Jabberwocky (1977) is very loosely based on the Lewis Carroll poem of the same name in Alice Through the Looking Glass, and is in the Monty Python style. Indeed, it is directed by Terrie Gilliem, and stars Michael Palin as a young cooper who is disowned and dis-inherited by his father on his death bed. He sees the city as his future, but the times are a little strange in that the Jabberwocky is terrorizing the countryside, and anyone who has the means to bribe guards is hiding in the city. The guildsmen love the arrangement, as they have never had a bigger market for their goods, but the peasants are pressuring the king to do something. He decides on a joust to choose a champion to go against the monster. The winner is to get half the kingdom, and his daughters hand.

It is into these heady times that Palin manages to insert himself. In the scene most pertinent to us, he is escaping some sort of trouble, and ends up in the princess's room. Said Princess, Deborah Fallender, is very nude. Although the film is PG, we have all three Bs, and in a lengthy scene. Even after she puts on a robe, nothing is hidden. Maltin says 2 1/2 stars, only suggesting it for fans. IMDB readers say 5.6/10. Pythonesque films are sort of their own genre, and this one is a C.

It is not unreasonable to argue that Dead Babies is the worst movie in history. I would still have to argue for Glam, but there were three graded reviews for Dead Babies online, and all three gave the lowest possible score on their scale. Can't get much worse than that. There was a fourth review without a grade, but that reviewer didn't pull any punches either, and said "Dead babies is remorselessly boring and stupid". Unfortunately, I couldn't really write a funny review because the entire film was just incomprehensible gibberish. The good news- it was demented, naked gibberish: topless Olivia Williams, another topless woman, and another woman (Hayley Carr) full-frontal 

• Olivia Williams. She has been in this, The Body, and The Postman. What did she do to deserve this fate? By constantly starring in cheese fests, she's becoming the female version of Christopher Lee. How long before she plays Draculina?
  (1, 2, 3)

• Alexandra Gilbreath (1, 2)

• Hayley Carr (1, 2, 3, 4, 5)

With a friend like Harry ... is a solid faux-Hitchcock from French director Dominik Moll. It is in French, but there is an American-dubbing soundtrack, and it isn't too bad, or sub-titles if you prefer. 

• Sophie Guillemin (1, 2, 3)

Random stuff

• Professional virgin Jessica Simpson doesn't have that much use for her privates, but she seem to shave them.

• Professional non-virgin Pam Anderson slips out in public. Rolling Stone censored this pic. Do any of you guys have the original?

• Singers and sisters, Shelby Lynne and Allison Moorer

• a serious see-through from Sadie Frost

WORDS

in the following, Scoop's comments in white, other people's words in yellow

Speaking of redundancy, here's a quote from my words yesterday. I didn't see the redundancy until I re-read the page this morning:

"To make it worse, the overuse of  "gate" is exacerbated by ...."

Of course, I don't need both "exacerbated" and "make it worse". What was I thinking of? I mean , "Of what was I thinking"? Another rule! Churchill's famous answer to a pedant who disallowed sentences ending in a preposition: "That is a rule up with which I will not put."

Can you imagine people criticizing Churchill for his use of the language? His speeches in particular must be the most eloquent in the language outside of Shakespeare's Henry V, and are more poetic than most 20th century poetry. I remember reading once that if you look at the number of unique words in the total body of a man's work, that The Complete Churchill includes more different words than The Complete Anybody Else. (Could that be right? Could he trump Isaac Asimov? That would be impressive, because Asimov wrote about a trillion books, and was a true genius.)

Anyway, the point Churchill was really making, I think, is that grammar pedants don't even understand the true nature of syntax. 

In the sentence "Put that on the table",  "on" is a preposition,  "table" is the object of a preposition, "that" is the direct object.

In the sentence, "I won't put up with that", there is no preposition. "To put up with" is the verb, and "that" is the direct object.

The verb "to put" and the verb "to put up with" are completely different verbs. In English we spell the verb "put up with", with spaces,  instead of "putupwith", but it is precisely the same verb as "to tolerate", and can be substituted by "to tolerate" in any sentence. Therefore, in the sentence, "I won't tolerate that", it is obvious that "that" is the direct object, and the deep structure must stay the same when you substitute the identical "put up with". Linguistics professors understand that completely, but many grammarians do not. Churchill understood the structure of the language, and how to make it communicate his meaning and feelings, but he didn't really give many figs about the pedantry.

Well, maybe one fig

... or even two. 

Someday,  I have to look up "to give a fig", and try to determine its relationship with "to give a fuck".

That very long introduction led me to another American regionalism, mentioned in several letters, which results in a sentence adrift in a prepositional ending.

• In most parts of the United States, we say, "are you coming with us?"

• In the upper Midwest, and maybe elsewhere, it is common (but not universal) to say "are you coming with?"

I guess it makes sense. The word "us" is irrelevant in that it communicates no additional information, so it seems like a logical idiom, even though it sounds weird to us outsiders.

Personally, I suggest "are you coming?". The rest is supererogatory.

Okay, it's my turn to weigh in in this ongoing "word trivia" saga. 

One of my pet peeves is the following usage:  "Where's so-and-so at?" 

What  is the at doing there?  Talk about redundancy!  What's wrong with simply (and grammatically) saying, "Where's so-and-so?"  That expresses the question,  and allows the answer to supply the location:  "At the store."  "At home,"
"In bed," etc.  I realize that this is very commonly (if not practically universally) used -- all across America, at least.  I don't remember ever hearing it from any Britons.  I may be a voice crying alone in the wilderness on this -- this battle may be lost already.  But that doesn't mean I have to like it!

Oh -- and please wear your title of "the William Safire of porn" with pride.  I have enjoyed your site for many years, for the pictures (heh, heh!) of  course, but also for the engaging commentary and, most recently, for the entertaining and informative movie reviews.  This "word trivia" is an interesting but in-character addition to or facet of what could be considered a true multi-purpose site -- and a good example of what has always made the Funhouse more than just another "porn" site.  Anybody can put the pictures up -- the pictures are everywhere.  But you've done it with  your own particular character and style.  Please keep it going for a long  time!

Yeah, there's the irony. While we drop the redundant "us", from "are you coming with us", we are simultaneously adding a redundant "at" to "where's the party". To paraphrase Doonesbury - like the North Vietnamese, we are a particularly tricky people.

I agree it's a diversion from the main task - but it's more fun than baseball. And what a research finding for someone, that celeb nudity lovers are also linguistic scholars or even pedants! A few contributions:  

Redundancies - The hoi polloi

Infiltration of unwanted syllables - Preventative

Americanisms (I'm British and ironic so I enjoy these) - Prollum (as in Nadda prollum); Nahzhee-ading

Actually, that last one came from a 1940s film (sorry, movie) I remember seeing, which makes me think why not combine the two things that fascinate us, and collect malapropisms from movies, preferable nude scenes? My favourite of this genre is from Kelly Lynch's wonderful performance in Warm Summer Rain. Seeing her lover get out of bed after their first night together wearing not his but her nether garment (the one that encases two of the three Bs), she exclaims 'Those are my unnerwear!' Presumably the subconscious confusion here is with 'pannies' (plural) whereas 'unnerwear', whilst not exactly singular, is generic (in UK English it includes bra, suspender belt, etc). I imagine pannies became politically incorrect at some point in the 70s or 80s, but the brain takes a while to adapt to change. Was it Kelly's brain or the scriptwriter's? We'll prolly never know.

In fact, many Americans pronounce "nauseous" almost exactly as Churchill pronounced "Nazis". Now that I think about it, there is some linguistic justice there. The Nah-zee^az were nah-zee-ay-ting.

As I mentioned yesterday, we Yanks don't like the hard "t" sound. Many of us pronounce "latter" and "ladder" identically. "Nada" is probably the most common pronunciation of "not a".  Many of us save a special level of contempt for T or D after N, as in "innaresting", "pannies", and "unnerwear". 

The British joke about our saying "prolly" and "prollum", but these are rarely heard in reality. This is one of those humorous stereotype things, like when Americans make fun of Brits by picturing the following:

• Every gentleman is named Nigel or Alistair, and begins every sentence with "I say ..." 

• Every secretary in London pronounces "no" as a very long two-syllable word, and knows only one adjective: "brilliant"

Like "prolly", those things exist, but Kenneth, what is the frequency?

It is common, however, to pronounce the word "probably" with two syllables and a very nasal "aah", "praah-blee". It is difficult to pronounce two b's juxtaposed, but "no prollem" to pronounce one. I'm not denying that "prolly" exists. It does, but it surely is something less than pandemic.

Of course, "the hoi polloi" and "the status quo" are with us to stay, as idiomatic expressions, despite the ostensibly redundant article. Have you ever heard of anyone "hobnobbing with hoi polloi" or "preserving status quo". I can't remember any instances of either. It's always "hobnobbing with the hoi polloi" and "preserving the status quo", even though hoi polloi means "the (common) people" and status quo means "the existing state of affairs".

The 1940's films don't represent how Americans really talked in the 1940's. They tend to be filled with uniquely New York slang, and they are really amusing for us to watch. First of all, very few of us ever talked like the Bowery Boys (Robert Blake excepted). Second, we rarely pronounce the expression "yer onna" when referring to a judge. Third, we don't really call each other "ya mug", "ya big lug", and "ya big galoot". Fourth, we did begin some sentences with "why, I oughta ...." and "say, ....", but not EVERY sentence.

Judge: "Say, ya mug, did ya pick up that sawbuck?"

Criminal (after we have seen him commit the crime): "Why, yer onna, I'm as honest as da day is long"

Judge: "Why, I oughta ...... "

Americans use both "film" and "movie". The denotation is the same, but sometimes there are subtle shadings in connotation. "Film" sounds more refined to us. I tend to associate the film words in a "heirarchy of classiness".

• If I hear "let's go to the cinema", I'm thinking of  Orson Welles and "Grand Illusion", and I better see if my tux is clean. 

• If I hear "let's see a film", I'm thinking of Audrey Hepburn and "American Beauty". Long pants, no tennis shoes.

• If I hear "let's go to a movie", I'm thinking Bruce Willis and "Beastmaster". T-shirt, shorts, and basketball shoes.

• If the words are "let's catch a flick", I'm thinking Richard Grieco and  "Ramrodders". Raincoat de rigueur. I'll be sitting next to Pee-Wee Herman, and during the sex scenes he'll be doing what I like to call "the big shoe dance of love".

Things change over time. In his day, Cary Grant made movies, but they have definitely been promoted to films now, maybe even cinema ("North by Northwest", e.g.). The Marx Brothers made mere "movies" that are now "cinema classics".

See ya. I have some serious hobnobbing to do.

Okay, so now for the babes...

First up are the fashion models.