Mango-shitting fuckery: classifications and clarifications

[azurelunatic]

"I have a tag for this in [REDACTED]," I told Bosslady yesterday. "Code mango."

"No more mangoes today!" I told her today, as the team meeting was breaking up.

"How did you come to choose that particular code word for this?" she asked, not having learned that sometimes asking me these things is not recommended if you don't actually want to know.

"I was up perhaps well past my bedtime and a phrase popped into my head, and since then I've been searching for something that fit it," I told her. I then attempted something like workplace-appropriate discretion in my choice of words. "What the mango-crapping fuck." ... Yeah. About that. Nice choice of words.

It is, indeed, an evocative and somewhat painful mental image. And yes, Bosslady agreed, entirely suited to the situation at hand.


On my way home, I asked amberfox whether actively mango-shitting or continuously mango-shitting was in fact the more emphatic form. We were both unsure at first which, but I thought about it a little harder.

"Actively mango-shitting means that the mango-shitting is happening right now," I mused. "But it doesn't necessarily imply anything about the past or future state of things. Whereas continuously mango-shitting means that not only is it probably happening right now, but it's been happening for a while, and is likely to be happening for quite some time to come if the past is any indication."

Amber was inclined to agree with that.


Now I have to figure out what tops "What the continuously mango-shitting fuck", just in case I need to use the phrase.

Comments

[alanj]

Well, actively implies intent or at least lack of passivity, whereas continuously could allow for a passive, ongoing, perhaps even barely noteworthy situation. Continuously mango-shitting could be a simple result of continuous mango-eating; actively mango-shitting, to me, suggests aiming, or perhaps straining to expel a whole mango, or some other similarly alarming situation. So I would consider "actively mango-shitting" to be the more emphatic form.

[azurelunatic]

You make some very good points there. I've been thinking whole mangoes for the most part.

Now "explosively mango-shitting" is definitely one up on "actively".

[alanj]

A friend comments: "Actively has fewer syllables, thus more powerful. Also it has stronger sounds - continuously is too flow-y."

The adverb-free form has a certain charm to it. It has good cadence, alternating stressed and unstressed syllables. "WHAT the MANgo-SHITting FUCK?" I think I would prefer this when using the phrase in spoken language. Though you could add "FLAming" and preserve that quality.

[siliconshaman]

"What the ever flaming mango shitting fuck" perhaps? The good thing is you can change emphasis just by putting in a hyphen or two.

[xenacryst]

Yes, definitely. I think ever is key here. It differentiates from continuously in that, while it describes an ongoing and possibly chronic condition, continuously also implies, to me, an unfortunate physical consistency of the product. And while that may be appropriate to some descriptions, it never hurts to widen the prospects of describing exactly how the mango shitting is proceeding.

And yes, flaming is also a very important addition to the pantheon. I highly approve of this line.

[mfb]

Every time I scroll past this I read 'mango' as 'manga' and can only think of the papercuts, so perhaps that should be an honorable emphatic mention?

[cesy]

I love this whole discussion.