ROGET

Not long ago I dreamed that, while racketing around in Kensington Gardens with my friend Peter Pan, we paid a visit to the Word Stork. This creature's duty it is, to deposit the new words in the bosom of the human family. The wise old bird showed us over his large unborn stock. The English nestful, in particular, made such a deep impression on me that I decided the least I could do, on waking, would be to devote a chapter of Peter Pantheism to a daydream about some words we need in English.

Despite the milion-odd entries in the latest dictionary, there are not nearly enough words to allow us to say what we mean. In a certain way speech does for verbal expression what the tempered scale does for musical expression. Though G flat and F sharp are eternally different, the tempered scale arbitrarily sets up something which is neither and declares it to be both. So, when you thump the first of the three black keys on the piano, you thump a vicious compromise that says a thing no sensitive musician really means. A complaisant shopper, you accept not what you demand, but something alleged to be "just as good."

Language is almost as poverty-stricken as the tempered scale. When strongly moved, we often feel this poverty, and instinctively reach out toward subsidiary devices. It is too bad that the expressionism of most of us is limited to a few square inches of features. The heaven of gesture lies about us in our infancy, but we have now grown away from our blessedly free state as naked babies. Though we then had fewer and simpler things to express, we could express them with far more versatility by hunching up our backs, contorting our stomachs, sawing the air with our calves, beckoning with our toes, and conducting invisible orchestras with our knees.

Even when grown up, the Latin races are more emancipated in this respect than the Anglo-Saxons. Their hands, arms, and shouders are alone equivalent to a vocabulary of an extra thousand words. But we clothesbound Anglo-Saxons have a hide-bound tongue. It is most unfortunate, in view of our immobile and taciturn bodies, that our language should be less expressive than, for instance, French.

English calls aloud for some word corresponding to émotionné, for emotioned is not

a briliant substitute. Francis Thompson somewhere demands why we have no single word for the writer of prose, like the French prosateur. Walt Whitman, spurred by the poverty of our language, is forever interjecting words like allons, for which we have only the inadequate A.E.F.ism, let's go!

We possess no satisfactory verbal machinery for saying exactly what the French mean by: pas de quoi, je veux bien, je vous en prie, or quelconque. These expressions, moreover, do not lend themselves to being torn up by the roots and transplanted to an alien strand in the way the French have transplanted biftek, rosbif, luff (denoting ill success at lawn tennis), and five-o'clock. This last has been turned into a verb meaning to drink tea. And our Gallic friends now consider it chic to say, "Nous fiffo'clockerons à quatre heures et demi." But there is no great reciprocity in these west-to-east loans. For what French takes from English is mainly concerned with materialistic pursuits, like eating and athletics.

This also holds true of our verbal traffic with Italy. I remember seeing small boys running about the streets of Naples resplendent in sailor hats which, between the emblazonry of golden tennis rackets rampant, bore the single magic word, "SPORT." But this word is as nothing in exchange for such expressions as dolce-far-niente and simpatico, which we need so desperately that we are on the verge of swallowing them whole, as the French swallow the five o'clock tea.

German is a most annoying tongue. It is so close to English, yet so much more subtly and malleably expressive, that those familiar with both are constantly tantalized by their inability to say in the latter what they can in the former. It would take a long and unsatisfactorily inaccurate sentence to give the gist of the word gemuethlich; for it implies a sort of chronic attitude of peace on earth, good-will toward men, tinged with democracy, exuberance, and bubbling humor, with radioactive charm and constructive appreciation of the other fellow's point of view.

I do not think it is gemuethlich of English to lack the equivalent of the verb traenken, which means to give to drink. This liquid parallel of the transitive verb "to feed" is apparently no less needed since the adoption of the eighteenth amendment.

It is of course undeniable that the Teuton has us at an expressional disadvantage on account of his devastating ability with the hyphen. A distinguished Berlin philologist once proudly told me what he believed to be the longest word in the world. I felt that the man who had compounded it had much better have compounded a felony. For lack of space, I will omit the hyphens. The word is Damenmantelschneiderinnungskrankenkassenhaupt

vorstandsmitgliederversammlung. This is, I hasten to add, not one of the words of which we stand in any biting need. It means, an assembly of members of the all-highest direction of the sick fund of the union of female cloak tailors. As a matter of fact the Greek language boasts a word more than twice as long as this. It begins Lepado, consists of one hundred and sixty-nine letters, and resembles a banquet-menu that has been out all night under a heavy rain of hyphens. The meaning of the word is "hash."

By contrast, what neat and useful words are hoffentlich and goennen! How awkward to be obliged to use instead such periphrases as "Here's hoping that " and "I do not grudge it to you. Quite the contrary!" My own circle finds the need for these compact words so poignant that we have been driven to enrich our native vocabularies with the rather awkward adverb "hopingly," and the strange sounding verb "to gen." Likewise, schwærmen, the sentimental exercise of adolescence, has forced on us the emotional verb "to swarm."

Ausgezeichnet is a more satisfactory epithet of admiration than its feeble AngloSaxon derivative "out of sight!" We have been compelled to lift, "as is," that Rochefoucauldesque word schadenfroh, despite its grotesque Teutonicity. For life is too short to say, "elated over another's misfortune." But

what are you to do when, parting from your charming theatre companion in Times Square, you wish to tell her, all in English: "Please give my best regards to your husband, unbekannter weise"? You would be run down by a taxi if you lingered to say, "although I have not the pleasure of his acquaintance."

The word "yearning" scarcely fills the place of Sehnsucht, which implies a superlonging to behold the adored one. We have all but adopted Wanderlust, because we are often obliged to say what it says. And we are coquetting with Weltschmerz and Zeitgeist. It is too bad that we must descend to slang expressions like "so long" and "savvy" for the equivalent of auf Wiedershen and savoir faire.

Even the humblest language has tidbits to offer us. A kibitzer is, I believe, a Yiddish term of reproach for a person who fusses around the fringes of a game, offering gratuitous advice to the players. Louis Untermeyer suggests four Yiddish words that would also be useful in English. Gonov in its strict sense means "thief," but has come to denote "rascal," with a wink of admiring affection. Nebbich, used of people who fail clumsily, is a term of ironic pity with a tinge of scorn. It has already endured some brisk hammering on that modern word-forge, the daily newspaper, and is beginning to appear in our colyumnar slang as "the poor neb." Schlemihl, a first cousin of Nebbich, has already invaded German, to express the eternal bungler, the well-known figure of farce who never opens his mouth but he puts his foot into it, the person who can be counted on to make the worst possible break at the worst possible time. The reader will find an accurate description of the complete Schlemihl on page 74 of my book, Peter Pantheism.

says a Jew to a Gentile friend, "you should go home, shoot your mother, murder your father, and then come into court and plead for clemency on the ground that you were an orphan, that would be Chutzpak!"

When we wish to say "It does not matter!" or words to that effect, why not say it à la the Moscow Art Theatre, using that ubiquitous and superbly expressive word nietchevo?

Necessary as such words are, there is one for which a supreme need exists in English. Strangely enough, it comes not from Europe, but from Africa. A Frenchman born in Morocco tells me that the Arabic expression aiouna belskoot is used by the tactful Arab when he is interrupted. It means, "Aid me by your silence." Let us by all means adopt this masterly formula. For convenience we might contract it to "skoot."

The Turkish formula for the ejection of bores is mellower, more beautiful and more urbane than the uncompromising occidental exhortation "Get out!" When the bore appears he is offered the inevitable coffee and doughnut. Then, with an engaging smile, hist host remarks: "Glorify us by your absence!" Wowser is a vigorous term applied by our Australasian cousins to a stupid, narrow, and effeminate type of reformer, the kind who, in their breezy and poetic hyperbole, has frills to his pants. I understand that the might of this one contemptuous word, unaided, has rid Australasia of foolish and fanatical reformers. Why not annex it forthwith?

Of course the pedants and the purists will furiously rage together at these suggestions; but it is comforting to reflect that the English language, like Kipling's character who learned about women, has always taken its word where it found it. And a very good thing, too. "No tongue," writes Professor Lounsbury, "can possibly be corrupted by alien words which convey ideas that can not possibly be expressed by native ones." And Professor Brander Matthews assures us, in "Essays in English," that "Moccasin and boss, lieutenant and omelet, waltz and tremolo are now citizens of our vocabulary, although they were

Like its compatriots, Chutzpah is untranslatable and unparaphrasable, unless one loses the quality of the original. It denotes what we call "cheek" or "brass," but it implies much more. It is an impertinence or an impudence carried to the nth power. Perhaps it can best be illustrated by a hypothesis. "If,"

once immigrants admitted on sufferance." Mispronunciation sometimes quickens the sluggish corpuscles of a drowsy or effete word, much as the crude, but vigorous, barbarians once touched up decadent Rome. Or, if you prefer, it rests a word the way you rest your hair by parting it temporarily on the other side. I remember how sparkling "enigma" sounded from the lips of a cultivated cowpuncher when he pronounced it "ignema," how the caretaker of the Royal College of Music pleased me by his reiterated ejaculation, "undoubtably," how "surreptious" improved on "surreptitious;" and how I liked it when my janitor, swollen with pride of race and the love of long words, referred to his "projanitors."

He also spoke of "superstution" and that dread mental disease "dementia peacock." But I do not know whether "contemptuaries" was mispronunciation or criticism. A Canadian lumberman confided to me, "My mother is of German consent but Dad he's of Scotch distraction." The barker on a sight-seeing bus in Salt Lake City referred to certain phenomena "within a radiance of nineteen miles, and spoke of the early Mormons as "that expatricated band of exiles." While my small nephew characterized a two-handed tennis player as semidextrous.

Some very quaint and useful expressions may also be obtained by the process of making what I may perhaps be permitted to call "trance-lations." To make one of these, you get yourself into almost as unreasonable and childishly unphilological a frame of mind, as if you were in a real trance. You then allow words to take the line of least resistance, just let them slither any way into English. Thus a Reisetasche becomes a "travelpocket"; Umstaende, "umstands;" langweilig, "longwhily." To the horror of the academic, and disregarding the fact that Schnurr has two r's and that Ur has not an h to bless itself with, you let yourself be led away by the most superficial resemblances, and "trancelate" Schnurrbart- "string-beard," and Ursachen, "clockthings." You are liable at any

time to talk as follows: "It does not verwonder me that you are enrhumenated. It is me equal, and I fish myself of you!"

A more needful, and let us hope a slightly more respectable, sort of word was christened by Lewis Carroll the "portmanteau." In his famous introduction to that pioneer of portmaneau poems, "Jabberwocky," the bard explains that this characteristic effect. arises when its creator's mind is attuned with such equal intensity to the expression of two related ideas that they fuse and issue from his mouth as one. For example if you equally want to admonish the charwoman not to crinkle up your manuscript and not to squash it, you tell her not to "squishle" it.

Thus are obtained delicate half-tones and between shades of meaning, which correspond to the results of a painter's mixing primary colors on his palette, or a composer's blending of various orchestral instruments.

To be more specific, when poetry is spoken with a musical accompaniment, I submit that the result is "melocution." That common type of story book which is based on the Thousand and One Nights is a rehasheesh. Frazzled nerves, acting upon a ladylike attitude toward the arts, sometimes turn a man into a "neuresthete." "Charmedian" is Mary Berthoud's way of saying Charlie Chaplin. Advanced dusk is "twinight." And "smog" has been coined by the Indianapolitans to denote a blend of smoke and fog.

But for its pleonasticity, the word "insinuendo" might add to the grace of English. A "scramp" is an expedition half way between a tramp and a scramble, in which you are scrimped for time. The Christmas season has been referred to as the "alchoholidays." The combination of meals one sometimes enjoys toward the middle of a day of rest has been christened "brunch" by some lambent intellect. We now need to adopt a word for the combination of dinner and lunch, so that, at two of a Sunday afternoon, one may offer his guest a choice of "brunch" or "dinch." If you are not particularly hungry for this meal, and are feeling critical, you "snibble"

at it; that is to say, at times you "sniff" and at times you "nibble." And the dubious scrutiny to which you subject the viands may be described as "scrubious.”

As I was reading the proof of this paragraph, I noticed that Louis Untermeyer wittily speaks of imitative American composers who go to Paris, stick their noses into French music, and come back as "Debussybodies." He also remarks that certain pseudo "brilliant" dramas, full of clever clichés, sound as though they had come out of "epigramophones." To Rozsi Varady, an hysterical mystic is a mysteric.

The portmanteau which serves as a title for this volume was invented by Holbrook Jackson. Ethel Peyser calls Liszt's transcription of Schubert's song, "Hark, Hark the Lark," "Liszterated" Schubert. Christopher Morley dubs the framework of a certain type of film an "obscenario". James Huneker discovered that the superlative of "archaic" is Noaharchaic. De Quincey refers to the declining years of a raconteur as his "anecdotage." A New York dramatic critic, suffering from indigestion and a flux of violently hysterical plays, wrote: "Thespis has taken up his abode in Dramatteawan." And Richard H. Waldo must be credited with the crowning triumph of portmanteaucracy, the "bromidiot". Should these mixtures succeed in confusing your enthusiasm, their effect may be put down as "confusiasm."

As this book totters on the brink of publication, Samuel Merwin contributes "the swanktity of the banker." And it occurs to me that the latter's client, who has nothing but his check-book to recommend him, might be called an incomepoop.

We Americans have apparently a special gift for the art of onomatopoeia, or adapting the sound to the sense. Our writers are rapidly adding to the language in this fashion. Among those represented on my table at the moment I find Carl Sandburg referring to the audible actions of certain greedy characters incident to the consummation of soup as "chuzzling" and "snozzling." And in Noah,

Jonah, and Cap'n John Smith, Don Marquis describes the whale's department of the interior as the "oozly-goozlum."

But these efforts are no more able than Sambo's, who invented "suption" to denote that luscious quality of certain fruits of substance which invites mankind to apply its lips and lure forth the juice by the force of pneumatic attraction. So much then for onomatopoeia.

A department of our language that needs enriching far more is rhyme. There are so pitiably few appropriate rhymes for important things like life and love that the bard's style is lamentably cramped. It is undeniable that as soon as he mentions either of these things at the end of a line, you feel with fatal provision what is bound to follow. Here is some doggerel exemplifying this tendency, and incorporating two constructive suggestions. I look to find these standardized in the next editions of the rhyming dictionaries:

The grandest themes the poet dares
Are forced to do, like dancing bears,
Tricks they have done ten thousand times
By vicious nose-rings made of rhymes.
The bard apostrophizing life
Has now,
alas! no other course

Than to ring in this mortal strife.

With whom? Rhyme holds him down perforce
To his poor unpolemic wife.

Would he persist, his one resource
Is to pull out his pocket-knife.
This sort of thing will never do!
We need some word like meromyfe,
Meaning "the beautiful" or "the true."

With hand on palpitating heart,
The poet pens a cry of love.
He finds (with help on Roget's part)
That Aphrodite owned a dove.
This messenger he fain would start
To greet his goddess, throned above,
But, due to the demands of art,
He has to give the fowl a shove.
Ah, how much better would it be
If some such word as volonove
Could mean, "I live and die for thee!"

Rhymes like these are more needed today than they were in Elizabethan or Victorian times. For the rules of the poetic game have