Saturday, September 01, 2007

I DO NOT titter!

"I hate journalists. There is nothing in them but tittering jeering emptiness. They have all made what Dante calls the Great Refusal. The shallowest people on the ridge of the earth. " --- WB Yeats


This was the Literary Quote of the Day. Yes. I'm a dork. I get the Literary Quote of the Day, the Word of the Day and the Shakespeare Quote of the Day in my mailbox.

However, this one really caught my attention. Not because good ole Yeats hated journalists, I can deal with that. Lots of people hate me simply because I'm a journalist. But I've never tittered nor have I jeered. And to be hated because of tittering or jeering is hard to swallow.

But I rather enjoyed being lumped into the Dante category of the Great Refusal for my own particular seat in Hell. For those who don't know, the Great Refusal refers to "cowardly fence-sitters."

I can be cowardly, especially when I have to go into the woods at night and its dark and I don't have a flashlight, and I do sit on fences quite frequently, mostly to watch horses or rodeos.

But tittering? And jeering? I will NOT own up to either of those!

5 comments:

Anonymous said...

Nope, have never known you to titter; jeer occassionally perhaps, but never titter. That's a funny little word isn't it? AND "tittering jeering emptiness", an odd string of nonsense that does nothing for me, definately not deserving 'literary quote of the day'.

Jim Thomsen said...

So will you take it as a compliment when I meet you and say: "Nice titters!"

Marisa said...

"tittering jeering" makes me think of a murder of crows sitting on a fence.

Jenn said...

Goat roper...it is a funny word. Titter, titter, titter. I think of little English schoolgirls when I hear the word titter. And I am none of the above!

Ninja...I may just titter like a little English school girl should you compliment with "nice titters!"

Reesepie...Oh, what a perfect comparison! I love that a group of crows is a murder...and a group of rhinos is a crash. We have the greatest words.

Wendy said...

I'm not sure but I think people hate lawyers more. They've certainly devoted more time to making up jokes about them. As for fence-sitting, my mother would say that she wished reporters would actually be objective rather than color stories in their own opinions. So, maybe fence sitting is a good thing, it's especially a better view than on the ground...