Clara Bow

September 7, 2004 12:09 AM

Did you know that eating is one of the fondest things Clara Bow is of? Ripping the It Girl a new one, circa 1931.
posted by stupidsexyFlanders (21 comments total)

Of course she's not a sneak, because he's the sneak
posted by drezdn at 12:12 AM on September 7, 2004

On the second page I thought it said "No romance. No dildoes."

Interesting read. I really like the typeface and the drawings. And of course, the delightful 'Did you know that eating is one of the fondest things Clara Bow is of'. Paul Jarvis must have been a tiny bit Pennsylvania Dutch.
posted by iconomy at 5:07 AM on September 7, 2004

That's too funny, ico! I thought exactly the same thing. What's a "didoe", I wonder?
posted by taz at 5:21 AM on September 7, 2004

Main Entry: di·do
Pronunciation: 'dI-(")dO
Function: noun
Inflected Form(s): plural didoes or didos
Etymology: origin unknown
1 : a mischievous or capricious act : PRANK, ANTIC -- often used in the phrase cut didoes
2 : something that is frivolous or showy

I have to admit I did a double-take when I saw it myself.
posted by pmurray63 at 5:38 AM on September 7, 2004

Well, I think we've all learned something here today.
posted by iconomy at 6:38 AM on September 7, 2004

How quaint! and The Star or the Enquirer have carried on the tradition after all these years. Just ask Kirstie Alley.
posted by crunchland at 6:50 AM on September 7, 2004

I don't get it. Is the bad syntax in the title deliberate or what?
posted by acrobat at 7:08 AM on September 7, 2004

click the link. it's a quote from the caption on the second page.
posted by crunchland at 7:17 AM on September 7, 2004

Probably the convoluted caption was not written by Jarvis himself. I still don't get how they thought the sentence would work.

And yeah, I read "dildoes" the first time too. I thought, OK, finally this is gonna get to the good stuff.
posted by soyjoy at 7:31 AM on September 7, 2004

Unfortunately, the anti-Bow bacilli course through the blood of our newspapers even today, where feasting upon the curve-troubles of the newest ingenues are one of the fondest things they are of.


The yellow press has been raking muck for as long as there's been a star system. It's as inextricable from the rest of pop culture as "behind-the-scenes" interviews, stunt weddings, and all the other didoes (I'm using it in a sentence so I'll remember it) that keep the starmaker machinery well-greased.

Nice find. (I loved Clara Bow, Brooklyn accent and all. Mrrrow.)
posted by chicobangs at 7:53 AM on September 7, 2004

I also love that they called her hotsy-totsy. That's one of the fondest terms that I am of.
posted by iconomy at 8:17 AM on September 7, 2004

I still don't get how they thought the sentence would work.

I wonder if it was a typesetting error, as it can be corrected just by moving "fondest": "Did you know that eating is one of the fondest things Clara Bow is fondest of?" Either that or Yoda wrote it.
posted by raygirvan at 9:48 AM on September 7, 2004

Yeah, I get that that's how it should be. But it seems as if it had been moved on purpose, as though they were trying to avoid ending the sentence with "fondest of," but then didn't notice that the result was even stupider and still had "of" at the end of it.
posted by soyjoy at 10:25 AM on September 7, 2004

Where's languagehat? Out back smoking? Dammit!

I wonder if there's actually some sort of regionalism or something to support that grammar. Once I found out that people are willing to say things like "I do that a lot anymore," I decided I could believe anything.
posted by cortex at 1:42 PM on September 7, 2004

ssFlanders---Thank you!

This is such wonderfully over-the-top writing.... I love it.

No, I didn't misread "didoes" as "dildoes" but I did have to heft out the OED, which adds to the "pranks and capers" def by saying it's "U.S. slang."

"I also love that they called her hotsy-totsy. That's one of the fondest terms that I am of."
posted by iconomy at 8:17 AM PST on September 7

I'm old enough that "hotsy-totsy" was slang I picked up from my grandad, who was the manager of a band during the Big Band swing era (and who taught all us kids vaudeville routines when gramma wasn't around.)

Jarvis here is trying to be hipper than hip and tossing out all the latest slang phrases...and ya wanna bet he's as far behind the curve as any magazine or newspaper columnist today tossing around, say, "gangsta"?

Some day, many years from now, some magazine or newspaper columnist will proudly show off his up-to-the-minute MeFi slang by using iconomy's "That's one of the fondest terms that I am of," little knowing that he's not just ten years out of date on the MeFi slang, and completely ignorant of the fact that we're about to riff for weeks on a typo that some copy editor didn't catch back in the thirties!
posted by realjanetkagan at 2:52 PM on September 7, 2004

Admittedly I'm eighty-three, but I use "hotsy-totsy" all the time, especially when some pert young number struts across the sidewalk in front of my porch, just as bold as you please.

Oh, missy! Rattle my teeth, why don't you! Yee-heh!

Heh!
posted by chicobangs at 3:19 PM on September 7, 2004

Realjanetkagan, I've been speaking and writing like that all day today...hehe. It's fun!

I don't remember hotsy-totsy, but I do remember snazzy- my FIL uses it when talking about something which he holds in really high regard. Like, if you show him a really hotsy-tosty pair of argyle socks. He'll whistle under his breath and say, "Hey, they're really snazzy", with awe in his voice. And he'll mean it.
posted by iconomy at 4:34 PM on September 7, 2004

"snazzy" is outmoded? Man ... at least no one's yet given me a look of incomprehension when I've used it (as has happened with several other phrases I thought were, maybe not current, but at least known).
posted by kenko at 5:11 PM on September 7, 2004

I can't decide if this article was more the bee's knees or more the cat's pajamas.
posted by turaho at 5:56 PM on September 7, 2004

I must also dissent from the view that "snazzy" is archaic. It's not hip, by any means, but it sure ain't no "hotsy-totsy."

However, I must also note that iconomy is one of the fondest Mefi posters I am of.
posted by soyjoy at 8:07 PM on September 7, 2004

You're pretty snazzy yourself there, Mr. Hotsy-Totsy.
posted by iconomy at 4:19 AM on September 8, 2004