Facetious: Don’t Be #JusJoJan

Just Jot It January 1 Minute

Today marks the end of Just Jot It January for 2022, and I’d like to thank Linda for offering it again for our January anusement. The last word for this year is facetious, sent in by Susan from Don’t Curse The Nurse! Thank you Susan for that excellent suggestion.

First, this interesting factoid:

I didn’t know that. I probably could have figured it out in, say, 200 years or so…

That’s an example of a facetious remark: "I probably could have figured it out in, say, 200 years or so…" The more direct remark would have been, "I could have never have figured that out," but saying it the way I did introduces an element of humor into the proceedings. A very small element, but an element nonetheless.

I had a friend who, on hearing a very minor piece of bad news (say, "We’re out of Froot Loops"), would say "That’s it! We’re doomed! We’re all going to die!" It’s not quite sarcastic, but you know that the world isn’t going to come to a cataclysmic end because you’re out of a specific cereal. Well, unless the only other kind of cereal you have is Shredded Wheat, which is like eating a Brillo pad.

One of my favorite examples of facetiousness (bordering on the sarcastic) is the episode of Cheers in which Diane Chambers, having been told earlier by a British marriage expert (played by John Cleese) that she and Sam Malone are totally wrong for each other and should get as far away from each other as is humanly possible, hectors the man until… well, here…

This being the end of the Just Jot It January blog hop, here’s a commercial for Brillo scouring pads.

Published by John Holton

Internet disc jockey, lover of old TV (especially the commercials), inveterate wise guy.

Published

28 thoughts on “Facetious: Don’t Be #JusJoJan”

  1. Pingback: The “A Quarter Thru February” Week That Was – The Sound of One Hand Typing

  2. Nice flow of humor here, John. I wonder about whoever figured out the vowels in facetious. They probably just stumbled on it.

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  6. I had no idea about that word nor could I ever spell it correctly:)). That Cheers episode is one of my favourites..a classic and I love that commercial. I still use brillo pads.

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  8. Interesting fact. This is a word I’m thinking I’d never use, though. Still, it reminds me of on the Andy Griffith tv show, Barney is always saying ‘Don’t be facetious’ to Andy when he’d make some remark. haha 🙂

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  9. Thanks for the enlightenment, John. I was not aware of that either. “A, E, I, O, U, and sometimes Y and W.” That is what we were taught. When did that go away? My mother often ate dry shredded wheat as a snack. It makes me thirsty just remembering it.

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        1. When I was in grammar school (that’s what we called it when we were kids), they took that “grammar” part seriously. They drilled us mercilessly on spelling, grammar, and punctuation, and on arithmetic. They need to get back to doing that. There is no excuse for kids not to be able to do those things, not after eight years.

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          1. I often think back to how much we learned while still having gym, art, music, and sports. Of course, I see the work my grandchildren are required to do and I’m not sure I could do it. I do think the lessons in grammar school need to be stronger concentrations on the basics.

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            1. Definitely. They drilled us on the three R’s from the beginning and didn’t let up until we graduated. And we had gym, art, music, and sports as well as science and history. I would say that at least half my class was reading at a college level by the time we finished eighth grade. Even my classmate with Down Syndrome was reading at a high school level…

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