A Dictionary of Cont..

own worst enemy. To say of someone that he is
his own worst enemy, meaning that he does
himself more harm than anyone else does him,
that, indeed, most others are well disposed
towards him but that some unfortunate trait of
character, such as drunkenness, stands in his
way, is to employ a cliche.
ox. The plural is oxen. Very few Americans use
the word ox except to call some one a dumb ox.
Two such people would probably be c,alled
dumb oxes, and not dumb oxen. And where the
animals themselves are actually used the plural
axes is often heard. Oxes is considered uneducated,
but it is possible that it is used more than
the literary oxen.
When ox is the second element in a compound
the plural is ox, as in three musk O.K.
oxymoron is a rhetorical term for a figure of
speech which produces an effect by seeming
pack. This verb may be followed by an adjective
describing what is packed, as in the place was
packed tight, or by an adverb describing the
packing, as in she packed it tightly. As a rule
there is no difference in meaning between these
two constructions.
pack; packer; packing; package. Pack as a verb
meaning to prepare food for preservation seems
to be one of those words which survived in
America but dropped out of English speech.
It was used in this sense in England as early as
1494 and has been so used in America since
colonial times but is not now so used in England.
As a noun meaning the quantity of anything, as
food, packed or put up at one time or in one
season, pack is standard in America (The salmon
pack in 1952 was surprisingly large) and acceptable
in England.
Pucker in America has the specialized meaning
of one whose business is packing food,
especially meat, for the market. This meaning
was known in England up until the last century
but seems to have fallen into disuse there
except, as a sort of borrowing, in reference to
the American packers. The term in America is
particularly applied to the heads of the great
meat-packing businesses (The great packersthe
Swifts, the Armours, the Wilsons-built
gothic castles beside the lake). Packing is the
American term to describe the preparing and
packaging of foodstuffs. This meaning is known
in England but, again, it is now used there chiefly
in reference to the American industry and its
processes.
The noun package is in America equivalent to
the British terms packet and parcel; it describes a
bundle of things packed and wrapped (He came
347 pagan
P
contradiction. In general it brings together two
words which would appear to be opposed to
each other but which in the context of their
juxtaposition have a pointed meaning. Thus
the King of France, in King Lear, describes
Cordelia, after her father has disowned her, as
this unpriz’d precious maid. Common oxymorons
are the proverbial injunction to the rash
to make haste slowly and the sentimental sympathy
for the poor little rich girl that the
tabloids expend on unhappy heiresses.
ozone. The use of ozone for clear, invigorating,
fresh air (Among the pines, away from the
haunts of men, he breathed deep of God’s ozone
and felt himself a better mun) is a vulgar elegancy.
It is also an error. Although ozone is a
form of oxygen, it does not possess oxygen’s
invigorating power; in anything but minute
quantities it is poisonous.
home from the store with a large package under
his arm). In America a packet is a small package
or bundle. A parcel is that which when wrapped
up forms a single, small bundle (parcel post).
pact; compact. In the sense of an agreement, pact
and compact are practically synonymous. A compact
is a pact, an agreement between parties, a
covenant, a contract. Some English authorities
maintain that as a rule pnct is used for an agreement
between nations or large bodies of people
(North Atlantic Pact) and compact for an arrangement
between private persons (The brothers
acted together as if by compact), and this
may be the present tendency in English usage,
though it is not supported by the Oxford English
Dictionary. But in America pact may be used
for an arrangement between private persons (I
make a pact with you, Walt Whitman-Ezra
Pound) and compact for an agreement between
nations or large groups (The Federal constitution
has been styled a compact between the
States . . .-Wharton).
In America there is little distinction between
the words, although pact for this sense is more
frequently used.
paddle. The normal sense of the transitive verb to
paddle is to propel, as a canoe, with a paddle.
This sense has begotten, in America at least, a
figurative slang term paddle your own canoe,
meaning “mind your own business.” Since a
short paddle is used sometimes on young children
and pledges of high-school and college
secret societies, the verb is also used colloquially
in America to mean to beat with or as with a
paddle, to spank (If you don’t keep quiet and go
to sleep, 1’11 paddle you).
pagan. See agnostic.