Kurt Snarfield Vonnegut, Jr.

In his graduating class of 1940, Kurt Vonnegut is listed as "Kurt Snarfield Vonnegut, Jr." His classmates called him snarf because they once noticed him sniffing his armpits. Vonnegut points out, however, that technically "a snarf was a person who went around sniffing girls' bicycle saddles. I didn't do that."

Later, in the same interview from The Paris Review, Vonnegut specifies that a "twerp" is "a person who inserts a set of false teeth between the cheeks of his ass." This baffles the interviewer. Thankfully Vonnegut elaborates that twerps do it "In order to bite the buttons off the backseats of taxicabs. That's the only reason twerps do it. It's all that turns them on."

At this point, the interviewer decides to change the subject. He tries to shift to a more serious tone by asking if Vonnegut "went to Cornell University after Shortbridge." The reply: "I imagine." Pages later, to close the interview, Vonnegut suggests a way to maintain a reading public. He proposes "that every person out of work be required to submit a book report before he or she gets his or her welfare check."