Busting Balls

So I've been reading this book, viva la repartee which is filled with amusing anecdotes, as you might imagine. The reason you might imagine this is because it's a book about amusing anecdotes. The book was picked it up on a whim at the Barnes & Noble on University in WDM after work one day. Whilst browsing the language section, it's neon-pink dust jacket caught my eye. I realized this book would probably do me more good in life than znat po-rooskie and decided to buy it. I ran across a passage in the early chapters that struck me as particularly poignant, and thought I'd share.

While the ability to forge clever replies has always been useful in dealing with adversaries and opponents, it has proved invaluable in dealing with friends--especially when friends engage in the time-honored tradition of expressing their affection in a form of ritualized insult behavior. There are many words for this phenomenon: banter, razzing, kidding, jesting, ribbing, raillery, roasting, busting chops, and, of course, busting balls. Another word to describe this intriguing form of human interaction is badinage (BAD-uh-nazh) which the OED defines as "light trifling raillery or humorous banter."

The word derives from the French badin, meaning "joker," an the phenomenon shows up mainly in the good-natured teasing and playful banter that people--especially men--engage in with one another.

One of his examples involves a playwright from the Algonquin Round Table, Marc Connelly:

One evening, Connelly was dining with friends when another member of the group snuck up from behind, placed his hand on top of Connelly's bald head, and said to the amusement of the other guests, "Marc, your head feels as smooth as my wife's ass" Connelly instantly raised his hands to his head, began rubbing his own scalp, and with a wry smile said:

"So it does, so it does."

For a long time I've thought that those that didn't participate in badinage or that complained about the behavior just lacked the wit or intelligence; they couldn't hold their own during a quickly paced verbal jousting exercise and as such attempted to shift the conversation away from it or threatened violence in order to halt it. But now I wonder if perhaps it's not so much a lack of wit, but a lack of affection. Maybe these people are not so much witless friends as they are friendless wits?

But mostly I've been pondering about the layers of meaning this unearths about our hours of ruminating on Amish's miniscule genitalia; while the antics can certainly be written off as hilarity for the sake of hilarity, could it also in actuality illuminate our affection, caring, and-- dare I say it?-- love for the big lug?

Hmmm. Perhaps it's just that we find his microscopic phallus laughably noteworthy.

Discuss!