The Wit’s Guide to Scoundrels
Or, rogues vs. criminals
Scoundrel is one of those great words from which you can do a thesaurus speedrun in either direction. A scoundrel is a rogue is a rascal is a rapscallion is a scamp is a whippersnapper. Secretly, we’re all rooting for him! Or a scoundrel is a wretch is a swindler is a miscreant is a con man is a crook. Secretly, he’s rooting through all the pockets on the coat rack, taking whatever he finds. The word has an old-timey ring to it, which is why it sounds harmless. We all know that people were much kinder before TikTok ruined everything.
“I have always thought respectable people scoundrels and I look anxiously at my face every morning for signs of my becoming a scoundrel.”
— Bertrand Russell
The scoundrel is obviously unethical, probably arrestable, undeniably charming, and with the right jury, certainly acquitable. Texas Guinan, 1920s speakeasy hostess and pioneering scoundreless, proved as much at trial when she “wisecracked with the judge, treated the Prohibition agents like muddled patrons at her club and was cleared of all charges.”
“Whenever A attempts by law to impose his moral standards on B, A is most likely a scoundrel.”
— H.L. Mencken
The scoundrel is more often than not a wit, pinching his best lines off the window sills where they were left to cool. Yogi Berra was a wit; Yogi Bear was a scoundrel; both possibly by accident but probably on purpose. He’s not bad, he’s just drawn that way.
“Patriotism is the last refuge of a scoundrel.”
— Samuel Johnson
Everyone knows that line, though Ambrose Bierce argued that it’s actually their first refuge. Lillian Hellman backed him up with her book Scoundrel Time, about the compounding travesties of McCarthyism and the House Committee on Un-American Activities. In other words, the bad kind of scoundrels. When politicians are so tightly wrapped in the flag, it cuts off circulation to the brain.
And Dr. J. further muddied the waters by declaring that:
“Whoever thinks of going to bed before twelve o’clock is a scoundrel.”
“It is so very difficult for a sick man not to be a scoundrel.”
So by his parameters, even if we’re indifferent to our nation, we all succumb to scoundrelism much of the time.
“When you steal from one author, it’s plagiarism; if you steal from many, it’s research.”
— Wilson Mizner
The greatest scoundrel-wit of recent history has to be Wilson Mizner, a playwright, cardsharp, art forger, huckster, and con man whose best lines play off his real-life rascality. He joked that if he ever tried to tell his life story, it would “be interrupted by the blowing of a million police whistles,” and the joke worked: His biography was titled Rogue’s Progress: The Fabulous Adventures of Wilson Mizner, which safely qualifies him as the good kind of scoundrel.
“Be nice to people on the way up because you’ll meet them on the way down.”
— Wilson Mizner
When the glare from the two shoes of the goody-goodies of this world gets a bit much, the scoundrel’s life has its merits. In public, Charles Baudelaire praised his contemporary Victor Hugo, but privately he rolled his eyes at the moral simplicity of Les Misérables and joked that he would write a parody called Anti-misérables:
“In my novel, which will show a scoundrel, a genuine scoundrel, assassin, thief, incendiary and pirate, the story will end with this sentence: ‘Under the trees which I planted myself, surrounded by my family which worships me, by my children who cherish me, by my wife who adores me, I am now enjoying in peace the recompense of my crimes.’”
And that’s all he wrote.
Hey, it’s a ReccoMention!
It takes a scoundrel to win The New Yorker’s cartoon caption contest, doesn’t it? And it takes an even bigger scoundrel to write a segue like that. For my beloved paying subscribers (a mere C$30/year), I crunched the punchlines to see how they decide what those erudite talking dogs will say next.
New month, new Riposte Card!
I have met animator Isaac King on several occasions and can confidently assert that he is not a scoundrel. If he were, I wouldn’t have selected him to draw February’s Riposte Card, now would I? Well, he isn’t and I did and he has, and my Founding Subscribers should have already received his gorgeous postcard art in the mail. For the rest of you freeloaders — 2,123 of you at last count, thank you and welcome! — the big art reveal comes next week! And if you too want to join the 50 paying subscribers who get actual collectible paper artworks sent to you each month, hit the button below to help me commission more Riposte Cards!
Quote Vote
“Man grows used to everything, the scoundrel!”
— Fyodor Dostoevsky
Each week, you vote for the next week’s guide. Last week, I told you that loyal reader Céline’s candidate always loses and implored you to choose what she would choose. Scoundrels won with a 15% over her pick: Snubs. Poetic! No mind games this week!
Get Wit Quick No. 239 will be remembered for its lovable faults long after others are forgotten for their virtues, as Gene Fowler said of Wilson Mizner. The main characters in the film Dirty Rotten Scoundrels were neither dirty nor rotten; discuss. Disgust? Only a good scoundrel would give a dull acquaintance a copy of my book, Elements of Wit: Mastering The Art of Being Interesting. A bad scoundrel breaks hearts; my readers merely tap the ❤️ below.