What Shall We Call It?

The boys cali ir a "bike" and are happy ; the dictionary makers cali it a "bicycle" and rest conteut, though heaveu kuowsthe philological sin ought to lie heavily ou their literary consciences, and we who ride and are happy and independent cali it a "wheel," in spite of the finicky protest of sundry would be pedants who flll space iu the daily aud weekly papers. Pray, why not "wheel?" Do you know of a better name? Snrely not "bicycle," f or "bicycle, " besides being an awkward word, does not describe the instrument of delight we know, as doubtless the originator of the word fully drearued it did. "Bicycle" has an affected, strained sound that ill accords with the bes,t elements of the language we love, the langnage whose streugth lies in its short, crisp words, pulsating with life and meaning. It is not unusual to desígnate a specific thing by a generic terrn, and we do 110 violence to the langnage when we say we ride a wheel. The term came into general use when men did literally ride upon a wheel, in the days of the old "ordinaries, " bef ore the advent of "safeties. " It was a wheel they rode, the second memberof the machine trailing behind in almost unnoticed iusignificance. It was then that a thousand tongues at once named the wheel. This democratie term of spontaneoua birth has had a tenacions life and will still live, for it is always the people who make langnage, not pedants nor tionary