FANCY THE IRKISHNESS.

July 3, 2009 by 5 Comments

Just a few bits of George Herriman’s unique brand of linguistic revelry from Krazy & Ignatz 1939-1940: “A Brick Stuffed with Moom-bins”; all these are taken from the strip of January 15, 1939:

[Ignatz:] I’m sure in delight that I’m not a “door mouse” — fancy the irkishness of packing a “door” around.
[Offissa Pupp:] Whistling, evil is awing. [I.e., “a-wing,” on the wing —LH]
[Ignatz’s wife, making a rare appearance:] A door — a door of all things — me and the children hungry and ragged, and you buying a door — y-y-you pilgarlic!

Comments

  1. nafahthi says
    July 4, 2009 at 12:12 am

    I’m glad I’ve met “pilgarlic”.
    Wordnik says that Webster’s 1913 defines it as
    “One who has lost his hair by disease; a sneaking fellow, or one who is hardly used.”

  2. MMcM says
    July 4, 2009 at 1:16 am

    lost his hair by disease
    As Grose added, “chiefly the venereal one.” The pil- is some combination of peel[ed] / pill[ed]. It’s pilled garlick in Johnson’s 4th ed. See the discussion in an early Notes & Queries.

  3. language hat says
    July 4, 2009 at 10:36 am

    From MMcM’s “discussion” link: “The spelling, concerning which your querist desires information, is, however, the least important point.”

  4. languagehat says
    July 3, 2026 at 6:49 am

    Another bit that made me laugh, from this drawing for Vanity Fair (“This full-page beauty appeared in the January 1930 issue. Vanity Fair had entered Herriman into their hall-of-fame years earlier. Now Ignatz wants to get into the hall-of-fame action.”):

    Eat up nice the dinna, “dahlink” – and when I come beck, all will be hunk, & Dora.

    “Hunk, & Dora” (for “hunky-dory”) made me cackle.

  5. David Eddyshaw says
    July 3, 2026 at 8:16 am

    Hunk & Dora

    Together, they fight crime!

    https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/WunzaPlot

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