Topic: Mixed like milk and water...

[welshwitch]

My English dictionaries give "milk and water" as meaning insipid, weak, watered down, etc, and the Dictionary of Historical Slang record it as an eighteenth-cntruy toast, neither of which is particularly germane.

[*Froggy*]

My English dictionaries give "milk and water" as meaning insipid, weak, watered down, etc, and the Dictionary of Historical Slang record it as an eighteenth-cntruy toast, neither of which is particularly germane.

WOW!! I'm amazed, because that's how I see Jack and Lureen's relationship.

[tpe]

Yes, very interesting.  Not quite the same as the Chinese meaning, but also suprisingly applicable in this case...

[welshwitch]

How odd! I've always seen Lureen as sassy or feisty and quite able to complain and bitch. Jack has some of the same aspects - I had assumed their marriage might be not based on physical passion after the first months but contain a certain amount of conflict or mutual irritation. I never thought of it as being milk and water in that sense.

[edgar]

How odd! I've always seen Lureen as sassy or feisty and quite able to complain and bitch. Jack has some of the same aspects - I had assumed their marriage might be not based on physical passion after the first months but contain a certain amount of conflict or mutual irritation. I never thought of it as being milk and water in that sense.

KitKat, thanks for the translations/explanations provided. I really think any examination of this proverb should be linked to the original Chinese context, which is surely what Lee had in mind. Coming together effortlessly, complete union, lack of friction. Hmmm.

My idea/assumption is that when Lee told JG and AH that they "come together like milk and water," he's talking about the scene in the back seat of the car. It's an effortless, gravity-propelled, 32 feet per second per second ("Do you think I'm too fast?") descent into physical satisfaction.

And afterwards.... They're both young and attractive... they think, "why not?" and they get married. The milk and water metaphor does not apply to their marriage, I don't think, especially as Jake gets to know the family...

Finally, the image changes, "As far as our marriage goes, we could do it over the phone."

But that first meeting.... milk and water.

[welshwitch]

I'm not even 100% sure of the events in the car - when he says, Youare in a hurry" Jack looks n=more taken aback than anything, though he quickly goes into "necking in the car" mode. I imagine he's been thinking over what he knows about Lureen and her relative wealth, and decides to go with what she wants; I reckon he knows it's not what he wants but is expedient.

I don't see them becoming one in any real sense at any point - they are always two separate individuals, because Lureen is never that other person who completes Jack.

Jake said he didn't understand waht Ang meant, and I'm with Jake - neither do I.

[lamusica]

I've heard this expression before, and I thought it was the opposite of "oil and Water don't mix".  Mile and water DO mix- put them together and you can no longer separate them.  Is this true of Jack and Lureen?  I can't see it.  I think Jack was just so poor and hungry, he saw a meal ticket and some financial opportunity.  He also saw marrying Lureen as something that would boost his own self-image that he was NOT gay, as he affirmed to Ennis.  Having such a pretty wife and one with community status, was attractive to this poor farmboy/starving rodeo rider.  IMO, I doubt Jack would have thought all this out.  He wasn't too good at reasoning why he did things.  He seems to me to be a more fly-by-the-seat-of-your-pants guy.  Go where the wind blows you.

[welshwitch]

Yes, Jack's an opportunist and one who's, as he admits to Ennis in the motel, been so unsuccessful at rodeoing that he's nearly starved.Lureen has to be better than that. She's female, wealthy, has made it clear she's interested and isn't totally hideous, I suppose. And Jack has no hopes of seeing Ennis again anytime soon. But I don;t see them as becoming one - it seems to me far more a convenient arrangement and maybe for Lureen a way of defying her father.

[KatKat]

i would say this "milk and water sensation" only last for a few seconds-in the car's back seat
and edgar: you are the first non-Chinese who called me "kitkat"! 
(my Chinese net friends always make fun of my nickname)

[ennis_lover]

i remember hearing jake say that oh and also on the bonus features jake said they filmed in alberter but its alberta i would no i live there!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[Jennis]

i would say this "milk and water sensation" only last for a few seconds-in the car's back seat
and edgar: you are the first non-Chinese who called me "kitkat"! 
(my Chinese net friends always make fun of my nickname)

LOL...Love it
Jennis.x

[edgar]

i would say this "milk and water sensation" only last for a few seconds-in the car's back seat
and edgar: you are the first non-Chinese who called me "kitkat"! 
(my Chinese net friends always make fun of my nickname)

Whoops! I wasn't making fun... that's just what my eye saw at that moment...

And I agree with you.. I took the "milk and water" comment as Lee's direction for that particular scene. (Anyway, you just direct one scene at a time, generally.)

[KatKat]

Whoops! I wasn't making fun... that's just what my eye saw at that moment...

And I agree with you.. I took the "milk and water" comment as Lee's direction for that particular scene. (Anyway, you just direct one scene at a time, generally.)

i know~haha, it's easy to misread 

[welshwitch]

Yes, if it applies only to that scene, then I can see it - I suppose he's trying to suggest that what happens is quick and effortless.