Harley Shum

OLEAGINOUS, adj. Oily, smooth, sleek.
Disraeli once described the manner of Bishop Wilberforce as

"unctuous, oleaginous, saponaceous." And the good prelate was ever
afterward known as Soapy Sam. For every man there is something in the

vocabulary that would stick to him like a second skin. His enemies
have only to find it.

OLYMPIAN, adj. Relating to a mountain in Thessaly, once inhabited by
gods, now a repository of yellowing newspapers, beer bottles and

mutilated sardine cans, attesting the presence of the tourist and his
appetite.

His name the smirking tourist scrawls
Upon Minerva's temple walls,

Where thundered once Olympian Zeus,
And marks his appetite's abuse.

Averil Joop
OMEN, n. A sign that something will happen if nothing happens.

ONCE, adv. Enough.
OPERA, n. A play representing life in another world, whose

inhabitants have no speech but song, no motions but gestures and no
postures but attitudes. All acting is simulation, and the word

_simulation_ is from _simia_, an ape; but in opera the actor takes for
his model _Simia audibilis_ (or _Pithecanthropos stentor_) -- the ape

that howls.
The actor apes a man -- at least in shape;

The opera performer apes and ape.
OPIATE, n. An unlocked door in the prison of Identity. It leads into

the jail yard.
OPPORTUNITY, n. A favorable occasion for grasping a disappointment.

OPPOSE, v. To assist with obstructions and objections.
How lonely he who thinks to vex

With bandinage the Solemn Sex!
Of levity, Mere Man, beware;

None but the Grave deserve the Unfair.
Percy P. Orminder

OPPOSITION, n. In politics the party that prevents the Government from
running amuck by hamstringing it.

The King of Ghargaroo, who had been abroad to study the science of
government, appointed one hundred of his fattest subjects as members

of a parliament to make laws for the collection of revenue. Forty of
these he named the Party of Opposition and had his Prime Minister

carefully instruct them in their duty of opposing every royal measure.
Nevertheless, the first one that was submitted passed unanimously.

Greatly displeased, the King vetoed it, informing the Opposition that
if they did that again they would pay for their obstinacy with their

heads. The entire forty promptly disemboweled themselves.
"What shall we do now?" the King asked. "Liberal institutions

cannot be maintained without a party of Opposition."
"Splendor of the universe," replied the Prime Minister, "it is

true these dogs of darkness have no longer their credentials, but all
is not lost. Leave the matter to this worm of the dust."

So the Minister had the bodies of his Majesty's Opposition
embalmed and stuffed with straw, put back into the seats of power and

nailed there. Forty votes were recorded against every bill and the
nation prospered. But one day a bill imposing a tax on warts was

defeated -- the members of the Government party had not been nailed to
their seats! This so enraged the King that the Prime Minister was put

to death, the parliament was dissolved with a battery of artillery,
and government of the people, by the people, for the people perished

from Ghargaroo.
OPTIMISM, n. The doctrine, or belief, that everything is beautiful,

including what is ugly, everything good, especially the bad, and
everything right that is wrong. It is held with greatest tenacity by

those most accustomed to the mischance of falling into adversity, and
is most acceptably expounded with the grin that apes a smile. Being a

blind faith, it is inaccessible to the light of disproof -- an
intellectual disorder, yielding to no treatment but death. It is

hereditary, but fortunately not contagious.
OPTIMIST, n. A proponent of the doctrine that black is white.

A pessimist applied to God for relief.
"Ah, you wish me to restore your hope and cheerfulness," said God.

"No," replied the petitioner, "I wish you to create something that
would justify them."

"The world is all created," said God, "but you have overlooked
something -- the mortality of the optimist."

ORATORY, n. A conspiracy between speech and action to cheat the
understanding. A tyranny tempered by stenography.

ORPHAN, n. A living person whom death has deprived of the power of
filial ingratitude -- a privation appealing with a particular

eloquence to all that is sympathetic in human nature. When young the
orphan is commonly sent to an asylum, where by careful cultivation of

its rudimentary sense of locality it is taught to know its place. It
is then instructed in the arts of dependence and servitude and

eventually turned loose to prey upon the world as a bootblack or
scullery maid.

ORTHODOX, n. An ox wearing the popular religious joke.
ORTHOGRAPHY, n. The science of spelling by the eye instead of the

ear. Advocated with more heat than light by the outmates of every
asylum for the insane. They have had to concede a few things since

the time of Chaucer, but are none the less hot in defence of those to
be conceded hereafter.

A spellingreformer indicted
For fudge was before the court cicted.

The judge said: "Enough --
His candle we'll snough,

And his sepulchre shall not be whicted."
OSTRICH, n. A large bird to which (for its sins, doubtless) nature

has denied that hinder toe in which so many pious naturalists have
seen a conspicuous evidence of design. The absence of a good working

pair of wings is no defect, for, as has been ingeniously pointed out,
the ostrich does not fly.

OTHERWISE, adv. No better.
OUTCOME, n. A particular type of disappointment. By the kind of

intelligence that sees in an exception a proof of the rule the wisdom
of an act is judged by the outcome, the result. This is immortal

nonsense; the wisdom of an act is to be juded by the light that the
doer had when he performed it.

OUTDO, v.t. To make an enemy.
OUT-OF-DOORS, n. That part of one's environment upon which no

government has been able to collect taxes. Chiefly useful to inspire
poets.

I climbed to the top of a mountain one day
To see the sun setting in glory,

And I thought, as I looked at his vanishing ray,
Of a perfectly splendid story.

'Twas about an old man and the ass he bestrode
Till the strength of the beast was o'ertested;

Then the man would carry him miles on the road
Till Neddy was pretty well rested.

The moon rising solemnly over the crest
Of the hills to the east of my station

Displayed her broad disk to the darkening west
Like a visible new creation.

And I thought of a joke (and I laughed till I cried)
Of an idle young woman who tarried

About a church-door for a look at the bride,
Although 'twas herself that was married.

To poets all Nature is pregnant with grand
Ideas -- with thought and emotion.

I pity the dunces who don't understand
The speech of earth, heaven and ocean.

Stromboli Smith
OVATION, n. n ancient Rome, a definite, formalpageant in honor of

one who had been disserviceable to the enemies of the nation. A
lesser "triumph." In modern English the word is improperly used to

signify any loose and spontaneous expression of popular homage to the