Perksniffian Prigs

From today's Merriam-Webster's word of the day:
"Pecksniffian \pek-SNIFF-ee-un\ adjective
: unctuously hypocritical : sanctimonious
Example sentence:
"His book suffers from excessively long harangues against Pecksniffian prigs and temperance types who, he claims, are still trying to ruin our fun." (Mark D. Fefer, Seattle Weekly, January 22, 2003)
Did you know?
Seth Pecksniff, a character with a holier-than-thou attitude in Charles Dickens's 1844 novel Martin Chuzzlewit, was no angel, though he certainly tried to pass himself off as one. Pecksniff liked to preach morality and brag about his own virtue, but in reality he was a deceptive rascal who would use any means to advance his own selfish interests. It didn't take long for Pecksniff's reputation for canting sanctimoniousness to leave its mark on English; "Pecksniffian" has been used as a synonym of "hypocritical" since 1849.
*Indicates the sense illustrated in the example sentence. "
I'd comment here, but there's no need. The ones who would see the humor here already "get" it :)



1 Comments:
I was howling as I read this because I know most of us are thinking of the same Perksniffian Prig. It is amazing to see that some still have not seen through his facade.
This describes my boss also so I may have to print this out and leave the paper lying on my desk as a reminder to ignore his remarks.
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