Thank you LB. I mentally fill this in every time, to the point where I wish I could stop doing it because I feel bad for some very nice friends who have short fingers. But I can't stop.
Because I'm old enough to still miss SPY, my eyes can't handle the one online archive I know of. I hope someone takes you up on this.
It was easy enough to search Google books and find lots of stories, such as how people wanted him to run in 1988. Hard to export for quoting though as it's all images.
I think I still have a few issues I left in my parents' basement before moving overseas. Good fun.
In the interests of economy, can we agree on SFVDT as an acceptable abbreviation?
Graydon Carter with some of the history (not clear to me if he was the one who originally used the term).
Just to drive him a little bit crazy, I took to referring to him as a "short-fingered vulgarian" in the pages of Spy magazine. That was more than a quarter of a century ago. To this day, I receive the occasional envelope from Trump. There is always a photo of him--generally a tear sheet from a magazine. On all of them he has circled his hand in gold Sharpie in a valiant effort to highlight the length of his fingers. I almost feel sorry for the poor fellow because, to me, the fingers still look abnormally stubby. The most recent offering arrived earlier this year, before his decision to go after the Republican presidential nomination. Like the other packages, this one included a circled hand and the words, also written in gold Sharpie: "See, not so short!" I sent the picture back by return mail with a note attached, saying, "Actually, quite short."A pictorial analysis.
"Vulgarian" is a great word that isn't used often enough.
When Donald defends his fingers, it's just his stump speech.
Google Book Downloader is giving me a much clearer view of those back issues than I had before.
|| Thunderbolt & Lightfoot, cult heist movie, or documentary of 70s sensibilities and fashion? Discuss after the 40th comment? |>
How about "SFV" as a sobriquet shorthand
10: Total classic. It is astonishing that Eastwood and Bridges didn't become a recurrent pairing in movies.
I feel like people are really losing the spirit of the "short-fingered vulgarian" soubriquet. It isn't just about the short fingers. It's about having the word "short-fingered" next to the word "vulgarian."
Re "SFV":
There are too many TLA's but, amusingly, when I was trying to figure out meanings for SFV, I got it confused with SPV.
Charlie Pierce calls him He Trump, and yam colored vulgarian.
11 Well played.
12 Agreed. I don't see why we have to choose between the two options in 10.
"Simian foamy virus" also works for Trump.
It's about having the word "short-fingered" next to the word "vulgarian."
He doesn't seem to mind the "vulgarian" bit, tho. "Short-fingered" drives him nuts.
a page collecting everything they ever wrote about him in the eighties and nineties
It's nowhere near everything, but VF put up this compilation of links to some highlights a while back, it's a pretty good start.
I linked a complete archive at 15 - it's in google books. Read it, there's not that much.
"Donald Trump: 'My hands are normal hands'"
Headline in the WaPo.
fty-two minutes into Donald Trump's discussion of weighty issues with The Washington Post's editorial board came an interlude about his hands. "Normal," the Republican presidential front-runner insisted. "Strong." "Good size." "Great." "Fine." "Slightly large, actually."
I loved SPY magazine. I had a subscription my freshman year of college, which was the year it folded. They (who? no idea) said they were sorry and sent me Maxim for the remainder of the subscription term as a consolation prize. I was not consoled.
Really I came here to link the transcript of the piece in 22. The hands are not even the best part of the whole weird interview.
Correction: SFV == SWTH
Someone with tiny hands
Wired published an embarrassing correction to a story by Jason Tanz about Donald Trump today.
Apparently he or his editors had a Chrome extension turned on that changed every mention of
"Donald Trump" to "Someone With Tiny Hands."
http://gizmodo.com/wired-keeps-publishing-trump-stories-with-its-someone-w-1763771660.
And I can't think about the word vulgarian without thinking of the scene from "A Fish Called Wanda"
Cleese: "You're a true vulgarian, aren't you?"
Kline: "You're the vulgarian, you fuck!"
Thing is, I'm sure Trump wouldn't mind being lumped in with Otto.