Page:The king's English (IA kingsenglish00fowlrich).pdf/185



Certain types of humour—Elegant variation—Inversion—Archaism—Metaphor—Repetition—Miscellaneous.

of the more obvious devices of humorous writers, being fatally easy to imitate, tend to outlive their natural term, and to become a part of the injudicious novice's stock-in-trade. Olfactory organ, once no doubt an agreeable substitute for 'nose', has ceased to be legal tender in literature, and is felt to mark a low level in conversation. No amount of classical authority can redeem a phrase that has once reached this stage. The warmest of George Eliot's admirers, called upon to swallow some tough morsel of polysyllabic humour in a twentieth-century novel, will refuse to be comforted with parallel passages from Adam Bede. Loyalty may smother the ejaculation that 'George Eliot knew no better': it is none the less clear to him that we know better now. A few well-worn types are illustrated below.

a. Polysyllabic humour.