Though the Seinfeld gang led pathetic and shallow lives, they could always turn to each other for camaraderie-- even at the end in their jail cell-- and Larry David's misadventures in Curb Your Enthusiasm are even more awkward and painful, but at the end of the day, Larry still has Cheryl and Jeff by his side (until Cheryl leaves him) but in Louis C.K.'s hysterically funny and sincerely sad and depressing FX comedy Louie, Louie has no one except his young daughters-- and they tend to add to his anxiety rather than assuage it-- and aside from them, there are no other recurring characters that appear in every episode . . . Louie faces his depression alone, whether it be during the opening theme when he joylessly inhales a slice of pizza; or on stage doing his stand-up, which seems to be the only happy time in his life; or on his various adventures in New York . . . and he is doing the show on the cheap, so FX has given him carte blanche to do what he wants, so the show goes from clever to bawdy to surreal, often in one twenty minute episode: ten gallons of ice cream out of ten.
7 comments:
"Comradery" isn't really a word, or at least it didn't used to be. "Camaraderie" is the real word, but after Americans became familiar with the word "comrade," especially as attributed to Russian usage, the masses began erroneously spelling it that way; additionally, Americans generally eschew anything French, so abandoning the harder to spell, French-etymology version was doubly appealing to people.
It's akin to the propor pronunciations of the words "err" or "short-lived" . . . it's not worth it to pronounce them right, have people correct you, and launch into a condescending discussion -- it's easier to just go along with the ignorant masses.
But I know you know all of this, since you are an English teacher.
would you believe i actually looked this up because i put camaraderie and it looked wrong, and the internet gave me comradery, which i also thought looked wrong, but at that point i needed to go to work and had to settle . . .
Is "err" pronounced "air" or "ur"? I thought "air" but one of my professors always said "ur" and he was a Supreme Court clerk so he's supposed to be smart.
"ur." But do it and people will look at you cock-eyed.
And short-lived is supposed to be pronounced so the latter word rhymes with "dived." Same story.
how is propor supposed to be spelled, dr. glasshouse?
and isn't "akin" spelled "achin'"
like, "oooo, my achin' back"?
Hey, I'm not the English teacher. I'm just the guy who drinks with them.
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