قراءة كتاب Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 104, January 21, 1893
تنويه: تعرض هنا نبذة من اول ١٠ صفحات فقط من الكتاب الالكتروني، لقراءة الكتاب كاملا اضغط على الزر “اشتر الآن"
Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 104, January 21, 1893
"to deodorise." Give the derivation.
Answer. "To deodorise" is to gild the statue of a heathen deity. Literally "to gild a god." This compound verb is derived from "Deus," dative "Deo," and the Greek verb "δωριξω, i.e. to gild."
Q. What is a "Manicure"? Give its derivation.
A. It is another term for a Mad Doctor. Its derivation is obvious—"Maniac Cure." The last syllable of the first word being omitted for the sake of convenience in pronunciation.
THE COMING OF THE BOGEYS.
(Mr. Punch's Dreadful New Year's Dream after a Surfeit of Mince Pies and "Times" Correspondence.)
"AN INTERNATIONAL EPISODE."
Hostess. "Er—allow me to introduce—er—Mr. Cornelius P. van Dunk, from Chicago—Mr. Kemble Macready Kean, the great Tragedian, and Manager of the Parthenon."
Mr. Van Dunk. "Mr. Kemble Macready Kean! Sir, your Name's very familiar to me, and I'm proud to know you!—and I shall take an Early Opportunity of asking you for some Orders for Your Theatre!"
THE COMING OF THE BOGEYS.
I had a Dream, which was not all a Dream.
(By Somnus and old Nox I fear 'twas not!)
Common-sense was extinguished, and Good Taste
Did wonder darkling on the verge of doom.
I saw a Monster, a malign, marine,
Mysterious, many-whorled, mug-lumbering Bogey,
Stretched (like Miltonian angels on the marl)
In league-long loops upon the billowy brine.
Beshrew thee, old familiar ocean Bogey,
Thou spectral spook of many Silly Seasons,
Beshrew thee, and avaunt! Which being put
In post-Shakspearian vernacular, means
Confound, you, and Get out!!! The monstrous worm
Wriggling its corkscrew periwinkly twists
Of trunk and tail alternate, winked huge goggles
Derisively and gurgled. "Me get out,
The Science-vouched, and Literature-upheld,
And Reason-rehabilitated butt
Of many years of misdirected mockery?
You ask omniscient Huxley, cocksure oracle
On all from protoplasm to Home Rule,
From Scripture to Sea Serpents; go consult
Belligerent, brave, beloved Billy Russell!
Verisimilitude incarnate, I
Scorn your vain sceptic mirth!
Besides, behold
The portent riding me, as Thetis rode
The lolloping, wolloping sea-horse of old!
Is it less likely that I should remain
Than she return?"
Then, horror-thrilled, I gazed
At her, the Abominable, the Ogreish Thing;
The soul-revolting, sense-degrading She,
Who swayed and sickened, scourged and scarified
The unwilling slaves of fashion and discomfort
A quarter of a century since!
She sat,
A spectral, scraggy, beet-nosed, ankle-less,
Obtrusive-panted, splay-foot, slattern-shape,
Of grim Medusa-faced Immodesty,
Caged cumbrously in a stiff, swaying, swollen,
Shin-scarifying, hose-revealing frame
Of wide-meshed metal, like a monster mousetrap—
Hideous, indecent, awkward!
Oh, I knew her—
This loathly revenant, revisiting
The glimpses of the moon. She shamed my sight,
And blocked my way, and marred my young men's art,
Twenty years syne and more. 'Twas CRINOLINA,
The long-abiding, happily banished horror
We hoped to see no more. Shall she return
To vex our souls, unsex our wives and daughters,
And spoil our pictures as she did of old?
Forbid it, womanhood and modesty!
And if they won't, let manhood and sound sense
Arise in wrath and warn the horror off,
Ere she effect a lodgment on the limbs
Of pretty girls, or clothe our matron's shapes
With shame as with a garment.
"Get thee gone!"
Cries Punch, and shakes his gingham in her face.
"The Silly Season's Nemesis we may stand,
But thou, the loathlier Bogey? Garn away!
(As 'Liza said to amorous 'Arry 'Awkins)
Avaunt, skedaddle, slope, absquatulate,
Go, gruesome ghoul—go quickly—and for ever!!!"
Mrs. R.'s nephew read out an announcement to the effect that Messrs. Macmillan were about to publish Lord Carnarvon's "Prometheus Bound." "Indeed!" exclaimed Mr. R.'s excellent aunt. "That's very vague. Doesn't it say how it's to be bound?—whether in calf or vellum?"
LAPSUS LINGUÆ.
["There is scarcely one of us who does not violate some rule of English grammar in every sentence which he speaks."—Daily News.]
Never we dreamt of this horrible blundering!
Up to the present, we cheerfully spoke
Quite unaware of our errors, nor wondering
How many rules in each sentence we broke.
Now we can scarcely pronounce the admission that
Grammar and parsing we freely neglect,
Scarcely can dare to make humble petition that
Someone or other will cure this defect!
Often we err in the use of each particle,
Seldom observe where our adverbs belong,
Wholly misplace the indefinite article,
In our subjunctives go hopelessly wrong!
What can we do? Will the Daily News qualify
As an instructor in matters like these?
How can we quickest successfully mollify
Those whom our errors must sadly displease?
Scarce can we venture the veriest platitude,
May not its grammar be shamefully weak?
You, Mr. Punch, can rely on our gratitude,
If you will tell us—how ought we to speak?
A Dark Saying.—Had Hilda Dawson—who, as reported in the D. T. one day last week, was haled before Sir Peter Edlin—been a character in some play of Shakspeare's, to whom the Bard had given these words to utter—"And this is what you call trial by Jury! Why they are not fit to try shoemakers!" what voluminous suggestions and explanations of the meaning of this phrase would not the learned Commentators have written! What emendations, alterations, or amendments of the text would not have been proposed! Perhaps, some hundreds of years hence, this dark saying of Hilda Dawson's will engage the close attention of some among the then existing learned body of Antiquaries.
"Sounds Rather Like It."—In France the Ministry of Foreign Affairs has gone to the Develle.
