Show TAKE MY WORD FOR IT By Frank Colby SOME SOl MATTERS OF USAGE Item Recently in a magazine story the heroine was spoken of as having prehensile eyes eyes I have no Idea what the author intended for the word prehensile sile means adapted for grasping grasping grasp grasp- ing lug by wrapping around as the prehensile tail of a monkey Certain snakes like the pythons and constrictors may a also so be termed prehensile but a woman's womans womans woman's wom worn ans an's eyes Hardly A caption in the Saturday Evening Post reads Shades of Paul Bunyan The venerable and unusually well edited Post probably received bagfuls of mail explaining that a shade Isa is isa isa a ghost or spirit and that not even as fabulous a man as Paul Bunyan could have more than one shade It should have been Shade of Paul Bunyan indicating indicating indi indi- cating eating that Bunyan would have been astonished or perturbed Emily Post reports that a professional lexicographer Unnamed unnamed un un- Un- Un named has corrected her time and again for saying verbal invitation instead of oral floral in in- in She denies that verbal verbal ver verbal bal invitation is incorrect and cites good authority to prove her stand And I want to back her up I think her lexicographer lexicographer lexicographer pher critic is splitting hairs with witha a very dull blade Not only is verbal customary in the meaning meaning meaning mean mean- ing of spoken rather than written but it has the sanction of every dictionary dictionary dic die known kno to me mc including Noah Websters Webster's original 1828 edition arid and I have dictionaries by the |