Today's word is
billet-doux
First of all, this isn't a word, it's a phrase, an expression, and obviously not really an English one. Yeah, okay, it's always good to know what these mean because writers will use them, especially writers of the past. This one has always felt so corny to me, though. It's another that feels to me like the person employing it must always be slightly ridiculing the subject to which s/he applies it -- or in this case, the sender or recipient. Not sure why I feel that way.
At any rate, I am still very behind. I hope to catch up fully with my posting today or tomorrow, barring catastrophes. This is a nice quiet week. Unfortunately, I saved up too many things to do during this nice quiet week! Ha! Hoist by my own continuing failure to understand time.
Oh, well. Thanks for your continuing patience. And as always, I hope my laggardliness doesn't prevent you from playing!
Later.
*****
12:00 p.m.
Uh...I just realized that this word is actually hyphenated, which of course does make it a word and not a phrase. Doh.
I still don't like it, though. But that's me.
More later.
*****
Thursday, December 1, 2005
So after all that public despising of this word/expression, I got in an argument later that day -- no, argument is too nice a word; it was really more like being victimized by someone else's snit -- which inspired this. (My poetic muse is a twisted little freak, I think.)
Do not send me from the room
with the cranky syntax
of your dark mood,
or if you do,
use the prodigious talents
hiding in your heart
and that impressive cranium
to bring me back.
Craft me some light doggerel
and beam it to me over the wires
or slip a billet-doux
full of big words and naughty ones
under my hurt-closed door.
Make it silly.
Use scented paper
even though you know
it will make me sneeze.
Then respect me
for the rest of the day,
even if my door never opens
until bedtime.
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