January 23 2012
Costa Discordia
And while images of holiday vessels float in our minds, let’s focus on the Costa Concordia, that luxury liner lying sideways in the Med. As a recent email from Peter Hall suggests, ‘A new verb must be SCHETTINO – to be the first to abandon ship.’
Good thinking. I reckon the idea has sea-legs. All the more when you consider a scramble of Schettion is ETHICS? NOT! Or going the full name, Francesco Schettino hides CAN SCORN CHIEF TOTES! Or maybe you can detect a better mix. Do share – the scoundrel must hide a multitude.
Or maybe treat this post as a different challenge: what other surnames in the last few decades are worthy of converting into wholesale verbs? Some early inklings from the sporting field:
STOSUR: to play well, except at home
CUMMINS: to be a world-beater, briefly
HADDIN: to trash-talk on thin ice
So what’s to Gillard? To Jobs? To Winehouse? Post your modern verbs (and meanings here). Or your Italian scrambles too, with women and children going last.
Comments
JPR — 23 January at 09:41AM
I am sure that I'm a lone voice but I feel that with dead bodies still in there, some decency would be appreciated. Let's stick with more distant events, or names, cheers J
DA — 23 January at 09:46AM
Agreed JPR - it is a wretched business, but Schettino is such a pantomime cad that he's worthy of ridicule.
Or not - there is a Part 2 tangent. Or feel free to skip the post. (You'll appreciate there have been ample forlorn headlines I've avoided in the past, both here and in my Fairfax puzzles.)
RobT — 23 January at 01:31PM
I'll have a subjudicae shot:
Shit ran: concocts fee
JD — 23 January at 01:51PM
If to do a "Bradbury", is to win against all odds when your competitors fail, then the opposite must surely be to do a "Li Na" - to lose when you are clearly in the winning position and your opposition is injured.
Boniface — 23 January at 02:52PM
FS: That's for conscience...
DA — 23 January at 03:38PM
A scintillating return, Boniface. That is stellar.
PRS — 23 January at 07:00PM
No one seems to know what he was doing...
FS: I confess, contact her
or: I Confess: neat crotch!
Lucasta — 23 January at 11:43PM
Francesco Schettino anagrams to CHOSEN CRAFT SECTION - which, in his case, was a departing lifeboat.