Pearls Before Swine by Stephan Pastis for May 16, 2013

Ruthie rode my motorbikeDirectly back of me;I hit a bump at 95And drove on Ruthlessly.:(Author unknown)

I love this comic.

Yeah but Ruth played baseball, not basketball.

Seriously, not kidding, we had a large pig farm when I was a kid. It made good business sense to ensure they were happy and contented, in fact, all our pigs were quite gruntled.

Yes, ruth IS a noun – now out of use, meaning pity. So, ruthless = pitiless.

Jukeofurl — I did not know from what ruthless derived. Thanks! It feels good to learn something.

I’m an abled vet.

It’s from Middle English, which was back about when the Arthurian legends were first written down.

Stephan, twice in one strip?! How long wilt thou continue to abuse us? Just use us, properly, for M. Tullius Chickpea’s sake!

So instead of being pitiless, Pig’s team is in fact pitiful…

When Ruthie says come see her in her honky-tonk lagoonWhere I can watch her waltz for free’Neath her Panamanian moonI say “Aw come on now,You know you know about my debutante”

Ruth is indeed a word, it means sorrow or mercy

Both “ruth” and “gruntled” are in the dikshunerry!

I am whelmed by all this knowledge.

The verses have the form & meter of a Burma Shave ad, but a search of http://burma-shave.org/ doesn’t turn them up.

Why was I expecting Pastis to put in the third panel a girl named ‘Ruth’ who had been cut from the other team?

Great Job Stephan!

Gruntled is actually a word, not sure about ruth though and i’m too lazy to Google it.

Ruth is a word (I’m surprised Goat didn’t know that), but Pig isn’t using it correctly, because it isn’t an adjective. He should have said something like “No, we have lots of ruth.”

Wow, who’d a thunk it? This place is a veritable hotbed of erudition! All this and alligator-speak, too. Pastis, I salute you.

Some of the jokes are inert, some are ert.

And everyone knows grunlted postal workers don’t go postal, they just throw your mail at your mailbox.

Once the Boston Red Sox became Ruth-less, it took them a century to win another Worlds Series.

Re: Ruth…..refers to the Book of Ruth in the Christian Bible. Ruth was the epitome of love and loyalty; “Whither thou goest, I shall go..”

The comments are better, most often, than the strip.

Online Merriam-Webster lists both ruth and gruntle as active words.

Ohhhhhhh… Right.

LOL xxx

wait until someone disses that guy. Run!

Gruntled mail man can be pretty ruthless. Or maybe it’s ruthful.

Is the Center packing heat? That’d be worse than central heating – especially if he expects to ventillate his victim.

Pig looks pretty kempt, in a state of full array—so he must just be beginning his practice. But, Goat seems plussed, even though I hope a blow-up is evitable.

He is also fairly couth.

I first encountered “gruntle” in a PG Wodehouse piece. I suspect that Steph has read every word Plum ever wrote.

Only Pig…

I am so appointed in today’s strip…

Hoping that some of you are reading late – This one is worth sharing:“How I Met My Wife”by Jack Winter

Published July 25, 1994The New Yorker

It had been a rough day, so when I walked into the party I was very chalant, despite my efforts to appear gruntled and consolate.

I was furling my wieldy umbrella for the coat check when I saw her standing alone in a corner She was a descript person, a woman in a state of total array. Her hair was kempt, her clothing shevelled, and she moved in a gainly way.

I wanted desperately to meet her, but I knew I’d have to make bones about it since I was traveling cognito. Beknownst to me, the hostess, whom I could see both hide and hair of, was very proper, so it would be skin off my nose if anything bad happened. And even though I had only swerving loyalty to her, my manners couldn’t be peccable. Only toward and heard-of behavior would do.

Fortunately, the embarrassment that my maculate appearance might cause was evitable. There were two ways about it, but the chances that someone as flappable as I would be ept enough to become persona grata or a sung hero were slim. I was, after all, something to sneeze at, someone you could easily hold a candle to, someone who usually aroused bridled passion.

So I decided not to risk it. But then, all at once, for some apparent reason, she looked in my direction and smiled in a way that I could make heads or tails of.

I was plussed. It was concerting to see that she was communicado, and it nerved me that she was interested in a pareil like me, sight seen. Normally, I had a domitable spirit, but, being corrigible, I felt capacitated—as if this were something I was great shakes at—and forgot that I had succeeded in situations like this only a told number of times. So, after a terminable delay, I acted with mitigated gall and made my way through the ruly crowd with strong givings.

Nevertheless, since this was all new hat to me and I had no time to prepare a promptu speech, I was petuous. Wanting to make only called-for remarks, I started talking about the hors d’oeuvres, trying to abuse her of the notion that I was sipid, and perhaps even bunk a few myths about myself.

She responded well, and I was mayed that she considered me a savory character who was up to some good. She told me who she was. “What a perfect nomer,” I said, advertently. The conversation become more and more choate, and we spoke at length to much avail. But I was defatigable, so I had to leave at a godly hour. I asked if she wanted to come with me. To my delight, she was committal. We left the party together and have been together ever since. I have given her my love, and she has requited it.

Now I’m all combobulated

I’m whelmed.