Word: crypticisms
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...young servant was "mighty pretty," thought Samuel Pepys, and it was not long before his wife "did find me embracing the girl con my hand sub su coats." In that babel of cryptic foreign words, inscribed in an equally cryptic shorthand, Pepys confided to his diary all the earthiest details of his rakish life in London in the 1660s. There was plenty to confide. Mrs. Pepys made him dismiss the girl. Pepys gave his servant a lofty talk, warning her to "have a care for her honour and to fear God." He then paid her 20 shillings to tell...
Little can be gleaned about the author himself from the cryptic "biographical" information on the dustcover, which sounds much like the drunken fiction inside. But if his background is unclear, Erofeev's literary heritage is not: his prose is in the great Russian grotesque tradition, hearkening back to Gogol by way of such earlier Soviet satirists as Bulgakov, Zamyatin, and Zoshchenko. There are also traces of authors as diverse as the Symbolist Andrei Bely (in some of the bizarre urban imagery). Rabelais, and J.D. Salinger (whose Catcher in the Rye was widely circulated in the Soviet Union...
PERHAPS BECAUSE of Miller's self-imposed time frame of one night, the almost deadening string of personal revelations may have been unavoidable. But less explanation exists for heavy-handed and calculatingly cryptic soliloquies that includes: "Marion hasn't been the same since the baby died." "I don't think I'm the man I wanted to be." "I wanted my father to respect me" (tears flowing), or, "I'm extremely popular...
...drag. Bill Murray as Dorsey's bemused play wright of a roommate gives a witty performance with his occasional wry comments. Murray remains detached throughout the movie as his character tries to humor Dorsey. Rumor has it that Murray improvised his lines, but regardless of their origin his cryptic remarks are an interesting foil to his usual role as a blatantly funny...
Though today's tag lines--most of which are written by a Chicago advertising firm--are of a more traditional, fortune cookie vein ("People with clenched fists cannot shake hands"), they persist. Those who read them ought not to shun the cryptic messages, but should "be thankful for the opportunity to be thankful...