A front-page story in a recent Sunday Times (City Edition, not the Late City) told of President Johnson's plan to allow draftees failing the Army entrance exams to enroll in a voluntary program of rehabilitation. Labor Secretary W. Willard Wirtz stated, "This will be the greatest human salvage program in the history of country." The national report on disqualified draftees noted that fully one-third of the young men examined for the army are let go, "about half," the Times said, "being rejected for medical reasons and the remainder funking mental tests."

I'm all for funking tests. The Times must have meant either that the test-takers "blew smoke upon" the test (a usage common in 1699) or that they "scared" it. Of these meanings the first seems the more probable, even though the early usage commonly conveyed the meaning "to blow smoke upon (a person)." Words change over the centuries and no doubt it is now possible to funk an inanamiate object. Other meanings of funk (from the Latin, fumigare) are "to smoke (a pipe) 1704," and hence, "to cause an offensive smell." We have also the noun meaning "a strong smell or stink."

If the Times used slang, we might believe that the young men of America were "trying to shirk or evade" these mental tests. Other slang definitions will cast light on this matter of national concern; for example, funk, "a state of panic," "first listed as Oxford slang." The Shorter Oxford English Dictionary is uncertain. See BLUE, they suggest. But before we do, notice a term in which "funk" is used in combination: Funkhole, military slang, "a trench dug-out; employment used as a pretext for evading military service." Here we have another connection which the Times surely, must have had in mind.

Now for BLUE. The color is defined not scientifically, with reference to pigment and wave length. For BLUE the Shorter waxes poetic. "Of the colour of the sky and the deep sea"; and also, "of a flame or flash without red glare; esp. in phr. To burn b, as a candle is said to do as an omen of death, or as indicating the presence of ghosts or of the Devil. (1994)" Also, the color associated with constancy, "hence, true-b," Or pertaining to the political party which has adopted blue as its color, in England, the Conservative. "To vote b." "Affected with fear, discomfort, anxiety, etc." and thus a few inches down we find simply and elequently, "B. funk extreme nervousness."

Well, no wonder they didn't pass.