Of shoes, waffles, pants, shorts, tanks, and voices
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In the tradition of Woody Allen's "Slang Origins" (chapter 18 of his 1975 collection Without Feathers), John Kenney has written a hilarious op-ed piece for The New York Times ("The Shoe Heard Around the World", published Dec. 16, 2008), which is of course — obliquely but not quite so — about the shoes thrown at George W. Bush during his recent visit to Iraq. I highly recommend Kenney's piece for those LL readers (not so) interested in the origins of words, phrases, and other cultural artifacts, and to anyone who just wants a good laugh.
I'd never heard of Kenney before, but I'm certainly going to keep an eye out for his writings. The top hit in my quick-and-dirty "john kenney writer" Google search was to another, equally hilarious opinion piece, "How Gatsby Got Wild" (published May 3, 2006), about the Kaavya Viswanathan plagiarism affair discussed the previous month on LL Classic (see this post for links).
Stephen Jones said,
December 17, 2008 @ 6:30 pm
Excellent. All my Saudi students are playing the whack a Bush games that have sprang up all over the internet. But despite the 'profound' cultural comments on the significance of shoes, I'm sure they'd have been just as entertained if the guy had thrown a waffle.
Mitzi Barker said,
December 17, 2008 @ 7:54 pm
There's an interesting discussion here http://www.torah.org/learning/ruth/class36.html about taking off and transferring shoes to another person. It appears that at least at one time in Jewish culture, "casting off a shoe made of leather and transferring it to another person (is) a symbolic giving up of power and mastery"
Simon Cauchi said,
December 18, 2008 @ 2:48 am
I don't think the giving up of power and mastery is what's meant in Psalm 108, v. 9:
"Moab is my washpot; over Edom will I cast out my shoe; over Philistia will I triumph."
Elena said,
December 18, 2008 @ 9:32 am
While I have heard the transfer of power interpretation before, especially in the case of Boaz redeeming Ruth (Ruth 4: 8), I'm not entirely sure that's what it means. I'm looking at Det 25:7-10 and I'm not entirely sure what it means. But the NIV translation ends that passage with, "That man's line shall be known in Israel as the Family of the Unsandaled."
Again, I'm not entirely sure what it means, but I get the feeling I wouldn't want my family to be known as the Unsandaled.
rouseau said,
December 18, 2008 @ 1:51 pm
"In Peru, meanwhile, people throw their voices as a form of insult. While not technically near the ground, a voice suggests “sound” and “sound” rhymes with “ground,” the ground being low and possibly unclean, depending upon where, exactly, you’re standing."
Ach…this paragraph ruins it. Voz may suggest sonido, but sonido doesn't rhyme with tierra. Up to that point it was a fun Swiftian riff on the invariably simplistic and schoolmarmish way that foreign customs are explained to the uninitiated, and the waffling etymology was good silliness, but the Peruvian gambit just looks inept and falls flat.
Call me a spoilsport, but: Fail.
TootsNYC said,
December 18, 2008 @ 3:59 pm
I had to go check out both pieces. The best part of each is the author bio!!
Faldone said,
December 19, 2008 @ 6:52 am
rouseau: Voz may suggest sonido, but sonido doesn't rhyme with tierra. Up to that point it was a fun Swiftian riff on the invariably simplistic and schoolmarmish way that foreign customs are explained to the uninitiated, and the waffling etymology was good silliness, but the Peruvian gambit just looks inept and falls flat.
Just another example of the well-known generalization that non-USns don't get irony.