She Sells Sea-Shells!

Karunakar Rayker, CC BY 2.0 <https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0>, via Wikimedia Commons

Seashells are really quite amazing, and we take them for granted most of the time. Even though they’re usually “just” the exoskeletons of invertebrates such as snails, clams, and oysters, that does not diminish their beauty, or the fascination we experience when we look at them.

Now, most of us know at least the first line of the traditional tongue-twister:

She sells sea-shells by the sea-shore.

The shells she sells are sea-shells, I'm sure.

For if she sells sea-shells by the sea-shore

Then I'm sure she sells sea-shore shells.

But TIL there was a song as well, which has an interesting back-story. It was written in 1908, with words by Terry Sullivan, and music by Harry Gifford. The Wikipedia article, however, then includes the words:

“According to folklore, it was said to be inspired by the life and work of Mary Anning, an early fossil collector. However, there is no evidence that Anning inspired either the tongue twister or the song.”

What an odd comment. It led me to a fascinating article, which investigated the assertion that the song was inspired by the work of Mary Anning, and described both the total lack of direct evidence that this was the case, and a significant amount of evidence that the tongue-twister and song predate Mary Anning.

Getting back to the seashells, though, I was quite interested in the recent uproar about an image posted on Instagram by former FBI Director James Comey. It showed a number of small seashells arranged to form the numbers “8647”, with the caption “Cool shell formation on my beach walk”.

This sent the entire Trump-verse into a conniption.

Figures such as Donald Trump Jr, Laura Loomer, and Tulsi Gabbard went berserk, asserting that Comey was calling for the assassination of Donald Trump and demanding an “investigation”. This (of course) led to an uproar over the use of the term “eighty-six”, with the Trump supporters insisting that it was an obvious call for violence against Trump (ie, the 47th president).

Utterly ridiculous.

First, Comey is not an idiot, whatever else you may think of him.

Second, the term “86” has been used for about a century, almost always in the context of running out of something, discarding something, or removing someone from an establishment. Examples are usually restaurants and bars running out of an item, or indicating that a customer should be thrown out and/or refused service. That said, while the usual meaning does not imply violence, it is plausible to assume that the term might be used as a euphemism for violence in some circumstances.

For example, it’s not hard to imagine a mob boss instructing an underling to “86” someone, with the implication that the person should be killed.

Asserting that this was Comey’s intent, however, is ridiculous because, as noted before, Comey is not an idiot. It is interesting, however, that Trump appears to have immediately assumed violent intent – could this be a usage he learned from someone with ties to the Mafia? Say, Roy Cohn? Or has Trump just watched too many movies about the Mafia?

In any event, Comey removed the post after the uproar, and it remains to be seen if there will be any action taken by law enforcement.

But that brings me to some interesting examples of prior usage of “86”.

Matt Gaetz (former congressman and former attorney general nominee) was asked to explain the difference between Comey’s use of “86” and his own tweet indicating that he had “now 86’d” former Speaker of the House Kevin McCarthy, former Republican National Committee chairwoman Ronna McDaniel, and Senator Mitch McConnell from their leadership posts. Gaetz’s response was that he was speaking in the past tense, while Comey was calling for future action.

Right. Sure.

And then there’s Jack Posobiec, whom I would describe simply as a Nazi troll. His response to Comey’s post was:

“The fmr director of the FBI is calling for left-wing assassins to target our president and kill him. Have no idea why he hasn't been arrested yet”

Interestingly, as was quickly pointed out in the same article, on 29-Jan-2022 Posobiec posted “86 46”. He hasn’t responded to requests for comment, so should we assume that he’ll surrender himself to law enforcement for his own call for violence?

Obviously not. The hypocrisy is utterly unbounded. There were even MAGA t-shirts with “8646” on them.

Was “8646” a call for violence? I’d say probably not, as MAGA calls for violence tend to be more direct, less subtle, and often echoed or encouraged by Trump himself, in his usual ham-fisted way (for example, by posting a video of a truck with an image of Biden tied up on the back). As usual, this is part of MAGA’s usual hypocritical double-standard.

What about “8647”? It’s pretty clear that Comey’s intent was that Trump should be removed from office, presumably via impeachment, but the image appears to have taken on a life of its own.

On the Trump side, there are a number of posts mocking Comey’s original post, such as one from Donald Trump Jr, spelling out “Trump Won B*tch”, and another by Lauren Boebert, spelling out “FAFO”. Interestingly, none of the ones I have seen are at all clever, or funny. They’re just weird and pathetic attempts to be mean.

In contrast, in what could be called an example of the Streisand effect, the popularity of the meme appears to have increased among non-Trump-supporters, and there are a lot of variations. Some are mean (of course), but many are funny and/or clever as well.

For example, Gen X will understand immediately, while others may need some time or research...

Or, if you are more mathematically-minded:

(The 25, for those unfamiliar, refers to the 25th Amendment, which addresses how a president can be removed from office due to physical or mental impairment)

As if we needed it, this is just more evidence that Trump and his lackeys are weird and creepy people with little imagination, and even less humour.

I’d add some jokes of my own here, but wouldn’t want to deprive others of the opportunity - that would be shellfish...

Cheers!