The Cellar - View Single Post - Please excuse my emotional distance this week

lumberjim · 10-13-2003, 12:00 PM

oooooooooohhh! I play guitar! I'm in Pa! OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOhhhhhhhhhh!

who else!?

I can see it now:

~~~~This weekend at the Tower: Meatloaf with opening act "The Cellar" featuring Undertoad!

PS: UNDERTOAD:
noun. A form of anxiety, the chief feature of which is an overarching fear of the unknown in general and one's personal mortality in particular.

Example Citation:

"[Timothy Findley's] genuine self-doubt is forever near the surface, threatening to pull him down, and if not destroy him, silence him for good. This is his personal undertoad.
—Quest (as quoted by Anne Soukhanov in Word Watch)

Backgrounder:
The word undertoad comes from the phrase Under Toad which was coined by John Irving in his book The World According to Garp. In the book, the youngest child, Walt, is constantly being warned to "watch out for the undertow" while playing in the surf, but he mishears the word as Under Toad:

Garp...realized that all these years Walt had
been dreading a giant toad, lurking offshore,
waiting to suck him under and drag him out to
sea. The terrible Under Toad.

Subject Category:
Sociology - Anger and Anxiety

Posted on July 21, 1997

10-13-2003, 12:00 PM	#9
lumberjim I can hear my ears Join Date: Oct 2003 Posts: 25,571	big head toad and the monsters oooooooooohhh! I play guitar! I'm in Pa! OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOhhhhhhhhhh! who else!? I can see it now: ~~~~This weekend at the Tower: Meatloaf with opening act "The Cellar" featuring Undertoad! PS: UNDERTOAD: noun. A form of anxiety, the chief feature of which is an overarching fear of the unknown in general and one's personal mortality in particular. Example Citation: "[Timothy Findley's] genuine self-doubt is forever near the surface, threatening to pull him down, and if not destroy him, silence him for good. This is his personal undertoad. —Quest (as quoted by Anne Soukhanov in Word Watch) Backgrounder: The word undertoad comes from the phrase Under Toad which was coined by John Irving in his book The World According to Garp. In the book, the youngest child, Walt, is constantly being warned to "watch out for the undertow" while playing in the surf, but he mishears the word as Under Toad: Garp...realized that all these years Walt had been dreading a giant toad, lurking offshore, waiting to suck him under and drag him out to sea. The terrible Under Toad. Subject Category: Sociology - Anger and Anxiety Posted on July 21, 1997 __________________ This body holding me reminds me of my own mortality Embrace this moment, remember We are eternal, all this pain is an illusion ~MJKeenan