Mencken’s Vocabulary

The indomitable Russell Baker, in a review of Prejudices, a collection of H. L. Mencken’s journalism, lists 17 words that sent him scurrying to Webster’s Unabridged, before he gave up for fear of wearing out the dictionary.  How many of these words, which seem to flow naturally from Mencken’s typewriter, would you have to look up?

            Confutation, Fantee, Usufructs, Punctilio,   

            Bedizenments, Laparatomy, Enharmonic, 

            Endoneurium, Corpora quadrigemina, 
            Hypertmetropic, Mariolatry, Haruspices, 
            Oedematous, Gerousia, Hunkerous,

            Socianism, Struthious

Mencken, who said he wrote just to find out what he was thinking, lacked a college education, but dipped extensively into American and British literature on his own. His writing is characterized by a florid use of long words, based on his belief that the joy of reading (as he said of Chaucer) comes out of the mere “burble of the words,” not their meaning.

To save you the trouble of looking up the seventeen words—many of which you won’t find in a standard desk dictionary—here’s a capsule definition of each:

Confutation – overwhelming rebuttal

Fantee – a tribe and language of the African Gold Coast

Usufructs – rights to use the property of another

Punctilio – a minute detail of a code of conduct  

Bedizenments – gaudy adornments

Laparatomy – abdominal incision

Enharmonic -  describing musical notes that are written 
       differently but sound the same, e.g. A-flat and G-sharp

Endoneurium – connective nerve tissue

Corpora quadrigemina – parts of the brain

Hypermetropic – farsighted 

Marioloatry – idolization of the Virgin Mary

Haruspices – Roman soothsayers

Oedematous – swollen by fluid accumulation

Gerousia – council of elders 

Hunkerous – opposed to progress 

Socinianism – a sixteenth-century Christian heresy

Struthious – pertaining to ostriches and similar birds

The Bard of Buffalo Bayou uses a number of words you would probably have to look up – but you wouldn’t find them, at least not in any self-respecting dictionary.

            Tending to use a very long word

            Is known as sesquipedalian.

            And when such a word is occasionally heard,

            Chances are it’s said by an alien.