unearths some literary gems.
From Nymphs and Satires, by Rachel Ferguson:
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Nearly everyone [in The Scarlet Pimpernel] said "Lud," at least twice--the hero nearly all the time.
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Her voice is like a Transatlantic penny whistle.
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The other sings contralto and deals in ballads which give superfluous advice to Nature [e.g., "sink, O sun"].
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"Where the h-heavenly twins is my dressing-gown?"
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Titles of books, plays, songs and pictures should also be given [in an index] and in italics.
[Some of her examples]
Ay, Ta-ra-ra-ra-boom de.
Lavender, Sweet.
London, Lights of.
Uncle, Tommy Make Room for Your.
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The sphinx was smiling like Monna Lisa. Things happen like that in Egypt. She was a woman who had lost her nose but never her illusions.
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[He was] tall, overstrung and upright, more like a grand piano than a grand duke. [But I note that Ferguson has mixed her piano metaphors, i.e., "upright" vs. "grand."]
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Lord Groyneogh Minges-Thynne (pronounced "Greenwich Mean Time")
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Messrs. Glaring and Pillow
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The brilliantly successful author of These Charming Hats, being the guest of the evening, did not turn up at all.
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She is the authoress of those serials of Gripping Human Interest, If, Why?, Yet------, Nothwithstanding and (her latest) Nevertheless.
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What is the use, when Prendergast Pope, who wants your opinion on his latest picture, bids you to his lair, if you cannot throw off with appositeness such words as Rhythm, Middle-Distance, Brushwork, Atmosphere and Values?
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Though London seethes with the brothers of my parents, not one of them is of the smallest good to me....
I can do nothing with them. They are merely so much cubic uncle. Gladly would I exchange them for a folding camera, pair of zip galoshes or, as they say, "anything useful."
Oh, well....I can't, in sanity, suppose I am the only sufferer from this form of Avunculitis.
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[spoofing Margot Asquith]
Of my childhood, I remember how the Baron Pumpernickel...once sprang into our play-room and said (addressing myself), "How do you do?" This bon-mot, I am told, went the rounds of the clubs. I became known as The Girl Who Was Asked How She Did.
[...]
Lord Scribblesdull....Dear Scribbly! as we all called him.
[...]
My father was a great wit, a really gifted raconteur. He would keep a whole dinner-table in a roar. Even the sideboard groaned....We called my father "Flopit"--I don't know why.
[...]
I was acting as hostess to Lord Buttonhead.
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[Bonuses!]
[a short play called "Parrots Sometimes Speak"]
[In a J. M. Barrie spoof, a roster of forest fairies includes one called Spindrift and one called Spendthrift.]
[an outline of a nonexistent farce called You May Telephone from Here]
[a location called Upseyed Down]
["dark hyena" as an apparel color]
