were invented for.--Gefoojets.
Have you a camera? Go forth and garner gefoojets.
“That thing” you keep because it was given by a dear friend--beware of
it--’tis a gefoojet. (See _Thusk_.)
_Seven years I kept her letters--how
Some time, I hoped to read them!
Alas, they are gefoojets, now!
I know I’ll never need them._
_But still gefoojetry survives,
And makes us slaves to Things;
Each day Gefoojet, all our lives,
Some useless present brings!_
=Gix´let=, _n._ 1. One who has more heart than brains. 2. An
inveterate host; an irresistible entertainer.
=Gix´let-y=, _a._ Brutal kindness; misguided hospitality; an
overdose of welcome.
“Have some more of this--please do--I _insist_--I made it myself!” So
says the gixlet, as she passes the piccalilli. (See _Vorge_.)
The gixlet insists upon paying your fare everywhere, he begs your
pardon, when you step on his foot. He introduces you to everybody he
meets. In public, he praises you with excruciating conspicuousness. At
home, he insists upon your going to church, or showing you over his new
house.
He says, “Why haven’t you been before?” (See _Wumgush_.)
He takes you on long walks when you visit him in the country, and want
just to sit on the verandah and loaf.
The gixlet in the club orders drinks when you don’t want them, and
insists upon your drinking them, because he does. The gixlet, in short,
is the joyous, friendly dog, that leaps with muddy paws upon your clean,
white trousers.
_The Gixlets entertained me till
I thought I’d die the death;
His wife and he could not keep still,
Though I was out of breath._
_They showed me things, they made me gorge,
Then walked me round the farm;
That night, I killed them both, by George!
Tell me, where was the harm?_
=Gloo´go=, _n._ 1. A devoted adherent of a person, place or thing. 2.
A married person in love with his or her spouse after the first
year. 3. Anything that can be depended upon.
=Gloo´go=, _a._ Loyal, constant. Foolishly faithful without pay.
Do you take cold baths all through January, February and March? You’re a
gloogo,--especially if you don’t talk about it. (See _Yab_.)
Do you work over hours at the office? Do you come downtown early? Do you
run in on Sundays and finish up a little batch of business? You’re a
gloogo.
The gloogo, when young, studies his home lessons, instead of going to
that Saturday night dance. In after-life he attends church every Sunday,
and puts a quarter in the plate. If he plays golf, he prefers a rainy,
cold day. (See _Vorge_.)
The gloogo elevator runs all night--but it’s a curiosity.
The family gloogo comes to dinner regularly on Wednesdays and Sundays.
(See _Xenogore_.) Elsie Peach’s gloogo calls every day and always
invites her to everything. Mrs. Valentine’s maid-servant is a
gloogo--she loves to have extra company for dinner.
You are a gloogo, if you read Burgess Unabridged all through.
_John Smith was a gloogo of forty-five,
And he worked like a piece of machinery;
He was fond of his wife (who was still alive),
And he always took lunch in a beanery._
_He went to church, and he didn’t drink,
And he had no sins, no mystery;
And that’ll be all about him, I think,--
For Gloogos seldom make history._
=Goig=, _n._ A suspected person; one whom we distrust instinctively;
an unfounded bias; an inexplainable aversion.
=Goig´some=, _a._ Dubious; requiring references or corroboration.
To one from Missouri, the world is full of goigs. Well you have to “show
me,” too, when the new janitor takes possession of the cellar--he’s a
goig. There’s the man with the perpetual smile; he’s a goig. Why do we
watch the gentleman whose collar buttons behind, or the dog who doesn’t
wag his tail? There’s something goigsome about them. He “listens
well,”--_but!_ I ha’e me doots! (See _Eegot_.)
To the fondly doting mother, her son’s sweetheart is always a goig. When
he’s engaged, she is still more goigsome. Once married, and the suspense
is over. (See _Frime_.)
Would you be a goig? Then shave your upper lip and grow a chin beard.
The servile affability of an English shopkeeper, rubbing his hands--how
goigsome! So is your wife’s man-friend, and the new cook.
But, best of all goigs--or worst--the man who says: “Oh, I’ll surely pay
it back next week, at latest!” (See _Elp_.)
_The dividends are ten percent,
The stock “is going to rise,”
“It’s going to make the fortune of
Each lucky man that buys.”_
_But still, I think I’ll not invest,
I do not know just why,--
But with a Goig, it is best
To let your neighbor try!_
=Gol´lo-hix=, _n._ 1. An untimely annoyance, especially when one
wishes to sleep. 2. An auditory nuisance.
Of course, when you put up at the Fleetville Hotel Imperial, you got a
room in the rear, looking out over the railroad station and the trains
ran all night, backing and switching, raising a fine gollohix. But the
side rooms were just as bad; there was a gollohix windmill creaking
incessantly.
Further back in the country a dog will make the best gollohix, baying at
the moon, or yelping at a woodchuck.
So let’s come to the city. It’s all night in the Pullman, and the
gollohix they make with the milk-cans and switch-engines won’t last but
three or four hours.
Why try to describe the gollohix? It’s the piano in the next flat at
midnight; it’s the turkey-trotting overhead; it’s the phonograph across
the hall. (See _Jujasm_.)
Why do they put in your neighbor’s coal so late in the evening, when you
have tonsilitis? The coal-man loves a gollohix, as a chauffeur loves a
cut-out motor, as a city child loves firecrackers on the 3rd of July.
A musical comedy makes a good gollohix when you sit in the front row
next to the drum, but a crying baby at four o’clock in the morning makes
the best of all. (See _Kidloid_.)
Wait a minute--I forgot the man who practices the trombone or the
cornet, just across the airshaft--that’s a gollohix to dream about!
_A New Year’s Eve in gay New York,
Fire engines at a fire,
A parrot that doth squawk and squawk
Are gollohixes dire._
_If gollohixes all could be
Escaped, I’d thank my stars,
But Gollohix the Great is he
Who snores in sleeping-cars!_
=Go-lob-ri-fac´tion=, _n._ 1. An object which has suffered
extravagant decoration. 2. A composition superspiced with
adjectives.
=Go-lob-ri-fac´tu-rer=, _n._ A mad architect, or designer.
=Go-lob´ri-fy=, _v._ To adorn excessively; to add excruciating and
unmeaning ornament.
Golobrifaction is the extravagant exaggeration of art. One may golobrify
pastry, jellies, salads; or literature, with decadent phrases.
Golobrifaction is the art of supersweetening, or the flourish of
eccentric adornment. (See _Diabob_.)
Topiary gardening golobrifies the country residence of the aristocrat;
humbler abodes are golobrified with cast iron stags or plaster statues
of nervous nymphs.
The lover golobrifies his _billets doux_ with ardent adverbs. The
ambitious builder golobrifies his villas with the fret-saw and the
turning-lathe. (See _Gorgule_.)
Trading-stamp furniture, Spencerian flourishes, imitation castles,
parsley decorations, notched turnips, oranges and radishes, cheap
picture-frames, perfumery bottles, boars’ heads, fishes with tails in
their mouths, gingerbread men--all are golobrifactions.
The wedding cake of the millionaire is a golobriboblifaction. _Art
nouveau_ would require still another syllable. After all, is there much
difference between a valentine and a formal Italian garden?
_Her gown it was golobrified
With flounces, tucks and shirrs,
With laces trimmed, with ribbons tied,
With buttons, fringe and furs._
_Like unnamed tropic bird her look,--
For, putting Art in action,
Her spouse, a famous pastry cook,
Made that golobrifaction!_
=Gor´gule=, _n._ 1. An unwished-for gift; an unnecessary,
splendiferous object. 2. Elaborate bad taste.
=Gor´gu-lous=, _a._ Ornamental, but not useful.
A gorgule is the imitation malachite clock, the fancy brass lamp, the
green plush sofa, gorgulous with curves, writhing spirals, tassels, gimp
and fringe. (See _Diabob_.)
A hand-embroidered necktie is a gorgule. So are lacy, frilled,
beribboned boudoir-caps, without any boudoir; and fancy smoking jackets;
and corset-covers with chiffon roses, theatrical act drops and scenic
interiors,--anything too royal for humble use. (See _Golobrifaction_.)
Most wedding presents are gorgules. “Heavens, I wish someone would break
that!” Need one describe the gorgule? A brass-and-onyx prodigy. A
celluloid toilet set, in a plush casket, a chandelier of the epoch of
1880, a silver-plated ice-pitcher, or a set of lemonade-tumblers in
colored glass. (See _Gefoojet_.)
Ever receive a loving-cup, grand and gorgulous? Once you were proud of
it; now you’re willing to have the children lug it to the seashore and
shovel it full of sand. Why did you subscribe for that large folio
_edition de luxe_ “Masterpieces of Foreign Art,” a gorgule in nine
monstrous volumes--price $85.75?
Don’t forget that eiderdown fan. It’s a gorgule. Give it to the cook.
_Behold this gorgulated chair--
A weird, upholsterrific blunder!
It doesn’t wonder why it’s there,
So don’t encourage it to wonder;_
_For Gorgules such as this don’t know
That they’re impossible, and therefore
They go right on existing, so
This is the whyness of their wherefore._
=Gorm=, _n._ A human hog; a practical egoist.
=Gorm=, _v._ To take or desire more than one’s proper share; to act
greedily.
=Gor´mid=, _a._ Selfish, individualistic.
The gorm, when you offer him a cigar, puts it in his pocket and says he
“will smoke it after dinner.” When he loses his watch, he offers a
reward which shrinks amazingly when his property is returned and he is
sure of it back. (See _Igmoil_.)
The gorm never pays for his round of drinks. He manages so that the
other fellow shall settle for the taxi and the tickets. He will never
move up in the trolley-car or take his bundle from the seat. On the
railway, he manages successfully to occupy four places at once.
The gorm is the woman who tries to get in ahead of the line which forms
at the ticket office. She monopolizes the most attractive man in the
room to the exclusion of her sisters. At the bargain counter the gorm
holds three waists while she examines a fourth.
Children gorm candy and ice-cream; men gorm free lunches, and women in
Pullman cars gorm the ladies’ room for hours and hours, behind locked
doors. (See _Spigg_.)
And all girls gorm love, or try to gorm it.
_He gormed the fireplace, standing there
With coat tails to the flame
With easy grace, without a care
For us who, shivering, came._
_He gormed the magazines, and sat
On papers by the dozen;
But at our club we’re used to that--
Our gormid English cousin!_
=Gow´yop=, _n._ 1. A state of perplexity, wherein familiar persons or
things seem strange. 2. A person in an unfamiliar guise.
Have you ever been “turned around,” coming out of a theatre, after an
exciting play? Right is left and west is east. You are in a gowyop. It
is long before you can turn yourself about and make the world seem
normal.
The husband who has just shaved off his beard is a gowyop to his wife.
And his wife is a gowyop, after she has tinted her hair bright red. (See
_Spigg_.)
The gowyop is like that room you see in the mirror,--so like, and yet so
different. Your house, the day after the funeral, is a gowyop--everything
seems so strange.
A pretty child, with his two front teeth out; a person you haven’t seen
for many years and you now behold grown up; a son or a daughter who has
just been married, are gowyops. So is the dignified old gentleman in the
bathing suit. Or, that aristocratic dowager, who, when the house is on
fire, appears in her night-gown; and your cook, when she is “dressed
up.”
To the bachelor of science, returning after four years at college, home
is a gowyop, too. (See _Thusk_.)
_All in a gowyop I descried
An unfamiliar world;
All upside down, I vainly tried
To get myself uncurled._
_But I was inside out, till when
I met my wife--the sight
Quite turned me outside in again--
She’d bleached her black hair white!_
=Gub´ble=, _n._ 1. A murmuring of many voices. 2. Society chatter.
=Gub´ble=, _v._ To indulge in meaningless conversation.
=Gub´ble-go=, _n._ 1. A crowded reception, a talking contest.
It’s like some huge, slimy reptile, with a hundred mouths, all
murmuring. As you are admitted to the house, as the servant takes your
hat and cane, the far-off sounds of gubbling strike you with terror; but
it must be done. In you go. Everyone is talking, but no one is
listening. Say anything you like--it will be lost in the gubble.
There’s gubble in a wordy play. There’s gubble at the steamer when you
see a friend off for Europe--a flattering gubble, after you have
performed in public. (See _Wumgush_.)
Letters of condolence usually consist of gubble. Editorials about marine
or railway disasters are gubble. So are funeral sermons. (See
_Alibosh_.)
_I entered, and I heard the hum
Of multitudinous gubble;
And I was terrified and dumb,
Anticipating trouble._
_When I remarked that hens had lice,
(Not knowing what I said),
My hostess smiled, and said “How nice!
Let me present Miss Stead!”_
[Illustration: HUZZLECOO]
=Huz´zle-coo=, _n._ 1. An intimate talk; a “heart-to-heart”
conversation; a private confidential chat. 2. A flirtation.
A huzzlecoo is an animated conversation between two women over the back
fence. It is a business talk between two partners and their credit-man
behind the locked doors of the office; it is the directors’ meeting
which results in Jones being appointed.
Ward politicians hold huzzlecoos in the back rooms of saloons and make
up their “slates.” Mother and daughter hold a huzzlecoo in Nellie’s pink
cretonne bedroom over “that young man” who has become so attentive.
After the baseball captain and his manager have a huzzlecoo, Five-Base
Murphy is put into the box.
But if you’ve never heard two girls discussing a man, or sat in the
front parlor with Moony Mamie, the Merry Maneater, till 2 A.M.--then I
pity you; you’ll never know what a good hot huzzlecoo means. (See
_Voriander_.)
_The huzzlecoo that Mary had
With me, the other night,
Was intimate and personal,
And,--well, you know all right!_
_The huzzlecoo her father had
With me, soon after that,
Was intimate and personal--
I left without my hat!_
=Hy´gog=, _n._ 1. An unsatisfied desire. 2. An anxious suspense.
=Hy-gog´i-cal=, _a._ Unattainable; next to impossible.
Oh, that hygogical curtain-shade that simply will _not_ catch, jiggle it
up and down as you will! Oh, that mirror, too high for you, even on
tiptoe! Oh, that telephone operator who won’t answer--and that match you
can’t find, in the dark. Hygogs. Did you ever wait for a sneeze that
wouldn’t come? It is a hygog.
The chandelier--just out of reach; with lighted match, how often have I
striven to light the gas! It was a hygog. How near, and yet how far!
Your note paper too large for the envelope. Fold it over on the edges
and cram it in-- No, it sticks, and will not go! It’s a hygog. Or, if
once rammed in, no man can draw it forth. (See _Wijjicle_.)
Ah, but you suffer, not only for your hygog, but for another’s: The
actor, who forgets his lines, the parlor elocutionist who pauses and
cannot get the next verse--the hygog is an agony unendurable. (See
_Splooch_.)
Hygogical is the strained anxiety of one who waits in nervous suspense
for someone to meet her at the station in time to catch the train.
The cave-man knew it when, pursued by a saber-toothed tiger, he crawled
out on the end of a too slender limb.
_In Baltimore an oyster rare
Lay on his shell of pearl,
Huge as an alligator pear--
’Twas placed before a girl._
_Two times to swallow it she tried,
Three times, and still did fail;
The hygog was too long, too wide--
Let’s kindly draw the veil!_
=Hyp´ri-jimp=, _n._ 1. A man in a woman’s place or who does women’s
work. 2. An obedient and thoroughly domesticated husband. 3. A man
entirely surrounded by women.
He may wash the dishes because his wife is ill, or because she is making
a speech on the street corner; but he is still a hyprijimp. He may wheel
the baby-carriage because he is in love with his offspring or afraid of
his wife; he is a hyprijimp. (See _Vorge_.)
He who carries bundles, kisses his wife in public, does errands for his
sister or criticises hats with real fervor is a hyprijimp.
The hyprijimp is the male guest at a woman’s club; a man at a prayer
meeting, an author who reads his own poems, a non-smoker, a husband in
an employment agency. (See _Varm_.)
The husband of a Suffragette is a hyprijimp. (See _Wowze_.)
_Within a tea-room, pink and dim,
Mid candlesticks and tiles,
A hyprijimp, the only Him,
Was waiting, wreathed in smiles._
_Ah, did he swear at Her delay?
Did rage his forehead crimp?
Oh, no, he was not built that way;
He was a hyprijimp!_
=Ig´moil=, _n._ 1. A quarrel over money matters; a sordid dispute. 2.
The driving of a hard bargain; a petty law suit.
Before the funeral was over, the brothers and sisters were fighting over
the will; yes, before the father was dead, they had their igmoils over
the property.
Woe to the wife of the stingy husband! Many are her igmoils. (See
_Hyprijimp_.)
And yet no one can escape the igmoil when abroad. When they charge you,
as an American, four times the price, how can you help trying to jew
them down? (See _Jurp_.)
The igmoil is the pawnbroker’s daily bread.
To lose a friend through an igmoil, is the most sordid tragedy of life.
_My wife had bought a summer hat;
It cost her 19.20,
That is, of course, it cost_ me _that.
I thought 6.50 plenty._
_We had an igmoil, for, you see,
I had to have that money.
She couldn’t see I needed three
New golf clubs! Ain’t that funny?_
=Imp´kin=, _n_. A superhuman pet; a human offspring masquerading in
the form of a beast; an animal that is given overabundant care.
The impkin is the sole heir of Race Suicide, his mother being The High
Cost of Living. He is supposed to “love his mummy.”
Impkins are canine and feline, but their parents are usually asinine.
The impkin is hyper-domesticated but doesn’t particularly like it. An
impkin being frankly natural is always a shock to his mistress. (See
_Frowk_.)
The impkin is particularly affected by large blondes, and always when
their hair is hennaed.
Impkins have collars but no cuffs. They wear boots and ulsters and live
in limousines. They give teas and grudgingly tolerate the presence of
the master of the family. (See _Varm_.)
The impkin is supposed to have all of a baby’s virtues and none of his
faults. It requires more care, but doesn’t jeopard one’s place in
Society.
_An impkin, noble and refined,
Complained, “No doubt you see,
Of course, I do not have to mind
My mistress--she minds me.”_
_“A Pomeranian canine, I,--
She’s but a common woman;
She’s really quite insulting--why,
She seems to think I’m human!”_
=I´o-bink=, _n._ 1. An unplaceable resemblance; an uncertain
similarity. 2. An inaccessible memory. 3. An unexplainable sound.
A flash of mysterious semi-recognition confuses you for a moment.
“Where--when--have I done just that thing before?” No use to search your
memory or puzzle your wits; you can never catch up with the elusive
thought: It’s an iobink.
That strangely familiar face you pass in the street--the figure you
dimly recognize in the restaurant.
The iobink, like a will-o’-the-wisp, leads you on in fond pursuit. It
was probably some clerk in a dry-goods store, or the assistant in the
grocery. (See _Oofle_.)
So the iobink subtly tortures you. You hear its human voice in sounds of
running water, or the moan of the wind. And, as you lie in bed,
terrified, an unexplainable noise keeps you awake. But, it’s
nothing--only an iobink.
What _is_ that word, that you cannot quite remember? It circles above
your head, just out of reach. The iobink will not come, except uncalled.
The tune you strive to bring back haunts you like a ghost. You cannot
give it audible form. It hovers beyond your consciousness in a world of
iobinks. (See _Rizgidget_.)
_Who was she? And what was her name?
Somehow, I couldn’t think.
Why was my memory so to blame?
It was an iobink._
_Where had I seen that face, that stare?
In some old, previous life?
The iobink dissolved--and there
She was--my former wife!_
=Jip=, _n._ 1. A dangerous topic of conversation; 2. A suggestive
remark.
=Jip´lish=, _a._ Likely to lead to an explosion; too personal.
Never make fun of Reno--even to Mrs. Newlywed--she may have a ticket
already bought, and it will be a jip. (See _Pooje_.)
Never speak slightingly of actors, dentists, Jews, Socialists,
mothers-in-law, plumbers, Christian Scientists or Progressives--the man
in the embroidered velvet necktie who has begun to glare at you, may be
all of them--it’s a jip.
Did you ever ask a grey-gowned brunette the whereabouts of her husband
only to find that he had died last week? Rather jiplish!
Anyway, you’re pretty sure to make a jip with your girl, sooner or
later--whether you discuss her best hat or her best friend, the talk is
apt to be jiplish. To ask a woman her age is a jip.
Never ask a man what his wife said when he got home late--it’s a jip.
(See _Skyscrimble_.)
_I asked Bill Green how Mrs. Green
Enjoyed her motor trip,
And if she liked their limousine--
Believe me, ’twas a jip!_
_It was a jip to talk of her,
For she eloped last fall;
She ran away with his chauffeur,
And took him, car and all!_
=Jir´ri-wig=, _n._ 1. A superficial traveler. 2. The Philistine
abroad. 3. A bromide in search of himself.
=Jir´ri-wig=, _v._ To travel with one’s eyes shut. To destroy
opportunity.
I met Mrs. Jirriwig first in Paris. She had been there three months, and
had spent 87 days with modistes and lingeristes, one day at the
Louvre--the rest of the time she had been ill. When she wasn’t trying on
gowns, she was in a cab, going to or from the process. (See _Mooble_.)
Later, on the train, I met Mr. Jirriwig, on the way to Venice. The train
flew by the bounteous beauties of Lombardy, historic and picturesque.
Did Mr. Jirriwig look out of the window? No, he was too busy reading his
Baedeker, learning about Venice. In Venice, he spent his time in
gondolas, reading up Florence. In Florence he sat at little café tables,
turning the pages of his red-covered book and getting acquainted with
Rome. So he saw Europe,--in type.
But there are thousands of Jirriwigs in Paris. They have been there for
years, and all the French they know is “_Combien?_” They are in a state
of perpetual disgust, that things are so different to anything in the
United States.
But there are Jirriwigs in New York also. They live in the Subway, in
offices and in flats. (See _Cowcat_.)
_Said Mr. Jirriwig, one day,
To Mrs. Jirriwig,
“Let’s see the Versailles fountains play;
They say they’re fine and big!”_
_“Yes,” said his wife, “they’re fine and big,
I’ve seen them once, you know!”
“Thank God!” said Mr. Jirriwig,
“Then I won’t have to go!”_
[Illustration: JIRRIWIG]
=Ju´jasm=, _n._ 1. A much-needed relief; a long-desired satisfaction.
2. An expansion of sudden joy.
=Ju-jas´mic=, _a._ Offering relief from suffering, or an escape from
ennui.
Thank God the train has started! So, after the long, dreary wait on a
side-track, your heart expands in a delicious jujasm. As noise after
long silence, so is silence after much noise, a jujasm. (See
_Gollohix_.)
After your slow recovery, jujasmic is the doctor’s dictum, “I think
we’ll have to get you up tomorrow.”
Why is Helen’s face with wild jujasm alight? Dilatory Dick has at last
proposed. (See _Xenogore_.)
As deep as the grim horror of the dentist’s deed, just so high does your
spirit rise in jujasm when the tooth is out.
Spring! After the long suspense is over, the first day of balm and
warmth brings jujasm to your heart.
As a hot drink on a sleigh-ride; as food after a long fast--so is the
first sight of women to a sailor, after his eighteen months at sea,
jujasmic.
Last night, I took high-browed Harriet to the theatre, and she talked of
her soul, while I perished. Oh, the rise of the curtain on that third
act of farcical folly! It was a jujasm. (See _Orobaldity_.)
_Jujasmic is it when, at night,
Your baby stops his wails;
Or when the land, at last in sight,
The seasick traveller hails._