K is a consonant that we get from the Greeks, but it can be
tracedaway back beyond them to the Cerathians, a small commercial
nationinhabiting the peninsula of Smero.In their tongue it was
called_Klatch_, which means "destroyed."The form of the letter
wasoriginally precisely that of our H, but the erudite Dr. Snedekerexplains
that it was altered to its present shape to commemorate thedestruction of
the great temple of Jarute by an earthquake, _circa_730 B.C.This building
was famous for the two lofty columns of itsportico, one of which was
broken in half by the catastrophe, the otherremaining intact.As the earlier
form of the letter is supposed tohave been suggested by these pillars, so, it
is thought by the greatantiquary, its later was adopted as a simple and
natural -- not to saytouching -- means of keeping the calamity ever in the
national memory. It is not known if the name of the letter was altered as an
additionalmnemonic, or if the name was always _Klatch_ and the
destruction oneof nature's pums.As each theory seems probable enough, I
see noobjection to believing both -- and Dr. Snedeker arrayed himself
onthat side of the question.
KEEP, v.t.
He willed away his whole estate, And then in death he fell asleep,
Murmuring:"Well, at any rate, My name unblemished I shall keep." But
when upon the tomb 'twas wrought Whose was it? -- for the dead keep
naught.
Durang Gophel Arn
KILL, v.t.To create a vacancy without nominating a successor.
KILT, n.A costume sometimes worn by Scotchmen in America
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andAmericans in Scotland.
KINDNESS, n.A brief preface to ten volumes of exaction.
KING, n.A male person commonly known in America as a "crowned
head,"although he never wears a crown and has usually no head to speak
of.
A king, in times long, long gone by, Said to his lazy jester: "If I were
you and you were I My moments merrily would fly -- Nor care nor grief to
pester."
"The reason, Sire, that you would thrive," The fool said -- "if you'll
hear it -- Is that of all the fools alive Who own you for their sovereign, I've
The most forgiving spirit."
Oogum Bem
KING'S EVIL, n.A malady that was formerly cured by the touch of
thesovereign, but has now to be treated by the physicians.Thus 'themost
pious Edward" of England used to lay his royal hand upon theailing
subjects and make them whole -
a crowd of wretched souls That stay his cure:their malady convinces
The great essay of art; but at his touch, Such sanctity hath Heaven given
his hand, They presently amend,
as the "Doctor" in _Macbeth_ hath it.This useful property of theroyal
hand could, it appears, be transmitted along with other crownproperties;
for according to "Malcolm,"
'tis spoken To the succeeding royalty he leaves The healing
benediction.
But the gift somewhere dropped out of the line of succession:thelater
sovereigns of England have not been tactual healers, and thedisease once
honored with the name "king's evil" now bears the humblerone of
"scrofula," from _scrofa_, a sow.The date and author of thefollowing
epigram are known only to the author of this dictionary, butit is old
enough to show that the jest about Scotland's nationaldisorder is not a
thing of yesterday.
Ye Kynge his evill in me laye, Wh. he of Scottlande charmed awaye.
He layde his hand on mine and sayd: "Be gone!"Ye ill no longer stayd. But
O ye wofull plyght in wh. I'm now y-pight:I have ye itche!
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The superstition that maladies can be cured by royal taction isdead, but
like many a departed conviction it has left a monument ofcustom to keep
its memory green.The practice of forming a line andshaking the
President's hand had no other origin, and when that greatdignitary bestows
his healing salutation on
strangely visited people, All swoln and ulcerous, pitiful to the eye, The
mere despair of surgery,
he and his patients are handing along an extinguished torch which
oncewas kindled at the altar-fire of a faith long held by all classes ofmen.It
is a beautiful and edifying "survival" -- one which bringsthe sainted past
close home in our "business and bosoms."
KISS, n.A word invented by the poets as a rhyme for "bliss."It
issupposed to signify, in a general way, some kind of rite or
ceremonyappertaining to a good understanding; but the manner of
itsperformance is unknown to this lexicographer.
KLEPTOMANIAC, n.A rich thief.
KNIGHT, n.
Once a warrior gentle of birth, Then a person of civic worth, Now a
fellow to move our mirth. Warrior, person, and fellow -- no more: We must
knight our dogs to get any lower. Brave Knights Kennelers then shall be,
Noble Knights of the Golden Flea, Knights of the Order of St. Steboy,
Knights of St. Gorge and Sir Knights Jawy. God speed the day when this
knighting fad Shall go to the dogs and the dogs go mad.
KORAN, n.A book which the Mohammedans foolishly believe to have
beenwritten by divine inspiration, but which Christians know to be
awicked imposture, contradictory to the Holy Scriptures.
L
LABOR, n.One of the processes by which A acquires property for B.
LAND, n.A part of the earth's surface, considered as
property.Thetheory that land is property subject to private ownership and
controlis the foundation of modern society, and is eminently worthy of
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thesuperstructure.Carried to its logical conclusion, it means that somehave
the right to prevent others from living; for the right to ownimplies the right
exclusively to occupy; and in fact laws of trespassare enacted wherever
property in land is recognized.It follows thatif the whole area of _terra
firma_ is owned by A, B and C, there willbe no place for D, E, F and G to
be born, or, born as trespassers, toexist.
A life on the ocean wave, A home on the rolling deep, For the spark
the nature gave I have there the right to keep.
They give me the cat-o'-nine Whenever I go ashore. Then ho! for the
flashing brine -- I'm a natural commodore!
Dodle
LANGUAGE, n.The music with which we charm the serpents
guardinganother's treasure.
LAOCOON, n.A famous piece of antique scripture representing a
priestof that name and his two sons in the folds of two enormous serpents.
The skill and diligence with which the old man and lads support
theserpents and keep them up to their work have been justly regarded
asone of the noblest artistic illustrations of the mastery of
humanintelligence over brute inertia.
LAP, n.One of the most important organs of the female system -
anadmirable provision of nature for the repose of infancy, but
chieflyuseful in rural festivities to support plates of cold chicken andheads
of adult males.The male of our species has a rudimentary lap,imperfectly
developed and in no way contributing to the animal'ssubstantial welfare.
LAST, n.A shoemaker's implement, named by a frowning Providence
asopportunity to the maker of puns.
Ah, punster, would my lot were cast, Where the cobbler is unknown,
So that I might forget his last And hear your own.
Gargo Repsky
LAUGHTER, n.An interior convulsion, producing a distortion of
thefeatures and accompanied by inarticulate noises.It is infectiousand,
though intermittent, incurable.Liability to attacks of laughteris one of the
characteristics distinguishing man from the animals --these being not only
inaccessible to the provocation of his example,but impregnable to the
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microbes having original jurisdiction inbestowal of the disease.Whether
laughter could be imparted toanimals by inoculation from the human
patient is a question that hasnot been answered by experimentation.Dr.
Meir Witchell holds thatthe infection character of laughter is due to the
instantaneousfermentation of _sputa_ diffused in a spray.From this
peculiarity henames the disorder _Convulsio spargens_.
LAUREATE, adj.Crowned with leaves of the laurel.In England
thePoet Laureate is an officer of the sovereign's court, acting asdancing
skeleton at every royal feast and singing-mute at every royalfuneral.Of all
incumbents of that high office, Robert Southey hadthe most notable knack
at drugging the Samson of public joy andcutting his hair to the quick; and
he had an artistic color-sensewhich enabled him so to blacken a public
grief as to give it theaspect of a national crime.
LAUREL, n.The _laurus_, a vegetable dedicated to Apollo,
andformerly defoliated to wreathe the brows of victors and such poets
ashad influence at court.(_Vide supra._)
LAW, n.
Once Law was sitting on the bench, And Mercy knelt a-weeping.
"Clear out!" he cried, "disordered wench! Nor come before me creeping.
Upon your knees if you appear, 'Tis plain your have no standing here."
Then Justice came.His Honor cried: "_Your_ status? -- devil seize
you!" "_Amica curiae,_" she replied -- "Friend of the court, so please
you." "Begone!" he shouted -- "there's the door -- I never saw your face
before!"
LAWFUL, adj.Compatible with the will of a judge having
jurisdiction.
LAWYER, n.One skilled in circumvention of the law.
LAZINESS, n.Unwarranted repose of manner in a person of low
degree.
LEAD, n.A heavy blue-gray metal much used in giving stability
tolight lovers -- particularly to those who love not wisely but othermen's
wives.Lead is also of great service as a counterpoise to anargument of
such weight that it turns the scale of debate the wrongway.An interesting
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fact in the chemistry of internationalcontroversy is that at the point of
contact of two patriotisms lead isprecipitated in great quantities.
Hail, holy Lead! -- of human feuds the great And universal arbiter;
endowed With penetration to pierce any cloud Fogging the field of
controversial hate, And with a sift, inevitable, straight, Searching precision
find the unavowed But vital point.Thy judgment, when allowed By the
chirurgeon, settles the debate. O useful metal! -- were it not for thee We'd
grapple one another's ears alway: But when we hear thee buzzing like a
bee We, like old Muhlenberg, "care not to stay." And when the quick have
run away like pellets Jack Satan smelts the dead to make new bullets.
LEARNING, n.The kind of ignorance distinguishing the studious.
LECTURER, n.One with his hand in your pocket, his tongue in your
earand his faith in your patience.
LEGACY, n.A gift from one who is legging it out of this vale oftears.
LEONINE, adj.Unlike a menagerie lion.Leonine verses are those
inwhich a word in the middle of a line rhymes with a word at the end, asin
this famous passage from Bella Peeler Silcox:
The electric light invades the dunnest deep of Hades. Cries Pluto,
'twixt his snores:"O tempora! O mores!"
It should be explained that Mrs. Silcox does not undertake toteach
pronunciation of the Greek and Latin tongues.Leonine versesare so called
in honor of a poet named Leo, whom prosodists appear tofind a pleasure in
believing to have been the first to discover that arhyming couplet could be
run into a single line.
LETTUCE, n.An herb of the genus _Lactuca_, "Wherewith," says
thatpious gastronome, Hengist Pelly, "God has been pleased to reward
thegood and punish the wicked.For by his inner light the righteous manhas
discerned a manner of compounding for it a dressing to theappetency
whereof a multitude of gustible condiments conspire, beingreconciled and
ameliorated with profusion of oil, the entirecomestible making glad the
heart of the godly and causing his face toshine.But the person of spiritual
unworth is successfully tempted tothe Adversary to eat of lettuce with
destitution of oil, mustard, egg,salt and garlic, and with a rascal bath of
vinegar polluted withsugar.Wherefore the person of spiritual unworth
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suffers anintestinal pang of strange complexity and raises the song."
LEVIATHAN, n.An enormous aquatic animal mentioned by
Job.Somesuppose it to have been the whale, but that
distinguishedichthyologer, Dr. Jordan, of Stanford University, maintains
withconsiderable heat that it was a species of gigantic Tadpole
(_ThaddeusPolandensis_) or Polliwig -- _Maria pseudo-hirsuta_.For
anexhaustive description and history of the Tadpole consult the
famousmonograph of Jane Potter, _Thaddeus of Warsaw_.
LEXICOGRAPHER, n.A pestilent fellow who, under the pretense
ofrecording some particular stage in the development of a language,
doeswhat he can to arrest its growth, stiffen its flexibility andmechanize its
methods.For your lexicographer, having written hisdictionary, comes to be
considered "as one having authority," whereashis function is only to make
a record, not to give a law.The naturalservility of the human understanding
having invested him with judicialpower, surrenders its right of reason and
submits itself to achronicle as if it were a statue.Let the dictionary (for
example)mark a good word as "obsolete" or "obsolescent" and few
menthereafter venture to use it, whatever their need of it and
howeverdesirable its restoration to favor -- whereby the process
ofimproverishment is accelerated and speech decays.On the
contrary,recognizing the truth that language must grow by innovation if it
growat all, makes new words and uses the old in an unfamiliar sense,
hasno following and is tartly reminded that "it isn't in the dictionary"-
although down to the time of the first lexicographer (Heavenforgive him!)
no author ever had used a word that _was_ in thedictionary.In the golden
prime and high noon of English speech; whenfrom the lips of the great
Elizabethans fell words that made their ownmeaning and carried it in their
very sound; when a Shakespeare and aBacon were possible, and the
language now rapidly perishing at one endand slowly renewed at the other
was in vigorous growth and hardypreservation -- sweeter than honey and
stronger than a lion -- thelexicographer was a person unknown, the
dictionary a creation whichhis Creator had not created him to create.
God said:"Let Spirit perish into Form," And lexicographers arose, a
swarm! Thought fled and left her clothing, which they took, And
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catalogued each garment in a book. Now, from her leafy covert when she
cries: "Give me my clothes and I'll return," they rise And scan the list, and
say without compassion: "Excuse us -- they are mostly out of fashion."
Sigismund Smith
LIAR, n.A lawyer with a roving commission.
LIBERTY, n.One of Imagination's most precious possessions.
The rising People, hot and out of breath, Roared around the
palace:"Liberty or death!" "If death will do," the King said, "let me reign;
You'll have, I'm sure, no reason to complain."
Martha Braymance
LICKSPITTLE, n.A useful functionary, not infrequently found
editinga newspaper.In his character of editor he is closely allied to
theblackmailer by the tie of occasional identity; for in truth thelickspittle is
only the blackmailer under another aspect, although thelatter is frequently
found as an independent species.Lickspittlingis more detestable than
blackmailing, precisely as the business of aconfidence man is more
detestable than that of a highway robber; andthe parallel maintains itself
throughout, for whereas few robbers willcheat, every sneak will plunder if
he dare.
LIFE, n.A spiritual pickle preserving the body from decay.We livein
daily apprehension of its loss; yet when lost it is not missed. The question,
"Is life worth living?" has been much discussed;particularly by those who
think it is not, many of whom have writtenat great length in support of
their view and by careful observance ofthe laws of health enjoyed for long
terms of years the honors ofsuccessful controversy.
"Life's not worth living, and that's the truth," Carelessly caroled the
golden youth. In manhood still he maintained that view And held it more
strongly the older he grew. When kicked by a jackass at eighty-three, "Go
fetch me a surgeon at once!" cried he.
Han Soper
LIGHTHOUSE, n.A tall building on the seashore in which
thegovernment maintains a lamp and the friend of a politician.
LIMB, n.The branch of a tree or the leg of an American woman.
'Twas a pair of boots that the lady bought, And the salesman laced
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them tight To a very remarkable height -- Higher, indeed, than I think he
ought -- Higher than _can_ be right. For the Bible declares -- but never
mind: It is hardly fit To censure freely and fault to find With others for sins
that I'm not inclined Myself to commit. Each has his weakness, and
though my own Is freedom from every sin, It still were unfair to pitch in,
Discharging the first censorious stone. Besides, the truth compels me to
say, The boots in question were _made_ that way. As he drew the lace she
made a grimace, And blushingly said to him: "This boot, I'm sure, is too
high to endure, It hurts my -- hurts my -- limb." The salesman smiled in a
manner mild, Like an artless, undesigning child; Then, checking himself,
to his face he gave A look as sorrowful as the grave, Though he didn't care
two figs For her paints and throes, As he stroked her toes, Remarking with
