Word: menckenisms
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...Linguaphone Institute ventured to pick the ten U.S. cities whose citizens use the "most perfect American speech,"* made the mistake of omitting Baltimore, the home of Lexicographer H. L. Mencken. Cried he: "Anyone who advances such buncombe should be put to death immediately...
...Baltimore, Henry L Mencken, whose beery Christmas Story had been yanked off sale in Canada, was feeling better. A Canadian cinema producer had the rights to Mencken's A Neglected Anniversary (deadpan history of the bathtub, written some 30 years ago), and Mencken had a gratifying contract: in exchange for rights to the old hoax, the old hoaxer (who is a connoisseur of brews) was guaranteed two cases of Canadian ale a month for the rest of his life. Further, he did not have to return "the bottles and containers or other cartons in which such ale is shipped...
...Henry L Mencken, the high-flavored sage of Baltimore, was right in there with Edmund Wilson. A Canadian book firm owned by the United Church of Canada suddenly stopped distributing Mencken's Christmas Story-a timely tale of a bunch of bums who could not resist singing hymns when they got drunk. Decided the firm: it was "not a suitable book for us to handle." Mencken readily agreed: "I simply can't imagine anything so ribald being circulated by ecclesiastical publishers...
...finished, Max Ways became a writer for TIME's new International section. This return to his trade was probably as inevitable as his original decision to become a journalist. His father, Max Ways Sr., city editor of the Baltimore Herald (he gave H. L. Mencken his first reporting job), had advised against it. Said he, with a newsman's directness: "I don't want to influence your decision, but if you ever grow up to be a newspaperman I'll strangle you with my bare hands...
Just in time for the Christmas trade, this tiny book contains perhaps the nearest thing to piety in Mencken's writings. It is a moral tale, told in the Sage of Baltimore's redolent and contented prose. The story-originally printed in the New Yorker-attests to the triumph of Christian reflexes over heathen among the bums of Baltimore 45 years...