ZANY, n.
A popular character in old Italian plays, who imitated with ludicrous
incompetence the buffone, or clown, and was therefore the ape of an ape;
for the clown himself imitated the serious characters of the play. The zany was
progenitor to the specialist in humor, as we to-day have the unhappiness to know
him. In the zany we see an example of creation; in the humorist, of
transmission. Another excellent specimen of the modern zany is the curate, who
apes the rector, who apes the bishop, who apes the archbishop, who apes the
devil.
ZANZIBARI, n.
An inhabitant of the Sultanate of Zanzibar, off the eastern coast of Africa.
The Zanzibaris, a warlike people, are best known in this country through a
threatening diplomatic incident that occurred a few years ago. The American
consul at the capital occupied a dwelling that faced the sea, with a sandy beach
between. Greatly to the scandal of this official's family, and against repeated
remonstrances of the official himself, the people of the city persisted in using
the beach for bathing. One day a woman came down to the edge of the water and
was stooping to remove her attire (a pair of sandals) when the consul, incensed
beyond restraint, fired a charge of bird-shot into the most conspicuous part of
her person. Unfortunately for the existing entente cordiale between two
great nations, she was the Sultana.
ZEAL, n.
A certain nervous disorder afflicting the young and inexperienced. A passion
that goeth before a sprawl.
When Zeal sought Gratitude for his reward
He went away exclaiming: "O my Lord!"
"What do you want?" the Lord asked, bending down.
"An ointment for my cracked and bleeding crown."
Jum Coople
ZENITH, n.
The point in the heavens directly overhead to a man standing or a growing
cabbage. A man in bed or a cabbage in the pot is not considered as having a
zenith, though from this view of the matter there was once a considerably
dissent among the learned, some holding that the posture of the body was
immaterial. These were called Horizontalists, their opponents, Verticalists. The
Horizontalist heresy was finally extinguished by Xanobus, the philosopher-king
of Abara, a zealous Verticalist. Entering an assembly of philosophers who were
debating the matter, he cast a severed human head at the feet of his opponents
and asked them to determine its zenith, explaining that its body was hanging by
the heels outside. Observing that it was the head of their leader, the
Horizontalists hastened to profess themselves converted to whatever opinion the
Crown might be pleased to hold, and Horizontalism took its place among fides
defuncti.
ZEUS, n.
The chief of Grecian gods, adored by the Romans as Jupiter and by the modern
Americans as God, Gold, Mob and Dog. Some explorers who have touched upon the
shores of America, and one who professes to have penetrated a considerable
distance to the interior, have thought that these four names stand for as many
distinct deities, but in his monumental work on Surviving Faiths, Frumpp insists
that the natives are monotheists, each having no other god than himself, whom he
worships under many sacred names.
ZIGZAG, v.t.
To move forward uncertainly, from side to side, as one carrying the white
man's burden. (From zed, z, and jag, an Icelandic word of
unknown meaning.)
He zedjagged so uncomen wyde
Thet non coude pas on eyder syde;
So, to com saufly thruh, I been
Constreynet for to doodge betwene.
Munwele
ZOOLOGY, n.
The science and history of the animal kingdom, including its king, the House
Fly (Musca maledicta). The father of Zoology was Aristotle, as is
universally conceded, but the name of its mother has not come down to us. Two of
the science's most illustrious expounders were Buffon and Oliver Goldsmith, from
both of whom we learn (L'Histoire generale des animaux and A History
of Animated Nature) that the domestic cow sheds its horn every two years.