THE COMMON ROUND

Otago Daily Times, Issue 24606, 14 May 1941, Page 2

THE COMMON ROUND

By Wayfarer

Permit us in this brief Stop Press To welcome Mr Rudolph Hess, Who to escape the Nazi stress Departed, leaving no address. While we admit it seemed unkind To leave his dear old pal behind. On careful thought we cannot find This evidence of unsound mind. By leading the capitulation, He's an example to the nation: We hope thev'll take this indication Of who has the hallucination. Referred, to our philological department for elucidation is a report of the incomparable activities of the Home Guard in the Wanganui district. Excerpt: E Company embussed at 9.30 a.m. and proceeded to Puriri street, near the Health Camp. Here it remained in reserve on wheels in the initial stages. . . . C Company embussed at 9.20 a.m. and moved via Ridgway street. . . . On a first reading, our romantic mind led us astray as to the significance of this communique* Naturally, the last duty of good Home Guarders before leaving for manoeuvres is to kiss, or buss, their admiring wives—in short, to embrace them, with more or less fervour according to temperament. Hence, we reasoned, the derivation "embrace" plus "buss," shortened in military terminology by telescoping—embussed. But we were soon made aware, on mentioning the matter to Home Guard acquaintances, that we had under-rated the ingenuity of the military phraseology, while overestimating the degree of sentiment which is permitted in official reports. In the first place, it was explained to us, members of the Home Guard when setting off for field exercises rarely have opportunity either to buss or otherwise embrace their wives. What with trying to polish up their gardening boots, telling the children to get out of the way, and struggling into their arm-bands, they are lucky if they have time even for a quick cup of tea before they dash off to catch the bus. And there, gentle reader, we have it! In peaceful days, our peaceful way is to catch, mount, or take the bus with as much leisure as the inexorable time-table permits us. In war. the process must be stiffened up. and hard of face we embuss it! This affront to our post-Shake-spearean sensibilities belongs to a class of words for which we have our own label—ratizers. Q. —What is a ratizer? That can be answered by ouotin.e Mr A. P. Herbert in his notable investigation of "Jungle English ": A naval officer tells me that, once a vear. there is (or used to be) a " Rat-Week " in every dockyard, during which intensive war is waged on the rat. . . . And a few years ago, at a certain port, the Rat-Orders were full of the new and prettv word "Deratization." Methods of " deratization." for example, were to be reported in order of merit. Mr Herbert shows, incidentally, that this was no slip that passed in the night, but a word that won its firm place in officialese. Hence, if we say embussed is a ratizer, gentle readers will realise that we regard it as a malevolent-looking, unclean and rodent-like by-blow from the murkiest and most slimy depths of the now somewhat defiled well of English. In the same category we place such gruesome exhibits from the Herbert dictionary of horrors as De-fever. De-insectization De-humidify. De-restriction. De-zincification. Dis-assemble. Dis-equilibrium.

This is part of the price which democracy must pay for going to war. We can only hope that it does not become altogether top costly, for violence done to the English language cannot, as it seems to us, do half as much hurt to our enemies as it inflicts upon a rather magnificent heritage. We ask, with anxious mien, where is it to end? If the old-established and comparatively simple process of climbing into an omnibus becomes " embussing," then there is no escaping the logical conclusion of the journey, when one-must, alas, debuss or (we suggest it with real horror) disembuss.

We hesitate to follow our Home Guarder upon this terrible progress when, having for a day successfully out-manoeuvred an imaginary invading force, he returns home, having debussed. His first action on entering the house is to utter a sigh of relief and unhat himself. Then, with a groan of utter weariness, he will stagger into the sitting-room, enchair on the most comfortable seat in the place, and commence to deboot. This debooting is accompanied by much sorrowful noise, but by the time it has been achieved, enter his still unbussed wife with a basin of warm, soothing solution. Gingerly he entoes (using the big toe of the right foot for the operation) and the mixture having proved neither tuo hot nor too cold, he eagerly embowls both feet, leaving them there for at least ten minutes before disembowlmg and dehydrating them on a warm, dry towel.

After being untcwelled the feet are socked and ensiippered, anci our hero is ready, aye, more than ready, to eat. Here there -irises a difficulty. In the ordinary military way we might now state that, faced with a plate of steaming soup, followed by a succulent steak, he commences to ensoup and engril—that is, to digest himself. But private information is to the effect that, being a martyr to dyspeDsia, he is unable to accomplish this. We can onlv offer as an alternative the suggestion that he engorges himself and hang the consequences. If they are dire, he will very soon stagger upstairs to become firmly embedded. And there, we feel, we had best leave him.