LABOR, n.
One of the processes by which A acquires property for B.
LAND, n.
A part of the earth's surface, considered as property. The
theory that land is property subject to private ownership and
control is the foundation of modern society, and is eminently
worthy of the superstructure. Carried to its logical conclusion,
it means that some have the right to prevent others from living;
for the right to own implies the right exclusively to occupy; and
in fact laws of trespass are enacted wherever property in land is
recognized. It follows that if the whole area of terra
firma is owned by A, B and C, there will be no place for D,
E, F and G to be born, or, born as trespassers, to exist.
LANGUAGE, n.
The music with which we charm the serpents guarding another's
treasure.
LAOCOON, n.
A famous piece of antique scripture representing a priest of
that name and his two sons in the folds of two enormous serpents.
The skill and diligence with which the old man and lads support
the serpents and keep them up to their work have been justly
regarded as one of the noblest artistic illustrations of the
mastery of human intelligence over brute inertia.
LAP, n.
One of the most important organs of the female system-- an
admirable provision of nature for the repose of infancy, but
chiefly useful in rural festivities to support plates of cold
chicken and heads of adult males. The male of our species has a
rudimentary lap, imperfectly developed and in no way contributing
to the animal's substantial welfare.
LAUGHTER, n.
An interior convulsion, producing a distortion of the features
and accompanied by inarticulate noises. It is infectious and,
though intermittent, incurable. Liability to attacks of laughter
is one of the characteristics distinguishing man from the animals-- these being not only inaccessible to the provocation of his
example, but impregnable to the microbes having original
jurisdiction in bestowal of the disease. Whether laughter could
be imparted to animals by inoculation from the human patient is a
question that has not been answered by experimentation. Dr. Meir
Witchell holds that the infection character of laughter is due to
the instantaneous fermentation of sputa diffused in a
spray. From this peculiarity he names the disorder Convulsio
spargens.
LAUREATE, adj.
Crowned with leaves of the laurel. In England the Poet Laureate
is an officer of the sovereign's court, acting as dancing
skeleton at every royal feast and singing- mute at every royal
funeral. Of all incumbents of that high office, Robert Southey
had the most notable knack at drugging the Samson of public joy
and cutting his hair to the quick; and he had an artistic
color- sense which enabled him so to blacken a public grief as to
give it the aspect of a national crime.
LAUREL, n.
The laurus, a vegetable dedicated to Apollo, and
formerly defoliated to wreathe the brows of victors and such
poets as had influence at court. (Vide supra.)
LAWFUL, adj.
Compatible with the will of a judge having jurisdiction.
LAWYER, n.
One skilled in circumvention of the law.
LAZINESS, n.
Unwarranted repose of manner in a person of low degree.
LEAD, n.
A heavy blue- gray metal much used in giving stability to light
lovers-- particularly to those who love not wisely but other
men's wives. Lead is also of great service as a counterpoise to
an argument of such weight that it turns the scale of debate the
wrong way. An interesting fact in the chemistry of international
controversy is that at the point of contact of two patriotisms
lead is precipitated in great quantities.
LEARNING, n.
The kind of ignorance distinguishing the studious.
LECTURER, n.
One with his hand in your pocket, his tongue in your ear and his
faith in your patience.
LEGACY, n.
A gift from one who is legging it out of this vale of tears.
LEONINE, adj.
Unlike a menagerie lion. Leonine verses are those in which a word
in the middle of a line rhymes with a word at the end, as in this
famous passage from Bella Peeler Silcox:
The electric light invades the dunnest deep of
Hades.
Cries Pluto, 'twixt his snores: "O tempora! O mores!"
It should be explained that Mrs. Silcox does not undertake to teach pronunciation of the Greek and Latin tongues. Leonine verses are so called in honor of a poet named Leo, whom prosodists appear to find a pleasure in believing to have been the first to discover that a rhyming couplet could be run into a single line.
LETTUCE, n.
An herb of the genus Lactuca, "Wherewith," says that
pious gastronome, Hengist Pelly, "God has been pleased to reward
the good and punish the wicked. For by his inner light the
righteous man has discerned a manner of compounding for it a
dressing to the appetency whereof a multitude of gustible
condiments conspire, being reconciled and ameliorated with
profusion of oil, the entire comestible making glad the heart of
the godly and causing his face to shine. But the person of
spiritual unworth is successfully tempted to the Adversary to eat
of lettuce with destitution of oil, mustard, egg, salt and
garlic, and with a rascal bath of vinegar polluted with sugar.
Wherefore the person of spiritual unworth suffers an intestinal
pang of strange complexity and raises the song."
LEVIATHAN, n.
An enormous aquatic animal mentioned by Job. Some suppose it to
have been the whale, but that distinguished ichthyologer, Dr.
Jordan, of Stanford University, maintains with considerable heat
that it was a species of gigantic Tadpole (Thaddeus
Polandensis) or Polliwig-- Maria pseudo- hirsuta.
For an exhaustive description and history of the Tadpole consult
the famous monograph of Jane Potter, Thaddeus of
Warsaw.
LEXICOGRAPHER, n.
A pestilent fellow who, under the pretense of recording some
particular stage in the development of a language, does what he
can to arrest its growth, stiffen its flexibility and mechanize
its methods. For your lexicographer, having written his
dictionary, comes to be considered "as one having authority,"
whereas his function is only to make a record, not to give a law.
The natural servility of the human understanding having invested
him with judicial power, surrenders its right of reason and
submits itself to a chronicle as if it were a statue. Let the
dictionary (for example) mark a good word as "obsolete" or
"obsolescent" and few men thereafter venture to use it, whatever
their need of it and however desirable its restoration to favor--
whereby the process of improverishment is accelerated and
speech decays. On the contrary, recognizing the truth that
language must grow by innovation if it grow at all, makes new
words and uses the old in an unfamiliar sense, has no following
and is tartly reminded that "it isn't in the dictionary"--
although down to the time of the first lexicographer (Heaven
forgive him!) no author ever had used a word that was in
the dictionary. In the golden prime and high noon of English
speech; when from the lips of the great Elizabethans fell words
that made their own meaning and carried it in their very sound;
when a Shakespeare and a Bacon were possible, and the language
now rapidly perishing at one end and slowly renewed at the other
was in vigorous growth and hardy preservation-- sweeter than
honey and stronger than a lion-- the lexicographer was a person
unknown, the dictionary a creation which his Creator had not
created him to create.
LIAR, n.
A lawyer with a roving commission.
LIBERTY, n.
One of Imagination's most precious possessions.
LICKSPITTLE, n.
A useful functionary, not infrequently found editing a
newspaper. In his character of editor he is closely allied to the
blackmailer by the tie of occasional identity; for in truth the
lickspittle is only the blackmailer under another aspect,
although the latter is frequently found as an independent
species. Lickspittling is more detestable than blackmailing,
precisely as the business of a confidence man is more detestable
than that of a highway robber; and the parallel maintains itself
throughout, for whereas few robbers will cheat, every sneak will
plunder if he dare.
LIFE, n.
A spiritual pickle preserving the body from decay. We live in
daily apprehension of its loss; yet when lost it is not missed.
The question, "Is life worth living?" has been much discussed;
particularly by those who think it is not, many of whom have
written at great length in support of their view and by careful
observance of the laws of health enjoyed for long terms of years
the honors of successful controversy.
LIGHTHOUSE, n.
A tall building on the seashore in which the government
maintains a lamp and the friend of a politician.
LIMB, n.
The branch of a tree or the leg of an American woman.
LINEN, n.
"A kind of cloth the making of which, when made of hemp, entails
a great waste of hemp."-- Calcraft the Hangman.
LITIGANT, n.
A person about to give up his skin for the hope of retaining his
bones.
LITIGATION, n.
A machine which you go into as a pig and come out of as a
sausage.
LIVER, n.
A large red organ thoughtfully provided by nature to be bilious
with. The sentiments and emotions which every literary anatomist
now knows to haunt the heart were anciently believed to infest
the liver; and even Gascoygne, speaking of the emotional side of
human nature, calls it "our hepaticall parte." It was at one time
considered the seat of life; hence its name-- liver, the thing
we live with. The liver is heaven's best gift to the goose;
without it that bird would be unable to supply us with the
Strasbourg pate.
LL.D.
Letters indicating the degree Legumptionorum Doctor,
one learned in laws, gifted with legal gumption. Some suspicion
is cast upon this derivation by the fact that the title was
formerly LL.d., and conferred only upon gentlemen
distinguished for their wealth. At the date of this writing
Columbia University is considering the expediency of making
another degree for clergymen, in place of the old D.D.--
Damnator Diaboli. The new honor will be known as
Sanctorum
Custus, and written $$c. The name of the Rev. John
Satan has been suggested as a suitable recipient by a lover of
consistency, who points out that Professor Harry Thurston Peck
has long enjoyed the advantage of a degree.
LOCK- AND-KEY, n.
The distinguishing device of civilization and enlightenment.
LODGER, n.
A less popular name for the Second Person of that delectable
newspaper Trinity, the Roomer, the Bedder, and the Mealer.
LOGIC, n.
The art of thinking and reasoning in strict accordance with the
limitations and incapacities of the human misunderstanding. The
basic of logic is the syllogism, consisting of a major and a
minor premise and a conclusion-- thus:Major Premise:
Sixty men can do a piece of work sixty times as quickly as one
man.Minor Premise: One man can dig a posthole in sixty
seconds; therefore- Conclusion: Sixty men can dig a
posthole in one second.This may be called the syllogism
arithmetical, in which, by combining logic and mathematics, we
obtain a double certainty and are twice blessed.
LOGOMACHY, n.
A war in which the weapons are words and the wounds punctures in
the swim- bladder of self- esteem-- a kind of contest in which,
the vanquished being unconscious of defeat, the victor is denied
the reward of success.
LOGANIMITY, n.
The disposition to endure injury with meek forbearance while
maturing a plan of revenge.
LONGEVITY, n.
Uncommon extension of the fear of death.
LOOKING- GLASS, n.
A vitreous plane upon which to display a fleeting show of man's
disillusion.
LOQUACITY, n.
A disorder which renders the sufferer unable to curb his tongue
when you wish to talk.
LORD, n.
In American society, an English tourist above the state of a
costermonger, as, lord 'Aberdasher, Lord Hartisan and so forth.
The traveling Briton of lesser degree is addressed as "Sir," as,
Sir 'Arry Donkiboi, or 'Amstead 'Eath. The word "Lord" is
sometimes used, also, as a title of the Supreme Being; but this
is thought to be rather flattery than true reverence.
LORE, n.
Learning-- particularly that sort which is not derived from a
regular course of instruction but comes of the reading of occult
books, or by nature. This latter is commonly designated as
folk- lore and embraces popularly myths and superstitions. In
Baring- Gould's Curious Myths of the Middle Ages the
reader will find many of these traced backward, through various
people son converging lines, toward a common origin in remote
antiquity. Among these are the fables of "Teddy the Giant
Killer," "The Sleeping John Sharp Williams," "Little Red Riding
Hood and the Sugar Trust," "Beauty and the Brisbane," "The Seven
Aldermen of Ephesus," "Rip Van Fairbanks," and so forth. The
fable with Goethe so affectingly relates under the title of "The
Erl- King" was known two thousand years ago in Greece as "The
Demos and the Infant Industry." One of the most general and
ancient of these myths is that Arabian tale of "Ali Baba and the
Forty Rockefellers."
LOSS, n.
Privation of that which we had, or had not. Thus, in the latter
sense, it is said of a defeated candidate that he "lost his
election"; and of that eminent man, the poet Gilder, that he has
"lost his mind."
LOVE, n.
A temporary insanity curable by marriage or by removal
of the patient from the influences under which he incurred the
disorder. This disease, like caries and many other
ailments, is prevalent only among civilized races living under
artificial conditions; barbarous nations breathing pure air and
eating simple food enjoy immunity from its ravages. It is
sometimes fatal, but more frequently to the physician than to the
patient.
LOW- BRED, adj.
"Raised" instead of brought up.
LUMINARY, n.
One who throws light upon a subject; as an editor by not writing
about it.
LUNARIAN, n.
An inhabitant of the moon, as distinguished from Lunatic, one
whom the moon inhabits. The Lunarians have been described by
Lucian, Locke and other observers, but without much agreement.
For example, Bragellos avers their anatomical identity with Man,
but Professor Newcomb says they are more like the hill tribes of
Vermont.