The Foolish Dictionary Part 27

=WAR= A wholesale means of making heroes which, if planned in a small way, would produce only murderers.

=WATER= A thin substance applied to stocks with which to soak buyers.

=WEDDING= A trade in which the bride is generally given away, and the groom is often sold.

=WEEDS= Found in gardens and widows. For removing easily, marry the widow.

=WICKEDNESS= A myth invented by good people to account for the singular attractiveness of others.

=WIDOW= The wife of a golfer during the open season, unless she golfs, too. In that event the children are golf orphans.

=WHISKY= Trouble put up in liquid form.

=WIND= An aerial phenomenon, superinduced by an ephemeral agitation of the nebular strata, whereby air, (hot or cold), impelled into transitory activity, generates a prolonged pa.s.sage through s.p.a.ce, owing to certain occult ethereal stimuli, and results in zephyrs, breezes, blows, blow-outs, blizzards, gales, simoons, hurricanes, tornadoes or typhoons.

Barred from Kansas Cyclone-cellars but frequently blended with Chicago tongue--canned or conversational.

=WOMAN= An aspiring creature whose political sphere is still slightly flattened at the polls.

=WORD= Something you must keep after giving it to another.

=WORRY= A state of mind that leads some persons to fear, every time the tide goes out, that it won't come in again.

=WRINKLES= A merchant's trade-marks.

It's the first straw hat which shows how the wind blows.

X Y Z

A Ride goeth before a Fall.-- See Automobile, Bucking Broncho, Bicycle, Air-s.h.i.+p, Patrol-Wagon, Rail, and Go-Cart.

=X RAYS=

[Ill.u.s.tration]

Ten dollars from a friend.

=YARN= An essential in fabrication--either woven or narrated. Mill yarns are highly colored; those spun at sea much more so.

=YAWL= Either the shape of a boat or the sound of a cat, but never a cat-boat.

=YAWNS= The air-breaks on a sleeper.

=YEAR= A period originally including 365 days, now 325, since the other 40 are Lent.

=YELLOW FEVER= A pa.s.sion for reading the Hearst newspapers.

=YOLK= The legacy of the hen and the burden of its lay.

=YOKE= The inheritance of the hen-pecked and the burden of the married.

=YULE-LOG= A Christmas protege of the grate, too young to smoke, too tough to burn and too green to warm up to anybody.