Everyone’s a Critic
“I rise to pay my small tribute to Dr. [Warren G.]
Harding. Setting aside a
college professor or two-and-a-half dozen dipsomaniacal newspaper reporters, he
takes the first place in my Valhalla of literati. That is to say, he writes the
worst English that I have ever encountered. It reminds me of a string of wet
sponges; it reminds me of tattered washing on the line; it reminds me of stale
bean-soup, of college yells, of dogs barking idiotically through endless
nights. It is so bad that a sort of grandeur creeps into it. It drags itself
out of the dark abysm (I was about to write abcess!) of pish, and crawls
insanely up the topmost pinnacle of posh. It is rumble and bumble. It is flap
and doodle. It is balder and dash.”
—H.L. Mencken (1880-1956), journalist,
author and curmudgeon, “H.L. Mencken on Balder and Dash,” Lapham’s
Quarterly, 1921.
(Thanks to alert WORDster Karl Petruso)
• Editorial Comment: More flap than doodle, in my opinion.
PeezPix by Ted Pease
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Ted Pease, Professor of Interesting Stuff, Trinidad, California. (Be)Friend The WORD
“I
don’t think writers are sacred, but words are. They deserve respect. If
you get the right ones, in the right order, you can nudge the world a
little.” —Tom Stoppard
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