Hello and thank you for being a DL contributor. We are changing the login scheme for contributors for simpler login and to better support using multiple devices. Please click here to update your account with a username and password.

Hello. Some features on this site require registration. Please click here to register for free.

Hello and thank you for registering. Please complete the process by verifying your email address. If you can't find the email you can resend it here.

Hello. Some features on this site require a subscription. Please click here to get full access and no ads for $1.99 or less per month.

I have sufficient

What the fuck does this MEAN?

If it's an inside joke, that's the tiniest appreciative audience in the history of EVER.

by Anonymousreply 101October 19, 2019 5:27 AM

There was a thread explaining this yesterday.

by Anonymousreply 1July 30, 2014 5:12 PM

It sounds horridly ungrammatical.

by Anonymousreply 2July 30, 2014 5:17 PM

Link, R1?

I, too, would like to know what the fuck this nonsense is about.

by Anonymousreply 3July 30, 2014 5:18 PM

It is an Ethel Mertzism, exhibiting her enormous refinement.

by Anonymousreply 4July 30, 2014 5:44 PM

So you say you don't got sufficient, OP?

Not my bad.

by Anonymousreply 5July 30, 2014 6:08 PM

So, just to recap -

This is an inside joke taken from an ad-libbed line from a sixty year old sitcom to which a handful of people understand the context.

And people say DL is overrun with e1derg*heys! My stars, that just can't be so!

by Anonymousreply 6July 30, 2014 6:16 PM

Here.

Offsite Link
by Anonymousreply 7July 30, 2014 11:11 PM

Well, I've had sufficient.

by Anonymousreply 8July 30, 2014 11:41 PM

Ich habe genug

by Anonymousreply 9July 31, 2014 3:09 AM

it means she has enough hostess pants.

by Anonymousreply 10July 31, 2014 3:51 AM

My neighbor, who was born in England, used to say this all the time with reference to food / meals.

Either stating "I've had sufficient" or asking "Have you had sufficient?"

She was also the fastest eater I've ever seen...a meal in 10 minutes.

I think it had something to do with her being a child during WWII.

by Anonymousreply 11July 31, 2014 4:00 AM

W&W for R9!

by Anonymousreply 12July 31, 2014 4:01 AM

it means she wants to go back to Albequerque.

by Anonymousreply 13August 1, 2014 11:21 PM

I am disappoint, OP.

by Anonymousreply 14August 1, 2014 11:32 PM

The line is from one of the I Love Lucy Connecticut episodes, specifically the one where Ethel feels left out because Lucy has bonded with her new neighbor Betty Ramsay. Lucy has a tea in an attempt for Betty and Ethel to get acquainted. Ethel is cool and distant and when offered more tea, she replies "I have sufficient". A few seconds later Betty mentions she's from Alburqurque and soon Betty and Ethel are bonding and Lucy is the one left out in the cold.

by Anonymousreply 15August 1, 2014 11:42 PM

Ethel! Look what happened to your washing machine!

by Anonymousreply 16August 1, 2014 11:44 PM

I can't wear my bluejeans on the subway!

by Anonymousreply 17August 2, 2014 2:10 AM

I wanted a toaster!!!

by Anonymousreply 18August 2, 2014 2:01 PM

I'm sorry your mother looks like a weasel.

by Anonymousreply 19August 2, 2014 3:49 PM

Iam unanimous in that.

by Anonymousreply 20August 2, 2014 4:05 PM

Well done, Medium Rayah!

by Anonymousreply 21August 2, 2014 4:06 PM

You made me look like a trip around the world.

by Anonymousreply 22August 2, 2014 4:25 PM

Ethel Mae Potter, we never forgot her.

by Anonymousreply 23August 2, 2014 4:44 PM

Well you know that hedge out here that we were thinking of getting rid of? We don't have to think about that anymore.

by Anonymousreply 24August 2, 2014 4:51 PM

I have an Uncle with a real cold chest.

by Anonymousreply 25August 2, 2014 5:00 PM

"Give her the money, Ethel!"

"Is she going with us?"

by Anonymousreply 26August 2, 2014 5:11 PM

Some people build model airplanes. Ethel reads postcards.

by Anonymousreply 27August 2, 2014 6:04 PM

Food always takes different when they prepare it. I don't know WHAT they do to it

by Anonymousreply 28August 2, 2014 9:29 PM

The Ricardo's mean more to me than any mother on Earth!

by Anonymousreply 29August 2, 2014 9:40 PM

"I haven't been to a party since I was a little girl!"

"Yes, the shells!"

by Anonymousreply 30August 2, 2014 9:48 PM

Do you poop out at parties?

Vitametavegamin, probably one of the greatest combinations of comedy writing and acting ever put on film.

by Anonymousreply 31August 2, 2014 10:04 PM

it means that they threw the party, they don't need to get the Ricardos and anniversary gift!

by Anonymousreply 32August 2, 2014 10:51 PM

"an" not "and", that is.

by Anonymousreply 33August 2, 2014 10:55 PM

Ever since we said "I do" there are so many things we don't.

by Anonymousreply 34August 2, 2014 10:59 PM

Ethel was probably 20 years older than Betty Ramsey. Ethel was doing the shimmy with Fast Freddie Mertz in low-end boozers when Betty was born.

by Anonymousreply 35August 2, 2014 11:01 PM

Fred's high waisted pants should have their own twitter account.

by Anonymousreply 36August 2, 2014 11:23 PM

It means, whatever you are peddling, get the fuck out of my face.

by Anonymousreply 37August 2, 2014 11:29 PM

Back in Victorian times, perhaps long before that era, there was a habit of spoken manners (eg, involving dining) which sounds pretentious as hell today. These affectations seemed to be widespread in English speaking cultures.

"I have had a genteel sufficiency," when offered another serving of food. (Maybe in response to offers of more booze too.)

Or "I've had a genteel (or elegant) sufficiency. Any more would be a superfluous redundancy." There were variations, but you get the idea.

Maybe 'ol Ethel Mae's Albuquerque just cut to the chase. Good for them.

by Anonymousreply 38August 2, 2014 11:52 PM

My great-grandmother said them as well. My grandmother made fun of those phrases her whole life, which is how I have known them my whole life.

by Anonymousreply 39August 3, 2014 12:01 AM

Crazy for Lucy, or crazy for ordinary people?

by Anonymousreply 40August 3, 2014 12:06 AM

R39 - yes my family made fun of those phrases too.

by Anonymousreply 41August 3, 2014 12:12 AM

Phipps is a great big bunch of Gyps!

by Anonymousreply 42August 3, 2014 12:53 AM

Ricky, I went out to MGM today and got you fired.

by Anonymousreply 43August 3, 2014 1:02 AM

Mary Jane Croft went directly from "I Love Lucy" to "Ozzie and Harriet".

by Anonymousreply 44August 3, 2014 1:10 AM

its not a baby, its a piece of cheese.

by Anonymousreply 45August 3, 2014 1:47 AM

I didn't tell a soul, and they all promised to keep it a secret.

by Anonymousreply 46August 3, 2014 3:06 AM

When We Go On Shopping Trips

Where Else Would We Go But Phipps ?

From The Top And To The Bottom

If It's Bargains, Phipps' Has Got 'Em

Down At Phipps Your Credit's Great

Ask Today For A Phipps-O-Plate

First On Your List Of Shopping Trips Put

P-H-I-P-P-S Phipps!

Offsite Link
by Anonymousreply 47August 3, 2014 4:11 AM

R47 One of my favorite episodes!

by Anonymousreply 48August 3, 2014 4:53 AM

One of my favorite "saves" from Desi is in that Phipps episode.

Fred and Ethel come in and don't close the door properly and it slowly opens wider and wider as they go into their song. Ricky quickly moves in behind them and closes the door quietly and then sort of melts into and out of the scene with Fred and Ethel, pretending to direct them as they sing.

Frawley or Vance fuck up the song the second time, but I can never tell if it's Fred or Ethel who blows it. But, like the pros that the were, they went right on to the climax as if nothing untoward had happened.

by Anonymousreply 49August 3, 2014 5:06 AM

Lucy has been sitting between them, ignored, as they get better acquainted, looking from one to the other as they call each other by former names.

Betty: "Ethel Potter!"

Ethel: "Betty Foster!"

(Suddenly) Betty: "Lucy!"

(Startled) Lucy: "WHAT??"

Kills me...every time.

by Anonymousreply 50August 3, 2014 5:18 AM

English is peculiar. "I have sufficient" is the polite way of saying, "I have had enough" of something. We need that distinction because we say, "I have had enough" to indicate displeasure with a thing.

by Anonymousreply 51August 3, 2014 7:00 AM

YES, R50! The facial expressions that Lucy makes during that scene are absolutely brilliant. She made acting seem effortless. Such an incredible talent!

by Anonymousreply 52August 3, 2014 7:03 AM

[bold]I have had sufficient.//You’ve gone fishing?//I have had plenty.//You’ve caught twenty?[/bold]

And so it went on Sunday nights at our house when I was a child. It could have been any night but that repartee between my father and us four boys and then my brother’s children seemed to be reserved for Sunday nights or holidays like Christmas or Thanksgiving. We were never allowed to say, “ I have had enough”, or heaven forbid, “I am full.”

[bold]It was that simple.[/bold]

“I have had sufficient” was what you said if you couldn’t finish your peas, which I never could because I hated them, and then when you wanted to leave the table, you said, “May I be excused?” If everyone was finished and the meal was done the answer was “Yes you may.” If everyone wasn’t and the meal wasn’t then you probably didn’t say it, because the dead silence only happened once. Then there was the cry from my mother every once in a while of “ELBOWS OFF THE TABLE!” But I have a feeling that all of that has gone by the way side with opening the car door or standing up for someone elderly (not old) on the bus. Although I must admit I have seen that a few times.

[bold]Where did all this come from?[/bold]

I was having lunch today with a friend and the waiter knew that he shouldn’t clear our plates until we had both finished.

[bold]What do you mean?[/bold]

Well, it is right up there with having sufficient and stacking dishes at the table which my friends always tease me about when they are stacking the dishes. It just isn’t done. It’s called common courtesy. It’s called being polite.

And I have had sufficient of a lot of things and somehow it all seems to go together:

• Thinking “Wassup” is another way to say hello.

• Texting when you are with someone, anyone, anywhere

• Checking Facebook on your phone when you are with someone, anyone, anywhere• Taking a phone call when you are with someone, anyone, anywhere

• Eating before everyone is served at the table

• Going to the washroom during a meal

• And the list could go on ad infinitum

[bold]And the worst part is I have started to do all of that including the ad infinitum.[/bold]

Change has to start with me I am told so next time you see me this just may be how it goes….

[bold]Hello!//How are you?//So good to see you.//How are things?//Good to hear!//Wait, let me get your chair for you.//No, I am sorry, my friend hasn’t finished eating, would you mind waiting to clear the table until we have both finished.//Oh no, I have had sufficient. Really, it was plenty……[/bold]

Offsite Link
by Anonymousreply 53August 3, 2014 7:25 AM

It was the working title for the Streisand/Summer hit "Enough is Enough/No More Tears"

by Anonymousreply 54August 3, 2014 8:05 AM

it means Ethel is tired of being the back of the horse.

by Anonymousreply 55August 4, 2014 3:48 PM

That was a funny line I'm sure.

by Anonymousreply 56March 12, 2015 4:22 AM

I have sufficient.

by Anonymousreply 57December 29, 2016 7:14 AM

It really is a hilarious line delivery within an already funny scene.

by Anonymousreply 58December 29, 2016 7:22 AM

All men had baggy high waisted pants back then. It was the style. But they look so exaggerated on fatties. But Jimmy Demaret's were up around his ears and he was no lard bucket.

by Anonymousreply 59December 29, 2016 8:53 AM

I thought it was a bottom's way of saying 'Enough is Enough'

by Anonymousreply 60December 29, 2016 9:02 AM

Mrs. Trumbull: “Mrs. Ricardo, your temper’s as hot as your red hair.”

Lucy: "ME? What about HER?”

Ethel: "Oh, mine’s as cold as your dark roots!”

by Anonymousreply 61December 29, 2016 10:31 AM

There's a section in Bob Colacello's biography of Andy Warhol, Holy Terror, about Vance. She's drinking and crying and saying how much she hates her fans.

They were offering her the role in Heat (1972) of a faded Hollywood actress eventually played by Sylvia Miles. If she'd taken it she would have gotten to fuck Joe Dallasandro on screen. She desperately wanted to do it, to do something she saw as modern and relevant.

Unfortunately she knew she had to turn it down. She made her living doing dinner theater and wept that her "fucking fans" would reject her for making a Warhol film.

by Anonymousreply 62December 29, 2016 11:35 AM

[quote]Do you poop out at parties?

No, I just poop.

by Anonymousreply 63December 29, 2016 11:51 AM

[quote]in the history of EVER.

OP, be honest. Are you a nine-year-old girl?

by Anonymousreply 64December 29, 2016 12:12 PM

Great story, R62. I can see VV sitting there, boozing it up and singing the blues about her career.

by Anonymousreply 65December 29, 2016 3:04 PM

I have sufficient.

by Anonymousreply 66September 7, 2017 11:51 PM

I think it's a line spoken by Beulah Bondi, as the 4th Mrs. Joseph Smith, in "Hail, Mormons!" (1937, Twentieth Century Fux)

by Anonymousreply 67September 7, 2017 11:59 PM

Here's the clip with Lucy, Ethel and Betty.

See for yourself.

Offsite Link
by Anonymousreply 68September 8, 2017 12:10 AM

The East Indian people I have worked with often say:

[quote] "...do the necessary..."

Such as, "will you do the necessary to fix this problem?" Or "I will do the necessary to fix this problem". I actually like it. What does DataLounge think?

by Anonymousreply 69September 8, 2017 1:49 AM

R69 I think they talk funny.

by Anonymousreply 70September 8, 2017 1:59 AM

This just doesn't seem all that funny. Mildly amusing in context perhaps, but...a running joke on Datalounge? Seriously?

I laugh out loud like a fool all the time when people are actually witty on there, but this is just barely better than writing "This Never Happened" or some such autofill phrase.

by Anonymousreply 71September 8, 2017 2:18 AM

Thank you, R68!

There's a British expression that I like and think is probably outdated. It's a way of asking if someone will pour the tea:

"Will you be Mother?"

by Anonymousreply 72September 8, 2017 2:29 AM

....

by Anonymousreply 73September 8, 2017 2:46 AM

Is someone forcing you to laugh against your will, r71?

by Anonymousreply 74September 8, 2017 5:51 AM

I love how top hit on google for “I have sufficient” leads to DL. I know no where this saying comes from.

by Anonymousreply 75August 5, 2018 4:06 AM

I’ll “oh dear” myself for that one. Bloody iPhone.

by Anonymousreply 76August 5, 2018 4:08 AM

[quote]I know no where this saying comes from.

The more proper phrase, when declining a dinner host's invitation to a second serving of food, is:

"No thank you, I have had an elegant sufficiency." (Translation: "I am full, thank you very much!")

This was common dining etiquette before we became more of a casual society sometime around the '60s.

An alternative was, "I have had a gracious plenty."

by Anonymousreply 77August 5, 2018 4:35 AM

Another alternative was "Full as a tick!

by Anonymousreply 78August 5, 2018 4:49 AM

"All I did was intimate that she was a little hippy. But, on second glance, she HAS got the biggest 'potamus I've ever seen!"

by Anonymousreply 79August 5, 2018 4:52 AM

The original was, “I’ve had sufficient.”

by Anonymousreply 80August 5, 2018 4:55 AM

r80 Not in the TV show it wasn't.

by Anonymousreply 81August 5, 2018 11:00 PM

[quote]Frawley or Vance fuck up the song the second time, but I can never tell if it's Fred or Ethel who blows it. But, like the pros that the were, they went right on to the climax as if nothing untoward had happened.

I really didn't need the image of Fred and/or Ethel climaxing.

by Anonymousreply 82August 5, 2018 11:00 PM

The phrase turns up in the bizarre but charming film "Mirrormask".

by Anonymousreply 83April 13, 2019 3:18 PM

Ethel speaks

Offsite Link
by Anonymousreply 84April 13, 2019 3:31 PM

[quote]So, just to recap -

[quote]This is an inside joke taken from an ad-libbed line from a sixty year old sitcom to which a handful of people understand the context.

[quote]And people say DL is overrun with e1derg*heys! My stars, that just can't be so!

So, just to recap -

Arriviste OP throws a tantrum that a site that has been here for 20 years with many long-term participants has a few inside jokes and social norms that he doesn't understand and is too impatient and self-absorbed to take some time and learn through observation and participation.

by Anonymousreply 85April 13, 2019 3:32 PM

Go to the 3:40 mark

Offsite Link
by Anonymousreply 86April 13, 2019 3:33 PM

I will start sending this to my idiot coworkers

Offsite Link
by Anonymousreply 87April 13, 2019 3:37 PM

R85, you are a DL sage.

by Anonymousreply 88April 13, 2019 3:46 PM

That clip is hilarious and shows the brilliance of all three performers. It's timeless. The "I don't get it" crowd? Do you want someone to convince you to laugh? How tiresome you are.

by Anonymousreply 89April 13, 2019 3:47 PM

here you go, dears.

Offsite Link
by Anonymousreply 90April 13, 2019 3:49 PM

Is it had or have sufficient? I've listened to the clip a few times and can't tell. Had sufficient seems to most appropriate.

by Anonymousreply 91April 13, 2019 4:00 PM

R90 - see R86 and R87

by Anonymousreply 92April 13, 2019 4:19 PM

R91 - it's "I have sufficient" in the Lucy show

by Anonymousreply 93April 13, 2019 4:20 PM

Interestingly, that is still the polite and correct form, as it indicates that the person still has food or other refreshment.

by Anonymousreply 94April 13, 2019 9:46 PM

Agreed

by Anonymousreply 95May 21, 2019 3:12 AM

Have we had sufficient on this topic?

by Anonymousreply 96October 19, 2019 3:04 AM

I will neger have sufficient on this topic.

by Anonymousreply 97October 19, 2019 3:23 AM

Or never

by Anonymousreply 98October 19, 2019 3:23 AM

Vivian Vance was seven years older than Mary Jane Croft

by Anonymousreply 99October 19, 2019 3:58 AM

It's not so much that the line itself is funny, but Vance's delivery makes it so memorable.

by Anonymousreply 100October 19, 2019 4:39 AM

I think it's fucking hilarious!

by Anonymousreply 101October 19, 2019 5:27 AM
Loading
Need more help? Click Here.

Yes indeed, we too use "cookies." Take a look at our privacy/terms or if you just want to see the damn site without all this bureaucratic nonsense, click ACCEPT. Otherwise, you'll just have to find some other site for your pointless bitchery needs.

×

Become a contributor - post when you want with no ads!