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Heir
The idle offspring of a workaholic. |
Herd
A cohesive gathering of undifferentiated individuals, as may be observed on the African savannah or at corporate sales conferences. Tradition assigns a different name to each group according to species, e.g.: a pride of lions, a babble of sportscasters, a yawn of insurance salesmen, a shrill of feminists, a casket of morticians, a smirk of stand-up comics, a blanket of homeless, a hassle of bureaucrats, a pontification of columnists. |
Herpes
The affliction of a latter-day leper, rendering the victim untouchable except by fellow sufferers, who must then spend their lives searching for each other like fireflies in the twilight. |
High Blood Pressure
A potentially dangerous overinflation of the inner tubes, common in stressed individuals who lack a safety valve. |
High Society
In America a once-dominant breed of moneyed merry-makers whose lives centred around such curious customs as cocktail parties and 'coming out' balls. Mainstay of old comedies set in the never-never land of 1920s Long Island, Manhattan or Connecticut, where elegant young women carefully dropped their Rs and older ones lived in fear of the Marx Brothers. Now a scattered and vanishing tribe, best glimpsed by scanning the New York Times marriage announcements. |
High Street
A generally imposing thoroughfare running through a district of empty shop fronts. |
Hip
Smartly attuned to the latest cutting-edge cliches. |
Hippie
A living fossil specimen from the late 1960s, formerly widespread but now confined in its habitat to selected rural hamlets where handicrafts and organic farming predominate; field marks include a luxuriant mane (now greying), scruffy plumage and a mellow demeanour that suggests continued familiarity with the weed cannabis. |
Historic District
A cluster of gracious old buildings permitted to survive as long as they can generate more revenue than the convention centre proposed for the same site. |
History
The vast and thrilling pageant of human deeds and misdeeds through the ages, esp. as recorded by the lackeys of systematically oppressive male power elites. Now a moot point as the memory of our species gives way to computerized ROM and RAM - no relation to Romulus and Remus - and our span of consciousness dwindles to the electronic present. |
