Thursday, September 06, 2007

haddock-smacked

adj. A fishy form of gobsmacked.

Real citation: “Not a shining testimonial to the intellectual acuity of our ruling class. Unless you've actually served on a jury, you have no insight into the thought processes of the jury that can be formulated from watching on TV or sitting in the courtroom, no matter how well you think you can decode facial expressions, hand fidgets, coughs, nervous laughter. Just remember how the consensus view of the trial watchers was that Martha Stewart would be acquitted--when the verdict was announced, all those legal pundits looked as if they had been haddock-smacked. Still, I would have thought Murdoch was smarter than to fall for Steyn's wishful ebullience.”
(James Wolcott, July 21, 2007, http://www.vanityfair.com/politics/blogs/wolcott/2007/07/as-memory-serve.html)

Made-up citation: "I was absolutely haddock-smacked as I watched Jed the shih-tzu drag his post-poop ass along the sidewalk, making the pavement his personal toilet paper. Thank you, Odin, for this window into our evolutionary past!"

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