Phrases to be used more often

by Alex

Here is a list of phrases or ideas or sayings that I feel I should be employing more often in conversation.

Semiotic Lumberjack — the dishevled, unhygenic theorist look. “For instance.”:http://home.uchicago.edu/~jniimi/carldrew.JPG

“Voting with your feet”

“Give the thermometer” — flirt

“On the bias” — opposite of ‘on the level’

“[tell him to] peel an eel” — get lost

“modulo” — just makes sentences shorter.

“let the eagle soar” — an ironic reference to the Ashcroft song used to mean ‘get really really incredibly drunk’ e.g. “I’ve got twenty bucks. Let’s let the eagle soar.”

“fucking up my Christmas” — via mc chris. “Good” “attractive” or “desirable”. Paradigmatically, used of a woman.

“When you’re holding a hammer, everything looks like a nail” — I love this phrase. Don’t ask me why.

“The handle is one of us” — from the brief parable “a lumberjack walked into the forest. The trees looked at the ax and said ‘The handle is one of us.’” I’m not sure what this is about, but it is enigmatic and vaguely dark. I like it.

“Just because X is all about Y doesn’t mean that all Y is about X” — It’s surprising how well this works on people who have taken The Dark Path of Cultural Studies (as opposed to the unobjectionable Light Path, which is more about force-heal and less about force-grip). E.g. “just because Derrida is all about ambiguity doesn’t mean that all ambiguity is about Derrida.”

Use of pretentious wine terms to describe things other than wine — e.g. “Joel’s book had solid structure but never really opened out on my palate.” or “he’s oaky, but I find his tannins too astringent”