30: Dr. Seuss

"And will you succeed? Yes indeed, yes indeed! Ninety-eight and three-quarters percent guaranteed." -- Dr. Seuss

That's right. Beloved children's book writer Dr. Seuss was a gnome -- or at least an assiduous propagandist of gnomish living. I was going to post it yesterday, but it was his birthday, so I cut him some slack.

You're probably amazed it took me this long to even add him, but I waited until I couldn't wait any longer. Seuss is a gnome. His books, his rhymes, his characters, his world -- gnomish, gnomish, gnomish, gnomish -- the reason Seuss has managed his elder statesmanlike stature is because his work is safely confined to the realm of children's literature, where it's permissible (and, perhaps, even encouraged) to give the gnomes free rein. Gnomish sentiments are perhaps tolerable when inflicted upon children; it's when they move outside of the realm of childhood that gnomish antics become intolerable.

A child enjoying "The Cat in the Hat" is one thing. An adult enjoying it is something altogether different. You can probably drive adult friends and coworkers batty just by speaking in Seussian rhymes (note around :48, Jessica saying "No more sporks, and spooknives, and knifeoons -- it's like a Dr. Seuss kitchen down there!" That's taken to be a BAD thing. Yeah, I'm eventually getting to sporks, Gentle Reader).

Any adult who's read them to a child, had to soldier through those trisyllabic-metered rhymes that go on and on and on can see the wicked nature of Seussian gnomishness in action.

GWD: Hullabaloo

Gnomes. Although it's interesting to imagine Scots saying "balloo" to hush children.

hul·la·ba·loo
Pronunciation: \ˈhə-lə-bə-ˌlü\

Function: noun

Inflected Form(s): plural hul·la·ba·loos

Etymology: perhaps from hallo + Scots balloo, interjection used to hush children

Date: 1762

: din; also : uproar

GWD: Claptrap

Again, the gnomes aced the hyphen to try to "humanize" this word, but I know gnomespeak when I hear it and see it.

clap·trap

Pronunciation: \ˈklap-ˌtrap\

Function: noun

Etymology: ²clap; from its attempt to win applause

Date: 1799

: pretentious nonsense : trash

29: The Art of Noise

The Art of Noise were, are, and always will be a gnomish band. Music by gnomes, for gnomes. I still can't watch this video without flashing back to my teenaged self, being annoyed at it...

28: Knock-Knock Joke

A weaponized pun, requiring its own section, is the Knock-Knock Joke, the gnomish comedic staple of kids everywhere, before they develop more nuanced senses of humor. Any adult doing a knock-knock joke should be lobbed from the roof of the nearest tall building, or at least marked as a gnomish agent.

27: Puns

Gnomes are all about puns, particularly bad puns. Really, really bad puns. What is gnomish about them? Everything. Their pointlessness, their silliness, and their annoyingness. Puns can get almost anybody to groan in irritation. Only gnomes (and their aspirants) take great satisfaction in puns, since they exploit ambiguities in language for (to gnomes) comedic effect.

GWD: Gewgaw

This is one that likely had a hyphen, but gnomes axed it. Origin unknown? Gnomes, dammit. It's just so obvious (and the meaning of it is very gnomish, too).

gew·gaw

Pronunciation: \ˈg(y)ü-(ˌ)gȯ\

Variant(s): also gee·gaw \ˈjē-, ˈgē-\

Function: noun

Etymology: origin unknown

Date: circa 1529

: a showy trifle : bauble, trinket

26: Benny Hill

Benny Hill was a damned gnome. He even looked like one. Just pop a beard on him and a pointy hat, and there you have it. I'm not going to do an in-depth analysis of the wit and wisdom of Benny Hill. He was a gnome. I mean, the theme music ("Yakety Sax" -- a gnome-name for a gnome theme if ever there was one) alone for his damned show might as well be the National Anthem of the Gnome Nation...



I seriously can't hear that theme song without wanting to smash something. And imagining a bunch of gnomes cavorting to it makes me want to smash even more things.

Sign of the Times?

A gentle reader just sent me this late-breaking link...

Gnome Sign Removed Ahead of Dmitry Medvedev's Visit

The question is, is this man, in fact, a fellow traveler of gnomedom? Did the Great Gnomish Conspiracy lead to this sign's removal, in an effort to obscure his gnomishness? Or was it simply riffing on his height? One can only wonder, but we'll see how and if this story develops.

Theatre posters proclaiming 'We await you, merry gnome' were taken down from a Russian town shortly before a visit by the country's diminutive president, according to a local website.

Now, I should point out that, at 5'4", Medvedev is far taller than even the tallest of gnomes. So, clearly, the Russians are having a bit of sport at his expense. Still, you can see that whoever posted the sign is at least aware of how annoying gnomes are, with the tartly-rendered "merry gnome" comment.

25: Moustache Wax

Now, gnomes are known for their jaunty beards, so you might wonder why moustache wax might be classified among gnomish products, yes?

But, gentle reader, if you've been paying attention at all to this blog and its vital message, you must immediately divine the insidious and invidious nature of moustache wax as yet another example of a gnomish sentiment inflicted on humanity to make us look ridiculous. I'm not sure who first got the idea, whether it was a gnome playing a prank on a Victorian man on a slow day, or whether some Victorian saw a gnome with a dolled-up moustache and, in a fit of whimsy, slapped beeswax to his face and became the sartorial toast of London for a fortnight.

Not sure who to blame, precisely, except the obvious target: gnomes. If anybody is going to wax their moustaches, it's the damned gnomes.

I bring this up especially since hipsters out there have taken to wearing beards for a number of years, now, and so it's only a matter of time (and I'm sure they're doing it as I type this, and the hippest of them have "been doing it for years") before the moustache wax meme returns in spades.

I won't give any of those twits any press by showing their moustachioed creations, so I'll simply use the venerable Rollie Fingers as an exemplar of this gnomish product and facial hair trend, and because Rollie Fingers was doing this long before any of the hipsters today did it, looked far cooler doing it, and that likely will bother them.

GWD: Higgledy-Piggledy

You may have noticed that I sometimes do more than one Gnomish Word of the Day (GWD). That's right. It's deliberate. Because it's gnomish to be capricious that way. Some days there may be only one GWD. Some days there may be four. You can never really know. And that's exactly what makes gnomes so fucking creepy, them being all higgledy-piggledy!

hig·gle·dy–pig·gle·dy

Pronunciation: \ˌhi-gəl-dē-ˈpi-gəl-dē\

Function: adverb

Etymology: origin unknown

Date: 1598

: in a confused, disordered, or random manner

— higgledy–piggledy adjective

Origin unknown, yet hearkening to the 16th century? Gnomes. You can almost see their curly-toed shoe tracks on this one.

24: Miniature Golf

Miniature golf is completely gnomish. Not that golf even really needed to be more ridiculous an activity than it already is, leave it to gnomes to come up with a way of making it so. It's hard to divine gnomish thinking on this, whether it was conceived as a deliberate insult to the Scottish people, or what, exactly, they had in mind with it. But miniature golf (and any golf gnomes would play must, by their very stature, be miniature golf, no?) is completely gnomish. It's perhaps marginally less baneful than other gnomish recreations, but the spirit of pointless innovation and kitschy whimsy (to say nothing of the waste of time it represents) that infects it is, as ever, a warning of gnomish machinations on mankind.

Note, it's curious to read one of the founding legends of miniature golf:

The story goes that while on opium a group of men were playing a round of golf. They noticed that the extra objects (hallucinations) were getting in their way while trying to get to the green. After thinking on this for a while they came to the conclusion that this could be the base idea for a new version of golf. The name "crazy golf" is also supposed to come from this story. After the invention of crazy golf it became generally acceptable for women to play the game as it was not as masculine in nature as the original.

Note the use of opium and the original name of "crazy golf" in the mix -- gnomish fingerprints on this activity! So, go ahead, play some virtual miniature golf. Time well spent! Make some gnomes happy, why don't you?

GWD: Topsy-Turvy

You know I'm not done with gnomish hyphenated nonsense compounds yet, yes? It seems that there was a lot of gnomish influence on human language in the 16th century...

top·sy–tur·vy
Pronunciation: \ˌtäp-sē-ˈtər-vē\

Function: adverb

Etymology: probably ultimately from tops (plural of ¹top) + obsolete English terve to turn upside down

Date: 1528

1 : in utter confusion or disorder
2 : with the top or head downward : upside down

Plenty more where that came from.

And, once again, you can see that gnomes are fond of causing confusion and delay.