Election Day: What’s the Good Word?

Because the presidential debates seem to have left neither presidential candidate clearly a winner, perhaps the etymological approach, suggested by Margaret W. Romani, is not without merit.

Romani, as you may remember, searched the dictionary for the meanings of bush and quail , the latter being a homophone for Quayle. Romani’s inquiry was not conclusive, though it led her to such curiously appropriate words as scurfy , pubescent and cell sap .

Several readers think that Romani was not thorough enough, that the dictionary offers far more insights into the candidates than she discovered.

Victor Rosen recalls that in “As You Like It” Shakespeare used the line, “Good wine needs no bush.”

While conceding the authenticity of that quotation, I am unable to see that it adds to the appeal of the vice president.

Barbara Gray also notes the prevalence of bush in reference to wine, recalling, as we have already seen, that a bush or a spray of greens once hung outside pubs in medieval England to advertise their wares.

Jeanne King, a Democrat happily living in Yorba Linda, suggests a slogan: “A Bentsen on the ticket is worth two Quayles in the Bush.”

Ms. King adds: “The slogan continues to be verified as details of Sen. Quayle’s less than stellar personal attributes and congressional record are revealed. My political preference is obvious; yes, there are Democrats in Yorba Linda.”

Bill Boeckman of Van Nuys scolds me for failing to note that quail means “to draw back in fear, to cower, or to lose heart or courage. As for bush , everyone knows that word is in a league by itself, such as bush league. “

True, the generic words quail and bush are among the most unflattering in the language; to quail , as Boeckman notes, is to abandon any pretense of courage, to give up one’s arms and flee; bush , while hardly as mean a word, has an aura of good-natured humor in it: bush is small-town, unsophisticated, backwoods; when a major league shortstop makes an error, it’s bush.

Perhaps going far afield, Boeckman notes further that sen was once a coin in Japan, though Webster’s now uses it as an abbreviation for senate, senator or senior. “So perhaps,” he concludes, “a bent sen might imply a crooked legislator or a counterfeit coin.”

We have not previously noted that bent means “crooked, not straight.” If there are any conclusions to be made from this study, perhaps bent is the most damning of all. But when Boeckman joins it to an archaic Japanese coin, to imply a crooked senator, perhaps we have carried the game too far.

Jeff Williamson of Sherman Oaks notes that California quail, unlike the bobwhites of Indiana, call Du-Kak-is Du-Kak-is. I wonder if that’s prophetic.

Edward Nichols of San Diego writes that he ran all the names through his computer, and found that Dukakis was not listed. He concludes, though, that “letting your imagination roam over the homophones, homonyms, etc., is more intellectually rewarding than much of the purportedly presidential-caliber dialogue from either camp.”

The erudite Johanna E. Tallman, former Caltech librarian, notes that Michael means “who is like God,” and that Lloyd, from the Welsh, means “gray.” She adds that the Welsh gray is from the Indonesian gher, meaning “to shine or gleam.”

Tallman adds: “I would prefer a President who is like God, and a vice president who shines and gleams.”

Much as I respect Mrs. Tallman’s opinions, I doubt that we will ever have a President like God, and I hope not. Our most God-like President, Abraham Lincoln, could probably not have passed through the Pearly Gates, if he’d tried telling one or two of his raunchy stories as credentials. Of course we don’t know for sure who’s guarding the door these days. It might be Fred Allen, in which case Harry Truman could get in.

Perhaps this little game has been unfair to anything as important as a presidential election in a free country. Nevertheless, the campaign has been in general so trivial, petty and vindictive, that it hardly seemed worthy of our voters.

As Yorba Linda goes, so goes the nation.