Persiflage is light-hearted banter and teasing between friends and colleagues, often found in competitive environments. The word comes from the French “persilare,” meaning to make fun of someone, but in English it is meant to be good-natured. It is used in literature, art, and modern media, and is often found in binding activities like the military. While fictional relationships may seem more characterized by persecution, real life can offer opportunities for jokes, like when Ronald Reagan quipped in the operating room after being shot.
Persiflage is chatter, jokes between or between friends and colleagues. Sharp at times, it is often found among teammates preparing for, or actually competing, competition. Sometimes it takes the form of name calling or teasing, but when it does, it’s not meant to hurt; instead, he’s good-natured, designed to make his target feel like “one of the guys.” Persiflage can sometimes seem like an endless game of superiority, where each participant must somehow outdo the others.
The word persiflage has been transplanted whole from the French original. Its meaning, however, has been somewhat corrupted in the process. In French, persilare is to make fun of someone, and it is neither lighthearted nor benevolent. An idiomatic synonym for the English meaning, however, would be “shoot the breeze,” perhaps with some gentle teasing. So, depending on one’s idea of ”meaningful conversation,” most if not all talk shows consist predominantly of persiflage.
A common feature of most human relationships, persiflage is also used frequently in art. In Shakespeare’s Hamlet, for example, it features much of the gentle banter between Hamlet and Ophelia, just as some of Hamlet’s conversations with his good friend Laertes. Most of the dialogue in Act 5, Scene 1 is teasing between the two undertakers at a point in the play where such a light and airy banter note is so desperately needed to temper the play’s tension. Shakespeare used it masterfully in his plays, although it is sometimes difficult to recognize it because it is in verse. Many classical authors, however, limited the dialogue in their works to serious discussions, each finely crafted word dripping with meaning and devoid of extravagance or serendipity.
Modern literature, however, gives full visibility to persiflation. It is much easier to find there and translates easily into other modern media. A master of the medium is Robert B. Parker (1932-2010), whose modern, tough but sensitive detective Spenser spends more time in verbal gymnastics with his partner Hawk and romantic partner Susan Silverman, PhD, than he does in ‘investigation. Jokes translate easily from page to screen. Another ready source is inspiring comics and movies, whose superheroes routinely engage in nonsensical banter, especially with the super-villains they fight.
Binding activities are often characterized by persiflage. The military is a prime example, where a primary training goal is to develop recruits into a squad. They are pushed hard and freely harangued with all sorts of hurtful criticisms and confrontations with hateful creatures like worms. The training is tough for a purpose, though, and most recruits make good soldiers. Fictional representations of the military portray him well; in one film, two sergeants are preparing for war and one says to the other, “Don’t worry, you’re too ugly to die!”
Fictional relationships that appear to be characterized more by persecution than actual discussions of significant issues, however, are not always accurate representations of real life. Detectives, superheroes and platoon sergeants can get all the best lines in the books and movies to reduce tension and keep everyone focused. Real life sometimes offers once-in-a-lifetime opportunities for such jokes, however, as when US President Ronald Reagan, having been wheeled into the operating room after being shot in 1981, looked at the surgical team and quipped, “I hope you are all Republicans!”
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