hmmmmmmmmm.......: sui generis

Monday, August 01, 2005

sui generis

is, according to Ang, her "Least Favorite Academic-y Sounding Phrase Ever."

If she had comments on her blog I would say this there, but instead I'll say it here.

There is a magazine called New York, and in the back, they used to have a page (perhaps still do) dedicated to little word games—people would submit little plays-on-words on particular themes. It was often hilarious.

One time the theme was something about skewed translations of words/phrases in other languages. (Their example wasn't, but could have been, an old fave of my mom's—"tant pis, tant mieux" which means something like, "ya win some, ya lose some," but which is jokingly translated as "aunt went to the bathroom, aunt feels better." Ha very ha.)

So anyway anyway, the winner in this particular word-play contest was:
sui generis: a fat hog.

I'm trying to LOL quietly so I don't wake Loopy from her pre-prelim rest.... but yes, this many years later, that still cracks me up.

1 comment:

Franklin said...

If, in some alternate universe, I were going to do drag, I think I might use the name "Susie Generis."

She could be an utterly FABulous assistant professor of postmodern theory or something like that.

My shows would be PACKED.