Here’s the thing about all the memes John uses in TLT. Sure, Jod is horny for the 2010s, but I can’t believe that after 10,000 years he hasn’t bothered to get down with any fresh new material. Never mind a myriad of human culture developing its own linguistic quirks - I’m betting the original Canaan House 16 had plenty of time to come up with some of their own. For example:
- Skeleton construct #230 (Scotty Boneman) and skeleton construct #39 (Grunkulous Prime) and their long-running feud
- Excessively anatomical descriptions for normal actions e.g ‘don’t you elevate your supercilium at me, Valancy. Stop oscillating your cephalon in my direction.’
- Responding to one of John’s unfathomable inside-joke references with a solemn nod and intoning the words 'glumpus glumpus’ to acknowledge Divine and Unknowable Wisdom
- Forgotten objects that may or may not have been sex toys (Cyrus and Valancy’s nude portraits are a continuation of this)
- [pointing at a picture of any animal that no longer exists] 'What kind of dog was this?’
- Necromantically juicing up your muscles to insane proportions before e.g opening a jar, turning a key, writing down a note
- Referring to any distasteful outfit as a 'sex ward’
- 'or as they say on the Eighth: if in doubt, slut it up’ (Mercy and Cristabel do not approve of this one)
- Tendon loving care
- Convincing one another of fictitious new slang from the other Houses.
- [after summoning a bone construct/flesh monster/skeleton army] I can never get the nose right
- How many of your own joints can you dislocate mid-conversation before somebody notices
- Wearing your lyctoral cape any way except in the way that it was intended to be worn
And, of course:
- Lyctor? I hardly know 'er!