The Very Model of a Mormon Intellectual (with apologies to Gilbert and Sullivan)

90 comments for “The Very Model of a Mormon Intellectual (with apologies to Gilbert and Sullivan)”

1. Brilliant, Nate.

   Beats out my prior favorite resetting of the G&S: one of my professors, a critical-theory-leaning musicologist interested in gender issues, was once roasted during the encore of a recital with an unannounced number — in which, “the very model of a modern musicologist” was set to rhyhme with “musical sexologist” and “lesbian apologist”… [groan]

2. Bravo!

3. Nate, We bow before you and Heather. We are truly not worthy. This was AWESOME!

   I especially liked Unreformed Egyptian and Mulekitian.

4. Its good to know I am not the only one notices CES pomposity

5. That’s great.

6. Quite hilarious. Was this a Family Home Evening or a weekly date night project?

7. Too much fun, Nate! However, I think you’re wrong about one thing. Mormon intellectuals have a sure-fire way to make the teenage boys calm down: they can threaten to explain Mormon history to the kids if the kids don’t behave.

8. Excellent!
   [/Mr. Burns]

9. Bravo!!!!

10. Nice work! Every line compelled a grin.

11. Who, just last week, was expressing envy of the *creative* writers on the blog? Like I’ll take that seriously again.

12. Classic Nate. I was impressed to even see a Mack Wilberg line in there — takes me back to the conducting class I had with him (don’t tell anyone in my ward I know how to conduct music). I was slightly saddened (and yet somehow pleased) to realize that I’ve become such a nerd that none of the references were lost on me though….

13. Uh – polyandry is “more than one husband” – I’m unaware of that in Church history, but perhaps that means I’m not a true intellectual.

    overall, though – a very funny and well done parody.

14. Nate, you and Paul Toscano should team up and write “Music and the Broken Word, Part II.”

    Aaron B

15. Ivan: During the Nauvoo period Joseph took as plural wives several women who were married to other men. The precise nature of these marriages is open to some controversy, that they occurred, however, is pretty much undisputed.

16. Nate –

    ah!

    thank you – I was aware of those (odd I didn’t make the connection – perhaps I’m just slow)

17. Ivan, remember that is part of the “secret history.” Polyandry is a flag that antis are always waving.

18. Ivan,
    Check out Compton’s IN SACRED LONELINESS to catch up on Mormon polyandry.

19. Nate, I was chuckling all the way through it–good show.

    One slight quibble–

    Your choruses should (notice the third line) play out thus:

    With many cheerful facts about the Prophet’s pre-Adamic views!
    With many cheerful facts about the Prophet’s pre-Adamic views!
    With many cheerful facts about the Prophet’s pre-A pre-Adamic views!

    Don’t know why they put that little hiccup in there–just another way to have fun I guess.

    That said–

    Can you do it again? Really fast?

    (a silly line they added in that all too silly movie version with Kevin Kline)

20. Hmm, I know who D. is going to be hitting up next for lyrics!

    Fabulous.

21. Excellent. Tom Lehrer’s recitation of “The Elements” to G&S still takes the prize, though. (“There’s antimony, arsenic, aluminum, selenium . . .”).

22. I know details about the doctrine, both arcane and deep,
    I know about the rituals masonic, and about the stones that peep,
    I’m very good at making gospel doctrine teachers appalled,
    I’m a mormon intellectual. Just don’t call me “so-called”.

23. This blog is home to the so-called intellectual
    Whose plot to kill my faith is ineffectual
    Make fun of those of us whose faith is actual
    But we’ll laugh last when we’re in realms Celestial.

24. I’d stand all amazed — if I could stand while laughing this hard !

25. Hi, guys, sorry to criticize, but your rhymes are all off, unlike old man Gilbert.

    I’ve already written a parody of this song, using the names of the people in my home ward, Short Hills, New Jersey, which I presented to them at a reunion, and at my parents 50th anniversary party. My rhymes, needless to say, are perfect.

    :)

    MAJOR GENERAL’S SONG from Pirates of Penzance

    There’s
    FLANAGAN and KINNAMON, McCALLISTER, DARNELL and BENSON
    HAMBERLIN and HAMILTON and KELLY, JUDD, KOSIR and JENSEN

    JACOBSEN and CHRISTIANSEN and RICHARDSON, ROMANO, RAWSON
    ERICSON and ERB and all three CANNONS – Mark and Scott and Clawson

    MALIN, MILLAN, MENDEN, MOON and
    PRINGLE, PARKER, PROWS and PAUL and
    KELLY, TULLO, TAYLOR, LEE,
    FOLLWEILER, NOWELL, WING and WALL

    with
    GOFF and GOBLE, FARNSWORTH, FLETCHER,
    ROSS and ROBERTS, RUST and WRIGHT and
    NELSON, MUNSON, SKOUSEN, JOHNSON,
    SALMON, COLEMAN, GILMAN, WHITE

    There’s
    HARVEY, HIGBEE, HICKEN, HILTON,
    HOEKE, HOAGLAND, HYDE and HALL and
    BARRUS, BICKMORE, BERGEN, BACON,
    BENFELL, BISHOP, BLADES and BALL

    And
    SONNE, OBLAD, FIRMAGE, POTTER,
    SUMNER, STOKER, NICKERSON,
    THOMANDER, KIMBALL, COCHRANE, COTTER,
    CLOSE and CLARK and DICKERSON.

26. Ah D, but my version is funny. Certainly, G&S never let anything so crass as the distinction between ryhme and assonance stand in the way of a good joke…

27. That’s not true about Gilbert, Nate. Your version is funny, but it would be funnier with real rhymes — trust me on this. Intellectual doesn’t rhyme with theological, and it isn’t an assonance. Theological rhymes with pedagogical, and intellectual rhymes with … ineffectual and homosexual.

    And by the way, my version got some very big laughs.

    :)

28. Personally, I think that “forgeries” and “Whit-a-ney” rhyme just fine. They’re even the same number of syllables.

29. That’s not true about Gilbert, Nate. Your version is funny, but it would be funnier with real rhymes

    Not necessarily. Cole Porter got an awful lot of humor out of near rhymes — pairing words that really shouldn’t ought to have been paired. Half the fun is seeing how he manages to tweak things so they sort of rhyme, and you can almost see him winking at you when he does it. Ditto for Tom Lehrer’s stuff, including “The Elements” which I mentioned above.

30. Perhaps you could come up with an example, Diogenes? Cole Porter never wrote an imperfect rhyme in his life, not one.

31. Now we just need Rosalynde to do a rendition of “Three Little Maids from School.”

32. Seth, I may just have to take you up on that challenge.

    D.: Well, if you’re going to be picky, wouldn’t it be “intellectual” and “homosectual”? More proof that real rhymes are funnier.

33. No, rhymes work by sound, not spelling. Intellectual does indeed rhyme with homosexual, but only in this country.

    ;)

    P.S. Rhyming rules are actually very easy (in English anyway). Two words rhyme if the vowel in their accented syllable in the same, but the consonant preceding it is different. Day rhymes with Play.
    But if you have a two- or three-syllable word, everything following the accented/rhymed syllable must be identical. Hence, intellectual doesn’t rhyme with theological, even though the *al* syllable looks the same. By the way, this stuff is the only thing I learned in college.

34. Here’s what that sentence really is:

    “Two words rhyme if the vowel in their accented syllable IS the same, but the consonant preceding it is different.”

35. I’ll be waiting in breathless anticipation.

36. I agree with D., about Cole Porter. He pasted words together in amazing ways to get his rhymes to work. Sometimes he would contract syllables and what not, but his lyrics always made sense and were (to the best of my memory) always perfect.

    As for this thread. I wouldn’t give Nate too many red marks. He wasn’t pretending to be a world class lyricist–just trying to have a little fun–and I think he succeeded in making it fun for his readers. No need to campare him to the father of modern lyrics.

37. Right, D., but I content that there *is* a (slight) phonetic difference between “homosectual” and “homosexual.” And I don’t think I pronounce “intellectual” like “intellexual”…

    However, having heard your sublime “What Wondrous Love Is This” on KBYU Sunday morning (don’t laugh, I listen and enjoy for sentimental reasons)—sung by a tenor, before I’d only heard Charlotte Smurthwaite’s interpretation—I will humbly submit to your superior judgement on these matters. :)

38. Oh, Rosalynde, you are the darlingest! And Jack, you’re right up there too. And Nathan, I still love you, buddy. I DID have a good laugh when I read those lyrics.

    :)

39. 27 & 29

    “…pairing words that really shouldn’t ought to have been paired. Half the fun is seeing how he manages to tweak things so they sort of rhyme, and you can almost see him winking at you when he does it.”

    Let’s not forget that Letterman’s first Top-10 list was “Words That Almost Rhyme With ‘Meat’.”

    Humor is based upon tension and its release. Slant rhymes provide their own tension, between themselves and what would be true rhymes. Near misses can be really funny when they come from a master: one of the funniest bits I ever saw was when Dom de Louis told one groaner after another with evil abandon. They were so bad that the joke became that he was telling them. After the audience was rolling from his audacity, he killed ’em with his trump line, “I got no pride!” That made him accessible, adorable, and really, really funny.

    I can’t believe that we’re starting to talk seriously about what’s funny.

40. Absolutely Fabulous! This is going to my car pool ASAP.

    Re: Cole Porter – it’s not an imperfect rhyme, but I always have to catch myself when singing “Where is the Life That Late I Led” when it gets to this line:

    Where is the fun I used to find?
    Where has it gone? Gone with the wind.

    It’s like an onion – so many layers!

41. Perhaps you could come up with an example, Diogenes? Cole Porter never wrote an imperfect rhyme in his life, not one.

    Oh come on. There’s everything from “You’ll never win laurels because of your morals,” to “Back once more where he started from/ He said, ‘I haven’t a single qualm'” to “If your blonde won’t respond when you flatter ‘er/ tell her what Tony told Cleopatterer” and “Let’s check on the veracity of Barrymore’s bibacity/ And why his drink capacity should get so much publacity/ Let’s even have a huddle over Ha’vard Univassity.”

    I mean, if your argument on the last couple is that the rhymes are perfect so long as you mangle the pronunciation, then of course Nate can get “perfect” rhymes out of his near misses, too.

    I think the difference may be that Porter flaunted his near misses, rather than apologizing for them.

42. ““You’ll never win laurels because of your morals”

    You must come from different speech patterns then I do. Sounds perfect from here.

43. Those whimsical rhymes are unusual for Cole — something more along the lines of what Yip Harburg did frequently. But they are still good rhymes — in this case, he would alter a word so it would actually rhyme perfectly. This is quite different than setting words which don’t rhyme at all — Adam-God doesn’t rhyme with Dialogue, and you can’t force them to.

44. We stay up very late debating Sullivan and Gilbert rhymes
    With Oman Nate (the Great) berating commenters a thousand times . . .

45. 42–Many people from Utah would pronounce the au in laurels as a short o instead of long. I’ve never heard that shortening anywhere else.

46. Also, and as evidenced by the song “New Age Girl,” “intellectual” rhymes perfectly well with “sexual” . . .

47. Rhymes Aside Everyone:

    Now twenty-two and twenty-three and, incidently, forty-four
    You conjured up your rhymes with glee but messed up meters by the score
    You’ll notice that in Gilbert’s song it’s iambic octameter
    So keep yourself from writing wrong with this simple perameter!

    So keep yourself from writing wrong with this simple perameter!
    So keep yourself from writing wrong with this simple perameter!
    So keep yourself from writing wrong with this simple pera- perameter!

48. Sorry Kaimi, yours was ok. There were some questionably metered lines in Nate’s original poem too,

    “But we waive that point. We do not press it.
    We look…over it”

    ;)

49. Gavin, your little verse is improperly accented. “You’ll notice that in Gilbert’s song it’s I-am-bic octameter.” I-AM-bic should be accented on the second syllable *AM*, not the *I*. And then again on the next line “So keep yourself from writing wrong with THIS sim-PLE parameter.” SIM-ple is accented on the first syllable, not the second.

    Plus, “writing wrong” is not very good writing at all.

    Don’t you just hate me sometimes?

    :)

    P.S. Sondheim rhymes intellectual with homosexual — and I consider him the very the highest standard.

50. Here’s the link to Tom Lehrer’s “The Elements,” animated: http://www.privatehand.com/flash/elements.html

51. He’s got perfect rhymes, and he rhymes “Haarvard,” with “di-SCAA-VAARD,” very charmingly. He’s had to add “and” in a lot of places, like I had to do with my ward names.

52. Weird that this turned into a stingy discussion about pedantry. Nate’s revision of the song was excellent, despite its technical indifference.

53. Who’s the guy who lampoons politics and political figures, while playing the piano standing and singing comic lyrics to well known tunes? His shows are or were on PBS.

54. #45

    I grew up in Deseret, (though not Utah). Quite likely you are right that its a regional thing.

55. Intellectual – in-tell-eck-choo-al
    homosexual- ho-mo-seck-shoo-al.

    If you go by the ending “oo-al” they rhyme.
    If you go by choo-al versus shoo-al, they don’t.

    I’ve heard britons pronounce sexual, seck-soo-al, “s” instead of “sh”.

    But it’s always irked me that they put an extra syllable in aluminum.

    Do you say “jay-peth” or “jay-feth” ?

    Quick, say “Shibboleth” and don’t mind those guys standing over there with swords.

56. A worthy effort, Nate. I’ve always liked that song (the original), and I memorized it years ago. I think I still remember most of it.

    As for the issue of rhyming, I tend to be very orthodox — when I write something that’s supposed to rhyme, it really rhymes — but such a position seems to be falling out of favor.

    I don’t write much poetry, but here’s a limerick I composed last year in order to make a point about writing:

    You can start off a tale with a hook,
    And make quite an int’resting book.
    But a good end’s a must,
    For without one it just
    Falls flat.

57. Greeneggz, I believe it’s Mark Russell.

    D. Fletcher: I am perfectly aware of those items, thanKYOU.
    Gilbert does it too. “Often as in frequently.”

    This goes along with the discussion about near misses in rhyming. Same points apply. If you know what you’re doing, you can bend the rules. The question of who knows what they’re doing is sticky, so I’ll not comment.

    I really didn’t want to get sucked into that mudfight. sigh.
    And no I don’t hate you, I think it’s a pretty petty nitpick you picked to poke.

58. Ode to Oman

    Thy brazen chronicles bespeak
    With lofty wit
    Your wordsmith
    Spining to the knit

    Alas such jocular
    verbage till the line
    The greater
    of thine then mine

    Your a cool guy.

    Harold B. Curtis

59. I apologize most sincerely to everyone I’ve offended here. I’ve studied and written lyrics all my life, and I’m a bit of an ogre when it comes to their creation. Carry on!

60. Mr. Fletcher your points are well taken.
    Where posts on this blog were mistaken,
    I tried to take time
    To correct them in rhyme,
    For prose I have all but forsaken. :)

61. Sorry, Gavin, I’m gonna have to go with D on this one about your verse. It’s hard to take your criticism about meter seriously when you force the reader to say simPLE. You can bend the rules all you want, you can say what you want about masters doing it, yada, yada, yada, but you can’t prove a point by trying to show somebody up and then making the same mistake you are trying to correct. It’s just not good form.

    That said, yes, D, we all know that you are a music snob and a lyric Nazi. It’s all part of your charm!

62. C’mon man.

    I thought scholars/academicians/intellectuals were used to having there material reviewed by their peers.

    Don’t start acting like artists now!

63. As you know, Nate, I’m deeply bitter that you got to “The Very Model of a Mormon Intellectual” before I did. I’ve had the title in my mind for years, but never actually sat down to flesh it out. Alas.

    That said, however, you should also know that members of a private list that I’m on, in which various, um, revised lyrics and satirical haikus show up from time to time, have pronounced yours a “10.”

64. If it’s any consolation to me (and it isn’t, really), I made a different mistake than the one I was correcting (that of improper number of feet). My rule-contortion was in reversing the stress of a word or two.

    I might have written it thus:
    “You’ll notice the iambic feet in lines of wry octameter,
    So keep yourself upon the beat and follow my perameter.”
    Not only is it now complete with stresses all corrected,
    It also rhymes three sep’rate times to keep the words connected.

    However, I fear that my credibility, not to mention my chances of being named Poet Laureate of the Bloggernacle, have been irreversibly damaged. I must therefore defer to my betters.

65. To the tune of “My Favorite Things.”

    Our Nathan Oman is really quite brill-iant,
    Lawyer and blogger and husband resil-ient,
    Making the most of his little spare time,
    Trying to conjur up laughs in a rhyme.

    Crafting a poem takes hard work and talent,
    Nate made an effort both funny and gallant,
    My criticism took effortless gall,
    I didn’t mean to have started a brawl.

    Who knew that making a few good suggestions
    Brings to the table some odd quirky questions?
    Sorry if I’m overstepping my bounds,
    If you would sue me, you now have the grounds —

    There are reasons
    Times and Seasons
    Is the place to be.

    For Nate’s erudition and true Legal-ease,
    And now for his
    Po-e-try.

    :)

66. Very well done Nate. William and Sir Arthur would be pleased.

67. D.,

    Nate and Heather’s song made this one of the best ever lighthearted threads in the bloggernacle.

    Your well crafted and graceful contribution (comment 65) has now officially pushed this thread to the top. Thanks.

68. I wrote some other verses to my parody that didn’t work with the “mea culpa” theme, but were funny in their own right, like:

    Nate posts with smart intellectual meanings.
    Others impart homosexual leanings.
    Adam-God theories and queries of them,
    Fall behind threads pro- and con- SSM.

69. D.: Funny. ;->

70. Hey D.,

    “Mineral” and “general” don’t rhyme. And they never did.

    Hey Nate,

    I still agree with D. Let’s have a new version with the rhymes fixed.

    Scott

71. Of course, if you’re from Arizona, you might pronounce it “gineral” kinda like my former Stake President said “timple” all the time.

    LOL

    There are been questions about the general/mineral rhyme for years, but when pronounced very fast, it rhymes well enough. It works like a rhyme, in that it pricks the ear, in a way that non-rhymes don’t.

72. D.,

    The speed of the song does not excuse the bad rhyme.

    It may be forgivable, necessary, “not that bad,” etc. But it is a flaw.

    I noticed it the first time I heard the song. I’ll bet you did too.

    In time I recovered and went on with my life. But the fact remains: “mineral” and “general” don’t rhyme.
    And they don’t sound like they do.

    The most famous of all G&S lines is brilliant, clever, hilarious. But it cheats. And you know it.

    Scott

73. Hehe, yes, all true.

74. It doesn’t cheat. It says, “oh what the hell.”

    The whole line is filled with fun alliterations and near rhymes that amount to the silliest of rhetoric.

75. I realize that this discussion is winding down, but in Nate’s defense about slightly irregular lyrics, I offer two points:

    1. The ultimate standard for critiquing theatre (including comic operetta) is “does it work?” Nate’s song works, very much. There is a delightful wholeness to it. Moreover, it is totally in keeping with the satirical spirit of the original.

    2. As has already been noted, Gilbert himself played a bit fast and loose. Consider these examples from the original song:

    Then I can write a washing bill in Babylonic cuneiform
    And tell you every detail of Caractacus’ uniform

    and, my personal favorite,

    About binomial theorem I’m teeming with a lot of news
    With many cheerful facts about the square of the hypoteneuse.

76. Of course, G&S did not have a “what the hell” attitude toward rhyming (as they did towards lots of other things). It was cheating by the standards they held themselves to — not the wrong thing to do, mind you, but still cheating. (I read that Gilbert considered rhyming “ten or all” with “general,” but couldn’t make it work.) The mis-rhyme was not funny for its own sake (like “factual” and “intellactual” could arguably be). But, yes, it was a compromise expected to be overlooked in the name of good fun.

    Not everything has to rhyme. But if, like Gilbert, you enjoy language for its own sake, you can have a lot of fun finding unexpected exact rhymes, like “Dialogue” and “trial log”or “Brigham Young” and “dig’em young” or “Whitney” and “bit a knee.” (I’d avoid “Adam God” and “Madame God.”) I’m sure Nate could have done this. It just takes a whole lot more work and time to come up with clever exact rhymes that work (unlike my not especially clever examples). By mostly ignoring the rhyme requirements, Nate managed to get 80& of the potential humor (it was very funny) with 20% of the work. Not a bad tradeoff.

    But if you post on T&S, you have to expect that people will notice your compromises. And then notice again. And then really, really beat the issue to death. Sorry about that, Nate….

77. C’mon give Nate a break. However, the poem is much better if you copy it and replace “Mormon Intellectual” with “Mormon: Ineffectual!”

    –May the farce be with you!

78. scott,

    Every great lyricist has or will face the problem of compromising a perfect rhyme. Even Lerner allowed himself one imperfect rhyme. My point was about how the line comes across to the listener. Do we cringe every time we hear it? Do we picture Gilbert Spinning in his grave every time it is sung? No! It works. It’s fun. Gilbert understood the compromise he was making–yes. But I don’t think he went to his grave lamenting that compromise. He had to have the word “general” and couldn’t part with the word “mineral” because of it’s connection to the words “animal and vegetable.” So what else could he do but say, “what the hell,” and let it stand.

79. People in my ward might say that these lyrics apply to me. I don’t think I am quite that far gone but consider it a complement.

    Do some of you folks offer courses at BYU or somewhere for this kind of artistic endeavor? My teenagers seem to have a natural gift for making up parodies of their primary hymns. No where near as good as this masterpiece by Nate, but showing promise. And pants wetting funny to their peers. Maybe we shouldn’t encourage these tendencies, I don’t know.

    Examples: (I can’t remember them exactly or completely)

    We belong to the church of fleas and lice of rattle brained ain’ts.

    or:

    We have been bored like Nephi of old,
    by kooky parents who go over board.

    (I can’t remember the rest of this one, but it rather disturbingly ends like this)
    To bring church back to the truth.

80. Isn’t “Mormon Intellectual” an oxymoron?

81. No, it’s an oxy-mormon. (he-he-he).

    (Thanks. I’m here all week.)

82. “Isn’t “Mormon Intellectual” an oxymoron? ”

    No. Stupid question. Next.

83. Oh Nate, take a lesson from Gallant, who knows how to reply with style! Dismissing my question as stupid is intellectually useless.

    Of course “Mormon Intellectual” is an oxymoron (or oxymormon–LOL). If you look at Mormon history and doctrine intellectually, its claims fall apart. You pride yourself on knowing all about peepstones and polygamy, blood atonement and multiple versions of the First Vision etc., yet you still believe. That’s fine in a supernatural sense, but intellectually, it’s in opposition, hence an oxymoron.

84. Sonia: One glib dismissal deserves another. Galant, alas, is relentlessly unfunny, so I am disinclined to take him as a model. I don’t really know what you mean by “look at Mormon history and doctrine intellectually” let alone the falling apart part. I don’t see Mormon history and doctrine as falling apart. I see them as messy. However, the same is true of virtually anything that one might study from partical physics to Shakespeare. Your suggestion that no Mormon can be an intellectual except oxymoronically is insulting and moronic, no oxy about it.

85. 83
    “You pride yourself on knowing all about peepstones and polygamy, blood atonement and multiple versions of the First Vision etc., yet you still believe. That’s fine in a supernatural sense, but intellectually, it’s in opposition, hence an oxymoron.”

    Supernatural (spiritual?) seems to be put in opposition to intellectual here in what’s claimed to be an oxymoron. Oxymoron is an example of it’s own meaning: it’s components are opposed to each other: oxy – “pointed, sharp” and moron – “foolish.”

    But is our intellectual ability sufficient to know these truths unaided or do we need help from somewhere else – an intellectual grace? Assuming belief in the Bible, we have an answer to what seems (oxy)moronic/foolish: “But the natural man receiveth not the things of the Spirit of God: for they are foolishness unto him: neither can he know them, because they are spiritually discerned. (1 Cor. 2:14).

    Once an intellectual person knows this verse, it is foolish to set aside the spiritual to favor the intellectual. Instead, the ability of the intellect to know a spiritually-defined truth can be developed by accepting the truth and working to understand why it’s true and what that answer has to teach further about God, man, and the universe. Or, as someone posted here a while ago, “once you accept Jesus Christ, Joseph Smith is easy.”

    Intellectual pondering can prepare us for clearer spiritual answers but, according to Paul, it’s unable to yield those answers. Pondering prepares us for what the Spirit then reveals.

86. “Dismissing my question as stupid is intellectually useless.”

    I’m sorry, Sonia, but it looks to me that you’ve decided to borrow a phrase from Nate Oman to denigrate a comment by Nate Oman. (I’m thinking, obviously, of the racism discussion over at FMH and some of Nate’s comments there). And you’ve done so without attribution. I don’t think this is just a coincidence. So I’m wondering what to make of an accusation of intellectual uselessness, coming as it does from someone whose intellect is clearly too useless to come up with pithy phrases all by her little sweet self.

    Aaron B

87. Prudence is often accused of being an “oxymoron,” usually after she politely points out that her humility exceeds that of her fellow Church-goers by leaps and bounds. Prudence doesn’t know what that word means, and she’s not inclined to look it up, so she just takes it as a compliment. Prudence always responds, “Yes, Prudence is an oxy-Mormon. An ultra-orthodoxy-Mormon, to be precise. And proud of it!” That usually leaves everyone speechless, and that’s obviously because Prudence has, as usual, turned her foes’ words against them with her constant insight and impressive wit. That Prudence always has the Spirit with her has proven to be a blessing during many such episodes.

88. Ha Aaron! You get the prize. I was going to put those words in quotes, but thought that would be too obvious. Nothing gets past you! ;)

89. Hey Sonia Johnson,

    You wouldn’t happen to be the “real” Sonia Johnson of ERA fame, would you? (He asks, knowing that there’s probably no way to confirm the truth of the answer …)

    Aaron B

90. Oh no. I’m sure the real Sonia has better things to do.

    Apologies all around for my troll-like behavior.

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