post the forty-third

I was walking toward class today after spending a marvelous afternoon with Uffish Thought and ladylondon when I overheard a couple of guys behind me talking. One of them said something so truly bizarre that I had to turn around and look to make sure I'd heard it properly.

"Sweet rhetoric is like a fickle wench," he said.

There are so many things that are odd about that statement that I'm not even sure where to begin. Or whether I should begin, for that matter. I'm not quite certain how one could compare rhetoric (sweet rhetoric, for that matter) and a woman of questionable character. And why "sweet rhetoric," anyway? What gives here?

For what it's worth, I told Robert Poste in my next class, and he felt that they should have replaced "wench" with "bedmistress." I thought it had a nice rhythm to it, too.