I seldom write about things I don't understand. But when I do, I turn my brain into a bowling alley with pins of sanity falling with every strike of the ball of attempt. And the result of the exercise is a preposterous masterpiece of utter NONSENSE. At times people who try to comprehend such literary crap end up with a sore psyche and suicidal tendencies. Why I involve myself in this life threatening exercise is a tough question. I reckon I consider myself a creative thinker and being some sort of a loner I tend to seek some sort of a companionship with my perceptive abilities which stay with me and are always faithful to me. My mind, being my companion and friend often talks to me. And sometimes, it talks nonsense - like all friends do , in an attempt to stir up humour and put up a show of its unparalleled jocularity. But believe me, I hardly understand its jokes and stuff. And consequently the rest of this document marks my genuine efforts to analyse this statement, " Blast Your Red Whiskers ", which happens to be one such statement which makes me nervous each time I think about what it means.
I heard this statement several times in a hollywood motion picture once, and by the mercilessness of chance I don't have the complacency of remembering its name. The particular actor who was hollering out this particular line did so in times of great personal anguish, in an attempt to imply to his co-characters that they needed to get lost, get out of his sight or go to hell. That was what I guessed he meant, but its hard to be absolutely certain of what someone other than yourself has in mind. So rather than trying to plunge into the deduction and interpretation and rendition of the statement, I'll try to confine myself within the bounds of semantics. In other words, without even bothering myself about WHAT THE HELL THAT JERK MEANT, I'll only try to get an idea of the meanings of the different words used in the sentence.
Being given to dealing with first things first, I'll start with the first word first. Now "blast" here doesn't mean an explosion or a blow. In this context it is used as an interjection, an abrupt emphatic exclamation expressing some emotion. "Blast" here stands for an exclamation of annoyance. As far as my knowledge of the usage of such words is concerned, I believe one could've used the term "damn" or "goddamn" or even "curse" as a safe altenative. So the statement could well be reconstructed as " Goddamn your red whiskers ".
The next two words in the combination are well understood. "Red" as an adjective could also indicate the property of something characterized by violence or bloodshed. However such a usage is ruled out by the presence of the last word in the sentence which happens to be "Whiskers", a noun in the context. Whiskers are the hair growing on the lower part of a man's face - that is the moustache ( and not beard, as most would conclude ). Moustache can definately be coloured red but not be violent or sanguinary. Therefore the "red" in the statement stands for the colour and not for anything else.
So in a layman's terms the statement could be put as " May god curse your Red Moustache ". It makes complete sense from the perspective of a student of semantics, but it hardly makes any from the perspective of a student of metaphysics.
The statement has an asthetic value as well. Each time I read the statement, the phrase "red whiskers" succeeds in creating an impact on the mind's eye whose vigour doesn't seem to lessen. How beautiful and soothing is this picture of Red Whiskers the mind creates. Red Moustache has something manly about it that one often relates with the masculine street hooligans from the West who are found on their Harley Davidsons loitering about with no particular purpose. How the idea of a white or a black or yellow-skinned man having his moustache coloured red fascinates us, no one can fathom, not to leave out the red heads. It has a hint of metrosexuality but that is OK in the modern times.
Although this statement is not so popular in the east as the traditional "f*** off" and "go f*** yourself" are, but I am quite sure it will definately be used a lot more in the times to come and will emerge as the hands down winner because not only is it less offensive but also is a newer concept and more esthetically pleasing to the ears.
So folks! Stop using the prehistoric obnoxious reprimands and start using the user friendly " Blast your Red Whiskers ".
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