EDNote: I have combined below Andrew Brown's three comments related to
Swooners, Bloopers, and Boners, which came in quick succession today.
I
assumed that was obvious. We had television first, and television is
the birthplace of the blooper.
One exception though that has come to mind, which is also American
(both the exception and my mind), is from the playing field. When I was
a kid, anything like a too soft, too easily hit pitch in baseball was
often scornfully called a blooper. This occurred in American football,
as well. Any pass from a quarterback that was too slow, or had a high,
lazy arch that made it easy for opposing linemen to catch might be
called a blooper.
The word had a sort of onomatopoetic (I know that onomatopoetic refers
to sound and not motion so maybe someone can provide the word I need )
effect of describing a slow, looping, lazy, high floating motion of a
baseball, football, or whatever, when what was really desired and
required of the pitcher or quarterback was the hard, fast, SNAP that
marks the successful pitch or pass.
Andrew Brown
On 9/3/06 4:19 AM, "Chaswe@AOL.COM" <Chaswe@AOL.COM> wrote:
In a
message dated 03/09/2006 02:58:29 GMT Standard Time, STADLEN@AOL.COM
writes:
the word
for howler is blooper.
Blooper is an
American word.
I also enjoyed Beth’s collection of swooners, but I will still press my
case that the word is one Humbert deploys not as a cognate for any
specific article such as a sweater or panties, but to express his own
fever pitch propinquity that sees swoons cropping up everywhere. Does
not Humbert somewhere described an orgasm (his
orgasm, the only ones of interest to this considerate gentleman) as a
swoon? Or wasn’t the O frequently so described in 18nth and even 19nth
literature?
Andrew Brown
The word “boner” for a mistake of any kind struck us boys in elementary
school, when we were eight or nine, as the very summit of snorting
hilarity. It was occasionally used by teachers who had come from
another part of the country, or were of a certain age.
Once the principal entered our classroom just as our teacher had the
ill luck to use this word. The rowdier among us went into our usual act
of snorting, hooting, and desk slapping along with other noises we
considered apposite. The principal took poor hapless David Dyan out in
the hallway, considering David as out-of-it enough to answer him
honestly. A moment later they returned, the principal grave but
red-faced, little David, completely unperturbed behind his owlish round
glasses.
At recess we set upon David and demanded to know what the principal had
asked, and what David had replied. The teacher had asked why the word
boner caused such an uproar.
And what did you tell him, we said, grinning at whatever poor goofy
David might have said.
“I told him,” David said frankly and impassively, “that a boner meant
having a hard on.”
David walked a taller man that day. For the rest of that year we
considered him a diplomat along the lines of Ben Franklin.
Andrew Brown