From The Russet Witch by F.Scott Fitzgerald. What is meant by this phrase?
A further quotation for context: “The head-waiter, after a last conscientious but
despairing admonition, became Gallic with his shoulders and retired
into the background.”
OJOL77 » Situs Judi Slot Maxwin Gacor Pragmatic Play Jackpot Terpercaya about four paragraphs before Chapter III begins.
The gallic shrug. Anglophones find it amazing, in that it says everything, yet says nothing.
Thanks! That whole site was interesting!
GUILLOTINE, n.
A machine which makes a Frenchman shrug his shoulders with good reason.
In his great work on Divergent Lines of Racial Evolution, the learned Professor Brayfugle argues from the prevalence of this gesture – the shrug – among Frenchmen, that they are descended from turtles and it is simply a survival of the habit of retracing the head inside the shell. It is with reluctance that I differ with so eminent an authority, but in my judgment (as more elaborately set forth and enforced in my work entitled Hereditary Emotions – lib. II, c. XI) the shrug is a poor foundation upon which to build so important a theory, for previously to the Revolution the gesture was unknown. I have not a doubt that it is directly referable to the terror inspired by the guillotine during the period of that instrument’s activity.
– The Devil’s Dictionary, Ambrose Bierce
LOL! I often wonder why there isn’t more Bierce worship on the Dope!