I do not need to be told how absurd this enterprise is, nor how immodest is its very conception….
Will Durant
December 21, 2017
“What the hell” is a mild profanity with two primary usages.
It can of course find a place as an interrogative exclamation. You trudge into the house after a long day at the office, walk into the living room, and find Spike, your three-year-old Doberman Pinscher, decked out in a pink bonnet, a matching sweater, and four white booties, looking as down in the mouth as a sinner at a tent meeting while your giggling companion snaps pictures and posts them on Instagram. “What the hell?” you ask, clearly seeking an explanation.
Will Durant
December 21, 2017
“What the hell” is a mild profanity with two primary usages.
It can of course find a place as an interrogative exclamation. You trudge into the house after a long day at the office, walk into the living room, and find Spike, your three-year-old Doberman Pinscher, decked out in a pink bonnet, a matching sweater, and four white booties, looking as down in the mouth as a sinner at a tent meeting while your giggling companion snaps pictures and posts them on Instagram. “What the hell?” you ask, clearly seeking an explanation.
“What the hell” also serves as a pronouncement of resigned acceptance.
You are single, your buddy believes he is in love, but the woman whose heart he seeks wants him to find her roommate a date before she’ll go out with him. Your buddy turns to you, promising he’ll pay for the evening’s repast and reminding you of that inauspicious occasion in college when he drove you across the country to Boise, Idaho, to spend five hours with the then love of your life and of the consolations he offered on the long ride home after the young woman told you it really, truly was over and to hit the road.
Your buddy cajoles, and you refuse, but finally you ask: “Have you met the roommate?”
“She has a nice personality,” your friend blurts out, forgetting in his despair the ramifications of this particular stamp of approval.
In your primitive circles, “a nice personality” is the kiss of death. It serves as the working definition of homely. Yet there sits your friend, a broken man slumped on the sofa, arms lollygagging on his knees, head bowed, voice cracking with desperation, and so the fatal response slides from your tongue like rain from a roof, “Oh, well, what the hell.”
“Oh, well, what the hell” emits a decided tone of resignation, the reluctant acceptance of a dubious or disagreeable undertaking. The enthusiasm of the person uttering those words is tepid, the white flag of a fatalist who figures the spider web of time, place, and circumstance have once again ensnared him. The fire in the belly may be lit, but it is banked rather than ablaze.
Think Samuel Beckett’s “I can’t go on, I’ll go on.”
Despite these negative connotations, this species of “What the hell” often brings positive consequences. “What the hell” has led soldiers to seize impregnable heights, plunged explorers into unmapped jungles, and borne scientists into strange realms of discovery. “What the hell” has brought men and women to the altar and carried them through sixty years of marriage. “What the hell” has delivered children into the world, made fortunes in the stock market, and rolled out-of-luck fishermen from bed at some ungodly hour to try their hand once again with a rod-and-reel.
In my case, “What the hell” has led me to begin reading Will and Ariel Durant, and their eleven volume The Story of Civilization with its mountain of 8,945 pages.
Hand me my boots and crampons, my helmet, pulleys, and carabiners.
Time to climb.
I am going to have a go at the mountain.
We’ll see how far I get.
You are single, your buddy believes he is in love, but the woman whose heart he seeks wants him to find her roommate a date before she’ll go out with him. Your buddy turns to you, promising he’ll pay for the evening’s repast and reminding you of that inauspicious occasion in college when he drove you across the country to Boise, Idaho, to spend five hours with the then love of your life and of the consolations he offered on the long ride home after the young woman told you it really, truly was over and to hit the road.
Your buddy cajoles, and you refuse, but finally you ask: “Have you met the roommate?”
“She has a nice personality,” your friend blurts out, forgetting in his despair the ramifications of this particular stamp of approval.
In your primitive circles, “a nice personality” is the kiss of death. It serves as the working definition of homely. Yet there sits your friend, a broken man slumped on the sofa, arms lollygagging on his knees, head bowed, voice cracking with desperation, and so the fatal response slides from your tongue like rain from a roof, “Oh, well, what the hell.”
“Oh, well, what the hell” emits a decided tone of resignation, the reluctant acceptance of a dubious or disagreeable undertaking. The enthusiasm of the person uttering those words is tepid, the white flag of a fatalist who figures the spider web of time, place, and circumstance have once again ensnared him. The fire in the belly may be lit, but it is banked rather than ablaze.
Think Samuel Beckett’s “I can’t go on, I’ll go on.”
Despite these negative connotations, this species of “What the hell” often brings positive consequences. “What the hell” has led soldiers to seize impregnable heights, plunged explorers into unmapped jungles, and borne scientists into strange realms of discovery. “What the hell” has brought men and women to the altar and carried them through sixty years of marriage. “What the hell” has delivered children into the world, made fortunes in the stock market, and rolled out-of-luck fishermen from bed at some ungodly hour to try their hand once again with a rod-and-reel.
In my case, “What the hell” has led me to begin reading Will and Ariel Durant, and their eleven volume The Story of Civilization with its mountain of 8,945 pages.
Hand me my boots and crampons, my helmet, pulleys, and carabiners.
Time to climb.
I am going to have a go at the mountain.
We’ll see how far I get.
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