, and everyone breathes a sigh of relief. Chico then tells Tallulah "You know, I'd really like to fuck you." She replies, "And so you shall, you old-fashioned boy." Cue Cavett's interviewers cracking up.
- That Guy With The Glasses.com has Fanfic Theatre and Lyrical Poetry, which are Exactly What It Says On The Tin, taking a highbrow approach to lowbrow entertainment.
- Jeffery Skilling, a former Enron executive, while applying for Harvard Business School, one of, if not the most formal schools in the country, was asked if he was smart. His answer? "I'm f***ing smart."
- According to The Other Wiki, even respected scholars refer to the tendency of semi-anonymous members of online communities to act more vulgarly and aggressively towards each other as the "Greater Internet Fuckwad Theory" In addition to potentially being a misapplication of the word "Theory," the vocal dissonance is fucking hillarious.
- Kevin Rudd, Australia's PM, is guilty of this. Whilst explaining his reasoning behind the Government's latest actions with regards to the financial crisis, he broke his normal Spock Speak and actually said there'd be a "political shitstorm" in response to his plans. On national television, uncensored. The real kicker? The opposition parties, being Dangerously Genre Savvy, actually accused him of employing this very trope so as to improve his polling amongst the workers. May also be a Precision F Strike.
- Similar to the Law And Order example in the TV section above, when Jack Thompson took on 2 Live Crew in the 80s, part of his prosecution included reading the group's lyrics to jury members... who then asked if it was all right to laugh during the trial. Needless to say, Jackie Boy didn't win this one.
- Five Thirty Eight (a political statistics blog, of all things) had this beautiful sentence when talking about denial of global warming:
"There's just one little problem with this story, which reappears every so often in conservative discourse on the environment. Specifically, it's a crock of shit."
- Alex Kozinski, a Judge (currently Chief Judge) on the US Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals, is famous for lacing his opinions with this trope. The most famous came in the 2002 case Mattel, Inc. v. MCA Records, Inc., arising over Mattel's accusation that Aqua's song "Barbie Girl" turned Barbie into a sex object. Kozinski's opinion began as follows:
"If this were a sci-fi melodrama, it might be called Speech-Zilla meets Trademark Kong."
And then ended as follows:
"The parties are advised to chill."
- (Kozinski found for MCA, which is why you can still find "Barbie Girl" on the market).
- Australian television personality Shaun Micallef bases his entire persona on the dissonance between his cheerful personality, his professional and business-like voice, his large vocabulary, his knowledge of obscure pop culture phenomena, and his Buffy Speak tendencies. His between-game banter in Talkin' 'Bout Your Generation will have him flipping between Beethoven and Pokemon and describing them all in the same alliterative and frequently poetic terms.
- And if you really want to see this illustrated fully, please watch anything Micallef did BEFORE the above show — The Micallef Program, The Micallef Program(me), The Micallef Pogram, Micallef Tonight, and especially Newstopia.
- Billy Connolly once recounted a conversation in which he was told that a mutual aquantaince had been informed by a doctor that "His heart's fucked". Billy proceeds to give his vision of the scenario, ending with the doctor telling his patient to "fear not", as they shall "Amble into Glasgow, you and I, to the Royal Infirmary, where I believe that they have just taken possession of a "Defuckulator".
- He did it again, when explaining that smelling of piss is not an attractive feature, stating you'd never hear Tolstoy saying the following:
I saw her first at Red Square, with the light glinting off her hair. I'd never forget it as I came closer. The delicate but definite smell of urine. It drew me like a magnet. Oh, Natasha, I love you, you big squirt of piss.
- This reporter.
- This academic paper, which analyses slang terms for genitalia, is this trope incarnate. Possibly the only paper ever written to cite Roger's Profanisaurus as a reference.
- A similar example is the famous joke computer science paper "The Complexity of Songs" by Donald Knuth, with such lines as: "We have seen that the partridge in the pear tree gave an improvement of only 1/sqrt(log n) [...] The next big breakthrough was [...] a class of songs known as "m Bottles of Beer on the Wall" [...]"
- Ben Goldacre; Doctor, Author, Blogger, Science Geek. He gives talks on topics like the Placebo and Nocebo effects, scientific research, bias in media reporting, and drops phrases like "skullfucked with his datacock" and "metric fuckton" into the middle of these important issues with breathtakingly casual insouciance. It's not often you get to laugh out loud in a presentation about the numerous ways that shoddy science reporting is trying to kill you.
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