My sufficiency is...

[Snide...@gmail.com]

Anecdotal evidence: my aunt was well known for concluding her part in
a holiday repast with, "My sufficiency is surrensified, any more would
be too much!" Occasionally I get to wondering about surrensifying...so
I've done some searches, beginning with the dictionary. No luck. No
luck on google.

Until I tried the "my sufficiency is" as the search phrase. That lead
me to <http://www.worldwidewords.org/qa/qa-suf1.htm>, where
"suffonsified" seems to be the common condition.

If you or a relative or even some kith have, to your knowledge, used
this phrase, what condition are you familiar with? Do you go on to the
double superfluency, or just too much?

Thanks for the feedback.

/dps

[Mark Brader]

> Anecdotal evidence: my aunt was well known for concluding her part in
> a holiday repast with, "My sufficiency is surrensified, any more would
> be too much!" Occasionally I get to wondering about surrensifying...

> Until I tried the "my sufficiency is" as the search phrase. That lead

> me to <http://www.worldwidewords.org/qa/qa-suf1.htm>, where
> "suffonsified" seems to be the common condition.

For my mother-in-law, it was "suffunctified".
--
Mark Brader, Toronto | Some people like my advice so much that they frame it
m...@vex.net | upon the wall instead of using it. --Gordon R. Dickson

[CDB]

"Mark Brader" <m...@vex.net> wrote in message
news:11q7j3c...@corp.supernews.com...

>
>> Anecdotal evidence: my aunt was well known for concluding her part
>> in
>> a holiday repast with, "My sufficiency is surrensified, any more
>> would
>> be too much!" Occasionally I get to wondering about
>> surrensifying...
>
>> Until I tried the "my sufficiency is" as the search phrase. That
>> lead
>> me to <http://www.worldwidewords.org/qa/qa-suf1.htm>, where
>> "suffonsified" seems to be the common condition.
>
> For my mother-in-law, it was "suffunctified".

Our family expression was "I am sufficiently suffonsified", going back
at least as far as my great-grandmother Margaret Sarah Percival (b.
Ontario, 1865), who could get a bit whimsical at Christmas parties
when the creme de menthe was in her.

I think that it, like the other versions, is a parody of the phrase "I
have had an elegant sufficiency". "Elegant sufficiency" is in the aue
archives. Donna Richoux found* the poem it comes from in 2002, and
Mike Lyle remarked at the time that even the Victorians had found the
phrase amusing.
__________________
* My fingers made that "Richoux fount", perhaps a Freudian**
acknowledgement of her role as a source of information here.

** OBtwöotherthreads: See
http://www.people.nnov.ru/volkov/pix/freud_s_first_slip.jpg . IM
admittedly HO, the productions of BK are timeless and of universal
application, and ought to be considered always on topic here. Too bad
more of them aren't available on line. I searched in vain for
"Genghis and Sylvia Khan" when it was recently asserted here that only
Charlie knew who and what Sylvia was.

[Jeffrey Turner]

Snide...@gmail.com wrote:

No experience of suffonsified, but in my family the next step
past "an elegant sufficiency" is "an elephant's sufficiency."

--Jeff

--
Intolerance of ambiguity is the mark
of an authoritarian personality.
-Theodor Adorno

[Vinny Burgoo]

CDB wrote:

> ** OBtwöotherthreads: See
> http://www.people.nnov.ru/volkov/pix/freud_s_first_slip.jpg . IM
> admittedly HO, the productions of BK are timeless and of universal
> application, and ought to be considered always on topic here. Too bad
> more of them aren't available on line. I searched in vain for
> "Genghis and Sylvia Khan" when it was recently asserted here that only
> Charlie knew who and what Sylvia was.

http://www.blackjelly.com/Mag/gallery/kli18.htm

My favourite was always "Houdini escaping from New Jersey", which seems
not to be online.

One site said that all of his books are out of print, which, if true,
is daft. I'm sure they would still sell well.

--
Vinny

[CDB]

"Vinny Burgoo" <hlu...@yahoo.co.uk> wrote in message
news:1134910306....@g49g2000cwa.googlegroups.com...
CDB wrote:

[...]

> I searched in vain for
> "Genghis and Sylvia Khan" when it was recently asserted here that
> only
> Charlie knew who and what Sylvia was.

http://www.blackjelly.com/Mag/gallery/kli18.htm

Aahh!

My favourite was always "Houdini escaping from New Jersey", which
seems
not to be online.

One site said that all of his books are out of print, which, if true,
is daft. I'm sure they would still sell well.

I have them all, but I would buy them for friends.

[Frances Kemmish]

CDB wrote:

>
> One site said that all of his books are out of print, which, if true,
> is daft. I'm sure they would still sell well.
>
> I have them all, but I would buy them for friends.
>

A little wandering on Amazon and elsewhere located a book called "Never
Eat Anything Bigger Than Your Head & Other Drawings", which does seem
to be out of print. That reminded me of the first cookery book that my
husband bought for himself when he got his first flat: "Impoverished
Students Guide to Cookery, Drinkery, and Housekeepery ", by Jay
Rosenberg, which contains the advice: "Never eat anything bigger than
your head".

I wonder which came first, Rosenberg, or Kliban?

Fran

[CDB]

"Frances Kemmish" <fkem...@optonline.net> wrote in message
news:40lc2cF...@individual.net...

The Kliban book is copy[careful, now]righted 1976, although that
doesn't date the cartoon that the title comes from. What's the date
on the Rosenberg?

[Frances Kemmish]

Well, I can't find the book at the moment - maybe it got lost in one of
our moves - but my husband was a student from 1966-70, so it must have
been around then.

Searching on Amazon suggests that it was first published in 1965 by Reed
College Alumni Association. Looking around some more, I see that Reed
College has a "Jay Rosenberg Cookbook Scholarship".

Fran

[CDB]

"Frances Kemmish" <fkem...@optonline.net> wrote in message

news:40lrmhF...@individual.net...

Sounds like Rosenberg pipped him at the post. Can't find a large
version of the title cartoon, but this is from the book, and on theme.
http://blog.whatfettle.com/archives/Kliban-Watermelons.jpg

[Snide...@gmail.com]

Frances Kemmish wrote:
[...]

> Searching on Amazon suggests that it was first published in 1965 by Reed
> College Alumni Association. Looking around some more, I see that Reed
> College has a "Jay Rosenberg Cookbook Scholarship".

It was probably still in the campus book store around the time I was,
but I tended to look for Dover reprints and Bob Guccione titles.

/dps

[Snide...@gmail.com]

Snide...@gmail.com wrote:

> It was probably still in the campus book store around the time I was,
> but I tended to look for Dover reprints and Bob Guccione titles.

Ooops, this isn't alt.fan.cecil-adams :-o

/dps

[johnerns...@gmail.com]

Around the family table where I grew up we often found our sufficiency surrensified. I never saw a spelling of the word surrensified. It just happened, usually after a particularly satisfying meal in western Pennsylvania in the 1960's and 70's.
My first guess at a spelling matched yours. It is probably derived from the verb to surrender.
I haven't heard of that other word, and can't think of any derivations.
Thanks for posting your experience. Where and when was it used?

[Fred]

When I was young a common expression when fully satisfied with a meal
was 'I've had ample sufficiency'. Probably a different shaped table.

[Snidely]

johnerns...@gmail.com suggested that ...

I think I only heard it from my aunt, who came to Oregon early in the
20th C, from Ohio by way of Brooklyn. I heard it in the 3rd quarter of
the 20th C. I think I only heard it at family holiday dinners. Roast
turkey and all the trimmings.

/dps

--
"That's a good sort of hectic, innit?"

" Very much so, and I'd recommend the haggis wontons."
-njm

[Athel Cornish-Bowden]

I heard it more often as "have you had a suuficiency?"


--
athel

[HVS]

On 22 Feb 2016, Athel Cornish-Bowden wrote

My grandfather (born in Manchester in the 1890s) used to say he'd had "an
helegant sufficiency"; the added "h" was always part of the expression.

--
Cheers, Harvey
CanEng and BrEng, indiscriminately mixed



---
This email has been checked for viruses by Avast antivirus software.
https://www.avast.com/antivirus

[Jerry Friedman]

I've never heard it, but it was discussed here back in 2005.

https://groups.google.com/d/topic/alt.usage.english/CGwkQYsncqY/discussion

--
Jerry Friedman

[Jerry Friedman]

Oh, looking at GG, I see you were responding to that very thread.

--
Jerry Friedman

[Joe Fineman]

HVS <off...@REMOVETHISwhhvs.co.uk> writes:

> My grandfather (born in Manchester in the 1890s) used to say he'd had
> "an helegant sufficiency"; the added "h" was always part of the
> expression.

But did not suffice to suppress the n in "an"!
--
--- Joe Fineman jo...@verizon.net

||: Only the bath fits as perfectly as the grave. :||

[John Varela]

On Mon, 22 Feb 2016 10:19:06 UTC, HVS <off...@REMOVETHISwhhvs.co.uk>
wrote:

> On 22 Feb 2016, Athel Cornish-Bowden wrote
>
> > On 2016-02-22 07:15:07 +0000, Fred said:
> >
> >> On 22/02/2016 7:39 p.m., johnerns...@gmail.com wrote:
> >>> Around the family table where I grew up we often found our sufficiency
> >>> surrensified. I never saw a spelling of the word surrensified. It just
> >>> happened, usually after a particularly satisfying meal in western
> >>> Pennsylvania in the 1960's and 70's.
> >>> My first guess at a spelling matched yours. It is probably derived from
> >>> the verb to surrender.
> >>> I haven't heard of that other word, and can't think of any derivations.
> >>> Thanks for posting your experience. Where and when was it used?
> >>>
> >> When I was young a common expression when fully satisfied with a meal
> >> was 'I've had ample sufficiency'. Probably a different shaped table.
> >
> > I heard it more often as "have you had a suuficiency?"
>
> My grandfather (born in Manchester in the 1890s) used to say he'd had "an
> helegant sufficiency"; the added "h" was always part of the expression.

My father-in-law used to say "That was good, what there was of it,
and there was plenty of it, such as it was."

--
John Varela

[HVS]

On 22 Feb 2016, Joe Fineman wrote

> HVS <off...@REMOVETHISwhhvs.co.uk> writes:
>
>> My grandfather (born in Manchester in the 1890s) used to say he'd had
>> "an helegant sufficiency"; the added "h" was always part of the
>> expression.
>
> But did not suffice to suppress the n in "an"!

Indeed - but I always took that to be part of the joke.

[LFS]

On 23/02/2016 10:04, HVS wrote:
> On 22 Feb 2016, Joe Fineman wrote
>
>> HVS <off...@REMOVETHISwhhvs.co.uk> writes:
>>
>>> My grandfather (born in Manchester in the 1890s) used to say he'd had
>>> "an helegant sufficiency"; the added "h" was always part of the
>>> expression.
>>
>> But did not suffice to suppress the n in "an"!
>
> Indeed - but I always took that to be part of the joke.
>

My father (born in London in 1921) used exactly the same expression.

--
Laura (emulate St George for email)

[whit...@gmail.com]

My Grandmother used: "My sufficiency has been surrensified", much to my Mother's horror, as Mom was a schoolteacher. Both would get a laugh now if they could see these posts and the partial legitimization (or well, at least mention) of the phrase. Location was Columbus, Georgia.

[Harrison Hill]

On Friday, 25 November 2016 22:15:16 UTC, whit...@gmail.com wrote:
> My Grandmother used: "My sufficiency has been surrensified", much to my Mother's horror, as Mom was a schoolteacher. Both would get a laugh now if they could see these posts and the partial legitimization (or well, at least mention) of the phrase. Location was Columbus, Geor

"My sufficiency has been surrensified", is just the sort of silly
thing grand mothers ought to say. Most of the fun of being a child
is in being childish. If you can find an adult who is on your
wavelength, then that makes the joke even funnier. I expect the
two of them are giggling about it in Heaven :)

[jco...@doubleinkpub.com]

"My capacity has been sufficiently surrensified" <I am borrowing spelling from other posts; makes sense, but I had never dreamed of this word before an hour ago> is the phrase that my mother just came up with. She, born in 1929, used to hear an aunt say it at the end of a large, apparently satisfying meal. The aunt's family was from Pennsylvania (Mercer Co.), but she spent her adult life (as did my mother) in Pepin, Wisconsin. My mother's memory of hearing this phrase would be from the late 1930s and into the 1940s.

Is it from some other archaic term that people had abused and re-shaped to their own liking? The fact that people in varied locations and in different decades are using it makes me wonder if it came from . . . a comedy skit or something on the radio? My first impulse was to spell it "serensified," with the idea that it was a combination of "serene" and "satisified." Just throwing all my thoughts out here . . . What an interesting conversation.

--
<http://www.doubleinkpub.com>

This information contained within this e-mail is confidential to, and is
for the exclusive use of the addressee(s). If you are not the addressee,
then any distribution, copying or use of this e-mail is prohibited. If
received in error, please advise the sender and delete/destroy it
immediately. We accept no liability for any loss or damage suffered by any
person arising from use of this e-mail.

[Athel Cornish-Bowden]

On 2017-04-28 02:35:46 +0000, jco...@doubleinkpub.com said:

[ ... ]

> This information contained within this e-mail is confidential to, and

> isfor the exclusive use of the addressee(s). If you are not the
> addressee,then any distribution, copying or use of this e-mail is
> prohibited. Ifreceived in error, please advise the sender and
> delete/destroy itimmediately. We accept no liability for any loss or
> damage suffered by anyperson arising from use of this e-mail.

Not a good idea to send it to a public forum, then?


--
athel

[Peter Moylan]

There's no point in deleting it. By now it has propagated to news
servers all around the world.

--
Peter Moylan http://www.pmoylan.org
Newcastle, NSW, Australia

[Jerry Friedman]

On 4/27/17 8:35 PM, jco...@doubleinkpub.com wrote:
> On Friday, November 25, 2016 at 5:32:48 PM UTC-5, Harrison Hill wrote:
>> On Friday, 25 November 2016 22:15:16 UTC, whit...@gmail.com wrote:
>>> My Grandmother used: "My sufficiency has been surrensified", much to my Mother's horror, as Mom was a schoolteacher. Both would get a laugh now if they could see these posts and the partial legitimization (or well, at least mention) of the phrase. Location was Columbus, Geor
>>
>> "My sufficiency has been surrensified", is just the sort of silly
>> thing grand mothers ought to say. Most of the fun of being a child
>> is in being childish. If you can find an adult who is on your
>> wavelength, then that makes the joke even funnier. I expect the
>> two of them are giggling about it in Heaven :)
>
> "My capacity has been sufficiently surrensified" <I am borrowing spelling from other posts; makes sense, but I had never dreamed of this word before an hour ago> is the phrase that my mother just came up with. She, born in 1929, used to hear an aunt say it at the end of a large, apparently satisfying meal. The aunt's family was from Pennsylvania (Mercer Co.), but she spent her adult life (as did my mother) in Pepin, Wisconsin. My mother's memory of hearing this phrase would be from the late 1930s and into the 1940s.
>
> Is it from some other archaic term that people had abused and re-shaped to their own liking? The fact that people in varied locations and in different decades are using it makes me wonder if it came from . . . a comedy skit or something on the radio? My first impulse was to spell it "serensified," with the idea that it was a combination of "serene" and "satisified." Just throwing all my thoughts out here . . . What an interesting conversation.

It wouldn't surprise me if it came from some kind of comedy, radio or
film or book, and it wouldn't surprise me if "serenity" was involved
somehow. But I don't know whether anyone knows.

--
Jerry Friedman

[HVS]

My grandfather used to say that he'd had "an helegant sufficiency",
which I always assumed originated as either something from Dickens,
or some comic's catchphrase.

--
Cheers, Harvey
CanE (30 years) & BrE (34 years),
indiscriminately mixed

[musika]

On 28/04/2017 15:01, HVS wrote:
> My grandfather used to say that he'd had "an helegant sufficiency",
> which I always assumed originated as either something from Dickens,
> or some comic's catchphrase.
>

My Grandfather said the same (but without the aitch).

--
Ray
UK

[Peter Moylan]

I too have heard and read it. Googling the phrase returns many hits, but
nothing useful about the origin.

[CDB]

On 4/28/2017 11:07 AM, Peter Moylan wrote:

> musika wrote:
>> HVS wrote:

>>> My grandfather used to say that he'd had "an helegant
>>> sufficiency", which I always assumed originated as either
>>> something from Dickens, or some comic's catchphrase.

>> My Grandfather said the same (but without the aitch).

> I too have heard and read it. Googling the phrase returns many hits,
> but nothing useful about the origin.

GooBoo finds it in _The County Magazine_; the date given is 1788. It is
from James Thomson's poem _The Seasons_, so written by 1748 at the
latest.

"An elegant sufficiency, Content, Retirement, rural quiet, friendship,
books, Ease and alternate labour, useful life, Progressive virtue, and
approving Heaven. These are the matchless joys of virtuous love;"

He was mocked for other lines, according to Wp. Why not for this one?
(Although I suppose the mockery was more likely for old people who kept
quoting him after poetic styles had changed.)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_Thomson_(poet,_born_1700)

[Peter T. Daniels]

More than 50 years later, it became the text of Haydn's oratorio "The Seasons."
It seems to have been intended to be performed either in German or in English.

Here's a program note by H. C. Robbins Landon. Van Swieten based his German
text on Thomson (1726, not 1748) but his English version was lousy, and later
editions were closer to Thomson's text. Our phrase doesn't seem to occur. (If
Search works properly.)

[CDB]

On 4/28/2017 11:04 PM, Peter T. Daniels wrote:

It seems to be an extremely long poem. I am happy to say that I have
never read it.

[Robert Bannister]

"An elegant sufficiency" was used by lots of people. I don't know
whether there is a literary connection. It does seem likely.

--
Robert B. born England a long time ago;
Western Australia since 1972

[ppit...@nycap.rr.com]

My mother-in-law heard it from her parents, her father born in Birmingham, England, and my husband remembers it this way: "My sufficiency has been 'suffinsified.' Any further more would be ?something? to my taste." ...as in 'good taste.'

[valal...@gmail.com]

On Friday, December 16, 2005 at 11:28:29 PM UTC-5, Snide...@gmail.com wrote:
> Anecdotal evidence: my aunt was well known for concluding her part in
> a holiday repast with, "My sufficiency is surrensified, any more would
> be too much!" Occasionally I get to wondering about surrensifying...so
> I've done some searches, beginning with the dictionary. No luck. No
> luck on google.
>
> Until I tried the "my sufficiency is" as the search phrase. That lead
> me to <http://www.worldwidewords.org/qa/qa-suf1.htm>, where
> "suffonsified" seems to be the common condition.
>
> If you or a relative or even some kith have, to your knowledge, used
> this phrase, what condition are you familiar with? Do you go on to the
> double superfluency, or just too much?
>
> Thanks for the feedback.
>
> /dps

My Grandfather, who grew up in the Vidalia, Georgia area, often ended a meal with "My sufficiency is fully surrensified".

[CDB]

"I am sufficiently suffonsified", here. It was said occasionally by my
mother, who I was told had gotten it from her grandmother.

On previous occasions it has been suggested that the phrase, in one form
or another, mocks the Victorian "I have had an elegant sufficiency".

Oops. Too late I look up and see that this *is* the previous occasion.

[Stephen Guenther]

On Friday, December 16, 2005 at 8:28:29 PM UTC-8, Snide...@gmail.com wrote:
> Anecdotal evidence: my aunt was well known for concluding her part in
> a holiday repast with, "My sufficiency is surrensified, any more would
> be too much!" Occasionally I get to wondering about surrensifying...so
> I've done some searches, beginning with the dictionary. No luck. No
> luck on google.
> Until I tried the "my sufficiency is" as the search phrase. That lead
> me to <http://www.worldwidewords.org/qa/qa-suf1.htm>, where
> "suffonsified" seems to be the common condition.
> If you or a relative or even some kith have, to your knowledge, used
> this phrase, what condition are you familiar with? Do you go on to the
> double superfluency, or just too much?
> Thanks for the feedback.
> /dps

My mother's Uncle (I'm 55 so he is dead) used to state after a holiday repast the following:
"My sufficiency has been surrensified. Any more would be superfluous to my requirements."

[Snidely]

on 11/12/2021, Stephen Guenther supposed :

Quite. Where I sometimes end up is ... my mouth wants more, but my
tummy says, "whoa!".

Unlike our relatives, I don't have a good aphorism for that.

/dps

--
Yes, I have had a cucumber soda. Why do you ask?

[lar3ryca]

On Saturday, December 17, 2005 at 2:29:32 AM UTC-6, Mark Brader wrote:
> > Anecdotal evidence: my aunt was well known for concluding her part in
> > a holiday repast with, "My sufficiency is surrensified, any more would
> > be too much!" Occasionally I get to wondering about surrensifying...

> > Until I tried the "my sufficiency is" as the search phrase. That lead
> > me to <http://www.worldwidewords.org/qa/qa-suf1.htm>, where
> > "suffonsified" seems to be the common condition.

> For my mother-in-law, it was "suffunctified".

For me, as a young lad in Vancouver, it was "sufficiently suffuncified". Of course that was the way we would have spelled it, had we needed to write it down, based on the pronunciation.

[Sam Plusnet]

https://blogs.bl.uk/sound-and-vision/2018/04/an-elegant-sufficiency-or-the-curious-case-of-a-victorian-meme.html

Seems relevant here.

P.S. What is a "PhD placement student"? - which is how the author
describes themself.

--
Sam Plusnet