Vocabularian

The use of strong drink gives to our English tongue the following verbs:—tipple, tope, booze, swill, guzzle, carouse, liquor, fuddle, drink, soak, sot, swig, inebriate, intoxicate, fuzzle, temulate, and to be intemperate, anti-teetotal, compotative, &c. Compare this plentifulness of vocabularian distinctions, reaching from the first tremulous overpush of the balance of the faculties in fresh to their complete obliteration in dead-drunk, with the scanty replenishment of phrases supplied for use on the opposite side of temperance. We have, it is true, moderate as a sort of see-saw go-between, temperate, somewhat in advance of that, and sober, abstinent, teectotal, very proper terms indeed; […]

Had you ever noticed that fashions in words are just as changeable as fashions in wearing apparel? For a time the intellectuals will seize madly upon a word, use it until it is threadbare and then toss it into the vocabularian ragbag.

Certainly the redoubtable Miss Samuels, who taught me at Marryatville Primary School in Adelaide, had just such an objection to “got” – and to “get” for that matter – and would strike it out and insist on its replacement with another verb. Similarly, but more understandably, she would demand substitutes for the adjective “nice”, in her view another example of vocabularian laziness.

You might have one of these prodigious vocabularians in your house.

Indeed so inventive have been baseball's vocabularians, as Paul Dickson's dictionary indicated, this type of baseball humor shows no sign of slowing down.