a punchless fight

Joyce knew things were going badly, but she couldn’t find her tongue to smooth it out. A million dangerous double entendres were sitting at the back of her throat, and, if she opened her mouth even a slit (!), she feared one of them was going to come out.

The traveler ventures into the world of exile and expatriatism, two terms that Edward Said defines in his essay Reflections on Exile. Whereas exile connotes the negative, expatriatism carries more positive associations.

without the subingression of air to turn them into bubbles