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PORTABLE, adj. Exposed to a mutable ownership through vicissitudes of
possession.
His light estate, if neither he did make it
Nor yet its former guardian forsake it,
Is portable improperly, I take it.
Worgum Slupsky
PORTUGUESE, n.pl. A species of geese indigenous to Portugal. They
are mostly without feathers and imperfectly edible, even when stuffed
with garlic.
POSITIVE, adj. Mistaken at the top of one's voice.
POSITIVISM, n. A philosophy that denies our knowledge of the Real and
affirms our ignorance of the Apparent. Its longest exponent is Comte,
its broadest Mill and its thickest Spencer.
POSTERITY, n. An appellate court which reverses the judgment of a
popular author's contemporaries, the appellant being his obscure
competitor.
POTABLE, n. Suitable for drinking. Water is said to be potable;
indeed, some declare it our natural beverage, although even they find
it palatable only when suffering from the recurrent disorder known as
thirst, for which it is a medicine. Upon nothing has so great and
diligent ingenuity been brought to bear in all ages and in all
countries, except the most uncivilized, as upon the invention of
substitutes for water. To hold that this general aversion to that
liquid has no basis in the preservative instinct of the race is to be
unscientific -- and without science we are as the snakes and toads.
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