ON THE RIGHT
Have you noticed that the use of an unusual word sometimes irritates the reader to such a point that he will accuse the user of affectation, then which there is no more heinous crime in the American republic? The distinguished political and social philosopher and columnist Mr. Russell Kirk used the word “energumen” to describe in his introduction to my book, Rumbles Left and Right, who it is I agitate against, and one reviewer fairly exploded with annoyance. Now the word in question means “someone possessed by an evil spirit,” and fanatically addicted to a particular idea—can you think of a better word to describe certain kinds of people who seek to reorder public affairs according to their hypnotic visions? Should one refuse to use a venerable word for which there is no obvious synonym, simply because it is a word that does not regularly appear in the diet of the average reader?
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