07/15/03’s illustrious band:

Dan Bennett

Brought to you by Magic.

Dan Bennett is known to Magic and their friends as the man whose name is a pseudo-cuss phrase, or a Nerf curse. Like a Nerf ball, a Nerf curse can be tossed about without causing too much alarm. Drop something? Mutter “Dan Bennett.” Stub your toe? “Dan Bennett!” That’s great for the rest of us, but probably kind of annoying for poor Dan.

Nerf curses are useful for blowing off small amounts of steam without offending anyone. High on my list are family swearlooms like “ratzle fratzle,” which my Dad used when I was too little to be exposed to the real thing, and “sheeeooooot faaaahr,” a common utterance from Aunt Eva, whose semi-Southern drawl can wring at least four syllables from these words. (However, no one is sure whether she’s saying “shoot far” or “shoot fire.” Doesn’t matter, I guess.) I’ve picked up a new one from the Harry Potter books: boggart. In the literature, a boggart is an apparition that takes a scary form; I use the word anywhere I might otherwise say Dan Bennett.

My literary hero James Lileks (www.lileks.com) recently made Nerf curses a feature of his newspaper column. People wrote in with their favorites and amusing anecdotes about their origins. I invite others to do the same.

E-mail the Media Sensation: jugglernaut@hotmail.com

Visit the BND archives at http://jugglernaut.blogspot.com.