A Verbal Fig Leaf · Track 29 · middle

The Venerable Monosyllable

The Venerable Monosyllable (1790s) — ⭐ TITLE TRACK. A four-syllable phrase meaning 'the short word we won't use.' A euphemism ABOUT euphemism — the album's thesis, coined in 1790. VOLUME: III. THE TAVERN, 1700–1899. THE DODGE THIS ERA: The dodge becomes CLASS. Grose writes the Dictionary of the Vulgar Tongue and suddenly there are two vocabularies: the one for the parlour and the one for the taproom. The joke is which room you are in. Sing the AVOIDANCE, never the anatomy.

No audio yet — generation pending.

Lyrics

Upstairs in the parlour, the china is frail,
We sip at the sherry and keep to the rule.
When the ladies excuse themselves, taking the air,
We speak of an ancient and absolute power.
It is old as the island, and brief as a cough,
But we dress it in velvet to soften it off.

Oh, the venerable monosyllable,
Nine syllables heavy to cover the base.
We bow to the title, we swallow the sound,
Before the mahogany clock leaves a trace.
We wrap it in Latin, we polish the brass,
To prove we are men of a heavier cloth.

Down in the taproom, the sawdust is damp,
A brass copper buys you a seat by the lamp.
The ostler, the sailor, the boys from the fleet,
They drop the same coin in the dirt of the step.
They spend it entirely, they say it outright,
A sudden allegiance in middle of night.

The jaw catches hard on the edge of the teeth,
To keep the short letter from slipping beneath.

Oh, the venerable monosyllable,
Nine syllables heavy to cover the base.
We bow to the title, we swallow the sound,
Before the mahogany clock leaves a trace.
We wrap it in Latin, we polish the brass,
To prove we are men of a heavier cloth.

Mr. Grose in his ledger of eighty-five,
Keeps both of the lexicons neatly alive.
One for the silk and one for the ale,
The shorter the utterance, the heavier the veil.
We add on the letters to cushion the edge,
But every last man at the table must judge.

Oh, the venerable monosyllable,
Nine syllables heavy to cover the base.
We bow to the title, we swallow the sound,
Before the mahogany clock leaves a trace.
We wrap it in Latin, we polish the brass,
To prove we are men of a heavier cloth.

Just the one breath.
Nine to disguise it.

We know what it costs.
And we know who denies it.
The venerable...