The Cynic's Word Book

FORCE, n.

     "Force is but might," the teacher said —     "That definition 's just."     The boy said naught but thought instead,     Remembering his pounded head:     "Force is not might but must!"

FOREFINGER, n. The finger commonly used in pointing out two malefactors.

FOREORDINATION, n. This looks like an easy word to define, but when I consider that pious and learned theologians have spent long lives in explaining it, and written libraries to explain their explanations; when I remember that nations have been divided and bloody battles caused by the difference between foreordination and predestination, and that millions of treasure have been expended in the effort to prove and disprove its compatibility with freedom of the will and the efficacy of prayer, praise, and a religious life, – recalling these awful facts in the history of the word, I stand appalled before the mighty problem of its signification, abase my spiritual eyes, fearing to contemplate its portentous magnitude, reverently uncover and humbly refer it to His Eminence Cardinal Gibbons and His Grace Bishop Potter.

FORGETFULNESS, n. A gift of God bestowed upon debtors in compensation for their destitution of conscience.

FORK, n. An instrument used chiefly for the purpose of putting dead animals into the mouth. Formerly the knife was employed for this purpose, and by many worthy persons is still thought to have many advantages over the other tool, which, however, they do not altogether reject, but use to assist in charging the knife. The immunity of these persons from swift and awful death is one of the most striking proofs of God's mercy to those that hate Him.

FORMA PAUPERIS [Latin], n. In the character of a poor person – a method by which a litigant without money for lawyers is considerately permitted to lose his case.

     When Adam long ago in Cupid's awful court     (For Cupid ruled ere Adam was invented)     Sued for Eve's favor, says an ancient law report,     He stood and pleaded unhabilimented.     "You sue in forma pauperis, I see," Eve cried;     "Actions can't here be that way prosecuted."     So all poor Adam's motions coldly were denied:     He went away – as he had come – nonsuited.     G. J.

FRANKALMOIGNE, n. The tenure by which a religious corporation holds lands on condition of praying for the soul of the donor. In mediaeval times many of the wealthiest fraternities obtained their estates in this simple and cheap manner, and once when Henry VIII of England sent an officer to confiscate certain vast possessions which a fraternity of monks held by frankalmoigne, "What!" said the Prior, "would your master stay our benefactor's soul in Purgatory?" "Ay," said the officer, coldly, "an ye will not pray him thence for naught he must e'en roast." "But look you, my son," persisted the good man, "this act hath rank as robbery of God!" "Nay, nay, good father, my master the king doth but deliver Him from the manifold temptations of too great wealth."

FREEBOOTER, n. A conqueror in a small way of business, whose annexations lack the sanctifying merit of magnitude.

FREEDOM, n. Exemption from the stress of authority in a beggarly half dozen of restraint's infinite multitude of methods. A political condition that every nation supposes itself to enjoy in practical monopoly. Liberty. The distinction between freedom and liberty is not accurately known; naturalists have never been able to find a living specimen of either.

     Freedom, as every schoolboy knows,     Once shrieked as Kosciusko fell;     On every wind, indeed, that blows     I hear her yell.     She screams whenever monarchs meet,     And parliaments as well,     To bind the chains about her feet     And toll her knell.     And when the sovereign people cast     The votes they cannot spell,     Upon the lung-impested blast     Her clamors swell.     For all to whom the power's given     To sway or to compel,     Among themselves apportion heaven     And give her hell.     Blary O' Gary,

FREEMASONS, n. An order with secret rites, grotesque ceremonies, and fantastic costumes, which, originating in the reign of Charles II, among working artisans of London, has been joined successively by the dead of past centuries in unbroken retrogression until now it embraces all the generations of man on the hither side of Adam and is drumming up distinguished recruits among the pre-Creational inhabitants of Chaos and the Formless Void. The order was founded at different times by Charlemagne, Julius Caesar, Cyrus, Solomon, Zoroaster, Confucius, Thothmes, and Buddha. Its emblems and symbols have been found in the Catacombs of Paris and Rome, on the stones of the Parthenon and the Chinese Great Wall, among the temples of Karnak and Palmyra and in the Egyptian Pyramids – always by a Freemason.

FRIENDLESS, adj. Having no favors to bestow. Destitute of fortune. Addicted to utterance of truth and common sense.

FRIENDSHIP, n. A ship big enough to carry two in fair weather, but none in foul.

     The sea was calm and the sky was blue;     Merrily, merrily sailed we two.     (High barometer maketh glad.)     On the tipsy ship, with a dreadful shout,     The tempest descended and we fell out.     (O the walking is nasty bad!)     Armit Huff Bettle.

FROG, n. An amphibious reptile with edible kickers. When young, this creature is called a Mary wog or Thaddeuspole, and as such maintains a tail, subsequently eschewed. The first mention of frogs in profane literature is in Homer's narrative of the war between them and the mice. Skeptical persons have doubted Homer's authorship of the work, but the learned, ingenious, and industrious Dr. Schliemann has set the question forever at rest by uncovering the bones of the slain frogs. One of the forms of moral suasion by which Pharaoh was lobbied in favor of the Israelites was a plague of frogs, but Pharaoh, who liked them fricasêe, remarked, with truly oriental stoicism, that he could stand it as long as the frogs and the Jews could; so the programme was changed. The frog is a diligent songster, having a good voice but no ear. The libretto of his favorite opera, as written by Aristophanes, is brief, simple, and effective – "brekekex-koâx"; the music is apparently by that eminent composer, Richard Wagner. Horses have a frog in each hoof – a thoughtful provision of nature, enabling them to jump.

FRYING-PAN, n. One part of the penal apparatus employed in that hell-upon-earth, a woman's kitchen. The frying-pan was invented by Calvin, and by him used in scrambling span-long infants that had died without baptism; but observing one day the horrible torment of a tramp who had incautiously pulled a fried babe from the waste-dump and devoured it, it occurred to the great divine to rob death of its terrors by introducing the frying-pan into every household in Geneva. Thence it spread to all corners of the world, and has been of invaluable assistance in the propagation of his sombre faith. The following lines (said to be from the pen of His Grace Bishop Potter) seem to imply that the usefulness of this utensil is not limited to this world; but as the consequences of its employment in this life reach over into the life to come, so also itself may be found on the other side, rewarding its devotees:

     Old Nick was summoned to the skies.     Said Peter: "Your intentions     Are good, but you lack enterprise     Concerning new inventions.     "Now, broiling is an ancient plan     Of torment, but I hear it     Reported that the frying-pan     Sears best the wicked spirit.     "Go get one – fill it up with fat —     Fry sinners brown and good in 't."     "I know a trick worth two o' that,"     Said Nick – "I 'll cook their food in't."

FUNERAL, n. A pageant whereby we attest our respect for the dead by enriching the undertaker, and strengthen our grief by an expenditure that deepens our groans and doubles our tears.

     The savage dies – they sacrifice a horse     To bear to happy hunting-grounds the corse.     Our friends expire – we make the money fly     In hope their souls will chase it through the sky.     Jex Wopley.

FUTURE, n. That period of time in which our affairs prosper, our friends are true, and our happiness is assured.

Q

GALLOWS, n. A stage for the performance of miracle plays, in which the leading actor is translated to heaven. In this country the gallows is chiefly remarkable for the number of persons who escape it.

     Whether on the gallows high     Or where blood flows the reddest.     The noblest place for man to die —     Is where he dies the deadest.     Old Play.

GARGOYLE, n. A rain-spout projecting from the eaves of mediæval buildings, commonly fashioned into a grotesque caricature of some personal enemy of the architect or owner of the building. This was especially the case in churches and ecclesiastical structures generally, in which the gargoyles presented a perfect rogues' gallery of local heretics and controversialists. Sometimes when a new dean and chapter were installed the old gargoyles were removed and others substituted having a closer relation to the private animosities of the new incumbents.

GARTER, n. An elastic band intended to keep a woman from coming out of her stockings and desolating the country. An order of merit established by Edward III of England, and conferred upon persons who have distinguished themselves in the royal favor.

GENEROUS, adj. Originally this word meant noble by birth and was rightly applied to a great multitude of persons. It now means noble by nature, and is taking a bit of a rest.

GENEALOGY, n. An account of one's descent from an ancestor who did not particularly care to trace his own.

GENTEEL, adj. Refined, after the fashion of a gent.

     Observe with care, my son, the distinction I reveal:     A gentleman is gentle and a gent genteel.     Heed not the definitions your "Unabridged" presents,     For dictionary makers are generally gents.     G.J.

GEOGRAPHER, n. A chap who can tell you offhand the difference between the outside of the world and the inside.

     Habeam, geographer of wide renown,     Native of Abu-Keber's ancient town,     In passing thence along the river Zam     To the adjacent village of Xelam,     Bewildered by the multitude of roads,     Got lost, lived long on migratory toads,     Then from exposure miserably died,     And grateful travellers bewailed their guide.     Henry Haukhorn.

GEOLOGY, n. The science of the earth's crust – to which, doubtless, will be added that of its interior whenever a man shall come up garrulous out of a well. The geological formations of the globe already noted are catalogued thus: The Primary, or lower one, consists of rocks, bones of mired mules, gaspipes, miners' tools, antique statues minus the nose, Spanish doubloons, and ancestors. The Secondary is largely made up of red worms and moles. The Tertiary comprises railway tracks, patent pavements, grass, snakes, mouldy boots, beer bottles, tomato cans, intoxicated citizens, garbage, anarchists, snap-dogs, and fools.

GHOST, n. The outward and visible sign of an inward fear.

     He saw a ghost.     It occupied – that dismal thing! —     The path that he was following.     Before he 'd time to stop and fly,     An earthquake trifled with the eye     That saw a ghost.     He fell as fall the early good;     Unmoved that awful spectre stood.     The stars that danced before his ken     He wildly brushed away, and then     He saw a post.     Jared Macphester.

Accounting for the uncommon behavior of ghosts, Heine mentions somebody's ingenious theory to the effect that they are as much afraid of us as we of them. Not quite, if I may judge from such tables of comparative speed as I am able to compile from memories of my own experience.

There is one insuperable obstacle to a belief in ghosts. A ghost never comes naked: he appears either in a winding-sheet or "in his habit as he lived." To believe in him, then, is to believe that not only have the dead the power to make themselves visible after there is nothing left of them, but that the same extraordinary gift inheres in textile fabrics. Supposing the products of the loom to have this ability, what object would they have in exercising it? And why does not the apparition of a suit of clothes sometimes walk abroad without a ghost in it? These be riddles of significance. They reach away down and get a convulsive grasp on the very tap-root of this flourishing faith.

GHOUL, n. A demon addicted to the reprehensible habit of devouring the dead. The existence of ghouls has been disputed by that class of controversialists who are more concerned to deprive the world of comforting beliefs than give it anything good in their place, but nobody now seriously denies it. In 1640 Father Seechi saw one in a cemetery near Florence and frightened it away with the sign of the cross. He describes it as gifted with several heads and an uncommon allowance of limbs, and he saw it in more than one place at a time. The good man was coming away from dinner at the time and explains that if he had not been "heavy with eating" he would have seized the demon at all hazards. Atholston relates that a ghoul was caught by some sturdy peasants in a churchyard at Sudbury and ducked in a horsepond. (He appears to think that so distinguished a criminal should have been ducked in a tank of rose-water.) The water turned at once to blood "and so contynues unto ys daye." The pond has since been bled with a ditch. As late as the beginning of the last century a ghoul was cornered in the crypt of the cathedral at Amiens and the whole population surrounded the place. Twenty armed men with a priest at their head, bearing a crucifix, entered and captured the ghoul, which, thinking to escape by the stratagem, had transformed itself to the semblance of a well-known citizen, but was nevertheless hanged, drawn and quartered in the midst of hideous popular orgies. The citizen whose shape the demon had assumed was so affected by the sinister occurrence that he never again showed himself in Amiens and his fate remains a mystery.

GLUTTON, n. A person who escapes the evils of moderation by committing dyspepsia.

GNOME, n. In North-European mythology, a dwarfish imp inhabiting the interior parts of the earth and having special custody of mineral treasures. Bjorsen, who died in 1765, says gnomes were common enough in the southern parts of Sweden in his boyhood, and he frequently saw them scampering on the hills in the evening twilight. Ludwig Binkerhoof saw three as recently as 1792, in the Black Forest, and Sneddeker avers that in 1803 they drove a party of miners out of a Silesian mine. Basing our computations upon data supplied by these statements, we find that the gnomes probably became extinct about 1640.

GNOSTICS, n. A sect of philosophers who tried to engineer a fusion between the early Christians and the Platonists. The former would not go into the caucus and the combination failed, greatly to the chagrin of the fusion managers.

GNU, n. An animal of South Africa, which in its domesticated state resembles a horse, a buffalo, and a stag. In its wild condition it is something like a thunderbolt, an earthquake, and a cyclone.

     A hunter from Kew caught a distant view     Of a peacefully meditative gnu,     And he said: "I'll pursue, and my hands imbrue     In its blood at a closer interview."     But that beast did ensue and the hunter it threw     O'er the top of a palm that adjacent grew;     And he said as he flew: "It is well I withdrew     Ere, losing my temper, I wickedly slew     That really meritorious gnu."     Jarn Leffer.

GOOD, adj. Sensible, madam, to the worth of this present writer. Alive, sir, to the advantages of letting him alone.

GOOSE, n. A bird that supplies quills for writing. These, by some occult process of nature, are penetrated and suffused with various degrees of the bird's intellectual energies and emotional character, so that when inked and drawn mechanically across paper by a person called an "author," there results a very fair and accurate transcript of the fowl's thought and feeling. The difference in geese, as discovered by this ingenious method, is considerable: many are found to have only trivial and insignificant powers, but some are seen to be very great geese indeed.

GORGON, n.

     The Gorgon was a maiden bold     Who turned to stone the Greeks of old     Who looked upon her awful brow.     We dig them out of ruins now,     And swear that workmanship so bad     Proves all the ancient sculptors mad.

GOUT, n. A physician's name for the rheumatism of a rich patient.

GRACES, n. Three beautiful goddesses, Aglaia, Thalia, and Euphrosyne, who attended upon Venus, serving without salary. They were at no expense for board and clothing, for they ate nothing to speak of and dressed according to the weather, wearing whatever breeze happened to be blowing.

GRAMMAR, n. A system of pitfalls thoughtfully prepared for the feet of the self-made man, along the path by which he advances upon our understanding.

GRAPE, n.

     Hail noble fruit! – by Homer sung,     Anacreon and Khayyam;     Thy praise is ever on the tongue     Of better men than I am.     The lyre my hand has never swept,     The song I cannot offer:     My humbler service pray accept —     I 'll help to kill the scoffer.     The water-drinkers and the cranks     Who load their skins with liquor —     I 'll gladly bare their belly-tanks     And tap them with my sticker.     Fill up, fill up, for wisdom cools     When e'er we let the wine rest.     Here's death to Prohibition's fools     And every kind of vine-pest!     Jamrach Holobom.

GRAPESHOT, n. An argument which the future is preparing in answer to the demands of American Socialism.

GRAVE, n. A place in which the dead are laid to await the coming of the medical student.

     Beside a lonely grave I stood —     With brambles 't was encumbered;     The winds were moaning in the wood,     Unheard by him who slumbered.     A rustic standing near, I said:     "He cannot hear it blowing!"     "'Course not," said he: "the feller's dead —     He can't hear nowt that's going."     "Too true," I said; "alas, too true —     No sounds his sense can quicken!"     "Well, Mister, wot is that to you? —     The deadster ain't a kickin'."     I knelt and prayed: "O Father smile     On him, and mercy show him!"     That countryman looked on the while,     And said: "Ye did n't know him."     Pobeter Dunk.

GRAVITATION, n. The tendency of all bodies to approach one another with a strength proportioned to the quantity of matter they contain – the quantity of matter they contain being ascertained by the strength of their tendency to approach one another. This is a lovely and edifying illustration of how science, having made A the proof of B, makes B the proof of A.

GREAT, adj.

     "I'm great," the Lion said – "I reign     The monarch of the wood and plain!"     The Elephant replied: "I'm great —     No quadruped can match my weight!"     "I'm great – no animal has half     So long a neck!" said the Giraffe.     "I'm great," the Kangaroo said – "see     My caudal muscularity!"     The 'Possum said: "I'm great – behold,     My tail is lithe and bald and cold!"     An Oyster fried was understood     To say: I'm great because I'm good!"     Each reckons greatness to consist     In that in which he heads the list,     And Braywell thinks he tops his class     Because he is the greatest ass.     Arion Spurl Doke.

GUILLOTINE, n. A machine which makes a Frenchman shrug his shoulders with good reason.

In his great work on Divergent Lines of Racial Evolution, the learned and ingenious Professor Brayfugle argues from the prevalence of this gesture – the shrug – among Frenchmen, that they are descended from turtles, and it is simply a survival of the habit of retracting the head inside the shell. It is with reluctance that I differ with so eminent an authority, but in my judgment (as more elaborately set forth and enforced in my work entitled Hereditary Emotions – lib. II, c. XI) the shrug is a poor foundation upon which to build so important a theory, for previously to the Revolution the gesture was unknown. I have not a doubt that it is directly referable to the terror inspired by the guillotine during the period of that instrument's awful activity.

GUNPOWDER, n. An agency employed by civilized nations for the settlement of disputes which might become troublesome if left unadjusted. By most writers the invention of gunpowder is ascribed to the Chinese, but not upon very convincing evidence. Milton says it was invented by the devil to kill angels with, and this opinion seems to derive some support from the scarcity of angels. Moreover, it has the hearty concurrence of the Hon. James Wilson, Secretary of Agriculture. Secretary Wilson became interested in gunpowder through an event that occurred on the Government experimental farm in the District of Columbia. One day, some years ago, some rogue, imperfectly reverent of his profound attainments and personal character, presented him with a sack of gunpowder, representing it as the seed of the Flashawful flabbergastor, a Patagonian cereal of great commercial value, admirably adapted to this climate. The good Secretary was instructed to spill it along in a furrow and afterward inhume it with soil. This he at once proceeded to do, and had made a continuous line of it all the way across a ten-acre field, when he was made to look backward by a shout from the generous donor, who at once dropped a lighted match into the furrow at the starting-point. Contact with the earth had somewhat dampened the powder, but the startled functionary saw himself pursued by a tall moving pillar of fire and smoke in fierce evolution. He stood for a moment paralyzed and speechless, then he recollected an engagement, and, dropping all, absented himself thence with such surprising celerity that to the eyes of spectators along the route selected he appeared like a long, dim streak of farmer prolonging itself with inconceivable rapidity through seven villages, and audibly refusing to be comforted. "Great Scott! what is that?" cried a surveyor's chainman, shading his eyes and gazing at the fading line of agriculturist which bisected his visible horizon. "That," said the surveyor, carelessly, glancing at the phenomenon and again centring his attention upon his instrument, "is the Meridian of Washington."

H

HABEAS CORPUS. A writ by which a man may be taken out of jail and asked how he likes it.

HABIT, n. A shackle for the free.

HADES, n. The lower world; the residence of departed spirits; the place where the dead live.

Among the ancients the idea of Hades was not synonymous with our Hell, many of the most respectable men of antiquity residing there in a very comfortable kind of way. Indeed, the Elysian Fields themselves were a part of Hades, though they have since been removed to Paris. When the Jacobean version of the New Testament was in process of evolution the pious and learned men engaged in the work insisted by a majority vote on translating the Greek word "Hades" as "Hell"; but a conscientious minority member secretly possessed himself of the record and struck out the objectionable word wherever he could find it. At the next meeting, the Bishop of Winchester, looking over the work, suddenly sprang to his feet and said with considerable excitement: "Gentlemen, somebody has been razing 'Hell' here!" Years afterwards the good prelate's death was made sweet by the reflection that he had been the means (under Providence) of making an important, serviceable, and immortal addition to the phraseology of the English tongue.

HAG, n. An elderly lady whom you do not happen to like; sometimes called, also, a hen, or cat. Old witches, sorceresses, etc., were called hags from the belief that their heads were surrounded by a kind of baleful lumination or nimbus – hag being the popular name of that peculiar electrical light sometimes observed in the hair. At one time hag was not a word of reproach: Drayton speaks of a "beautiful hag, all smiles," much as Shakespeare said, "sweet wench." It would not now be proper to call your sweetheart a hag – that pleasure is reserved for her grandchildren.

HALF, n. One of two equal parts into which a thing may be divided, or considered as divided. In the fourteenth century a heated discussion arose among the theologists and philosophers as to whether Omniscience could part an object into three halves; and the pious Father Aldrovinus publicly prayed in the cathedral at Rouen that God would demonstrate the affirmative of the proposition in some signal and unmistakable way, and particularly (if it should please Him) upon the body of that hardy blasphemer, Manutius Procinus, who maintained the negative. Procinus, however, was spared to die of the bite of a viper.