A Dictionary of Cont..

The shock absorbers at the end of the line in
railroad stations and between railroad cars are
called bumpers in America, buffers in England.
bunch is a connected group or cluster (A bunch of
grapes hung from rhe vine). By a natural extension
it came to mean a group of similar things
(a bunch of keys). Its application to human
beings (A bunch of people gathered at the scene
of the accident) is still considered questionable,
however; and the use of the word as a synonym
for lot (That’s a bunch of baloney) is definitely
wrong.
bundle of nerves. The idea that one is nothing
but a bundle of nerves tied together with ligaments
was, at its conception, an amusing and
effective piece of humorous exaggeration. It has
long since worn out its humor.
burden of proof is the taking over into everyday
life of a special legal term onus probandi
which means the obligation to offer evidence in
support of a contention which will convince a
judge or jury, with the understanding that if the
evidence offered fails to convince, the party will
lose the case. In common use it simply means
the obligation, in an argument, to make out a
case in the affirmative. It is a clicht and should
be used carefully.
bureau. The plural is bureaus or (less often)
bureaux.
As a name for a piece of household furniture,
a bureau in America means a chest of drawers
for holding clothing. There is often a mirror
attached. In England a bureau is a desk or
writing table with drawers for papers, an escritoire.
-burger. The last two syllables of hamburger,
ground steak, or a roll or a bun containing
ground steak, usually with relish or mustard
(and named, presumably, after the city of Hamburg
as frankfurters are named after Frankfurt
and wieners after Vienna or Wien), have become
detached. Almost anything edible that can
be ground up and put between the halves of a
roll may now be designated a -burger: cheeseburgers,
nutburgers, pizzaburgers, oliveburgers
and turtleburgers are all offered to the passing
public. How many of these coinages will remain
in the language no one knows. Cheeseburger,
cheese grilled on top of a meat pattie, is the best
established so far.
burglar. See thief; robber; etc. And see steal; purloin;
pilfer; etc.
burglarize seems a clumsy substitute for the ancient
and honorable term to rob. It is journalistic
and, happily, doesn’t seem to be making much
headway towards standard usage.
burlesque; caricature; parody; travesty; lampoon.
A burlesque is an artistic composition, especially
literary or dramatic, which, for the sake
of laughter, vulgarizes lofty material or treats
ordinary material with mock dignity (And the
sad truth which hovers o’er my desk/Turns whut
was once romantic to burlesque.-Byron).
In America burlesque has a special meaning,
one probably much better known to the masses
than its older meaning: a theatrical entertain-
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ment featuring coarse comedy and dancing. Of
late years strip tease, an exhibition in which a
woman walking to and fro in what is at least
intended to be a voluptuous rhythm, slowly
divests herself of her clothes, down to a g-string,
a small triangle of cloth covering the mans
Veneris, has become so indispensable a part of
all burlesque shows that strip tease and burlesque
are now almost synonymous.
A caricature is a picture, or a description,
ludicrously exaggerating the peculiarities or defects
of a person or a thing (The caricatures of
Mussolini, whatever their intent, flattered him;
for they made him seem more knave than fool).
A parody is a humorous imitation of a serious
piece of literature (Lewis Carroll’s “I Met an
Aged, Aged Man” is a brilliant parody of
Wordsworth’s “Resolution and Independence”).
The word is also applied to burlesque imitations
of musical compositions.
Travesty is closely synonymous to parody. It
is a more serious word, however, implying a
deliberate debasing, often intentional, of which
the speaker disapproves (The Russiun account
of the incident was a travesty). An unfair or
strongly biased court decision is often referred
to as a travesty of justice.
A lampoon is a malicious or virulent satire
upon a person. Parodies, burlesques, and even
caricatures can be good natured, but a lampoon
never is.
bum. The past tense is burned or burnt. The participle
is also burned or burnt.
In the United States burned is the preferred
form for the past tense and the participle but
burnt is also heard, especially when the word
is used before a noun, as in a burnt match. In
Great Britain burnt is the preferred form in all
uses and burned is considered “slightly archaic
and somewhat formal.”
Burn may be followed by an adjective describing
the fire, as in the fire burned red, or
it burned bright. It may also be followed by an
adverb describing the process, as in it burned
quickly.
burn; bum down; bum up. The down and up of
burn down and burn up are intensives. Either,
if applied to a house, would mean total combustion:
the house was reduced to the level of
the ground, or it went up into the air in the
smoke and gases of combustion. Burn down is
limited to structures and candles; burn up, however,
can be used of anything when one wishes
to convey the idea that the destruction was
complete. It is not used of trivial things, though;
one burns rubbish and burns up papers of importance.
burn the candle at both ends. At first a saying concerned
with material wastefulness, burning the
candle at both ends is, today, applied to the
wasting of one’s physical strength by twocourses
of action, such as hard work by day and dissipation
by night, either one of which would be
sufficient to consume the energies of a normal
person. It is not always a phrase of condemnation
of the person, since it is often used of one