Word of the Day: Pooterish

Pooterish (adj)

Pompous, self-important, bourgeois.

"Over the next ten years Ferndown grew rapidly, filling with bungalows and villas christened with Pooterish names like The Bungalow, The Retreat, The Gables, Tanglewood, The Firs, Pine Grange, Forest Glen and Heathery Edge."
--Diane Atkinson, Elsie and Mairi Go to War

"The vegetative eugenics practiced in mild-mannered cul-de-sacs, the extreme prejudice of poisoning some blameless green thing while feeding another, are symptoms of a Pooterish yearning for a Fascist order. Gardens are model train sets...."
--A.A. Gill, The Angry Island

"Pooterish" comes from Charles Pooter, the hero of a 19th-century novel called Diary of a Nobody.

(Yes, I'm thinking of adding that to my list of potential new titles for this blog.)

Pooterish things I did last weekend: pulled weeds (which apparently means I'm yearning for a Fascist order), ate chicken pot pie at a local diner (peasant food!), met with a sales rep from Sears about replacing our ancient AC system (how bourgeois!), got talked into watching a DVD of The Chappelle Show (poor taste!), did laundry (drudgery!), interacted with an ATM (how conventional!), and blogged (self-important! pompous!). You might think me incurably conventional, but I do have a wheelchair full of manikin parts in my living room.