"Prunes and prisms" nghĩa là gì?

"Prunes and prisms" có prune là xén bớt và prism là lăng kính -> cụm từ này nghĩa là cố tình nói, hành động nhỏ nhẹ, õng ẹo, làm bộ đoan trang kiểu cách. Bắt nguồn từ tiểu thuyết Little Dorrit của Charles Dickens, được xem là hình mẫu về ăn nói kiểu cách.

Ví dụ

And what of our grandmothers, whose lips were trained to the tune of “Prunes and Prisms”? One would as easily visualise a cigarette waggling between them. Who was it who instructed our earliest lispings in the polite way? To say “Yes, please,” or “No, thank you,” as prettily as the good old-fashioned words demanded they should be enunciated (phát biểu, nói ra)? What are the parents thinking of now? What are the day schools doing about it?

“Death” is a sepulchral (lăng mộ, tang tóc) parade of images that have distorted and swallowed up the history of African-Americans. The names of its characters include Yes and Greens Black-Eyed Peas Cornbread; Lots of Grease and Lots of Pork; and Prunes and Prisms, a reference to a vocal exercise purported to reduce the size of the speaker’s lips if repeated frequently enough.

Circling around Watermelon and Drumstick (sex and food) are the icons that really defy our quick categorization. One actor (William Demeritt) is put in Malcolm X’s signature eyeglasses, white shirt, and black suit and tie, but Parks gives this figure the name Voice on Thu Tee V. He keeps delivering extremely upbeat updates on the execution of the last black man. There’s also a little girl (Mirirai Sithole) who resembles a 1960s child in her Sunday best on her way to church. She repeats “prunes and prisms, prunes and prisms” to make her lips less big, which is why Parks call her Prunes and Prisms. Parks never mentions it, but both these figures, we know, are doomed.

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