What Ro, therefore, attempts so ambitiously, I do in a more humble spirit, contenting myself with the manufacture of words to explain some of the more subtle relationships and exigencies of civilized life. I confess the work is, to a great extent, subjective and personal. I have but ministered to my own direst needs.
So contriving, choosing my words from some vague sense of color, mood, an instinctive feeling of appropriateness, I trust that I have not made my method monotonous. I must confess, however, that in my experimentation, certain sounds appealed more strongly than others to my comic spirit. The frequent use of the “oo” will perhaps require an apology, and the almost equally merry “aw.” The other “long” vowels, such as “ee” and “ay” and “o” seemed inadequate to my use. Of consonants, my “G” is, no doubt, most frequent. “G” supplies spuzz to a word that can hardly be obtained elsewhere in the alphabet. “K” also has a bite, but it is frequently too suggestive for our delicate susceptibilities. “L”—what could one do in such a work, without the gentle liquid that euphonizes the most savage of consonants! Also I confess having fallen in love with the anapest.
And yet, many of these words will not, at first sound, seem appropriate. Let me remind you of Mr. Oliver Herford’s not too original discovery (most children make it earlier), than any word, when often repeated, becomes strange and barbaric, even as his favorite “looking-glass” after being pronounced several times, grows marvellously beautiful and romantic.
So, as a corollary to this principle, you will, I hope, find that even my fierce and uncouth syllables may, when iterated, grow less unusual, strangely familiar, even; and, little by little, as their sharp corners and edges are worn smooth by use, they will fit into your conversation and nestle into place, making your talk firmer, more expressive and wonderfully adequate to your daily needs.
When vorianders seek to huzzlecoo,
When jurpid splooch or vilpous drillig bores,
When cowcats kipe, or moobles wog, or you
Machizzled are by yowfs or xenogores,
Remember Burgess Unabridged, and think,
How quisty is his culpid yod and yab!
No fidgeltick, with goigsome iobink,
No varmic orobaldity—his gab!
No more tintiddling slubs, like fidgelticks,
Rizgidgeting your speech, shall lallify;
But your jujasm, like vorgid gollohix,
Shall all your woxy meem golobrify!
Gelett Burgess.
BURGESS ABRIDGED:
100 CHOICE SELECTIONS