ARMOIRE AND THE MAN

         I'd like to know who decided the fancy word 'armoire' should be used to describe any hulking chest containing drawers, closets or vast open areas large enough to hold a television? My dictionary refers me to the word "ambry" and tells me that originally an ambry held arms. Wouldn't it be fitting to walk into a room, open a door of an armoire, and have pikes and halberds tumble out?

         That is hardly likely. Today's armoire is used to hold anything but weapons. My former secretary bought her armoire from IKEA and put it together herself to hold her computer. I always wondered if she used a halberd to tighten the screws.

         When I work in Philadelphia I stay at an upscale hotel.The rooms contain a giant four-drawer armoire that holds the television in a cubicle in its closet half. I suppose the armoire is their high-end version of the anti-theft device used at Red Roof, Motel 6 or Super 8 that prevents me from heisting the set. I doubt that this hulking piece of furniture will even fit in the elevator, let alone pass muster if I try to wheel it past the checkout desk.

         Its size also prevents anyone but a weight lifter from turning the armoire so the television will face the bed. There is nothing more relaxing after the daily grind of work on the road than propping your head on pillows and staring at the side of the menacing piece of furniture while listening to your favorite show. To watch the television, you have to sit on the couch with a coffee table bumping into your knees. The couch itself is covered with a delicate pattern that looks as if a broad human butt has never sat upon it. The suspicion is that the room is made for candidates for political office to watch election night returns, while cameramen catch the lovely ambiance.

         While I am on this kick, is couch still a viable word? Should I use 'chaise'? instead? "He chaised the disarmed gunsel into the hotel room and threw him against the armoire. From somewhere inside the chest the killer pulled a pike and....". This excerpt is from "Death By Mint Under The Pillow", an Internet mystery to be serialized on halberd.com.

         Not trusting 'Spellcheck', I looked up the words armoire, chaise and halberd in an old dictionary. I found that the skimpy definition of the first word gives no mention to pikes or halberds, let alone a musket, dirk or assegai.

         I love to collect words and combine them, but one can hardly combine the huge chest with another favorite word of mine, ormolu, that has fallen out of fashion. Philip Marlowe had an ormolu clock on his mantle. An ormolu armoire has such a nice ring to it until one realizes that ormolu is a gold-like brass covering. Tacky, tacky, tacky.

         "Spellcheck" told me I spelled all the words correctly with the exception of 'assegai', where I had erroneously used an 'a' after the double 'S'. My paper dictionary gives my spelling first, but how can I argue with the machine, even when it makes no mention of either gunsel or Spellcheck.

         I authorized the computer to replace my spelling of the South African spear so beloved by W. C. Fields in 'The Bank Dick'. I clicked the 'change' button and sat while the hourglass stayed on the screen for over two minutes. Fear filled my mind that the computer would lock and I would lose my work, but on reading the piece over as I waited, I realized that if this did happen, the machine would have proven to be an astute critic.