Tony Deyal – Jarns, Nittles, Grawlix and Quimps

Jun 16, 2008 Features / Columnists, Tony Deyal column

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I used to wonder who that person “Anon” was, since he or she was so often cited in books of quotations.  Later, I found out that the word stood for “Anonymous,” which is the name given to someone unknown. 

This led to further investigations.  Eventually, I discovered that there were many things that I never knew had names, and there were some obscure or obsolete words that were unknown to me, but were not anonymous.

Rather than let them remain nameless, I will mention a few in passing.  If, like Superman (or me in the old days), you had a “kiss curl” or dangling curl of hair, what else would you call it?  Superman could add it to his innumerable accomplishments, since that piece of unruly hair or dangling curl is known as a “feat”. 

When I was a student in Canada, my hair long and my face adorned with beard and moustache, in moments of acute concentration, I used to put my feat in my mouth.  Now, as the poet Wordsworth said wistfully, that time is past and all its aching joys are now no more, and all its dizzy raptures. 

My first experience with jarns, nittles, grawlix and quimps came when I was old enough to read comic books, and young enough to believe they were fact instead of fiction.  There was one of my favourite cowboy heroes, Gene Autry, the “Singing Cowboy,” riding through the sagebrush on his favourite cayuse, Champion, when some lily-livered, low-down, back-shooting skunk tried to dry-gulch or ambush him, and instead of hitting him, knocked his hat off. 

Immediately Gene exclaimed, “What the *#&$*!!&!”  I strove mightily, using my limited vocabulary, to insert meaning into what I had interpreted was a situation that called for the strongest possible language.  Eventually, I realised that it was the thought that counted, and not the words or symbols. 

Those various squiggles used to denote strong language or obscenities in comic books are known variously as jarns, nittles, grawlix and quimps. 

One of the constituent symbols of comic cusswords is the “#” or number sign, aka “pound” sign.  It has a name.  It is an “octothorpe”.  The man who came up with it was a Bell Laboratories engineer who was working on the handsets.  He combined the Latin word for “eight” (octo) with the surname of his favourite athlete, Jim Thorpe, the 1912 Olympic Decathlon Champion. 

There are some obscure words that describe people we know.  Those people, like me, who have black belts in shopping, there is a word for us.  It is “oniochalasia,” which means “buying as a means of mental relaxation”.  If, also like me, you are accident prone and trip over everything in sight, including your own shoes (mine almost killed a woman trying to step over them in an airplane), you are experiencing “resistentialism” or the seemingly spiteful behaviour manifested by inanimate objects.

What I cannot be accused of being guilty of is “meupareunia”.  Modesty would normally dictate that I respectfully request that you look the word up yourself, but being a helpful soul, I would provide a definition: “a sexual act gratifying to only one participant”. 

There is another “m” word that could also describe it, but as Johnny Carson said when asked whether he had his eyes open or closed during his first sexual experience, “Closed.  There was nobody else there to look at.”

In spite of my increasing girth and decreasing hair, I can still be described as “neanimorphic,” or looking younger than my years.  I don’t have a “pilgarlic” as yet (a bald head that looks like peeled garlic) and I believe I can look forward to “eugeria,” or a normal and happy old age.

There are a lot of other words for a lot of other phenomena, like “gynotikolobomassophile” which describes “someone who likes to nibble on a woman’s earlobes,”  or “lapling” – someone who enjoys resting in women’s laps.  I check for “breastling” and other anatomical “lings,” but Lapland seemed to be the only approved terminological destination. 

The one word I could not find is one that describes the cowardly gossip or backbiting of the Caribbean male.  I found “Albizia Lebbeck,” which is the name for the “woman-tongue” tree famous in Jamaica and other parts of the region.  From my experience, women have been maligned.  Men are worse when it comes to dry-gulching. 

I once worked as a project manager in a Government ministry in Trinidad.  When I returned from a meeting, my assistant said worriedly, “You talk to the Minister as yet?” I innocently said, “No, what he want?”  My friend answered, “He tell me that you no longer involved in the project, that I am now in charge.” 

The Minister never had the guts to tell me that to my face, or look me in the eye.  It is an experience that is common in the Caribbean.  Big men, rich men, all kinds of men, will destroy your reputation if they could, accuse you of everything from incompetence to incontinence, but never to your face.

There are euphemisms like “emotional speculation,” or “the speedy transmission of non-factual information,” but there is no one word. 

“Man-tongue” is not to my taste or preference.  What about ‘disgosping’?  Anyhow I would like to give anybody who does that a “kick” or a “punt,” except those are names for the indentation at the bottoms of some wine bottles.

*Tony Deyal was last seen repeating a conversation among two disgosping men: “John told me that you tell him what I tell you not to tell him.” The other replied, “How can you trust a man like that?  I tell him not to tell you I tell him.”  The first man responded, “Well, look, I wouldn’t tell him I wouldn’t tell you, so don’t tell him I told you.”  

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