[Ads-l] a relaxed, happy rat

[Joel Berson]

I regret to report that Rose the Broadway rat has died in an accident.  She died on the way to her veterinarian after a fall at home just four days after her Broadway debut.  "She was apparently playing on some shelves when a metal door on one of the shelves came off its hinges and landed on her, said Rose's owner and trainer, Lydia DesRoches." 


(Many die as a result of falls at home.)
 
 Today's print edition, and

Rat Who Escaped Peril and Made It on Broadway Dies in a Fall

Joel

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| Rat Who Escaped Peril and Made It on Broadway Die...Rose, a white rat who survived a roadside dumping and poison, died at home, just four days after she started acting in “The Curious Incident of the D... |
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| View on www.nytimes.com | Preview by Yahoo |
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      From: George Thompson <george.thompson at NYU.EDU>
 To: ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU 
 Sent: Saturday, January 23, 2016 4:19 PM
 Subject: [ADS-L] a relaxed, happy rat
   
>From a story in tomorrow's NYTimes -- you are reading it here first --
about a new instance of the classic show-biz story of an unknown who steps on
stage an unknown, but comes back  a star.  In this case, the unknown is a
white rat, but it's still heartwarming.

She was brought to the theater and introduced to her co-stars, both bipeds.

"And then Rose did something special. She bruxed, and she boggled. Bruxing
is when a rat grinds its incisors together. Boggling
<http://www.ratbehavior.org/Glossary.htm#EyeBoggling>, a muscular side
effect of bruxing, is when a rat bugs its eyes in and out rapidly
<https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dcHoyG0PbVY>, like a possessed vaudeville
comic.
They are the ultimate indicators of a relaxed, happy rat."

I do not find "bruxing" in the OED; the OED has several senses for
"boggle", but all are more or less antithetical to relaxed or happy.
The show is “The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time
<http://www.nytimes.com/2014/10/06/theater/the-curious-incident-of-the-dog-in-the-night-time-opens-on-broadway.html>,”
which features a rat, originally played by an albino rat named Toby
<http://www.nytimes.com/2014/11/11/nyregion/white-rat-in-the-curious-incident-is-unexpected-broadway-hit.html>.
Toby became ill, and his understudy was unequal to replacing him.  This
gave Rose her chance, and she seized it.

The article will be "Enter Rose, a Rat with a Past", NYTimes, January 24,
2016,Metropolitan section, p. 2, cols. 2-4
-- 
George A. Thompson
The Guy Who Still Looks Stuff Up in Books.
Author of A Documentary History of "The African Theatre", Northwestern
Univ. Pr., 1998..

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The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org


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The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org