Word: mischiefism
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Sharp Look. In his crisply written trilogy, Waugh seems to be turning back from the mannered romanticism of Brideshead Revisited. But this is not the exuberant young cynic of Decline and Fall, Black Mischief and A Handful of Dust; sophistication has been supplanted by weary wisdom, not-so-innocent merriment by middle-aged melancholy. The upperclass war the trilogy chronicles-in bars and blackouts, billets and beds-will for many bear only a limited resemblance to any real war they knew or imagined. Its dialogue is so Britishly British that it is bound to set some New World teeth...
...story and the dialogue, though mildly abridged, are purely Shakespeare's. Lob and lovers, oafs and ouphes by peradventure meet and mischief in the wold, and afterward convene at court to celebrate the prince's nuptials with "The Most Lamentable Comedy, and Most Cruel Death of Pyramus and Thisby," performed by a cast of coxcomical clods...
...without a mintie" has been Australian sporting slang for penniless, and that "boat race" is current Cockney rhyming slang for face. There is no end to this; it is ceaselessly fascinating to learn that between 1780 and 1830, "to dance the Paddington frisk" meant to be hanged, that "painted mischief" is an obsolete term for playing cards, and that "paff!" is a contemptuous colloquial interjection, no longer used...
...happened at Lake George happened, in varying degrees of violence, in dozens of cities, towns and resort centers across the U.S. last week. At Ocean City, Md., police used K-9 dogs to break up a mob of 2,000 beer-swilling students. Many had come to town with mischief aforethought: their cars bore signs that read, "Fill Your Flask and Come to the Second Annual Ocean City Riot." At Wildwood, N.J., where merrymaking teen-agers did $1,500 worth of damage to one hotel, police arrested 160 over the weekend, imposed $6,000 worth of fines for disorderly conduct...
...Season of Mists, by Honor Tracy. Part hoyden, part waif, and part Irish, this author has a Chaplinesque flair for comic mischief. In her latest novel, an aging 18-year-old Lolita dynamites a rich art fancier's ivory tower...