With the deftness of long habit, he flipped Darby upside down, and held the flyweight lad dangling by the ankles out into empty space—"terra firma" by now being easily half a mile below—proceeding to lecture him on the many evils of looseness in one's expression, not least among them being the ease with which it may lead to profanity, and worse.
* * * * * * * * * *
Where to start?! I wouldn't want to be some boring normie and start at the beginning. I'd rather be like a great Greek poet and start in the middle! The middle, in this sentence, is "terra firma" which is actually actually the middle, considering the Chums of Chance are in the sky and I'm sure some adventure of theirs will have taken place (or will take place (or will have Took-en place (I just re-read The Hobbit so that one was for me. You can ignore it))) underground.
Now that I began briefly in the middle, I'll go back to the beginning and just take the sentence apart in a linear fashion. That's because I've read too many comic books in my time and that's their standard modus operandi. First page is a big splashy battle to attract the kid flipping through the unpurchased book and then the second page ditches that excitement for the boring beginning of the story. Most comic books don't realize that they don't have to present their story in this manner. It's so boring!
With "[w]ith the deftness of long habit," we see that Lindsay Noseworth is a huge bully who not only hands out demerits but threatens the safety of every person on board the Inconvenience. What good are demerits if threats of physical violence are parceled out as well?!
This entire scene reeks of the conservative's civility argument. "Please speak and act the way we think you should speak and act or else we will punch you in the nose or shoot you with our guns. Be civil, for God's sake!" If informality of speech might lead to cussing, what leads to bullying young people into obeying arbitrary rules that have nothing to do with morality or ethics?! Oh! Oh! I know the answer to this one! A low self-esteem or some innate fear which leads to a fervent need to control and dominate every situation! It's the rallying cry of the authoritarian! I bet Lindsay considers himself to be a whatever a Libertarian was in 1893. No wait! That would probably be an Anarchist! Lindsay's definitely not that!
Here's the difference between an Anarchist and a Libertarian: a Libertarian is an Anarchist when it comes to their own life but when somebody encroaches on their own individual liberty (not the liberty of the individual but their own personal liberty!), they expect there to be a law or government to stop that from happening. An Anarchist understands that true personal freedom means everybody is doing their own thing and can live with the, possibly, resulting chaos. A Libertarian believes in personal freedom for everybody as long as that personal freedom parallels their beliefs. A Libertarian ultimately needs some kind of bodyguard; an Anarchist defends themselves! That's why Libertarians usually turn out to be Authoritarians in disguise.
I know Anarchy is going to be a constant theme in this book! Even if that anarchy is really just activists organizing for social and economic justice and being labeled as anarchists by people who profit from the current status quo.
You might have noticed that I've refrained from swearing so far on this blog but not for any reasons regarding looseness in one's expression! I'm just trying to stay more in character! Grunion Guy...I mean, Anonymous Blog Writer doesn't swear as much as that other guy, the one that professes to be Grunion Guy but is really mostly just himself, Anonymous Blog Writer. Wait. What? Hmm, maybe if I confuse myself enough, I'll allow myself to start swearing again!