It's perhaps another factor in explaining doctors' reliance on drink and flippancy about the health effects.

BBC: NEWS | UK | Magazine | Why do doctors drink so much?

But if Waugh was unspooling the flippancy of youth in order to be done with it, his wife was spinning it toward disaster.

FORBES: Not So Bright Young People

The two British boats, by the way, were initially to be called Cat and Dog but that was thought to be too flippant - the Admiralty in London at the time was not into flippancy.

BBC: Hope yet for African Queen gunboat on Lake Tanganyika