Monday, June 14, 2010

Curiosity

CURIOSITY, n. An objectionable quality of the female mind. The desire to know whether or not a woman is cursed with curiosity is one of the most active and insatiable passions of the masculine soul.

2010 Update: Dissatisfaction with existing misapprehensions. Desire without fingers.

21 comments:

TLP said...

Only the bright ones are curious. Ambrose's curiosity about whether or not a woman was curious, shows his need for a mute dumb-bunny. If Paris Hilton could just keep her mouth shut, she'd be perfect. That Paris.

verifier: nutest...now that's what I'm talkin' about.

Nessa said...

I have no fingers left (toes are gone, too.)

Ariel the Thief said...

Curiosity, well, something must get you out of bed.

Bierce can be pretty silly for a writer. I have never heard of a man who actually WANTED to know how curious a woman's mind is.

Anonymous said...

curiosity is the beauty of a two and half year old...gender aside
am curious if i get keep up with an active mind,hope the morning coffee helps,double dose may help.

Peace Always

word verf--acette
female star

k. riggs gardner said...

Benjamin Franklin once said, “Either write something worth reading or do something worth writing.”

I think that's what I meant by a marketplace of ideas.

the amoeba said...

Curio City®: your one-stop shopping emporium for used furniture and home decoration.

Women have had parity with men in certain of the natural sciences (botany in particular) since the 19th century. Men, having thus discovered a population of women with curiosity and found a place of lodging for them, migrated to other fields, taking the money with them. To this day, botany ranks as the lowest paid of the natural sciences.

Rio said...

Curiosity,

killed the cat, then the girl.

quilly said...

Amoeba stole my comment! Isn't it curious that he can steal my thoughts?

Jim said...

Oh Shucks! I was getting so high here as it seemed no one was going to have mentioned yet about the cat killing. I don't know Rio but he/she seems pretty keen minded.
..
A less frequent rejoinder to 'curiosity killed the cat' is 'satisfaction brought it back'.

and:

Shakespeare used a similar quote in his circa 1599 play, Much Ado About Nothing:

“ What, courage man! what though care killed a cat, thou hast mettle enough in thee to kill care.
..
These last two I found very easily in Wikipedia. :)
..

k. riggs gardner said...

Curiosity, n. The nails of a declawed cat can no longer scratch.

sauerkraut said...

Curiosity, the twin of Chastity, but never heard of again after Chastity got her claws sunk in deep.

cooper said...

Curiosity is the nosiness of the intelligent.

Alice has a lot of curiosity, and as a result things got curiouser and curiouser, though the cat didn't die, he just smiled a lot, and expounded metaphors.

those were the days

cooper said...

"had" a lot curiosity

Anonymous said...

CURIOSITY, n. Does that include the middle finger? I dunno to many elephants around.

Unknown said...

what are you doing?

lerrhywa: lecher on Route 66

tsduff said...

"Curiouser and curiouser" cried Alice...

Our world would be such a dull place without curiosity. As noted by Anonymous - it is the minds of the young who demonstrate curiosity most frequently.

Doug The Una said...

TLP, I'm seeing a level more irony than that.

Nessa, have you been playing in the sheller again?

Ariel, I think the joke in Bierce's definition was meant to be that men are curious as a virtue and don't like curiosity in women. But I agree with you in that female companionship can sometimes feel like a blizzard of question marks. Best not to press the issue.

Bear, peace and coffee work at cross-purposes.

Fair enough, Karen, and good advice to us all that most of us will never take.

Amoeba, that's an interesting factoid. And your pun sounds like Quilly.

Rio, I'm glad both seem to have multiple lives.

Ha, Quilly. As you can see, I noticed that too. Pure Quilldancer.

Jim, she's plenty clever and a poet. Poetry, I'm starting to think, might be harder on girls than curiosity.

Karen, I wondered about that, probably.

Sauerkraut, I'd have think that would have gone the other way. Clever.

Cooper, I love "Curiosity is the nosiness of the intelligent."

Thom, brother, I have no idea.

Answering comments, K. You?

Terry, I'm not sure. It depends on whether "why" just means "no."

Anonymous said...

doug , NO ,is a very important
word to learn to use correctly
unless one was a bush
yes wo/men
coffee and peace go hand in hand
peace takes energy
war just takes simple stupidity
or laziness
enjoy your day SIR
peace

Doug The Una said...

Bear, what is your brand of coffee? I can swear you're getting wiser.

Ariel the Thief said...

Bierce was locked up in such a narrow world. But which one of us is not?

weirsdo said...

Curiosity: n. An unusual, often out-of-place thing, such as a very late comment.