Al Franken is wont to end his radio show with a jokey segment called "What We Learned Today," and as I've had an educational few days, I thought I'd share something similar.
What I Learned in the Past Few Days
- Any reasonably responsible caretaker of a lawn will be able to tell you: the catalog of weed names on the back of a bottle of Ortho Weed-B-Gone are Pure Comedy Gold, a treasure trove of deliciously ridiculous Anglo-Saxon grunts: Beggartick, bindweed, boogerwort, bristly oxtongue, crapthistle, cocklebur, St. Timothy's spurge, tickmustard, bastard mallow, Spanish flywort, povertyweed, hairy fleabane, hawkweed, Russian pigweed, redstem burgoo, poorjoe, sneezeweed, hoary plaintain, milk vetch, tansy sprue, spatterdock, needleprick, lambsquarter, scarlet pimpernel, gentlemen's relish, cudweed, knotweed, creeping jenny, bustle-smirch, Judas' drawers, Upson's daisy, toadflax, spiny cocklebur, stinkweed.
(I may have made a few of those up. Your job: Which ones? I'll even let Cherfas play, although he's got a bit of a head start on the rest of you.) - Hairy fleabane does nothing -- that's nothing -- to repel fleas. Makes 'em hungry. Sneezeweed doesn't sneeze. And povertyweed is the richest weed on earth. Prolly named that for tax purposes.
- If you outsource complex Web design jobs to snooty-assed Noo Yawk boutique design firms, it is a mortal lock that the job will come back half-assed, poorly thought through, and (it goes without saying) over budget. Why these crapthistles keep doing it, never learning their lesson, and burdening their in-house designers with fixing the dreadful design problems introduced by these tiny-glasses-wearing, fussy-facial-hair-sporting, unlikely-piercing-displaying, expensively dressed, fingersniffing needlepricks is quite thoroughly beyond me. Cudweeds.
Don't ask me how I know this. - As a direct consequence of #3, I may be extremely busy at work, and consequently on a restricted blog-posting schedule, for a couple weeks. Please bear with me. I promise I'll privately share a link to the finished product, which will kick Creeping Jenny's ass.
10 comments:
Not only is that a comprehensive weed-with-fun-names list, it also serves well as a Future Band Names of Excellence list.
I can scarcely contain my excitement about the new albums by Russian Pigweed, Beggartick, Crapthistle and Milk Vetch. They are so going to rock.
Mhgolmy: Opening up for Milk Vetch on the west-coast leg of their upcoming US tour.
It was a dark and stormy night, and creeping jenny was barely into Judas' drawers when poorjoe sauntered in. "St. Timothy's spurge!" he cried. "You have dosed my own sweet lambsquarter with Spanish flywort, you ... you ... needleprick!"
Thereupon followed a redstem burgoo, after which jenny's bustle-smirch was cockleburred and both joe and Judas enjoyed a bit of gentleman's relish, shared a bastard mallow and left her to clean up the spatterdock.
The moral of this story is: Never smoke that hawkweed and stay away from boogerwort unless you're armed to the bristly oxtongue with plenty of tansy sprue.
Don't ask me how I know this.
Ignoring this comment: how do you know this?
Gentlemens' relish....guffaw!
You asked for it. And without checking. But first, a note to young Roxtar: Gentleman's Relish is delicious, as I suspect Neddie himself knows, but it is not a weed.
Definite weeds: bindweed, cocklebur, St. Timothy's spurge, bastard mallow, povertyweed, hairy fleabane, hawkweed, Russian pigweed, redstem burgoo, poorjoe, sneezeweed, hoary plaintain, lambsquarter, scarlet pimpernel, cudweed, knotweed, creeping jenny, Upson's daisy, toadflax, spiny cocklebur, stinkweed.
The rest, who knows? Maybe you guys call prickly oxtongue bristly oxtongue. Then again, maybe Ned's messin' with your prickles.
But I reserve the right to be wrong.
The real question is what are you doin' with a bottle of atrazine????the EU has banned it as a human carcinogen....millions of tons of it are dumped on corn field in the US...and concurrently planted with "Roundup Ready Corn" seed. Because of this factoid and the political clout of Monsanto... it won't be banned in the US....I jus hope you don't have animals, children or adults around where you spray this bad shit...Neddy has his head up his ... with this one.....
I assume, Jeremy, that you are referring to the appetizing chutney known as "Gentleman's Relish."
It has a somewhat different meaning among discriminating radio listeners in and around Neddie's home market. They say it's particularly good with a tossed salad, or some freshly stirred soup.....
#3. Oh *I* know how you know this, my friend. I know. And feel your common-sensical pain.
tiny-glasses-wearing
I took to calling them attitude glasses. One guess why.
That herbicide causes lower sperm counts, death to frogs and salamanders, death to insects, death to birds. Think of your children - possible infertile. They'll be sad about it when they're older. Desist! Desist!
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