23 January 2009

unresolved

I will not...
behave sluttishly around the house, but instead imagine others are watching.

Bridget Jones's Diary
(Yes, the extra "s" bothers me.)

Well, if this *had* been one of my resolutions instead of Bridget's, I would've broken it when I was getting dressed the other morning. I had ironed my twinset, but ironing is not my forte. When I put it on, I discovered it was still rather rumpled. So, in sluttish fashion

(Cambridge Dictionary for my US readers says: sluttish, adjective, VERY INFORMAL DISAPPROVING describing a woman who is habitually untidy and lazy)

I grabbed the already unplugged iron and I ironed it...without taking it off first. And, the shell has a pretty deep scoop. And I now have a capsule-sized and -shaped burn right in my decolletage.

(Cambridge Dictionary says: decolletage, noun, the shoulders and chest of a woman's body shown by the low top edge of a dress.)

(Kate says: emphasis on low)
(Kate also says: ouch)

13 comments:

Tami said...

Oww! Oww! Oww! Oww! Oww!
That hurts just to read it!

Carolynn and Steve said...

Oh, ow....
But I'm smiling a little to myself, not at you but at myself, since I have done this on myself...a nice burn on my ankle where I was pressing a hem.
But yours sounds like it's in a much more painful place! So very sorry!
Ouch....

Deb said...

Owie! Hope it heals quickly.

Tina in CT said...

Oh my! I never heard of ironing clothes while still wearing them. I'd have just gone off with it a tad wrinkled or changed to something that didn't need ironing.

Wouldn't it be great to have a big laundry room with an ironing board always set up and a sewing machine ready for that slight rip?

I bet that hurt. Yikes.

Annie said...

Ha! Just the sort of thing I would do! But I probably wouldn't have admitted - just one more reason I love you and your blog. :)

I do have one funny story to tell about my own "sluttishness". I was at work - a church office, mind you - on a Saturday afternoon. I had gone out shopping earlier and had purchased a new turtleneck. Well, I thought, I'll just put that on! I was alone in the building - no reason to worry. I took off my jumper and original top, and at this point glanced out the window to see a man approaching up the walk towards the front door. It was at this point also that I recalled the front door was not locked. But - I could go FAST!!! I threw on the new turtleneck (remember, of course that it was not a SKIRT I'd been wearing, but a JUMPER) over my head and pulled. It would NOT go on! I pulled harder - NO budging it. I pulled it off and heard the front door bells chime. Now my office is the first door on the right. A cheery call from my visitor. Mrs. Kitching dove BEHIND the office door grabbing the various items of her clothing. She held her breath. The visitor proceeded on down the hall, calling for someone, of course. As he was at the other end of the building, I madly tried again - and discovered that this turtleneck, like no other ever seen before, actually had BUTTONS down the back of the neck part. Sheesh! I unbuttoned those, threw the thing on, and the jumper wildly over that - grabbed a book (so as to appear to have been interrupted in deep theological study) and wandered calmly into the hall. Just one more incidence of a theater background coming in handy. Later of course, I realized that I appeared most disheveled....but I am pretty confident he'd never in a million years have guessed why.

Rachael said...

Ha! I bet that had others been watching, you'd have had the decency to take the sweater off before ironing. Though, if you'd known others were watching, might also have been perceived as slutty (American definition.) What a terrible catch-22. In any regard: Ouch.

P.S. SO glad you convinced me to read the Bridget books last year (after thinking all this time it was enough just to see the movies.) I enjoyed them immensely and went around thinking in a British accent for weeks after!

Andrea said...

OUCH! Oh my goodness. Oh my goodness. I flinched just reading it,t hen I flinched again just thinking about it!

Re: Bridget Jones's Diary, I believe the extra s is correct, actually. I asked a prof of mine a couple years ago about that when I wanted to denote possession by a fellow named Charles, and she said Charles's is correct when speaking of one person, whereas Charles' would be correct only if, say, the family name were Charles and I wanted to denote something possessed by, for example, Mr and Mrs Charles. For the singular possessive, s-apostrophe-s is apparently correct.

Though I agree, it does look awkward.

InventingLiz said...

Thanks for the translations, but, um, twinset? From your other commenters I am guessing it means sweater, but I have to admit that my original attempt to visualize what a twinset must be in order for you to burn your decolletage leaned a little more toward the American version of sluttish...though I couldn't for the life me figure out why you would be ironing that kind of clothing!

Melissa said...

Oh, Kate, you make me smile!

(and right or wrong, the extra 's' bothers me, too!)

Tina in CT said...

Andrea: Thank you for the explanation of 's. I usually just used the ' but now will know that when singular, I should add 's.

Annie: OMG! I bet you were freaking out thinking the man would come into your office. I'd also have been behind the door or under the desk.

kate said...

Like all things cultural, rules of grammar change. s' used to be the preferred possessive for all words ending in s. Now, either s' or s's is acceptable (to some).

s' is the only way to form a possessive for a plural that ends in s.

Andrea--a twinset is two sweaters worn together. The under one is a shell (like a tank top) or short sleeved and a cardigan is worn over it. My shell was very scoop necked. Does that make sense? Given the various definitions of "slut" I don't think a picture is wise. ;>

Andrea said...

You know, after I posted that I started to wonder if it might be a grammatical convention that varied from one culture to another or something, like the placement of the comma inside or outside a quotation (I had profs who graduated from universities in North America and in Europe and they had distinctly different preferences for that). I am not such a fan of the s's look either.

(I think it was Liz who asked about the twinset-- I have three of them myself)

Anonymous said...

This is why I never iron. :)
Nif