O

OATH, n.In law, a solemn appeal to the Deity, made binding upon theconscience by a penalty for perjury.

OBLIVION, n.The state or condition in which the wicked cease fromstruggling and the dreary are at rest.Fame's eternal dumping ground. Cold storage for high hopes.A place where ambitious authors meettheir works without pride and their betters without envy.A dormitorywithout an alarm clock.

OBSERVATORY, n.A place where astronomers conjecture away the guessesof their predecessors.

OBSESSED, p.p.Vexed by an evil spirit, like the Gadarene swine andother critics.Obsession was once more common than it is now. Arasthus tells of a peasant who was occupied by a different devil forevery day in the week, and on Sundays by two.They were frequentlyseen, always walking in his shadow, when he had one, but were finallydriven away by the village notary, a holy man; but they took thepeasant with them, for he vanished utterly.A devil thrown out of awoman by the Archbishop of Rheims ran through the trees, pursued by ahundred persons, until the open country was reached, where by a leaphigher than a church spire he escaped into a bird.A chaplain inCromwell's army exorcised a soldier's obsessing devil by throwing thesoldier into the water, when the devil came to the surface.Thesoldier, unfortunately, did not.

OBSOLETE, adj.No longer used by the timid.Said chiefly of words. A word which some lexicographer has marked obsolete is ever thereafteran object of dread and loathing to the fool writer, but if it is agood word and has no exact modern equivalent equally good, it is goodenough for the good writer.Indeed, a writer's attitude toward"obsolete" words is as true a measure of his literary ability asanything except the character of his work.A dictionary of obsoleteand obsolescent words would not only be singularly rich in strong andsweet parts of speech; it would add large

possessions to thevocabulary of every competent writer who might not happen to be acompetent reader.

OBSTINATE, adj.Inaccessible to the truth as it is manifest in thesplendor and stress of our advocacy. The popular type and exponent of obstinacy is the mule, a mostintelligent animal.

OCCASIONAL, adj.Afflicting us with greater or less frequency.That,however, is not the sense in which the word is used in the phrase"occasional verses," which are verses written for an "occasion," suchas an anniversary, a celebration or other event.True, they afflictus a little worse than other sorts of verse, but their name has noreference to irregular recurrence.

OCCIDENT, n.The part of the world lying west (or east) of theOrient.It is largely inhabited by Christians, a powerful subtribe ofthe Hypocrites, whose principal industries are murder and cheating,which they are pleased to call "war" and "commerce."These, also, arethe principal industries of the Orient.

OCEAN, n.A body of water occupying about two-thirds of a world madefor man -- who has no gills.

OFFENSIVE, adj.Generating disagreeable emotions or sensations, asthe advance of an army against its enemy. "Were the enemy's tactics offensive?" the king asked."I shouldsay so!" replied the unsuccessful general."The blackguard wouldn'tcome out of his works!"

OLD, adj.In that stage of usefulness which is not inconsistent withgeneral inefficiency, as an _old man_.Discredited by lapse of timeand offensive to the popular taste, as an _old_ book.

"Old books?The devil take them!" Goby said. "Fresh every day must be my books and bread." Nature herself approves the Goby rule And gives us every moment a fresh fool.

Harley Shum

OLEAGINOUS, adj.Oily, smooth, sleek. Disraeli once described the manner of Bishop Wilberforce as"unctuous, oleaginous, saponaceous."And the good prelate was everafterward known as Soapy Sam.For every man there is something in thevocabulary that would stick to him like a second skin.His enemieshave only to find it.

OLYMPIAN, adj.Relating to a mountain in Thessaly, once inhabited bygods, now a repository of yellowing newspapers, beer bottles andmutilated sardine cans, attesting the presence of the tourist and hisappetite.

His name the smirking tourist scrawls Upon Minerva's temple walls, Where thundered once Olympian Zeus, And marks his appetite's abuse.

Averil Joop

OMEN, n.A sign that something will happen if nothing happens. ONCE, adv.Enough.

OPERA, n.A play representing life in another world, whoseinhabitants have no speech but song, no motions but gestures and nopostures but attitudes.All acting is simulation, and the word_simulation_ is from

_simia_, an ape; but in opera the actor takes forhis model _Simia audibilis_ (or _Pithecanthropos stentor_) -- the apethat howls.

The actor apes a man -- at least in shape; The opera performer apes and ape.

OPIATE, n.An unlocked door in the prison of Identity.It leads intothe jail yard.

OPPORTUNITY, n.A favorable occasion for grasping a disappointment.

OPPOSE, v.To assist with obstructions and objections.

How lonely he who thinks to vex With bandinage the Solemn Sex! Of levity, Mere Man, beware; None but the Grave deserve the Unfair.

Percy P. Orminder

OPPOSITION, n.In politics the party that prevents the Government fromrunning amuck by hamstringing it. The King of Ghargaroo, who had been abroad to study the science ofgovernment, appointed one hundred of his fattest subjects as membersof a parliament to make laws for the collection of revenue.Forty ofthese he named the Party of Opposition and had his Prime Ministercarefully instruct them in their duty of opposing every royal measure. Nevertheless, the first one that was submitted passed unanimously. Greatly displeased, the King vetoed it, informing the Opposition thatif they did that again they would pay for their obstinacy with theirheads.The entire forty promptly disemboweled themselves.

"What shall we do now?" the King asked."Liberal institutionscannot be maintained without a party of Opposition." "Splendor of the universe," replied the Prime Minister, "it istrue these dogs of darkness have no longer their credentials, but allis not lost.Leave the matter to this worm of the dust." So the Minister had the bodies of his Majesty's Oppositionembalmed and stuffed with straw, put back into the seats of power andnailed there.Forty votes were recorded against every bill and thenation prospered.But one day a bill imposing a tax on warts wasdefeated -- the members of the Government party had not been nailed totheir seats!This so enraged the King that the Prime Minister was putto death, the parliament was dissolved with a battery of artillery,and government of the people, by the people, for the people perishedfrom Ghargaroo.

OPTIMISM, n.The doctrine, or belief, that everything is beautiful,including what is ugly, everything good, especially the bad, andeverything right that is wrong.It is held with greatest tenacity bythose most accustomed to the mischance of falling into adversity, andis most acceptably expounded with the grin that apes a smile.Being ablind faith, it is inaccessible to the light of disproof -- anintellectual disorder, yielding to no treatment but death.It ishereditary, but fortunately not contagious.

OPTIMIST, n.A proponent of the doctrine that black is white. A pessimist applied to God for relief. "Ah, you wish me to restore your hope and cheerfulness," said God. "No," replied the petitioner, "I wish you to create something thatwould justify them." "The world is all created," said God, "but you have overlookedsomething -- the mortality of the optimist."

ORATORY, n.A conspiracy between speech and action to cheat theunderstanding.A tyranny tempered by stenography.

ORPHAN, n.A living person whom death has deprived of the power offilial ingratitude -- a privation appealing with a particulareloquence to all that is sympathetic in human nature.When young theorphan is commonly sent to an asylum, where by careful cultivation ofits rudimentary sense of locality it is taught to know its place.Itis then instructed in the arts of dependence and servitude andeventually turned loose to prey upon the world as a bootblack orscullery maid.

ORTHODOX, n.An ox wearing the popular religious joke.

ORTHOGRAPHY, n.The science of spelling by the eye instead of theear.Advocated with more heat than light by the outmates of everyasylum for the insane.They have had to concede a few things sincethe time of Chaucer, but are none the less hot in defence of those tobe conceded hereafter.

A spelling reformer indicted For fudge was before the court cicted. The judge said:"Enough -- His candle we'll snough, And his sepulchre shall not be whicted."

OSTRICH, n.A large bird to which (for its sins, doubtless) naturehas denied that hinder toe in which so many pious naturalists haveseen a conspicuous evidence of design.The absence of a good workingpair of wings is no defect, for, as has been ingeniously pointed out,the ostrich does not fly.

OTHERWISE, adv.No better.

OUTCOME, n.A particular type of disappointment.By the kind ofintelligence that sees in an exception a proof of the rule the wisdomof an act is judged by the outcome, the result.This is immortalnonsense; the wisdom of an act is to be juded by the light that thedoer had when he performed it.

OUTDO, v.t.To make an enemy.

OUT-OF-DOORS, n.That part of one's environment upon which nogovernment has been able to collect taxes.Chiefly useful to inspirepoets. I climbed to the top of a mountain one day To see the sun setting in glory, And I thought, as I looked at his vanishing ray, Of a perfectly

splendid story.

'Twas about an old man and the ass he bestrode Till the strength of the beast was o'ertested; Then the man would carry him miles on the road Till Neddy was pretty well rested.

The moon rising solemnly over the crest Of the hills to the east of my station Displayed her broad disk to the darkening west Like a visible new creation.

And I thought of a joke (and I laughed till I cried) Of an idle young woman who tarried About a church-door for a look at the bride, Although

'twas herself that was married.

To poets all Nature is pregnant with grand Ideas -- with thought and emotion. I pity the dunces who don't understand The speech of earth, heaven and ocean.

Stromboli Smith

OVATION, n.n ancient Rome, a definite, formal pageant in honor ofone who had been disserviceable to the enemies of the nation.Alesser "triumph."In modern English the word is improperly used tosignify any loose and spontaneous expression of popular homage to thehero of the hour and place.

"I had an ovation!" the actor man said, But I thought it uncommonly queer, That people and critics by him had been led By the ear.

The Latin lexicon makes his absurd Assertion as plain as a peg; In "ovum" we find the true root of the word. It means egg.

Dudley Spink OVEREAT, v.To dine.

Hail, Gastronome, Apostle of Excess, Well skilled to overeat without distress! Thy great invention, the unfatal feast, Shows Man's superiority to Beast.

John Boop

OVERWORK, n.A dangerous disorder affecting high public functionarieswho want to go fishing.

OWE, v.To have (and to hold) a debt.The word formerly signifiednot indebtedness, but possession; it meant "own," and in the minds ofdebtors there is still a good deal of confusion between assets andliabilities.

OYSTER, n.A slimy, gobby shellfish which civilization gives men thehardihood to eat without removing its entrails!The shells aresometimes given to the poor.