AMUSING DEFINITIONS AND DESCRIPTIONS.

Otago Witness, Issue 1891, 1 May 1890, Page 31

AMUSING DEFINITIONS AND DESCRIPTIONS.

Children have great difficulty in describing even the simplest and most familiar objects, and it is from them we obtain some of the most ludicrous definitions and descriptions. A little girl defines memory as " the thing you forget with." Another describes a snake as "a thing that's tail all the way up to its head." A three-year-old defines beef as " fried cow," and her baby sister is described as " a meat doll." A boy defines a fog as " a cloud down with the colic." Another urchin informs us that " a smile is the whisper of a laugh." In a public school examination on physiology for prizes offered by the National Health Society, a little girl wrote in reply to the question " Describe any occupation considered injurious to health," " Occupations which are injurious are carbolic acid gaf, which is impure blood." Another described a bootmaker's trade as very injurious, "because the bootmakers press the boots against the thorax, and therefore it presses the thorax in, and it touches the heart, and if they do not die they are cripples for life." The following is the definition given of physiology: " Physiollogigy is to study about your bones, stummick and vertebry." In reply to the question " Describe a person in fair health," a pupil wrote, " A person is in fair health when he has the affinity to accommodate himself to change of climate and the ability to endure." As an illustration of the American boy's ignorance of European geography, we are told that at a school examination in New York one of the pupils described London as " a town in an island off the coast of France." Someone has defined a " gent " as " the vulgar fraction of a gentleman," but no person has yet been able adequately to define a i gentleman. In some districts he is " a man [ who wears a tall hat," in others, "one who keeps a gig." R. L. Stevenson tells us that in one house he is a gentleman who does not eat peas with his knife; in another, who is not discountenanced by any created form of butler. An Irish barrister defines a gentleman as " a man who eats jam with his mutton." To ordinary persons the primrose is a small yellow flower that grows on mossy banks in the spring, but to the botanist a primrose by the river brim is " a corollinoral dicotyledonous exogen," and it is nothing more. Everyone recognises a poetic epigram when he sees it ; but few can define the brief and witty verse, with its simple rhyme, concise diction, and pungent ending. Here is a definition that will pass : The qualities all in a bee that we mpet, la an epigram never should (ail : The body should always be Htfcle and sweet, And a sting should be felt in its tail. It has often been noted that a combination of men is, as a rule, less scrupulous than an individual. Hence the cynical definition of a committee as " a body without a conscience." Lord Oxford, who was generally in debt, defines timber as " an excrescence on the face of the earth placed there by Providence for the payment of debts." John Bright said that a self-made man is generally one who " adores his maker." An Irishman described a certain nierht as being " dark as a stack of black cats." Dr T Johnson, in his brusque, cynical way, defines a ship as " a prison with the chance of being drowned." "An independent member," said the late Prince Consort, " is a member on whom nobody can depend."' Sidney Smith descritcd the face of a certain acquaintance as "in ilself a breach of the peace," and another man hf described as "so diiiv that he would ma v r n stain on mud.' 1 .An TrishmnTi described hi? rn^gwl font im " !7e-h ah-, fur rlie iiiuf-t pair." A ni.iu <i: I groit liteiary requirements is " one who borrows bo'jkb and never id urno them." Lougf ellow describes a certain Sir Oracle thus ;

I " He seemed the incarnate ' Well, I told you so.' " The dinner-table of a stingy person was described as "having very little meat J and a good deal of table oloth." Douglas Jerrold defined dogmatism as " puppyism come to maturity.' The height of impudence is defined to be the calling dp of one doctor to Ifearn the address Of another. " A virgin forest, ' said an Irishman, His one' where the hand of man has never set foot." A jury is " a body of men organised to find out which side has the smartest lawyer." A bald-headed man is a man who is barefooted on the frown. A bachelor is "a trirgefc for j», miso." Law has been called " justice in fetters." Duat ifl " mud with the juice squeezed out." A Pharisee is "a tradesman who uses long prayers and short weights." Scandal is " that which one half of the world takes pleasure in inventing and the other half in believing." Anxiety is '' fear spread oUt thin." The sensational fcb'vsl Is 1( a romance in hysterics." Frenziy is " ill-bred anger." Innocence in " virtue without knowing it." Prodigy is "every mother's first baby." "I" is " the domestic divinity at whose shrine we all worship."