BECK N ME: The King’s English

By Jack Crosswell

Samuel Johnson would have approved of the debate at the barn.
The denizens pondered over adding a new word to the English dictionary. Not since 1755 had people shown so much concern. That was when Doc Johnson came up with his version of the English dictionary.
“Two words I know well,” said Beck, my old Missouri mule. “Those words are git up and whoa.”
“Takes more than two words to form a language,” Old Blue Rosenbloom said. “Before Doc Johnson wrote his dictionary, he studied Latin and French. He tried to find the strongest words available. Went all over Scotland, England and Wales.”
“He didn’t come to these mountains,” Coy McRoberts said. “He could have learned some dillies here.”
“Bet I know some strong words he omitted,” said Ratchet Arnold. “If he’d been an automobile mechanic, he could have added more verbs and adjectives.”
Greg Sayers had started the discussion. He read that wordsmiths at Springfield, Mass., were picking new entries for an updated Merriam-Webster Collegiate Dictioniary. “Just because they won the Civil War,” said Greg, “it doesn’t give them the right to force new words on us.”
I got a new word,” Wythe Albert said. “Let’s put it in the dictionary.”
“What word is that?” asked Agnes Groceclose. “I collect discarded nouns.”
“The word is monosation,” Wythe said. “It is the opposite of conversation.”
“I don’t understand,” said Dean Higgins. “I thought I heard everything, me being a bartender.”
“It’s the opposite of conversation,” Wythe said. “A conversation occurs when two or more people are talking. A monosation happens when Paul Brewster talks about his garden. Nobody else can get a word in edgeways. People who take up all the talking time are monosationists. I want the word in the dictionary.”
“I’m tired of people making verbs out of nouns,” said Donna Hoback. “Nobody pastors a church. They serve as pastor.”
Buster Blossom said, “Maybelle, my wife, says James Boswell did good writing about Samuel Johnson. She wishes he was around to write about Wythe and Paul.”
“She’s a big woman,” mumbled No Fenders McGee.