Saturday, November 06, 2004

For some dumb reason, I was thinking about Burl Ives...

...and I wondered, if somebody reminds you of Burl Ives, how do you describe that person? You have to resort to general descriptives, like Husky, Jolly, Grandfatherly, etc. But you can't use a term that would specifically call forth the Burl Ives metaphor.

Burly? Burlish? Burlesque? Ivy? they're all taken.

It's not fair. People who behave like Don Quixote can be "quixotic" -Burlic? Ivesic?

Why aren't folks who resemble Don Ho called Holy?

I guess you run into similar trouble if you want to compare somebody to Noel Coward.
How can you call them Cowardly, and have it sound like a compliment?