Word: menckenisms
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Journalism has produced few more plausible hoaxes than H. L. Mencken's famed essay on the history of the U.S. bathtub. Mencken's yarn explains how a Cincinnati grain merchant named Adam Thompson caused the first tub to be constructed of sheet lead and Nicaragua mahogany back in 1842, how he built a pump with which a team of six Negroes lifted water into a tank in his house, how he ran a heating pipe through his chimney, and finally took the first modern bath...
...further relates how President Millard Fillmore was captivated by the contraption after sloshing around in it on a stumping tour, and, despite adverse public opinion, had a similar tub installed in the White House in 1851. Although there is not a word of truth in the whole account, and Mencken has confessed his amiable duplicity repeatedly, connoisseurs of historical anecdote have been snapping it up for 30 years. It is doubtful, however, that any of them ever seized on it as tenaciously as President Harry Truman...
...term probably originates in courtroom procedure, where judges may instruct the court stenographer not to record certain testimony or discussion. H. L. Mencken credits New York's Governor Al ("Let's look at the record") Smith for bringing it into wider use. It became popular in Washington during the New Deal...
...issues which were dividing the nation were reflected in campus discussion. Professor Kirtley K. Mather argued that evolutionary theory should be taught in the schools. H. L. Mencken, vitriolic editor of the "American Mercury," brought his battle against American "Babbittry" to the University as he attacked the Watch and Ward Society. In a poll, the CRIMSON found the College strongly in favor of the Volstead act but divided on the basic issue of prohibition...
...Mencken and Nathan and God Yes, probably, possibly...