Observe with care, my son, the distinction I reveal:A gentleman is gentle and a gent genteel.Heed not the definitions your "Unabridged" presents,For dictionary makers are generally gents.GJ
2008 Update: Deferential towards the manners and mores of the careless.
11 comments:
let me be gracious about being first
GENTEEL, n. One who hits and (most particularly) misses upon gentiles, as described by (again, most particularly) those who give a dame.
A sense of anatomical correctness should compel us to render the name "gent-two-heel". Or GENTOOEEL. Which is a cross between a penguin and a moray. Talk about star-crossed lovers. As Bierce once said, in another context, "The study of zoology is full of surprises."
After just reading Cooper's response from yesterday (men's magazines and handkerchiefs), I am going to remain quiet about gents and eels.
Genteel: a blue-green gentleman?
GENTEEL n.
A gentleman ell, generally full of fish oil and snakeyness.
urg!
A gentleman eel! Of course he most probably 'ails from 'ell.
Genteel - Those amazing gently-bred ladies in the deep south who know how to cook fried chicken, make a perfect mint julep and set the perfect table - and never break a sweat.
You've been reading "Wuthering Heights" again I see.
Genteel: The Gent from yesterday turned slippery!
Genteel: Perhaps a little more imaginative, "what do you get when you cross a Gent with an Eel?"
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Most genteel, K.
Amoeba, I'm still spinning from all the puns. That was dense.
Sauerkraut, that might be best. Thank you.
A polite manduck, TLP?
Quilly, must be a Hawai'ian species.
Terry, that last part is the impressive part. I never got the hwole glisten instead thing.
Actonbell, if there's one thing I have learned it's that the difference between a gentleman and a criminal is the former disguises his intentions.
The next time will be the first, Cooper, once again.
A slippery eel, Jim?
Like Bierce I think of "genteel" as meaning possessing a veneer of gentility, but in literature I recollect it hides holes in gloves and other economic slippage, not slick con artistry.
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