Worcester Democrat and the ledger-enterprise. (Pocomoke City, Md.) 1921-1953, 1937-07-23
~
from the
Democrats Pen
from the

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to me:
"Mr. Chirps, saw a word in your
column recently that I had never
heard of nor seen before, and said
to myself the next time I saw you,
/ was going to ask you what it was"
els that so?" I replied, will GER
tainly be glad to enlighten you. l
should be able to tell you the mean
ing of any word I am rash enough to
use. What was the word?"
"Helluva, and would like to know
what sort of time 'helluva time
is"
In order to understand the old
lady's predicament she divided it into
three syllables, placed the accent on
the second one, and pronounced as if
it were spelled, "hel-loo-va."
Well, now, you know had to do
some fast thinking, because my ques-
toner reads the Bible more closely
than she does any newspaper, and l
didn't just know how I was going to
trace that genealogical specimen to
any Biblical source, so I began to
beat about the bush, as it were.
"I really don't know just how to
explain that to you, so as you could
understand it" I began. "And, per-
haps, shouldn't have used the word
at all. People get into the habit of
using strange and meaningless terms
without being entirely conscious of
what they are doing. Now, I might
say that the term in question is of an
cient derivation and has wide pro-
vincial and other sort of usage. 1t
is frequently used by persons who
are afflicted with a rather limited vo-
cabulary in order to give emphasis
to their speech. There are, of course,
thousands of words in the English Ian
guage which carry equal weight when
great stress is needed to allow indivi
duals an outlet for the fire that burns
within, but nothing seems to come
so quickly to the tongue and do such
satisfactory service as the well-worn
terms used by our forefathers when
they became riled, so to speak,"
l paused here for breath and to see
whether my explanation was sinking
in or not. You know, it's been rather
warm lately; my old friend was sit
ting near a window where pleasant
breeze was tanning her brow. Quiet
ly as I was getting off my spiel" she
had dropped off into doze. l took
this as a special Providence in my
case, and I slipped easily from the
room in heated condition caused not
altogether by the torrid rays of old
Sol. But if anybody else asks me
about that word, I've got man pick
ed out to answer-he does all my
cussin'.
But you know it's one d-arned
thing after another. l had man to
come to me and ask me if l didn't
have sense enough to know that a big
ice storage room, like the one at the
local manufacturing plant, was cool
er than any air-conditioning mechan-
ism could make it, and it was rank
nonsense to suggest such addition to
a cold room as / mentioned.
l up and told him / didn't deal in
any nonsense in this column. If he
called my demand for air-cooling nom
sense, I'd like to know what he
thought of my saying / went down
there to rent room for a cot dur
ing the heated term. Is it any nom
sense to seek for cool place during
such days and nights as we have had?
And if my limited knowledge of scien-
tific mechanical devices should lead
me into making mistakes now and
then, he should come to me in a spirit
of helpfulness, not carping criticism.
He should come and advise me as to
what I should say before it is said;
don't come to charge me with nom
sense.
But so the world goes. There are
always those present who are ready to
disagree prefer it. Disagree
ment with one is supposed to indicate
superior intellect. If 1 agree al
ways with another, that's an acknow-
Judgement he knows as much as l do.
/ must differ in order to establish
mental supremacy. The difficulty is
that ignorance more often than wis
dom is shown in the difference.
Miss CYNTHIA Clendaniel. of New