EXPL(ETIVE)ANATION

Let us briefly draw your attention to this amusing trifle, courtesy of fontmeisters Hoefler & Frere-Jones at Typography.com, in which Jonathan Hoefler reveals to the world the use of the term “grawlix” to denote the lineup of symbols used as expletives by our leading cartoon characters. Though we are indebted to Herr Hoefler for bringing this concept wider attention, we take issue with his description of the term’s origin.

Though credited to Morton Walker, the creator of mop-top comic-strip soldier Beatle Bailey, the word is actually an eponym. Its true originator is a late 18th-century Philadelphia typesetter by the name of Hogarth Grawlick. As the legend goes, the poor boy was illiterate, hired by Fenworth Boggert, the editor of the short-lived Philadelphia Requirer as a favor to Grawlick’s father, one of the city’s richest, stupidest citizens. Faced each morning with the task of having to arrange the press’s movable type to reflect the stories given to him by Boggert, young Grawlick could do nothing more than arrange the slugs in random patterns, often eschewing letters altogether for the prettier, more exotic typographic fringes. Each morning, upon examining the tyro’s handiwork, Boggert would (sources assure us) quite literally foam at the mouth as he expelled into the world a remarkable pageant of indecent invective aimed squarely at “Grawlick’s bullshittery.” And thus the immortal phrase was born, and later shortened by excessive use to its current abbreviated form.

Herr Hoefler’s article also cites an editor-at-large of the Oxford English Dictionary named Jesse Sheidlower, who has produced a book populated solely with variations on a well-known cursing-word that begins with an “F” and rhymes with “fluck.” Let Sheidlower hereby be challenged: we are in possession of many, many words that are not currently ensconced within the OED, a number of which have yet to see the light of day, and we would kindly like to offer our services in sharing them, for a small (if sizable) fee. We might as well start with “fluck.” Please contact us directly for definition and etymology.