The personality is endearing, the writing is sharp – but (give or take those synthetic rants) it's cosy and mild-mannered humour.
"Behaviour too mild, sense of humour too keen, habits too vague," he wrote.
But the humour is "mild", it added, and Merchant "doesn't give [his character] Stuart much depth or bite".
But the kind of people who do say "anorexic" to mean "really jolly slim" tend also to use bulimic as a synonym, possibly even with a very, very mild comic intent, the humour (I guess) proceeding from the hyperbole of the first eating-disorder reference being compounded by the lavish exaggeration of the second.
Others begin as humour, as a mild diversion, like lolcat speech patterns, descending into a kind of obsessive, and astounding madness, like the lolcat Bible translation project (I can see why you'd bother with Ecclesiastes 1, but all the Bible? even, say, Numbers 27?).
"I am... a man of mild dispositions, of command of temper, of an open, social, and cheerful humour, capable of attachment, but little susceptible of enmity, and of great moderation in all my passions".
Arthur Robbins's illustrations mix humour with an occasional touch of mild menace.
How do you define your personality?' His gamers in JPod define themselves, variously, through largely valid attempts to use humour and trivia to cope with mild degrees of autism.
He was known for his genial mild-mannered persona and for his skillfully delivered observational humour and understated satire.
