BLOWSY

My brother asked, "Hey, do you know this word blowsy?"  I answered that I did and he asked for a definition.  I said, "It means a coarse woman, but the perfect example is Shelley Winters-- if you look in the dictionary--her picture is probably there with blowsy!"

He asked, "You mean the Shelley Winters of A Place In The Sun or the Shelley Winters of Lolita?"

I answered, "BOTH, plus her in Alfie;  only Shelley could be blowsy as a young woman and a middle-aged one too!"  He said, "The only thing I remember about her in Lolita is that she pronounced Van Gogh as VAN GOCK!"  I said, "Of course that IS the proper pronunciation, and in the book, she is a refined person who would know THAT, but the movie makes her look ridiculous."

I said, "Shelley Winters playing Charlotte Haze in Lolita has to be one of the greatest worst castings EVER;  I can't believe Kubrick read the book or Nabokov allowed it;  in the book Charlotte was definitely NOT blowsy;   Winters was totally WRONG for the part!"

As we looked up BLOWSY, we learned that FROWZY is a synonym!  Shelley qualifies as FROWZY also.

My brother's comment:  "Isn't it interesting the number of disparaging words are just for women?"