An Awkward Good Morning

A friend of mine recently used a strange word in conversation with me.

Me: How did it go with the prostitute last night?
Him: It went swimmingly.

Swimmingly? Is that even a word? I had no idea. I'd never heard it before.

Me: Did you go swimming?
Him: No, I fucked her and then knocked her around a little bit.
Me: Obviously. But I thought you might have gone swimming beforehand.
Him: I didn't. I wouldn't pay some whore to swim with me.
Me: Then why did you say swimmingly?

Seemed like a logical question.

Him: It's a common term. It means that things went well.
Me: Why does it mean that?
Him: I guess because people like swimming.
Me: So you get just as much enjoyment out of swimming as you do ejaculating into a nameless, bloody streetwalker?
Him: Sometimes.
Me: You're not allowed in my pool anymore.

I don't have a pool but if I did, I would certainly ban my friend from it.

This got me wondering exactly how a word like "swimmingly" came to be. It seems like someone took an activity that most people seem to enjoy - swimming - and decided to turn it into an adverb to describe other things people enjoyed. This led me to wonder about a few more things.

First, if someone doesn't enjoy swimming (i.e. black people) would that person use the term? And if they did, would it mean the same thing, or would they intend it to mean the opposite.

"Hey man, how did it go being raped by that guy?"
"Swimmingly."

To the listener, it could sound like the person had a great time being sodomized, but the truth of it is, you don't know unless you have a full understanding of the other person's feelings toward swimming. Anyone who assumes that swimming is universally enjoyed has never seen my wife's friend Larissa sitting on the top step of a pool, clutching the railing and reaching wide-eyed for her inhaler because she's trying to survive her third panic attack of the last ten minutes.

Secondly, why is swimming the only activity that's granted this honor. There are lots of activities that most people enjoy, but only swimming gets the decorative -ly and cushy adverb status.

"Hey man, how did the job interview go?"
"Blowjobly."

Admittedly, there is one simple and key flaw to this example. That is of course, the lack of clarity on whether the second speaker enjoys receiving or giving the blowjobs. (It's assumed that the response indicates a positive performance at the interview) Speaking from experience, nothing can ruin a male friendship faster than if one of the men thinks the other likes giving blowjobs. The whole relationship becomes one night of heavy drinking away from one guy saying to the other "If you want, you can blow me." This will undoubtedly lead to confusion for the second man, who would then assume that the first man was gay and had been harboring long supressed love and lustful thoughts about him. And of course, what is a simple misunderstanding between two rational, educated adults while sober becomes a screaming, fighting, crying, inadvertent kissing, secret revealing night of bond strengthening sexual experimentation that leaves its participants emotionally and physically drained .

This immediately leads to two things. First, the most awkward semen scented "good morning" of both their lives and second, the immediate swearing of a sacred oath never to speak of that night again. (Further down the road there will be refusals to move with his wife out of the city and away from the other guy, countless "2-Man Guys Nights Out," and a seemingly endless laundry list of excuses not to be dating any girls)

Back to the point, I think we need to introduce some new adverbs into our lexicon, because let's face it, as a society, there are things we enjoy more than swimming. Aren't there?

A short list:

- baseballly
- sleepingly
- analingusly
- eatingly
- masturbatingly
- rapingly
- sodokuly
- convincing my wife that a certain night in college with my roommate never happened-ly