Wordsmith is to pen as mason is to "_______"

Belated TGIF, demoiselles et messieurs. Chances are you know of the passing of the so-called King of Pop - on Thursday, Michael Jackson died after entering cardiac arrest early that morning. Experts are arguing over pretty much everything except that he's gone.

Don't get me wrong - I like MJ's music as much as the next guy, but when CNN's board of experts and slew of commenters went so far as to compare him to, insultingly, the President; ironically, to Santa; and appallingly, to a tragic figure born of the Bard, irritation is an understatement of my emotions.

Jackson's death is lamentable, true. But while to imply that pop's throne lies vacant is to shortchange the genre's other artists, to liken his death to that of the President or his influence to that of the linchpin of American Christmas tradition is to lay it on with a trowel.

Today's phrase, "to lay it on with a trowel," stems from one of Shakespeare's most beloved plays, As You Like It. It means, according to Gary Martin of The Phrase Finder, "to crudely labor a point, or to flatter in an overly generous manner." Here are the lines leading up to it and the phrase itself (lines 94-99):

LE BEAU: Fair princess, you have lost much good sport.
CELIA: Sport; of what color?*
LE BEAU: What color, madam? How shall I answer you?**
ROSALIND: As wit and fortune will.
TOUCHSTONE: Or as the destinies decree.
CELIA: Well said; that was laid on with a trowel.
LE BEAU: Nay, if I keep not my rank -
ROSALIND: Thou losest thy old smell.***

Ah, Billy Shakes - you clever rogue. He's playing on the double entendres of his words, as usual.

Bricklayer in Paoua, Central African Republic; photo
by Brice Blondel for the Humanitarian and Development
Partnership Team, Central African Republic

This phrase works on the idea that mortar will not bind bricks together properly if applied too thinly; yet, by the same token, a trowel is essentially a broad blade of steel (see left) used to heap on the mortar and to scrape away the excess. It is not a graceful tool. Bricklayers use trowels to smooth out the lumps in mortar applied to walls or floors in the final stages of production.

The difference between an edifice and a person, however, is that a person will feel every dollop plopped upon his or her face. Amateur brown-nosers and pick-up artists**** commit this sin with frequency, and while such glib speech might fool the flatteree, bystanders will know.

Ever meet someone with an inexhaustible stream of compliments - the company Yes Man? Tell him to put in two weeks' notice, because I know a mason who would be very interested in an apprentice...

Some women (or men) you know might lay their makeup on with a trowel. In that case, the person he or she vainly attempts to flatter is him/herself. Then again, Elizabethan makeup was little more than a mask and/or a literal facial peel anyway, so who's counting?

As another popular idiom goes, "flattery will get you nowhere." Sincerity and clarity, in common use before anyone ever needed to fake it, still reign supreme.

And if you're going to make a comparison, at least make an apt one!*****


Information purloined from http://www.phrases.org.uk/meanings/224600.html and http://users.tinyonline.co.uk/gswithenbank/sayingsl.htm



* - or "what kind?"
** - Of the light bulbs at your local hardware store, Le Beau's about a 10-watter; he thinks Celia actually means "what color?"
*** - pun on "rank," also meaning a stench
**** - seducing dupable women isn't an art if painters still get more sex than you
***** - such as the missing link and Joaquin Phoenix