# What would you call your autobiography? **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [October 4, 2005, 8:39am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-would-you-call-your-autobiography/324713 "2005-10-04T08:39:45Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![roger\_thornhill](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/d9b06d/32.png) [@roger\_thornhill](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/roger_thornhill)\ **Post date:** [October 4, 2005, 8:39am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-would-you-call-your-autobiography/324713/1 "2005-10-04T08:39:45Z")
For me, it’s got to be taken from my games report from elementary school (aged 7), which read “Keen as mustard; a fighter among giants”. So, _A Fighter Among Giants_, by Roger Thornhill. ---
**Author:** ![Mangetout](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mangetout/32/19_2.png) [@Mangetout](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mangetout)\ **Post date:** [October 4, 2005, 9:00am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-would-you-call-your-autobiography/324713/2 "2005-10-04T09:00:12Z")
In the same vein, I think I would consider calling mine “Must try harder” ---
**Author:** ![Malacandra](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/45deac/32.png) [@Malacandra](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Malacandra)\ **Post date:** [October 4, 2005, 9:01am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-would-you-call-your-autobiography/324713/3 "2005-10-04T09:01:33Z")
_It’s a Pity He’s So Socially Inept_, by **Malacandra**. They say eavesdroppers never hear any good of themselves, and in my case I shouldn’t have read a letter my then-SO had written to her son’s girlfriend. (She was a much older SO.) But quite honestly, when someone’s dumped you, then accidentally set her car on fire with herself inside it, and you’ve nursed her through the skin grafts and so on, that’s not what you want to hear about yourself. :rolleyes: ---
**Author:** ![betenoir](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/258eb7/32.png) [@betenoir](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/betenoir)\ **Post date:** [October 4, 2005, 9:08am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-would-you-call-your-autobiography/324713/4 "2005-10-04T09:08:14Z")
I’ve been toying with: “The Bad Existentialist.” Do you think it would sell? ---
**Author:** ![roger\_thornhill](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/d9b06d/32.png) [@roger\_thornhill](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/roger_thornhill)\ **Post date:** [October 4, 2005, 9:12am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-would-you-call-your-autobiography/324713/5 "2005-10-04T09:12:00Z")
Okay, **Mallers** , you’ve just given me an idea for another thread. Worst things you’ve heard about yourself by chance. Coming up! I think we’re all socially inept here (at least the bright ones), but then the bright ones always are misfits. Which reminds me of another possible title, though this is cheating since it’s how I defend myself when the wife says I have no EQ: _The Price of Genius_, by Roger Thornhill Perhaps that can be 18-30, if I do a Stephen Fry and write 400 pages about my life from 8-17. ---
**Author:** ![roger\_thornhill](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/d9b06d/32.png) [@roger\_thornhill](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/roger_thornhill)\ **Post date:** [October 4, 2005, 9:13am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-would-you-call-your-autobiography/324713/6 "2005-10-04T09:13:05Z")
> [@betenoir](#): > > I’ve been toying with: > > “The Bad Existentialist.” > > Do you think it would sell? Hot-fucking-cakes! ---
**Author:** ![GuanoLad](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/guanolad/32/42_2.png) [@GuanoLad](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GuanoLad)\ **Post date:** [October 4, 2005, 10:20am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-would-you-call-your-autobiography/324713/7 "2005-10-04T10:20:34Z")
“A very short book” ---
**Author:** ![Malacandra](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/45deac/32.png) [@Malacandra](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Malacandra)\ **Post date:** [October 4, 2005, 10:26am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-would-you-call-your-autobiography/324713/8 "2005-10-04T10:26:15Z")
> [@roger thornhill](#): > > Okay, **Mallers** , you’ve just given me an idea for another thread. Worst things you’ve heard about yourself by chance. Coming up! > > I think we’re all socially inept here (at least the bright ones), but then the bright ones always are misfits. Which reminds me of another possible title, though this is cheating since it’s how I defend myself when the wife says I have no EQ: > > _The Price of Genius_, by Roger Thornhill > > Perhaps that can be 18-30, if I do a Stephen Fry and write 400 pages about my life from 8-17. _ **Mallers??** _ :dubious: Must be a public-school thing. (I _sounded_ like a public-school boy all through my comprehensive education. You can imagine what that did for my social eptitude.) And if you do a Stephen Fry, will it include vastly exaggerated accounts of underage homosexuality to try to make yourself sound more interesting? My other title would be _A5_, as in “A for achievement, 5 for effort”, which is what my chemistry teacher gave me after I’d skated through his class on next to no homework. Apparently studying and committing to memory the entire O-level set text within about three weeks of the start of term, for fun, didn’t count as “effort”. The git. ---
**Author:** ![phoebo32](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/b77776/32.png) [@phoebo32](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/phoebo32)\ **Post date:** [October 4, 2005, 11:31am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-would-you-call-your-autobiography/324713/9 "2005-10-04T11:31:18Z")
“And then it all went pear shaped.” Seems appropriate, in my land, when it rains it frickin pours and hails and snows. But for all the rest of the time its awesome. Theres not a lot of in between. But as the title may suggest even when it does explode, we still laugh about it, because what else is there to do, really? ---
**Author:** ![don\_t\_ask](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/e68b1a/32.png) [@don\_t\_ask](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/don_t_ask)\ **Post date:** [October 4, 2005, 11:49am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-would-you-call-your-autobiography/324713/10 "2005-10-04T11:49:23Z")
_Setting A Bad Example_ ---
**Author:** ![Beware\_of\_Doug](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/278dde/32.png) [@Beware\_of\_Doug](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Beware_of_Doug)\ **Post date:** [October 4, 2005, 1:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-would-you-call-your-autobiography/324713/11 "2005-10-04T13:22:33Z")
> [@Mangetout](#): > > In the same vein, I think I would consider calling mine “Must try harder” _ **Not Working Up To Ability** _ ---
**Author:** ![Beware\_of\_Doug](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/278dde/32.png) [@Beware\_of\_Doug](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Beware_of_Doug)\ **Post date:** [October 4, 2005, 1:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-would-you-call-your-autobiography/324713/12 "2005-10-04T13:28:03Z")
> [@Malacandra](#): > > [Apparently studying and committing to memory the entire O-level set text within about three weeks of the start of term, for fun, didn’t count as “effort”. The git. _Nothing_ done for fun counts as effort. ---
**Author:** ![DeVena](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/dec6dc/32.png) [@DeVena](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DeVena)\ **Post date:** [October 4, 2005, 1:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-would-you-call-your-autobiography/324713/13 "2005-10-04T13:29:10Z")
_ **Bite Me: Confessions of a State Employee** _ ---
**Author:** ![bouv](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/bc8723/32.png) [@bouv](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bouv)\ **Post date:** [October 4, 2005, 1:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-would-you-call-your-autobiography/324713/14 "2005-10-04T13:31:34Z")
> [@roger thornhill](#): > > For me, it’s got to be taken from my games report from elementary school (aged 7), which read “Keen as mustard; a fighter among giants”. > > So, _A Fighter Among Giants_, by Roger Thornhill. You can’t drop the _Keen as mustard_, that’s the best part! ---
**Author:** ![RealityChuck](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/realitychuck/32/195_2.png) [@RealityChuck](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RealityChuck)\ **Post date:** [October 4, 2005, 1:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-would-you-call-your-autobiography/324713/15 "2005-10-04T13:35:44Z")
Hack Writer ---
**Author:** ![twickster](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/ec9cab/32.png) [@twickster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/twickster)\ **Post date:** [October 4, 2005, 1:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-would-you-call-your-autobiography/324713/16 "2005-10-04T13:38:01Z")
_Sometimes Her Jokes Are Really Weird_. From a student evaluation, many, many moons ago – in full, “She drinks a lot of Diet Coke, and sometimes her jokes are really weird.” I’m sure none of you have noticed any such proclivity. ---
**Author:** ![Liberal](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/848f3c/32.png) [@Liberal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Liberal)\ **Post date:** [October 4, 2005, 1:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-would-you-call-your-autobiography/324713/17 "2005-10-04T13:40:48Z")
_**The Inner and Sensible Intuition of Our Mind (as Object of Consciousness) Represented as Being, Determined by the Succession of Different States in Time, and Not the Self Proper, as It Exists in Itself — That is, Not the Transcendental Subject — But Only an Appearance that Has Been Given to the Sensibility of This, to Us Unknown, Being.**_ (Apologies to Immanuel Kant) ---
**Author:** ![Malacandra](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/45deac/32.png) [@Malacandra](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Malacandra)\ **Post date:** [October 4, 2005, 1:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-would-you-call-your-autobiography/324713/18 "2005-10-04T13:46:51Z")
> [@Liberal](#): > > _**The Inner and Sensible Intuition of Our Mind (as Object of Consciousness) Represented as Being, Determined by the Succession of Different States in Time, and Not the Self Proper, as It Exists in Itself — That is, Not the Transcendental Subject — But Only an Appearance that Has Been Given to the Sensibility of This, to Us Unknown, Being.**_ > > (Apologies to Immanuel Kant) ::falls asleep before getting past the front cover:: Dude, that was one awesome piece of self-parody! ::applauds:: ---
**Author:** ![Spiff](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/spiff/32/9852_2.png) [@Spiff](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Spiff)\ **Post date:** [October 4, 2005, 2:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-would-you-call-your-autobiography/324713/19 "2005-10-04T14:05:10Z")
_Unauthorized_. ---
**Author:** ![coffeecat](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/coffeecat/32/3405_2.png) [@coffeecat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/coffeecat)\ **Post date:** [October 4, 2005, 2:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-would-you-call-your-autobiography/324713/20 "2005-10-04T14:09:44Z")
_Writ In Water_ ☹ sob ☹ [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-would-you-call-your-autobiography/324713.md?page=2)