NOW YOU KNOW!

Pelorus Guardian and Miners' Advocate., Volume 30, Issue 23, 22 March 1918, Page 2

NOW YOU KNOW!

What is a kiss ? Well, if you want to discover the meaning of a word, the correct thing to do is to consult a dictionary. But some dictionary definitions border perilously on the ridiculous. Thus in one ponderous tome a “kiss” is defined as “the anatomical juxtaposition of two orbicularis oris muscles in a state of contraction.” A “boil” is “a circumscribed inflammation suppirating with a central core, a furunculus.” (Most people would be content to .call it a dashed nuisance, and have done with it.) Perhaps lexicographer's indulge in all this circumlocution in order to cover up possible blunders. For they have often blundered. Webster, for instance, in his first edition, declared that a “wicketkeeper” was “the player in cricket who stands with a hat to protect the wicket from the ball”! Phillips defines a “gallon” as “a measure containing two quarts.” But the greatest blunder of all, perhaps, was the definition of “crab” as “a little red fish that walks backwards.” The definition may have had its points, but it was open to three objections, as a certain scientist pointed out : in the first place, that the crab is not a fish ; in the second place that it is not red until boiled ; and in the third place, that, in spite of popular belief, it does not walk backward.