How Annoying

But we were discussing this before we turned on the recording device, and we thought, well, what are some things in the canon that we haven't covered yet? And there are a few, even though we're 509 episodes into this show.

And we were talking about, oh, people who were obnoxious or boors.

And we did a quick word search.

We couldn't find any mentions of the word obnoxious.

Couldn't find any mentions of the word boor.

But we thought creatively, we are both wordsmiths by nature, and we came up with the notion of, well, there are some people who are just downright annoying, right? So we thought, why not look at some annoyances and annoying people and annoying things in the canon?

And a great place to start is in Study in Scarlet, because this, of course, is the start of the relationship between Holmes and Watson.

They've just been put together because Watson is running out of his pension and Holmes is impecunious.

And so they find that if they pool their resources, they might... be able to afford a little sitting room and so on in Baker Street.

And the first thing they need to do, of course, is take the measure of each other.

And they're talking about, you know, their habits.

And of course, smoking, they talk a little bit about that.

And then Holmes says, because Watson smokes ships himself, so smoking isn't going to be an issue.

And then Holmes says, well, that's good enough.

I generally have chemicals about and occasionally do experiments.

Would that annoy you? And Watson says, oh, by no means.

Yeah, not easily annoyed is Watson.

And Holmes continues, oh, let me see what my other shortcomings are.

I get in the dumps at times.

I don't open my mouth for days on end.

You must not think I'm a sulky man when I do that.

Just let me alone and I'll soon be right.

What have you to confess now? It's just as well for two fellows to know the worst of one another before they begin to live together.

Yeah, and this is clearly a part in the case where Watson or a proofreader or a publisher has just lost some text because Watson says, well, I keep a bull pup, I said, and I object to rousing.

He goes on and says, you know, my nerves are shaking.