The daily morning journal and courier., 1907-05-14
PECULIARITIES IN NAMES AND PERSONAL TRAITS Idiosyncrasies in Attire of Many Noted
 Persons. SOME ODD COGNOMENS New Slang Phrases Trying to Get Into Our
 Language.
SOME ODD COGNoMENs

How far idiosyncrasies in attire and mental characteristics are indicative of the real man is an open question. Per- haps fixed habits are the most signif- cant manifestations of mental makeup. The witnesses who, when interrogated in court as to how he would character ize the falling of a man from window said, An accident" and when further asked what he would term it if it hap pened twice, said, "A coincidence, and when the inquiry was pursued as to what he would say if it happened the third time said, "A habit appears to have arrived at pretty clear designa- ton of the growth of habits. But if the elinging to old style fashions long after their popular use had passed, as shown by the adherence of some men of a former generation to the shad-bel- lied coat with brass buttons and trous- CTS old fashioned in style long after the majority of men had adopted more modern garb, was simply clinging to the past in aversion to change, so ad- herence to single style of hat, despite the changes of fashion, and to boots long after shoes became the general footgear, may be regarded as evidence of the rigidity of habit.
 While there have been several men in the past who abandoned the use of head coverings, and were known as shatless philosophers" at differen times in the last century, no one lays claim to that title now, although the fashion of securing exercise in the open air with bare heads is not unpopular among young people of the present day.
 No one sees such figures as the Count Joannes," or "Gentleman George" resplendent in the attire of bygone day, in the crowded streets of New York to-day, although long-haired men with cowboy hats occasionally are to be seen, and failure to cut short flowing locks is regarded in some quar- ters as a distinctive s'gn of genius.
 Idiosyncrasies in regard to personal names are among the most striking of / modern variations from the normal. There was an enthusiastic spelling re- former who at one time changed his patronymic of Dewey to Dul, but the effect produced was more than he could find enjoyable, and he soon re- turned to the former and accepted spelling. The Rev. Dr. Henry van Dyke has recurred to the lower case .'y'' for the van of his name, used by his ancestors when they first came from the land of dikes and ditches, al- though his father and grandfather had written the name Van Dyke, but he did not recur to the Dix of the same oldtime ancestor. Judge D-Cady Her rick indicates by the hyphen between the first letter of his name and the first word that the D is not an abbreviation of any initial name, but that he was christened "D-Cady." Professor w J McGee, of the Geological Survey at Washington, is known as "No Point" McGee by his practice of writing his name without periods after the letters wv J,' which stand for no words, but are simply his full name.
 There have been cases of men who carried their personal eccentricities so far that they would not use capital let ters in writing or printing such words as God or Bible, for which custom has sanctioned capitalization, but a few years ago newspaper editor carried his dislike for a clergyman so far that he invariably printed his name with the lower case letter instead of capi- tal
 Senator, McCarren in a recent speech on the police bill at Albany used the fIa, Fat oc fha 10 nf mote.n The effort to introduce this into the language has not met with the success that its promoters desired. It is characterized in the Standard dic- tlonary as focal United States" the meaning being given; ITO reduce to a lower class or grade; applied to school children and opposed to promote Qe- iected by committee on new words). Dr, Edward Everett Hale wrote: Re garding an antithesis to promote the word universally in use at Cambridge and in Harvard college is drop The same word is in use in the leading schools here in Boston. 1 hope l may be counted every time against such barbarisms as denote and retro motel" Senator Wilson, of Iowa, sta ted that the use of the word 'demote" was general in the schools of his state.
 A like effort has been made in some newspaper offices to introduce the word .ensmall'' as the opposite of "enlarge."
 The word "teetotal" was an effort to make more emphatic the word total when 1t was applied to abstinence from the use of intoxicating liquors. like instance of the reduplication of a word is that of "kibosh,' which was evil dently at first an effort to make more emphatic the word "bosh," expressing what is utterly useless, But "Nbosh' has grown by it's slang use until now to put the 'kibosh' on him" means to defeat or to make powerless. How far this is idiosyncratic is matter for contemplation.
 The use of the word "diverb," not as the antithesis of "proverb,' but to de- signate an antithetical proverb, was once attempted in English, but the word is rare one. Burton in his Anatomy of Melancholy" uses it as follows England is a paradise for women, hell for horses; Italy, a paradise for horses, a hell for women, as the diverb goes"
 In the language of the baseball field left~handed pitcher is called 'south-paw." A reader who happened to see the expression in a headline sought to discover it's source. The baseball sharps could tell nothing of it save that it was in common use, but