So I was reading Wodehouse's The Prince and Betty, a really funny romance set in those days when people can still travel across continents on titanics without using passports. If you guys have the time download this e-book at OnRead.com, in TXT form it'll take you only a couple of minutes.
You have to be able to stomach long paragraphs that goes...
"The enterprise had started well. To begin with, he had found the ideal editor. He had met Mr. Renshaw at a down-East gathering presided over by Mrs. Oakley, and his Napoleonic eye had seen in J. Brabazon the seeds of domestic greatness. Before they parted, he had come to terms with him. Nor had the latter failed to justify his intuition. He made an admirable editor. It was not Mr. Renshaw's fault that the new paper had failed to electrify America. It was the public on whom the responsibility for the failure must be laid. They spoiled the whole thing. Certain of the faithful subscribed, it is true, and continued to subscribe, but the great heart of the public remained untouched. The great heart of the public declined to be interested in the meditations of Mr. Philpotts and the humor of Mr. B. Henderson Asher, and continued to spend its money along the bad old channels. The thing began to bore Mr. Scobell. He left the conduct of the journal more and more to Mr. Renshaw, until finally--it was just after the idea for extracting gold from sea water had struck him--he put the whole business definitely out of his mind. (His actual words were that he never wanted to see or hear of the darned thing again, inasmuch as it gave him a pain in the neck.) Mr. Renshaw was given a free hand as to the editing, and all matters of finance connected with the enterprise were placed in the hands of Mr.
Scobell's solicitors, who had instructions to sell the journal, if, as its owner crisply put it, they could find any chump who was enough of a darned chump to give real money for it. Up to the present the great army of chumps had fallen short of this ideal standard of darned chumphood."
... and follow through without losing the essence nor missing the beat so that you get to enjoy the writer's observation in exactly the way it is meant to be devoured.
It was also from The Prince and Betty that I discovered new words such as 'anon' (in a short time, immediate, at another time), 'chump' (a stupid person, a thick piece of wood), 'wuxtry' (extra - btw this one is dated slang, an interjection apparently used by newspaper sellers back then) and 'soliloquized' (to talk to oneself).
But one word stood out, as I passed Chapter XII, and the word was 'vim'.
And my first thought upon casting eyes on this particular little word was, "Eh, isn't Vim a concocted word to name a brand of toilet cleaner?"
My dear friends, Vim, is what I grew up with. I remember hating the days I have to be the one among the siblings to clean the toilet floor, only because I had to use Vim and its white powder eats up the skin on my palms and fingers like some invisible maggots..
Upon a revisit to Dictionary.com I found out what 'vim' means.
Upon finding out what vim means, I now truly understood what Vim the toilet cleaner brand stood for! What a clever name for the brand. No wonder and you really gotta brush (energetically), brush (spiritedly) and brush (with vigour) to clean! Unlike Jif, the other brand, a detergen sort of which you simple squirt then swipe, no hard brushing required.
So there you go, ladies, gentlemen and dear friends, vim. Man, this one will really light up the bulb in my brain the next time I see a bottle of Vim.
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