The Bennington banner. [volume] (Bennington, Vt.) 1858-1894, 1892-01-29
WHAT "AMERICANIZED" MEANS
"A NEW VERB.

Inere is a traOll IN u When the tanpn
Omar doomed the or, at Alexandrian library to
destruction be wnited up n by deputation
If scholars, v no hesou, ht him o spare that vast
and spl. mid collec ion of books. But tn Com
mand' of the Faithful WAS not TO he movef tr m
his purpose. If" said he "thpse books contain
anything more than is written in the Koran they
are pernic'ous, and if they contain no more than
's written in the X ran they arr superfuous In
either case let them be de, troyed
1t must have been in a similar spirit of grim
humor that the purv~yors of the fr'ca, seed
"Encyclopeda Britannica" devoted themselves
to The task of choppns up the twenty five big
quoro volumes of which the famous 9th E in
burgh edition consi-t.d, and serving up the
pie es in hybrid literary gravy of their ,wn
decocton in ten shabby little volumes Like the
Calph Omar, they were evidently determined
upon destroying it
As an exquisitely comic Il conceit one cannot
but admire the highly iaceri,us ann, uncement
that by cutting out IS of every 100 pages of a
great standard work and throwing lh.m aw,y,
the 25 per cent 'fit that has e.caped in the dis
enboweng process is a superb "Ame. icar lied
edition
To keep the title "Encycloredia tannica" on
the that enclose Il es- sacr feed rem ans
of The gr' Attest literary NO k of the agr was Ger
tainl, master stroke Of humor But the Joke
does not stop here. The publishers even Tont
with pride to the ten pigmy lnmes containing
the fragments of the famous Britannica hat were
spared hy the but hers whom they employed to
edit it with meat axes, and derlare with - err
faces that "for the practical purposes Of every
day use, this Anne icanized edition is sirrerlor
than the original Edinburgh edi iou."
That TO say. 10 small vo' umeS are better than
25 large ones; quarter of a oaf is better than
whole one dividend Of % cents on the dollar,
paid in copper pennies at that, is hetter than pay
ment in fill in gold coin OF standard weight and
fineness; all Of which PROPOSE ions are eminently
amu'ing. The laughable audacties OF adverts-
ing have been many, but We think this apnropria
ton Of the title Encyclopedia Britannica for
the purpose Of selling to the unwary little
hean Of debris raked from the ruins of that tch-
less work beats the record
Labelling the diSjec membrd Of the pritannica
as the "Amtricanlzed edition" was a GROWING
hit Of comedy. The verb ''to Amer canize',
hereby gains a new and lasting meaning. Here
after any hing that is smashed into smithPreers,
ground into nince meat, disfgnred beyond rec
ognition, or puverized into little bits may DO
spoken OF as "AmercRnized." Mr.. Russell Sage,
for example, had narrow escape from beng
"Americanzed" the other day. As only his head
and few OF his bores remained to IDENTITY Nor
cross, that dnmpntpd youth may be said to have
b. en- as successfully 'AmericanHad" ~ the 10
volume "fake" britannica itself Mr. Cyrus
Fiell's large fortune having been reduced to the
vanishing point, NAV properly be referred "a as
"Americon zed " The grain crops OF Eurore,
which shrunk this year about one fourth Of Il cir
usual size. furnish another example of what It
ms to be American zed" on The ten small for
TWENTY-FIVE large-voumes plan.
II cannot BIZ de, led that viewed as a work Of
excelsior and reduction, the Encyclop. dia Bri.
tannica" has been very eff, c ually "American-
zrd." 1t has been literally torn limb from limb,
and nothing left gift to identify it except its title
page and here and the the splinters an shay
ings of some of its l, aiding articles Its tie most
unique bit OF literary bomb thu owing ever t1e-
cured. The explosion has carried away all The
marginal references and sub topics of the origi-
nal work, annihila ed he Index blown out hun
dreds of illustrations. maps, p'a'es, voodcuts,
and diagrams, and played havoc with all the i'm
portant srtir es, alike ON America and foreign
Suhje' is Especially complete is til week made
Of III" American census Of sta is les of 1890. The
correct figures Of tho population Of our States,
cities and towns al missing in almo every in
stance
To take q ''r d lrd work of n IS peer S. char.
| acter. which is conceded 10 c without ri al IN
the world, rdit it with nro.g ycerine in tn ruth
less way, tearing it, head from its Ondy and then
| pres-n ing its torn and lscrratpd remains AS
'suprri rAmeri:anized edtinn"I> about the most
| KhAsty practical juke AZ has ever been lay ed
on the reading public of thi- country.
The Reader WHO is b-guIlcd i,ho bu ying a cory
of'hese Ere mains" Of the < aud Bri annica will,
after he has pat unity aud painfully searched it
through for points o. resemb aucr 10 its great or
ignal, be able to enjoy The point the story Mr..
Sam Weller told MIR P.ckw.cG about he mySteI-
ious disappearar Of the prophet tor OF "te cele
hrated sage factory" lie the invent of
80 patent neve, eaving-off sRssage steamer gne
Us I'D swall,r up pawn stone and grind it INTO
sassages US easy as if It was tender y uuR
babby." One { ay he diSappt AIRED aud never mo, 9
was seen, His late WAS never su pecl ed, uutl a
patron Of the "saSsage irctUry" walked IN NJ
cOmplaint d Of finding tn nty or thirty halves Of
truuser-bultuns in his ''sassages." His widow,
said Mr. Weller. examined these subsItnreS toI
sausage meat carefully. and then exclaimed: II
See it u; m a fit OF temporary in-auiry lie ashy
cUnVWlted his self into sasssg-s."
The unh ppy persou upon WHOM copy Of III,
"Americanzrd" Britannica is I'm oad-d wi l.. fter
YEARLY wading through it's pagts Il enough
bits OF broken buttons chopped III the clio hing Of
tn" giant Encyclopedia to rnah.e him % say, with
Mr. Wele,'s widow: ri see it all: IN Il. Of TEN
porary insanity have bought a Britain lea that
has brenc nyei ted iuto sas ases"-FSopl The Bos
ton Globe, December IS
The Boston Globe offers the Com