T,
the twentieth letter of the English alphabet, was by the Greeks absurdly
called tau. In the alphabet whence ours comes it had the form of the rude
corkscrew of the period, and when it stood alone (which was more than the
Phoenicians could always do) signified Tallegal, translated by the
learned Dr. Brownrigg, "tanglefoot."
TABLE D'HOTE, n.
A caterer's thrifty concession to the universal passion for
irresponsibility.
Old Paunchinello, freshly wed,
Took Madam P. to table,
And there deliriously fed
As fast as he was able.
"I dote upon good grub," he cried,
Intent upon its throatage.
"Ah, yes," said the neglected bride,
"You're in your table d'hotage."
Associated Poets
TAIL, n.
The part of an animal's spine that has transcended its natural limitations
to set up an independent existence in a world of its own. Excepting in its
foetal state, Man is without a tail, a privation of which he attests an
hereditary and uneasy consciousness by the coat-skirt of the male and the train
of the female, and by a marked tendency to ornament that part of his attire
where the tail should be, and indubitably once was. This tendency is most
observable in the female of the species, in whom the ancestral sense is strong
and persistent. The tailed men described by Lord Monboddo are now generally
regarded as a product of an imagination unusually susceptible to influences
generated in the golden age of our pithecan past.
TAKE, v.t.
To acquire, frequently by force but preferably by stealth.
TALK, v.t.
To commit an indiscretion without temptation, from an impulse without
purpose.
TARIFF, n.
A scale of taxes on imports, designed to protect the domestic producer
against the greed of his consumer.
The Enemy of Human Souls
Sat grieving at the cost of coals;
For Hell had been annexed of late,
And was a sovereign Southern State.
"It were no more than right," said he,
"That I should get my fuel free.
The duty, neither just nor wise,
Compels me to economize --
Whereby my broilers, every one,
Are execrably underdone.
What would they have? -- although I yearn
To do them nicely to a turn,
I can't afford an honest heat.
This tariff makes even devils cheat!
I'm ruined, and my humble trade
All rascals may at will invade:
Beneath my nose the public press
Outdoes me in sulphureousness;
The bar ingeniously applies
To my undoing my own lies;
My medicines the doctors use
(Albeit vainly) to refuse
To me my fair and rightful prey
And keep their own in shape to pay;
The preachers by example teach
What, scorning to perform, I preach;
And statesmen, aping me, all make
More promises than they can break.
Against such competition I
Lift up a disregarded cry.
Since all ignore my just complaint,
By Hokey-Pokey! I'll turn saint!"
Now, the Republicans, who all
Are saints, began at once to bawl
Against his competition; so
There was a devil of a go!
They locked horns with him, tete-a-tete
In acrimonious debate,
Till Democrats, forlorn and lone,
Had hopes of coming by their own.
That evil to avert, in haste
The two belligerents embraced;
But since 'twere wicked to relax
A tittle of the Sacred Tax,
'Twas finally agreed to grant
The bold Insurgent-protestant
A bounty on each soul that fell
Into his ineffectual Hell.
Edam Smith
TECHNICALITY, n.
In an English court a man named Home was tried for slander in having accused
his neighbor of murder. His exact words were: "Sir Thomas Holt hath taken a
cleaver and stricken his cook upon the head, so that one side of the head fell
upon one shoulder and the other side upon the other shoulder." The defendant was
acquitted by instruction of the court, the learned judges holding that the words
did not charge murder, for they did not affirm the death of the cook, that being
only an inference.
TEDIUM, n.
Ennui, the state or condition of one that is bored. Many fanciful
derivations of the word have been affirmed, but so high an authority as Father
Jape says that it comes from a very obvious source -- the first words of the
ancient Latin hymn Te Deum Laudamus. In this apparently natural
derivation there is something that saddens.
TEETOTALER, n.
One who abstains from strong drink, sometimes totally, sometimes tolerably
totally.
TELEPHONE, n.
An invention of the devil which abrogates some of the advantages of making a
disagreeable person keep his distance.
TELESCOPE, n.
A device having a relation to the eye similar to that of the telephone to
the ear, enabling distant objects to plague us with a multitude of needless
details. Luckily it is unprovided with a bell summoning us to the sacrifice.
TENACITY, n.
A certain quality of the human hand in its relation to the coin of the
realm. It attains its highest development in the hand of authority and is
considered a serviceable equipment for a career in politics. The following
illustrative lines were written of a Californian gentleman in high political
preferment, who has passed to his accounting:
Of such tenacity his grip
That nothing from his hand can slip.
Well-buttered eels you may o'erwhelm
In tubs of liquid slippery-elm
In vain -- from his detaining pinch
They cannot struggle half an inch!
'Tis lucky that he so is planned
That breath he draws not with his hand,
For if he did, so great his greed
He'd draw his last with eager speed.
Nay, that were well, you say. Not so
He'd draw but never let it go!
THEOSOPHY, n.
An ancient faith having all the certitude of religion and all the mystery of
science. The modern Theosophist holds, with the Buddhists, that we live an
incalculable number of times on this earth, in as many several bodies, because
one life is not long enough for our complete spiritual development; that is, a
single lifetime does not suffice for us to become as wise and good as we choose
to wish to become. To be absolutely wise and good -- that is perfection; and the
Theosophist is so keen-sighted as to have observed that everything desirous of
improvement eventually attains perfection. Less competent observers are disposed
to except cats, which seem neither wiser nor better than they were last year.
The greatest and fattest of recent Theosophists was the late Madame Blavatsky,
who had no cat.
TIGHTS, n.
An habiliment of the stage designed to reinforce the general acclamation of
the press agent with a particular publicity. Public attention was once somewhat
diverted from this garment to Miss Lillian Russell's refusal to wear it, and
many were the conjectures as to her motive, the guess of Miss Pauline Hall
showing a high order of ingenuity and sustained reflection. It was Miss Hall's
belief that nature had not endowed Miss Russell with beautiful legs. This theory
was impossible of acceptance by the male understanding, but the conception of a
faulty female leg was of so prodigious originality as to rank among the most
brilliant feats of philosophical speculation! It is strange that in all the
controversy regarding Miss Russell's aversion to tights no one seems to have
thought to ascribe it to what was known among the ancients as "modesty." The
nature of that sentiment is now imperfectly understood, and possibly incapable
of exposition with the vocabulary that remains to us. The study of lost arts
has, however, been recently revived and some of the arts themselves recovered.
This is an epoch of renaissances, and there is ground for hope that the
primitive "blush" may be dragged from its hiding-place amongst the tombs of
antiquity and hissed on to the stage.
TOMB, n.
The House of Indifference. Tombs are now by common consent invested with a
certain sanctity, but when they have been long tenanted it is considered no sin
to break them open and rifle them, the famous Egyptologist, Dr. Huggyns,
explaining that a tomb may be innocently "glened" as soon as its occupant is
done "smellynge," the soul being then all exhaled. This reasonable view is now
generally accepted by archaeologists, whereby the noble science of Curiosity has
been greatly dignified.
TOPE, v.
To tipple, booze, swill, soak, guzzle, lush, bib, or swig. In the
individual, toping is regarded with disesteem, but toping nations are in the
forefront of civilization and power. When pitted against the hard-drinking
Christians the absemious Mahometans go down like grass before the scythe. In
India one hundred thousand beef- eating and brandy-and-soda guzzling Britons
hold in subjection two hundred and fifty million vegetarian abstainers of the
same Aryan race. With what an easy grace the whisky-loving American pushed the
temperate Spaniard out of his possessions! From the time when the Berserkers
ravaged all the coasts of western Europe and lay drunk in every conquered port
it has been the same way: everywhere the nations that drink too much are
observed to fight rather well and not too righteously. Wherefore the estimable
old ladies who abolished the canteen from the American army may justly boast of
having materially augmented the nation's military power.
TORTOISE, n.
A creature thoughtfully created to supply occasion for the following lines
by the illustrious Ambat Delaso:
TO MY PET TORTOISE
My friend, you are not graceful -- not at all;
Your gait's between a stagger and a sprawl.
Nor are you beautiful: your head's a snake's
To look at, and I do not doubt it aches.
As to your feet, they'd make an angel weep.
'Tis true you take them in whene'er you sleep.
No, you're not pretty, but you have, I own,
A certain firmness -- mostly you're [sic] backbone.
Firmness and strength (you have a giant's thews)
Are virtues that the great know how to use --
I wish that they did not; yet, on the whole,
You lack -- excuse my mentioning it -- Soul.
So, to be candid, unreserved and true,
I'd rather you were I than I were you.
Perhaps, however, in a time to be,
When Man's extinct, a better world may see
Your progeny in power and control,
Due to the genesis and growth of Soul.
So I salute you as a reptile grand
Predestined to regenerate the land.
Father of Possibilities, O deign
To accept the homage of a dying reign!
In the far region of the unforeknown
I dream a tortoise upon every throne.
I see an Emperor his head withdraw
Into his carapace for fear of Law;
A King who carries something else than fat,
Howe'er acceptably he carries that;
A President not strenuously bent
On punishment of audible dissent --
Who never shot (it were a vain attack)
An armed or unarmed tortoise in the back;
Subject and citizens that feel no need
To make the March of Mind a wild stampede;
All progress slow, contemplative, sedate,
And "Take your time" the word, in Church and State.
O Tortoise, 'tis a happy, happy dream,
My glorious testudinous regime!
I wish in Eden you'd brought this about
By slouching in and chasing Adam out.
TREE, n.
A tall vegetable intended by nature to serve as a penal apparatus, though
through a miscarriage of justice most trees bear only a negligible fruit, or
none at all. When naturally fruited, the tree is a beneficient agency of
civilization and an important factor in public morals. In the stern West and the
sensitive South its fruit (white and black respectively) though not eaten, is
agreeable to the public taste and, though not exported, profitable to the
general welfare. That the legitimate relation of the tree to justice was no
discovery of Judge Lynch (who, indeed, conceded it no primacy over the lamp-post
and the bridge-girder) is made plain by the following passage from Morryster,
who antedated him by two centuries:
While in yt londe I was carried to see ye Ghogo tree, whereof
I had hearde moch talk; but sayynge yt I saw naught remarkabyll in
it, ye hed manne of ye villayge where it grewe made answer as
followeth:
"Ye tree is not nowe in fruite, but in his seasonne you shall
see dependynge fr. his braunches all soch as have affroynted ye
King his Majesty."
And I was furder tolde yt ye worde "Ghogo" sygnifyeth in yr
tong ye same as "rapscal" in our owne.
Trauvells in ye Easte
TRIAL, n.
A formal inquiry designed to prove and put upon record the blameless
characters of judges, advocates and jurors. In order to effect this purpose it
is necessary to supply a contrast in the person of one who is called the
defendant, the prisoner, or the accused. If the contrast is made sufficiently
clear this person is made to undergo such an affliction as will give the
virtuous gentlemen a comfortable sense of their immunity, added to that of their
worth. In our day the accused is usually a human being, or a socialist, but in
mediaeval times, animals, fishes, reptiles and insects were brought to trial. A
beast that had taken human life, or practiced sorcery, was duly arrested, tried
and, if condemned, put to death by the public executioner. Insects ravaging
grain fields, orchards or vineyards were cited to appeal by counsel before a
civil tribunal, and after testimony, argument and condemnation, if they
continued in contumaciam the matter was taken to a high ecclesiastical
court, where they were solemnly excommunicated and anathematized. In a street of
Toledo, some pigs that had wickedly run between the viceroy's legs, upsetting
him, were arrested on a warrant, tried and punished. In Naples and ass was
condemned to be burned at the stake, but the sentence appears not to have been
executed. D'Addosio relates from the court records many trials of pigs, bulls,
horses, cocks, dogs, goats, etc., greatly, it is believed, to the betterment of
their conduct and morals. In 1451 a suit was brought against the leeches
infesting some ponds about Berne, and the Bishop of Lausanne, instructed by the
faculty of Heidelberg University, directed that some of "the aquatic worms" be
brought before the local magistracy. This was done and the leeches, both present
and absent, were ordered to leave the places that they had infested within three
days on pain of incurring "the malediction of God." In the voluminous records of
this cause celebre nothing is found to show whether the offenders braved
the punishment, or departed forthwith out of that inhospitable jurisdiction.
TRICHINOSIS, n.
The pig's reply to proponents of porcophagy.
Moses Mendlessohn having fallen ill sent for a Christian physician, who at
once diagnosed the philosopher's disorder as trichinosis, but tactfully gave it
another name. "You need and immediate change of diet," he said; "you must eat
six ounces of pork every other day."
"Pork?" shrieked the patient -- "pork? Nothing shall induce me to touch it!"
"Do you mean that?" the doctor gravely asked.
"I swear it!"
"Good! -- then I will undertake to cure you."
TRINITY, n.
In the multiplex theism of certain Christian churches, three entirely
distinct deities consistent with only one. Subordinate deities of the
polytheistic faith, such as devils and angels, are not dowered with the power of
combination, and must urge individually their clames to adoration and
propitiation. The Trinity is one of the most sublime mysteries of our holy
religion. In rejecting it because it is incomprehensible, Unitarians betray
their inadequate sense of theological fundamentals. In religion we believe only
what we do not understand, except in the instance of an intelligible doctrine
that contradicts an incomprehensible one. In that case we believe the former as
a part of the latter.
TROGLODYTE, n.
Specifically, a cave-dweller of the paleolithic period, after the Tree and
before the Flat. A famous community of troglodytes dwelt with David in the Cave
of Adullam. The colony consisted of "every one that was in distress, and every
one that was in debt, and every one that was discontented" -- in brief, all the
Socialists of Judah.
TRUCE, n.
Friendship.
TRUTH, n.
An ingenious compound of desirability and appearance. Discovery of truth is
the sole purpose of philosophy, which is the most ancient occupation of the
human mind and has a fair prospect of existing with increasing activity to the
end of time.
TRUTHFUL, adj.
Dumb and illiterate.
TRUST, n.
In American politics, a large corporation composed in greater part of
thrifty working men, widows of small means, orphans in the care of guardians and
the courts, with many similar malefactors and public enemies.
TURKEY, n.
A large bird whose flesh when eaten on certain religious anniversaries has
the peculiar property of attesting piety and gratitude. Incidentally, it is
pretty good eating.
TWICE, adv.
Once too often.
TYPE, n.
Pestilent bits of metal suspected of destroying civilization and
enlightenment, despite their obvious agency in this incomparable dictionary.
TZETZE (or TSETSE) FLY, n.
An African insect (Glossina morsitans) whose bite is commonly
regarded as nature's most efficacious remedy for insomnia, though some patients
prefer that of the American novelist (Mendax interminabilis).