Agnes by Tony Cochran for September 16, 2018

What if I am just filthy?

Something something filthy mind.

Stinking must work in the same way. “He’s so stinking rich.”

I would be satisfied being just rich.

I guess I’m not filthy poor….

Just moderately dirty un-rich.

I referred to my fave dictionary (Amer. Herit. 4th Ed.) for relevant definitions of “filthy” and found nothing that applied to “rich” in this way. But the very next entry was for “filthy rich”, defined as “extremely rich” with no negative evaluation attached. Comparing to how phrases like “any one” or “some thing” merged into single words over the last century or so, it wouldn’t surprise me if soon we will describe bajillionaires as “filthyrich”. As for me, I’m just reasonablycomfortablethankyou.

She’s a stinking genius!

They should have a different way of spelling “Filthy” to indicate extremes, For example, if a person said, “I’m philthy phat”, he wouldn’t be obese, just way cool.

If comic strips had smell-o-characters, I suspect we would learn that you two are just plain filthy.

The Oxford English Dictionary points out that “filthy” is only used regularly to mean “extremely” in the phrases “filthy drunk” and “filthy rich” — and that the same can be said of “stinking.” Stinking drunk, stinking rich. Which raises the question: how is being rich like being drunk?

Cochran is a filthy good cartoonist!

“You’re filthy cute and baby, you know it.”

It is said that the term is derived from the means by which some people attain their riches. I think that it could have roots in the fact that some people buried their treasure to avoid being looted.