And I think the dragging across the throat maneuver that so many saw was an exaggeration. I didn't see it. JMO.
MO as well, even after watching this entertaining video of over 7 minutes of Jodi and her gangly hand gestures. The throat slashing gesture is weird, but who knows, maybe her neck itched or she was having psychotic delusions of spiders. Impossible to say. Watch the video on mute if you'd rather not hear many, many repetitions of a certain, well-known obscenity starting with "f." The soundtrack is actually rather cute, though, so maybe consider just getting the kiddies out of the room. And listen to the first bit which features the great orator Kirk Nurmi trying to say
coup de grâce but saying, instead,
coup de gras. (If you want to know why this is significant and funny, continue reading below the video.)
"The
coup de gras of misconduct, the epitome of it, if you will..."
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FDnSnqGDu8I
No, Nurmi, I most definitely willmott. Oops, I mean will not. Oh Lord, where to begin? I guess I should start by apologizing for being such an insufferable pedant, but listening to Nurmi's slow-motion butchering of the language -- any language -- just makes my head explode (which is different from making my brain scramble). He clearly doesn't know what
coup de grâce means -- literally, the "blow of mercy," used, for example, to end the suffering of a mortally wounded opponent, and figuratively, any kind of ker-pow used to end any situation once and for all. (As a language butcher, perhaps Nurmi has more sympathy for Jodi than he's willing to admit.) Anyway,
coup de grâce does not mean "epitome," and it's a SPECTACULARLY inappropriate image to evoke in this context.
But that's not what he says, because I guess he slept through jr. high French. And some of you may have studied different languages and picked up only a bit of French here and there, and have only heard this used incorrectly. And I'm an insufferable pedant, so, again, I apologize. What Nurmi says is
coup de gras.
Grâce and
gras do sound a lot alike, but
grâce has an "s" sound at the end and
gras does not.
Grâce means "grace" or "mercy," whereas
gras means "fat." As in "fat." And as in
Mardi gras and
foie gras, for example. When I hear
coup de gras, I think of a medieval French knight hitting his mortally wounded opponent with a block of lard or maybe with a handful of nice, fatty strips of raw bacon. His mortally wounded opponent expects a quick and merciful end to his misery, but instead finds himself attacked with grease. He is confused by this unexpected assault, and may, if he is able, look up and say "
Hé mec, c'est quoi ce merdier?" Or medieval French words to that effect.
Given Nurmi's physical attributes,
coup de gras is probably not an image he wants to evoke. Good thing he doesn't know what the hell he's saying.