LoneStarMadam wrote:joefromchicago wrote:LoneStarMadam wrote:...the other two are muciferous wally draggles...
They're
what?
An Australlian duck billed platterpuss with a two by four through it's head.
Brain dead in other words.
I have no idea what might be the natural qualities of an Australian duck billed platterpuss, so I suppose it might be muciferous (i.e. containing or secreting mucus). The platypus, on the other hand, has a mucus-secreting gland on its bill; it is, therefore, technically correct to describe the platypus as "muciferous" (although it is redundant to describe the platypus as "Australian," since the platypus is native solely to that continent). The "platterpuss," in contrast, may be resident only in
LSM's imagination.
"Wally draggles" is rather more confusing. Keeping with the Australian theme, we discover that "wally" is a slang term for a person who keeps making mistakes, and the British similarly use "wally" to describe a stupid person. So the phrase "what a wally" would make some sense to natives of those lands. Yet in the phrase "muciferous wally draggle," it would seem that "wally" is used as an adjective rather than a noun. That doesn't help explain its meaning, since there is no characteristic or state that can be described as "wally," unless it is that state of being like a wall. Unfortunately, that doesn't help us very much, since things that are like walls or that bear the characteristics of walls seldom secrete mucus, so describing something as being both "muciferous" and "wally" would be to describe something quite a bit more fantastical than a duck-billed, egg-laying mammal.
Perhaps "wally" is used as an adverb to modify "draggle," and the -ly ending might lead us to this conclusion. But then if "wally" is an adverb, then a "wally draggle" is a draggle that has the characteristic of "walliness," which doesn't really advance our understanding.
Alternatively, it could be that "wally draggle" is a noun phrase, like "china doll" or "furniture shop," but in that case its meaning is difficult to discern. That's because "draggle" isn't a noun, it's a verb. English verbs, however, can be used as nouns when describing the action of that verb, so that a "draggle" can be defined as the act of draggling, or, in other words, an act of something being slowly dragged or made wet or soiled by dragging. Thus a "wally draggle" could describe the action of a stupid or clumsy person being dragged through the mud, as in "the constable gave that bloke a right proper wally draggle, he did."
That explanation, however, gets us no closer to an understanding of the phrase "muciferous wally draggle," since, if a "wally draggle" is an action rather than a thing, then a "muciferous wally draggle" is a mucus-secreting action, which makes little sense (actions don't secrete mucus, not even the act of secreting mucus). Furthermore, to describe a
person as a "muciferous wally draggle" means that draggle not only is a noun, but it
must be a noun that describes a physical thing, not an action. In other words, if a senator is a "muciferous wally draggle," then, according to the rules of English, he must be some kind of a "draggle" ("muciferous" being an adjective, and "wally" being either an adjective or a part of a noun phrase).
Describing, then, a "muciferous wally draggle" as "a platterpuss with a two-by-four through its head" (a neat trick to be sure, but I won't go into the dynamics of putting a two-by-four through the head of presumably mythical beast) doesn't really solve the puzzle. It merely substitutes a slightly less obscure term for one that is completely mysterious. We are, sadly, left as unenlightened as when we first heard the phrase.
