Comments on: Shorter Peggy Noonan

By: The Case For Rudeness : Elaine Vigneault

The Case For Rudeness : Elaine Vigneault — Sun, 14 Oct 2007 11:59:02 +0000

[...] Noonan whines about poor manners the feminist blogosphere whines back: Pandagon, Punk Ass Blog, Sadly No, Lawyers, Guns, and Money, and If I Ran The Zoo chime [...]

By: Herr Doktor Bimler

Herr Doktor Bimler — Mon, 30 Jul 2007 21:40:29 +0000

but have you run into Hugh Kenner’s explanation of why “Hamlet” is really pronounced “Olaf”?

That’s somewhere in “A Colder Eye”, if memory serves me well.
Often it doesn’t. Yesterday memory spilled coffee on my lap and then wondered why I didn’t leave it a tip.

By: Anne Laurie

Anne Laurie — Mon, 30 Jul 2007 05:21:11 +0000

I learned long ago not to try pronouncing Gaelic words from the spelling, or to spell them from the pronounciation.

Yeah, but have you run into Hugh Kenner’s explanation of why “Hamlet” is really pronounced “Olaf”?

By: Pandagon :: Blood from a stone :: July :: 2007

Pandagon :: Blood from a stone :: July :: 2007 — Sun, 29 Jul 2007 16:56:16 +0000

[...] I love are mocking the hell out of Peggy Noonan’s miserable new edition to the “you can’t get good help these [...]

By: Kyso K

Kyso K — Sun, 29 Jul 2007 15:08:02 +0000

Peggy should know that it works both ways – if she wants the peons to show the subtle class of the servants of yore, then she as a member of the elite is going to have to show some class herself. Today’s wage slaves and proles are more cynical and better educated than ever before, as is required by our high tech age of POS service terminals and the intricacies of the luxury goods that we sell to our betters. We demand an elite that that is worthy of our groveling subservience, not this Wal-Mart Marie Antoinette crap.

By: ‘The rich are different from you and me.’ ‘Yes, they have more money.’ at PunkAssBlog.com

Sun, 29 Jul 2007 14:56:56 +0000

[...] Via Sadly, No!, Peggy Noonan is befuddled: the rich are getting richer, just like the olden days, but the poor (or at least, the not-rich) are failing to return to their natural state of tasteful obsequiousness. Also, the rich are kind of assholes, too. The gap between rich and poor is great, and there is plenty of want, and also confusion. What the superrich do for a living now often seems utterly incomprehensible, and has for at least a generation. There is no word for it, only an image. There’s a big pile of coins on a table. The rich shove their hands in, raise them, and as the coins sift through their fingers it makes . . . a bigger pile of coins. Then they sift through it again and the pile gets bigger again. [...]

By: Herr Doktor Bimler

Herr Doktor Bimler — Sun, 29 Jul 2007 09:03:14 +0000

If they can’t spell it and can’t say it, they often just cross you off the list and leave you alone.
I learned long ago not to try pronouncing Gaelic words from the spelling, or to spell them from the pronounciation. According to one theory, Gaelic orthography originated with a bunch of monks who landed on the shores of Ireland with few possessions apart from a Scrabble set; every time they heard a new word from the locals, they would determine how to spell it by reaching into the Scrabble bag and drawing out a random handful of letters.

By: Herr Doktor Bimler

Herr Doktor Bimler — Sun, 29 Jul 2007 08:57:31 +0000

I know exactly where Noonan is coming from with her complaint about the service staff rousing her from her consumerist reverie. It happens to me all the time at the Old Entomologist, except the bar-staff are less charitable, and instead of ‘reverie’ they tend to say ‘stupor’.

By: D. Sidhe

D. Sidhe — Sun, 29 Jul 2007 06:45:27 +0000

Sooner or later, someone was bound to peg me. Incidentally, D. Sidhe is my general purpose alias. Imagine the fun I have when people ask for my first name. If they can’t spell it and can’t say it, they often just cross you off the list and leave you alone.

By: M. Bouffant

M. Bouffant — Sun, 29 Jul 2007 02:19:19 +0000

Two words: Marie Antoinette.

By: Qetesh the Abyssinian

Qetesh the Abyssinian — Sun, 29 Jul 2007 01:24:54 +0000

Daoine Sidhe: What you said. Totally. With knobs on.

By: RubDMC

RubDMC — Sun, 29 Jul 2007 00:57:08 +0000

Hmmmm, Peg’s got a point. I mean, what is it with airline food, anyway?

By: Legalize

Legalize — Sat, 28 Jul 2007 18:38:21 +0000

The fuck? She reminds me of that guy in ‘Fletch’ – the douche bag at the Tennis Club who refused to tip the waiter because he tried to clear the guy’s plate before he finished his last Freedom Fry.

OH, and then Chevy ordered a steack sandwhich, a bloody mary, and a steack sandwhich on the dude’s credit, and then he banged Alen’s wife in her cabana. hehehehehe!!!!1one1111

That was awesome.

By: Candy

Candy — Sat, 28 Jul 2007 18:10:37 +0000

I heard on NPR that Mitt Romney is using a Pegster quote in his new TV ad. I’m so glad I don’t watch TV…

By: Matt T.

Matt T. — Sat, 28 Jul 2007 17:55:41 +0000

Wanna bet she’s a shitty tipper, too?

By: William K. Wolfrum » Blog Archive » Be less rude so Peggy Noonan and pals can enjoy Gilded Age II in peace

Sat, 28 Jul 2007 17:24:17 +0000

[...] checked Sadly, No! after I posted this by the way. And my shorter is shorter. HTML Mencken is just being opulent. So [...]

By: g

Sat, 28 Jul 2007 16:35:34 +0000

Some people are never satisfied. If they’re not getting pissed off that a salesperson is paying attention to them, they’re getting pissed off because the salesperson isn’t paying attention to them.

I think Pegster’s reduced now to writing about whatever happened to her just before deadline.

Somehow I think her next column is going to be about how it’s a sign of the times that the clerk at the liquor store took too long to make change for a twenty when Peg was buying her bottle of Turning Leaf Chardonnay.

By: D. Sidhe

D. Sidhe — Sat, 28 Jul 2007 16:12:23 +0000

As someone noted, Peggy seems to be turning The Bonfire of the Vanities into her own personal performance art. And I can all too easily see her “going full Garbo”, which would be funny if it weren’t pathetic.

You know what, Peggy? I hate being approached by salespersons as well. I loathe it when people try to use my name in a sentence in a bank. But, see, the reason I hate this is that I know they’re being forced into it by their asshole corporate owners, and I resent watching people have their dignity stripped away from them because the alternative is not eating. The appropriate response is, “Thank you, I’ll let you know if I need help.” Politely. You don’t have to get drama queen over it. And how much do you want to bet Peggy gets equally drama queen when she can’t find what she wants in a store and no employees helpfully rush up within seconds?

And while we’re on the subject of dignity, if I ever see Peggy in public, I’m probably going to be forced to spend several hours screaming at her about what, exactly, “relative wealth” means in a severely income stratified society.

By: MzNicky

MzNicky — Sat, 28 Jul 2007 15:51:40 +0000

And so they HAVE to work it twice as hard as some shitbag doyenne with a fucking wingnut welfare job mangling the English language for a ‘living’.

…who then turns around and uses their annoying hard-workingness as fodder for her latest English-mangling “column” in order to receive said wingnut welfare check. Ah yes, life is good.

By: MaryC

MaryC — Sat, 28 Jul 2007 15:50:27 +0000

In a time of recession, you’d think salespeople would be more aggressive, because so much might hinge on the sale–a commission, a job. In a time of relative wealth, you’d think they might be less aggressive. But the opposite seems true.

Does she think the salespeople and waiters are wealthy? What is going on in her mind when she writes something like that?

I get sick of this “Supersize that for you?” approach too. It’s everywhere. There’s an office supply store I used to shop at where they wouldn’t leave you alone — after you bought your purchases to the cashier and replied Yes to the obligatory “Did you find everything you wanted?” they’d try to sell you some of the items stacked on the counter. “We have a special on Sharpies today.” “Do you have enough glue sticks?” (as though you’d ever feel that you didn’t have enough glue sticks). It’d be 5 minutes before they took my money and let me go.

But I would never accuse these people of bad manners. They did this because they were told to by their boss. Every retail worker or service worker who pressures you is doing it because they have to if they want to keep their job. Does that not occur to Peggy? Of course, we’re all so wealthy now — she’s probably thinking that they could all retire on their investments if they wanted to.