Couth Quotes

Ellie goes back to the kitchen . . . and screams bloody murder. “Nooooooo!” Adrenaline spikes through me and I dart to the kitchen, ready to fight. Until I see the cause of her screaming. “Bosco, noooooo!” It’s the rodent-dog. He got into the kitchen, somehow managed to hoist himself up onto the counter, and is in the process of demolishing his fourth pie. Fucking Christ, it’s impressive how fast he ate them. That a mutt his size could even eat that many. His stomach bulges with his ill-gotten gains—like a snake that ingested a monkey. A big one. “Thieving little bastard!” I yell. Ellie scoops him off the counter and I point my finger in his face. “Bad dog.” The little twat just snarls back. Ellie tosses the mongrel on the steps that lead up to the apartment and slams the door. Then we both turn and assess the damage. Two apple and a cherry are completely devoured, he nibbled at the edge of a peach and apple crumb and left tiny paw-prints in two lemon meringues. “We’re going to have re-bake all seven,” Ellie says. I fold my arms across my chest. “Looks that way.” “It’ll take hours,” she says. “Yeah.” “But we have to. There isn’t any other choice.” Silence follows. Heavy, meaningful silence. I glance sideways at Ellie, and she’s already peeking over at me. “Or . . . is there?” she asks slyly. I look at what remains of the damaged pastries, considering all the options. “If we slice off the chewed bits . . .” “And smooth out the meringue . . .” “Put the licked ones in the oven to dry out . . .” “Are you two out of your motherfucking minds?” I swing around to find Marty standing in the alley doorway behind us. Eavesdropping and horrified. Ellie tries to cover for us. But she’s bad at it. “Marty! When did you get here? We weren’t gonna do anything wrong.” Covert ops are not in her future. “Not anything wrong?” he mimics, stomping into the room. “Like getting us shut down by the goddamn health department? Like feeding people dog-drool pies—have you no couth?” “It was just a thought,” Ellie swears—starting to laugh. “A momentary lapse in judgment,” I say, backing her up. “We’re just really tired and—” “And you’ve been in this kitchen too long.” He points to the door. “Out you go.” When we don’t move, he goes for the broom. “Go on—get!” Ellie grabs her knapsack and I guide her out the back door as Marty sweeps at us like we’re vermin

Many of the French words that were adopted displaced older English words (e.g., beauty replaced wlite, clear replaced sweotol), but the old words sometimes carved out specialized corners of their own where they could survive (see “Couth, Kempt, and Ruthful”; “Elegantly Clad and Stylishly Shod”). Ruth was replaced by pity, but ruthless managed to continue to live alongside pitiless. Seethe was replaced by boil, but in figurative uses, like seething with anger, it hung on. Worldly was not replaced by mundane, but the senses separated.

Can you hear what I hear?”—now sing to the same tune “Can’s a piece of graaammar…” As grammar, it presumably started as something else, and it did: cunnan in Old English meant “know.” Ben Jonson in The Magnetic Lady has Mistress Polish praise a deceased woman for the fact that “She could the Bible in the holy tongue.” We can’t help at first suspecting a typo—she could what? But could meant, all by itself, “knew.” There was even an old expression “to can by heart” alongside our familiar “know by heart.” Modern English is littered with remnants of that stage: other offshoots of cunnan are cunning and canny, all about having your wits about you. Plus, the past tense of cunnan was a word pronounced “coothe,” from which the couth in uncouth comes: the uncouth person is lacking in know-how, as in the kind that lends one social graces.

Divinity & Division (The Sonnet) The rosary and the crucifix are, No more magical than a rabbit's foot. Their meaning comes from the mind, In search of security and couth. Without the mind to add meaning, To these objects and symbols, They are merely trinkets, Without past, without purpose. Keep your trinkets if you must, But don't impose them on another. Trinkets may help you in tough times, But don't use them as divine divider. Division is the desecration of divinity. Any act of divide is sheer blasphemy.

Toddlers are couthless. LORD. They are so couth-deficient. They'll tell you "those shoes look like my nightmares" without a second thought because your feelings don't matter to them. Yes, they might save you from embarrassing yourself when you go out in public by pointing out that you look like the radioactive stick they saw on their favorite TV show. But still.

If you had told me a month ago that I’d be getting ready to hang out on the couth with Tessa after fucking her against the barn at my brother’s wedding, I would’ve told you that you were crazy. I would’ve driven you to the asylum and helped you get checked in myself.