The Ryan can you provide some quotes to support your assertion that she is somehow “making fun of other people’s misfortune”?
What is the exact context here?
If her ire is directed at people blowing their noses in restaurants, they are hardly blameless victims of affliction. They are merely graceless pigs. If she’s advocating the ridicule of congenital mouth-breathers who dare to show themselves in public, yes, that’s assinine.
Please provide us with the specific phraseology which you find objectionable.
Context is very important here. Is she talking about behaviour in a place specifically set aside for people to eat in? If she is, then “sick people,” (by which I mean someone who has a typical nose-blowing malady such as a cold or flu,) have no fucking business being there at all, spreading their illness around. They shouldn’t be laughed at, they should be forcibly removed and beaten about the head and shoulders with a sterile clue-stick.
OK, I haven’t recycled my Sunday paper yet, so I went and grabbed the Parade in question: leaving out the business about cell phones (in restaurants, movies, libraries, and concerts) Marilyn wrote
So. She wasn’t writing specifically about restaurants – I don’t know how that got planted in my brain. She was writing about places where one is supposed to be quiet and considerate of one’s neighbors. Her thesis, apparently, is that nose-honking is a voluntary activity, and people who do it in these places are inconsiderate, as are people who leave their phones turned on in such places. She also says that she can’t control laughing. (It was a dark and quiet theater – suddenly, a honk rang out!) Note that she also says that others laugh, apparently without her encouragement. And, while she apparently hopes that this gets through to someone, she stops far short of suggesting it as a deliberate behavior-modification technique.
I’ll add here that nose-honking is NOT a sign of “misfortune”; plenty of people in fine fettle blow their noses to remove the normal secretions of a healthy schozz, merely because it itches.
I know that many people have to make some kind of noise - I mean they have to physiologically - when they blow their nose, and it’s those kind of people who should learn better decorum. But the ones who can’t help it - I dunno, maybe they’re more phlegmy or have giant noses - shouldn’t necessarily be lumped with them. It’s a social faux pas, but if you can’t help it, you can’t help it.
I would like to initiate Marylin into the intracacies of the “Arkansas Sling”.
This is a stylized blowing of the nose in which no hankerchief is used. Using one index finger pressed against and closing the opposite nostril, the person blows his/her(?) nose with a well-timed sling of the head in the direction of the open nostril.
The mucous/booger projectile is then propelled away in a descending arc away from the blower. With practice, almost no snot is left (at least not anymore than can be cleaned with a shirt sleeve).
Repeat if needed for the other nostril.
This technique produces very little in the way of offensive noises.
Now that I have led our hygene lesson for today… I’m off to drink some cold beer.
I’m off to drink some cold beer.