One of my all-time favorite writers. Doubtless you’ve all scurried to the nearest bookstall or library to follow up on my fervor. Yah, right, so for the 97% who need to be shown, see the sentence below, quoted in today’s Writers’ Almanac, since today is Sid’s birthday.
“[The waiters’] eyes sparkled and their pencils flew as she proceeded to eviscerate my wallet — pâté, Whitstable oysters, a sole, and a favorite salad of the Nizam of Hyderabad made of shredded five-pound notes.”
From TWA:
It’s the birthday of a man who loved words and who said he had a “lifetime devotion to puns,” humorist S.J. Perelman (books by this author), born in Brooklyn (1904), whom The New York Times Magazine once called “the funniest man alive.”
… For decades, Perelman wrote for The New Yorker magazine, mostly short humorous sketches, which he described as “feuilletons.” It’s a French word that means “leaves of a book.” Perelman said that he was preoccupied “with clichés, baroque language, and the elegant variation.”
DQ
Write Free or Die 