Mr. George R. Sims once “invited proposals” for a brief and convenient
name for the misdemeanor known in England as “traveling in a class
of railway carriage superior to that for which the defendant had
taken a ticket.” It is a ludicrous fact that the offense has never
had another name, nor is it quite easy to invent a better one
off-hand. I should like to know what it is in Esperanto. We have in
this country certain clumsy phrases which might advantageously be
condensed into single words. For example, to “join in the holy bonds
of wedlock” might become to “jedlock.” The society editor would be
spared much labor if he could say of the unhappy couple that they were
“jedlocked,” or “lemaltared,”—the latter word meaning, of course, “led
to the matrimonial altar.” Many of the ordinary reporter’s favorite
expressions could be treated in the same practical fashion. The
familiar “much-needed rest” would become simply “mest.” The “devouring
element” would be “delement,” and have done with it. When it is, as
so very frequently it is, necessary to say that something “reflects
credit” on somebody, the verb “to refledit” would serve an honorable
and useful purpose. Instead of writing of a man freshly dead that he
was “much esteemed by all who knew him,” we should say that he was
“mestewed.” By such simple and rational devices as these the language
would be notably improved, and in a newspaper report of the birth of a
rich man’s child a few lines could be saved for the death of a poet.
As the words “not either” have been condensed into “neither,” “not
ever” into “never” and “no one” into “none,” why should not the
negative or privative, when followed by a vowel, be always compounded
in the same way? For example, “neven” for “not even,” “nin” and “nout”
for “not in” and “not out.” “Nirish” for “no Irish,” and so forth.
Nay, it is not necessary that a vowel follow the negative: “no Popery”
could be “nopery,” “no matter,” “natter,” and “never-to-be-forgotten,”
“notten,” or “netten.” The principle is pregnant with possibilities.
While reforming the language I crave leave to introduce an improvement
in punctuation—the snigger point, or note of cachinnation. It is
written thus ◡ and represents, as nearly as may be, a smiling mouth.
It is to be appended, with the full stop, to every jocular or ironical
sentence; or, without the stop, to every jocular or ironical clause of
a sentence otherwise serious—thus: “Mr. Edward Bok is the noblest work
of God ◡.” “Our respected and esteemed ◡ contemporary, Mr. Slyvester
Vierick, whom for his virtues we revere and for his success envy ◡, is
going to the devil as fast as his two heels can carry him.” “Deacon
Harvey, a truly good man ◡, is self-made in the largest sense of the
term; for although he was born great, wise and rich, the deflection of
his nose is the work of his own coat-sleeve.”
To many a great writer the new point will be as useful as was the
tail to his unlettered ancestor. By a single stroke of his pen at the
finish, the illustrious humorist who reviews books for _The Nation_ can
give to his dismalist plagiarism from Mulgrub’s _Theory of Quaternions_
all the charm and value of a lively personal anecdote, as he would
relate it. By liberally sprinkling his literary criticism with it, Dr.
Hamilton W. Mabie can give to the work a lilt and vivacity that will
readily distinguish it from a riding-master’s sermon on the mount; the
points will apprise his reader of a humorous intention not otherwise
observable as a factor in the humorous effect. Embellished with this
useful mark, even the writings of that sombre soul, Mr. John Kendrick
Bangs, will have a quality that will at least prevent the parsons from
reading them at the graveside as passages from the burial service.