H.L. Mencken did not hide his dislike of President Warren G. Harding. He especially loathed Harding’s mangling of the English language and called such utterings “Gamalielese”, in honor of the President’s middle name, Gamaliel.
Expressing his frustration in The Baltimore Sun on March 7, 1921, Mencken let loose: “He writes the worst English that I have ever encountered. It reminds me of a string of wet sponges; it reminds me of tattered washing on the line; it reminds me of stale bean soup, of college yells, of dogs barking idiotically through endless nights. It is so bad that a sort of grandeur creeps into it. It drags itself out of the dark abysm (I was about to write “abscess”) of pish, and crawls insanely up the topmost pinnacle of posh. It is rumble and bumble. It is flap and doodle. It is balder and dash. But I grow lyrical. More scientifically, what is the matter with it? Why does it seem so flabby, so banal, so confused and childish, so stupidly at war with sense?”
You may also enjoy…
Harsh Movie Reviews from the Poison Pens of Movie Critics
Depending on your point of view, movie critics have the best or the worst job imaginable. They get paid to sit around and watch movies all day. That may seem like a cushy job, until you realize that they have to watch all the bad movies, as well as the good ones. When a movie…
H.L. Mencken: Betting on the Intelligence (or Lack Thereof) of the Masses
“No one in this world, so far as I know — and I have searched the records for years, and employed agents to help me — has ever lost money by underestimating the intelligence of the great masses of the plain people.” — H.L. Mencken
No Horsing Around For Harding’s Church Attendance
President Warren G. Harding enjoyed going horseback riding on Sunday mornings. At the insistence of First Lady Florence Harding, the president had to be back in time to go to church with her. It was up to his Secret Service agent, Col. Edmund Starling, to make sure the reluctant church-goer did not disappoint his wife.…
Leave a Reply