THOSE PEOPLE WHO SHOOK their heads at the news that there were “topless” dancers in California, who shook them even harder at the news that there were “bottomless” dancers in California, and who keep wondering “What will they think of next?” will be interested to learn that a nitery on the Sunset Strip now has its outside covered with this summing-up of the girls inside: ONE NUDE, THE REST TOTALLY NAKED!
It heartens a writer to see that it is language—energetically if loosely applied—to which we turn for a sense of revelation when we run out of actual veils to strip away. After “One Nude, the Rest Totally Naked” there is always “One Totally Naked, the Rest Buck Nekkid and Barefooted,” and so on.
Another Language matter has enlivened my stay here. I have just been reading a magazine called Story of Life, whose cover story, “The Art of Walking,” tacks on the following claims:
I am willing to accept the second claim, though I wish there were a picture backing it up.
But I don’t know what to make of the first claim. To begin with, I don’t know what to make of the phrase two-footed walking. Is there, in Portugal or Tunisia or among the Horse-guards, one-footed or three-footed walking? Maybe by two-footed is meant “real, unadulterated” walking—as in “pure, unadulterated smut.” If I ever have to promote a walking show, I will bill it as “One Walking, the Rest Two-Foot Striding.”
Furthermore, I don’t think that feet in any number are limbs. A limb is an arm or a leg. And I don’t think it is noteworthy that either an arm or a leg is mostly off the ground during walking. If it isn’t, the walker is so drunk or in such a hurry as to be more nearly tumbling.
Now, if we eliminate all the fancy wording—if we assume that two-footed walking is walking more or less as we know it in this country, and that by limb is meant “foot”—I don’t think the claim is true. In all the walking I have done or seen, at least one foot is always on the ground. A photograph of the article’s author, John Hillaby, walking, shows portions of both his feet on the ground. Unless Hillaby springs straight up into the air for a moment after every step (and if he does I think he would have mentioned it), each of his feet must spend slightly more time on the ground than off it. That is nothing against him, in itself; in fact it contrasts favorably with the way he writes.
However, that is not the language matter I have in mind. The same magazine carries an article entitled “Why Babies Cry,” in which it is stated: “Winding a baby may stop him crying, but….”
Well, I am tempted to imagine a wife asking a husband, “Have you wound the baby?” But the context indicates that the i is short and that winding is a euphemism for burping. Another euphemism for burping.
Do you know who else has found a polite term for this amiable exercise? Dr. Spock. Dr. Spock, in his no doubt otherwise great book, tells you how to “bubble the baby.” When I came upon that expression three years ago I quit reading Dr. Spock, except on the war. In the first place bubbling suggests inflation, which is the opposite of what is desired. But the big thing is that bubble is inadequate to denote something that sounds like the collapsing of a great log in the forest, or the broaching of a ripe watermelon.
At a time when everything is done to make nakedness sound extravagant, we play down the pungence of babies.