Monday, January 29, 2007

Puppy-Pants

I'm not going to write about Our Daily Bread all the time, especially when something interesting happens at home.
Recently at the JesusFreakCrazyCommuneCultHouse we pondered one of life's mysteries--why is the expression "Puppy-Pants" (first employed by T., adopted by the rest of us as the catch-all term of endearment for any of our three resident dogs) so darned funny? Can other words become as funny when they are "pantsed"?
M. and I worked out what we believe are the definitive -Pants Rules. I present them to you now.
1. The "pre-pants" word must be multisyllabic--two syllables are the ideal. This explains why "Puppy-Pants" is funny while "Dog-Pants," while funny, isn't as funny.
2. The accent must be on the first syllable of the two syllable word, or the penultimate syllable if it's multisyllabic. "Renee-Pants"--not funny. "Potato-Pants"--pretty funny. But not as funny as it can be, which leads us to the next rule:
3. The last syllable should end in an "ee" sound: "Spaghetti-Pants," "Angie-Pants," "Sammy-Pants"--all funny.
4. The crowning touch--alliteration. This can trump almost every other rule: "Popsicle-Pants" is funny even with the accent on the wrong syllable and no "ee" sound at the end.
So "Puppy-Pants" is the perfect storm of "-Pants" expressions--we've got the right syllable count, the right accent, the "ee" sound and three "p" sounds in a row.
"Poopy-Pants" works too.

2 comments:

Unknown said...

Somebody(ies) have too much time on their hands =)

funny.

K

Anonymous said...

doobie pants. floozy pants.