No shit, Sherlock

You know how, in primary school, there was this section in your report card where you had to fill in your cita-cita?  I remember writing, over the years, a whole range of professions; astronaut, cartoonist/artist, scientist, etc., but one that I can recall being greatly drawn to was that of a detective, in great part due to reading the Detective's Guide published by the Singaporean Bookworm Publishing House¹.  It seemed to me a glamorous vocation, going around solving cases, catching crooks² and generally looking like a much smarter cookie compared to your peers.  Once I even stole borrowed a magnifying glass from the science lab to practive my investigative and observation skills with.

Okay, I admit, I pretty much stared at random, innocuous stuff through the lens until the occasional friend walks past and then I explain to them what I was doing so that I could enthuse about detectiving.  A few friends even borrowed the aforementioned Bookworm book to equip themselves with the appropriate knowledge, such as dusting for fingerprints and learning big words like "modus operandi" and "alibi"³.  I even tried to write my own version of the book, but I ended up mostly copying verbatim what was already written.  I wish I still had that copied book somewhere (I also wish I still had all those gamebooks I drew, but that's a story for another time)...

A year or two later, I ran into a few Sherlock Holmes short stories edited to be read by kids (i.e. he wasn't addicted to cocaine and the English was much simpler and the short stories were even shorter) which resulted one of those "So this is what the guidebook was talking about!" moments.  Flash forward to today, and I am now finally in possession of the complete collection of Sherlock Holmes short stories (no Hounds and all that jazz) by way of Carrie never bothering to read her copy.

After reading Holmes in Conan Doyle's own words, I have come to a singular conclusion; Englishmen of the early 1900s ejaculate⁴ a lot.  Every other page you'll have Watson ejaculating:

"What on earth does this mean?" I ejaculated, after I had twice read over the extraordinary announcement. - The Red-Headed League

It must have been a really extraordinary announcement if it can cause someone to ejaculate after two readings.  Yeah, yeah, I know that back then 'ejaculate' was commonly used in the same vein as 'exclaim' or 'utter', but if you don't find it just a tad funny, you have no sense of humour.

Speaking of which, on Christmas eve Carrie and I went to catch the Sherlock Holmes film starring Robert Downey Jr. and Jude Law.

As much as it veered so much from the traditional Holmes that we know, I enjoyed the movie.  I guess that's because when I entered the theatre, I didn't expect a traditional Holmes; otherwise we'd just get Adrian Monk less the OCD (which is what makes Monk so funny), and that just won't do well at the box office.  If you want traditional, go read the book.  Plus, Robert Downey Jr. was especially entertaining as Holmes, not to mention the awesome soundtrack by Hans Zimmer.

Oh, and to all you House fans out there; I know that House and Wilson are based on Holmes and Watson, but wasn't the latter couple's relationship in the film so much like the one between the former?  There were so many points in the film when I could've ejaculated "That's what House would do!"


Footnotes:
1 - I discovered, many years later, that the Bookworm book was a thinly veiled rip-off of the Usborne Detective Handbook, complete with similar covers.  I'd provide a visual comparison, but unfortunately I was unable to find a picture of the Bookworm cover.

2 - Back then, the crooks were the bullies of the school!  Not that I was bullied much, but someone had to be a champion of justice to represent us physically inept kids, right?
3 - I'd smudge my fingers with chocolate, leave prints all over the kitchen, then, armed with my mom's makeup brush and some powder, dust for them, and then check against a fingerprint file that I kept.  Kinda pointless, because the file only had my own fingerprints that I made using my mom's compact because we didn't have ink pads in my house.  Oh, and which kid doesn't like to learn pointless big words which they can, on the very rare occasion, use in their essays?
4 - I'd hate to be the kid who learned the word 'ejaculate' from Sherlock Holmes and used it in his essay before he learned the other meaning, though.