Wit in Ambiguity. 
43 
mark dropped the letter c in spelling his name and it made no 
difference. But Cass could not afford to part with that letter, 
and his enemies said in a rhyme that 
Future generations would agree 
To spell his name without a C. 
Playing on the fourfold ambiguities of a couple of syllables 
an actor won applause. He said: 
Like a grate full of coals I burn 
A great full house to see, 
And if I be not grateful too, 
A great fool I shall be. 
New words are constantly issuing from the mint of wit and 
pass current as its small change. 
When a man had anecdotes on the brain he was told; non-age 
and dotage you cannot shun, anecdotage you can. • 
Heresiarchs w~ere denounced as troubling the church, and a wit 
said, "Heresiarchs are bad enough, but sAeresiarchs are worse. ” 
District lines on a political map of Massachusetts struck one wit 
as like a salamander. But as they had been drawn by one Gerry, 
another wit styled them gerrymander. 
Wits change a word into another like it yet with a differ¬ 
ence. 
So we hear talk about Bm^adiers, Michiganders, Wiscon sin¬ 
ners^ Bara boobies, and Janes villains. When a president dies 
his vice is not called excellency so often as accidency. The iron¬ 
clad oath of amnesty was pronounced damnasty by not a few 
who took that pill. A vainglorious valedictorian found his 
title transformed into valetudinarian. 
Ambiguous meanings of the same word give occasion for not 
a little verbal wit. 
When a bachelor is urged take a wife he asks, “Whose wife 
shall I take?” 
A conceited man said, "I could write as well as Shakespeare, 
if I had a mind to.” "True,” said a wit, "mind is all you lack.” 
We say we are going to see a friend, and wits say, "Let us go 
with you for we have never seen one, ”—no, not one true friend. 
According to Byron, when Bishop Berkley said there was no 
matter, and proved it, ’twas no matter what he said. 
