I Just Read About That…

[READ: March 4, 2023] Euphemisms That Get on My You-Know-Whats

I enjoy a good book of lists.  I have learned not to buy them, though–although they are usually good for a read-through.  And this is one of those read-through books (in fact, Adam Sharp has a Twitter account where you can read these lists–if you still have a Twitter account).  Actually I don’t know if he has a “new Twitter” account as I won’t check.

This book was released in Britain in 2020 as The Correct Order of Biscuits, which I think gets the point of the book across a little better than its new title.

The book starts off dubiously with a List of the worst lyrics ever conceived.

7. You look fresh like a salad, so smooth (BTS)
3. Life, oh life, oh life, oh life (Des’ree)
2. Like a tramp in the night, I was begging for you (Samantha Fox)
1. Santa’s on his sleigh but now he’s two metres away (Robbie W)

[I copied this from his Twitter page so I wouldn’t have to type it.  The Twitter page had only five entries and was in a slightly different order, hence the jump from 7 to 3].

So why is this a dubious start.  Because there are so many utterly crap lyrics that these barely scratch the surface.  There’s just too many to choose from and I feel he has limited himself to pop songs.

It picks up with a list of how dogs go woof woof in different languages

8. Voff voff (Icelandic)
7. Lol lol (Tamil)
6. Bup bup (Catalan)
5. Ham ham (Albanian)
4. Woke Woke (Burmese)
3. Gong Gong (Malay)
2. Wang wang (Mandarin)
1. Bawf (Scots)

This is the kind of thing we want.  Possibly verifiable and utterly useless.

I enjoyed some of his lists quite a lot. Like A list of English Regency slang: “dicked in the knob” (crazy), “The apple dumplin’ shop” (breasts), and “My arse on a bandbox” (like hell I will).

And a hilarious list of Kim Jon-il’s achievements (according to his official biography)

Learned to walk (three weeks old)
Wrote 1,500 books and six full operas (in college)
Shot eleven holes-in-one in a golf game
Controlled the weather with his mind
Invented the hamburger
Never had to poop.

I feel like I have seen this list before, or at the one I’m including here.  A list of things I feared as a kid but now rarely worry about: Quicksand.  So true.

When Sharp makes up his own jokes, they are less successful

A list of films to watch if you like pasta

A Fusilli Good Men
Fear and Loathing in Lasagne.

Although this one was pretty good

A List of the most popular names for daughters of drummers

Anna One
Anna Two
Anna One Two Three Four

I wasn’t always clear if the things that purported to be true were actually true but we confirmed 7 of the 8 of this list of words and phrases that are older than you think

Fangirl (1934)
OMG (1917)*
Legit (1897)
Fake news (1890)
Xmas (1755)
Hubby (1682)
Newfangled (1496)
That chonky boi is swole and thicc (217 BC) [unconfirmed]

*The first known use of OMG comes from a letter to Winston Churchill (in 1917).

Outdated English slang for being drunk:

Full to the bowtie (1959)
Whittled as a penguin (1906)
Plum full of bug juice (1894)
Malty (1811)
Coming home by the villages (1770)
Drunk as a wheelbarrow (1675)
Bumpsy (1611)

A list of savage curses from around the world

8. May a goose kick you (Poland)
7. May your VCR catch fire (Greece)
6. May your future child be born without a butthole (China)
2. May your wife give birth to a centipede so you spend your life working for shoes (Serbia)
1. Let it be the will of god that you shit yourself (Bosnia)

He has a few things that he’s made up that I think are fun, like this duo

A list of my thoughts about “liking” a post on social media

Boring
Weak
Everyone does it

A list of why replying with “This pleases me” is better

Enigmatic
Suggests people should curry favor with you
It’s what Benedict Cumberbatch would do.

Cumberbatch notwithstanding, I’m going to try this next time.

And one of his originals that really made me laugh was  A list of famous book titles with added clickbait

You Simply Won’t Believe How Many Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest
Fifty Mind-Blowing Shades of Grey (No. 7 is EPIC)
You’ll Flip When You See What Madame Bovary Looks Like Now
Every Singled Year of Solitude, Definitively Ranked
Nobody Can Figure Out Where Waldo Is, and It’s Driving Them CRAZY

And the list that started it all in England is apparently this one

A list of the correct order of biscuits

Jaffa cakes
Chocolate bourbons
Choco Leibniz
Oreos (the chocolate brownie ones)
Triple chocolate chip cookies

Like everyone else, I disagree with this list, although I do love Jaffa cakes.

So, this is another fun book.  Give it as a gift and then read it at your friend’s house when you go to the bathroom.