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Home  »  The American Language  »  Page 196

H.L. Mencken (1880–1956). The American Language. 1921.

Page 196

 
Chipeco thermos dioxygen, temco sonora tuxedo
Resinol fiat bacardi, camera ansco wheatena;
Antiskid pebeco calox, oleo tyco barometer
Postum nabisco!
Prestolite arco congoleum, karo aluminum kryptok,
Crisco balopticon lysol, jello bellans, carborundum!
Ampico clysmic swoboda, pantasote necco britannica
Encyclopædia?
  One of the words here used is not American, but Italian, i. e., fiat, a blend made of the initials of Fabbrica Italiano Automobili Torino; most of the others are quite familiar to all Americans. “But only a few of them,” says Dr. Matthews, “would evoke recognition from an Englishman; and what a Frenchman or a German would make out of the eight lines it is beyond human power even to guess. Corresponding words have been devised in France and in Germany, but only infrequently; and apparently the invention of trade-mark names is not a customary procedure on the part of foreign advertisers. The British, although less affluent in this respect than we are, seem to be a little more inclined to employ the device than their competitors on the continent. Every American, traveling on the railways which converge upon London, must have experienced a difficulty in discovering whether the station at which his train has paused is Stoke Pogis or Bovril, Chipping Norton or Mazzawattee. None the less it is safe to say that the concoction of a similar ode by the aid of the trade-mark words invented in the British Isles would be a task of great difficulty on account of the paucity of terms sufficiently artificial to bestow the exotic remoteness which is accountable for the aroma of the American ‘ode’.”   Of analogous character are artificial words of the scalawag and rambunctious class, the formation of which constantly goes on. Some of them are telescope forms: grandificent (from grand and magnificent), sodalicious (from soda and delicious) and warphan (age) (from war and orphan [age]). Others are made up of common roots and grotesque affixes: swelldoodle, splendiferous and peacharino. Yet others are stretch forms or mere extravagant inventions: scallywampus, supergobsloptious and floozy. 74 Many of