Mickey Bach

New Words for a New Year!

gasp652 Comments

« I find vocabulary to be a great drawback. » — Elizabeth Taylor

I think most of us will concur — sorry, Liz — that a rich vocabulary is a useful asset on multiple levels. And in riding with that particular train of thought, if a new year brings new goals and resolutions to achieve them, what could be more judicious and feasible than picking up a handful of new words… and their proper meaning?

Cartoonist Mickey Bach (1909-1994) made it his mission to help the newspaper-reading masses bone up on unusual vocables. While he’s never ranked among the cartooning greats, the premise of his feature, Word-a-Day, was a rock-solid one, granting the panel a healthy run from 1946 to 1979, first with the Publishers Syndicate until 1967, when it merged with the Hall Syndicate*.

It’s also worth noting that, for a feature that’s been officially defunct for some forty-five years, it’s a pretty lively one: an admirably devoted and industrious fan has kept the Word-a-Day flame alive with the Word A Day Revisited Index. Kudos!

As far as I can tell, there was only one Word-a-Day collection published, but it was a successful one. First published by Scholastic Book Services in 1965 and comprising selections from 1960 to 1963, it received at least four printings through 1972, this being the fourth, from April of that year.

Let’s see what lies within, shall we?

Part of the nostalgic fun in these images is their reliable repertory company of cartooning archetypes such as sandwich men, hobos, boxers, cranky bosses, talent agents, bearskin rugs, door-to-door salesmen, masked burglars, beret-sporting artistes…
Ah, yes: that nagging feeling that we, as a society, are somehow regressing rather than progressing.
Bach had a somewhat generic, but pleasant and competent cartoon style, wherein I detect the great Bill Holman as a principal influence. Bach clearly was a man of discernment.

Don’t be that boorish chump: here’s a handy guide to tipping étiquette from no less an authority than Emily Post (not to be confused with Emily Ghost).
This one’s a particular favourite of mine, having had to correct its misuse time and again; apparently, some people have surmised (without checking, naturally) that ‘fulsome’ means, ‘full’, only more so and in a fancier way. No, guys, ‘a fulsome investigation will be conducted‘ does not signify what you think it does.
Derived from the French ‘Gasconnade’, which refers pejoratively to the speech of denizens of the Gascony region. « Speaking with the Gascon accent, which is to say accentuating silent ‘e’s, and letting ring out several final consonants that the French leave silent. »
I find this one particularly clever.
This one’s considered archaic nowadays — when it is considered at all — though its close relative, insipid, endures. Not to be confused with its homophone, incipience, which refers to the beginning of something.

Sadly, Gorilla will likely pound the erudition out of that unfortunate pugilist.
Here’s a sentiment most reasonable the world over are currently experiencing, to their chagrin.

« There could be no jealousy/over my poetry/it’s my weakest quality/no vocabulary » — Todd Rundgren, Chapter and Verse

From both of us at WOT?, thanks for your continued support and interest, and may the coming year bring you as little as possible of what you’re dreading.

-RG

* It’s actually considerably more complex: « In 1963 Chicago-based Field Enterprises and New York Herald Tribune publisher John Hay Whitney acquired Publishers Syndicate, merging syndication operations with Field’s Chicago Sun-Times Syndicate, the New York Herald Tribune Syndicate, and the syndicate of the Chicago Daily News (a newspaper that had been acquired by Field Enterprises in 1959). When the New York Herald Tribune folded in 1966, Publishers inherited their strips, including Johnny Hart‘s B.C., Mell Lazarus‘ Miss Peach, and Harry Haenigsen‘s Penny.

In 1967, Field Enterprises acquired Robert M. Hall‘s New York-based Hall Syndicate, merging it with Publishers to form the Publishers-Hall Syndicate. » Phew.