Oompa-Loompa
Roald Dahl has a penchant for inventing infectious and quirky words for his stories. Examples are the Automatic Grammatizor (a machine that automatically makes stories), BFG (Big Friendly Giant), and Esio Trot (Tortiose spelled backwards if you didn’t find it out from the last post). Yet, one of the most memorable word he has invented and which I personally use from time to time is Oompa-Loompa. In the world of Dahl, Oompa-Loompas are “natives from the very deepest and darkest part of the African jungle where no white man had been before” and reliable assistants of Willy Wonka in Charlie and the Chocolate Factory. These cute creatures have been always been objects of contraversy. To begin with, how does one spell Oompa-Loompa when one hears it? This was further added with poltically-incorrect indiviuals crying Roald Dahl foul for writing and allowing his fictional characters such as Willy Wonka to illegally have his own pack of pygmy slaves in an imaginary candy factory.
To make up for this, I present a little diddy by the real Oompa Loompas…
“Augustus Gloop…”
(from Charlie and the Chocolate Factory)
“Augustus Gloop! Augustus Gloop!
The great big greedy nincompoop!
How long could we allow this beast
To gorge and guzzle, feed and feast
On everything he wanted to?
Great Scott! It simply wouldn’t do!
However long this pig might live,
We’re positive he’d never give
Even the smallest bit of fun
Or happiness to anyone.
So what we do in cases such
As this, we use the gentle touch,
And carefully we take the brat
And turn him into something that
Will give great pleasure to us all–
A doll, for instance, or a ball,
Or marbles or a rocking horse.
But this revolting boy, of course,
Was so unutterably vile,
So greedy, foul, and infantile
He left a most disgusting taste
Inside our mouths, and so in haste
We chose a thing that, come what may,
Would take the nasty taste away.
‘Come on!’ we cried, ‘The time is ripe
To send him shooting up the pipe!
He has to go! It has to be!’
And very soon, he’s going to see
Inside the room to which he’s gone
Some funny things are going on.
But don’t, dear children, be alarmed;
Augustus Gloop will not be harmed,
Although, of course, we must admit
He will be altered quite a bit.
He’ll be quite changed from what he’s been,
When he goes through the fudge machine:
Slowly, the wheels go round and round,
The cogs begin to grind and pound;
A hundred knives go slice, slice, slice;
We add some sugar, cream, and spice;
We boil him for a minute more,
Until we’re absolutely sure
That all the greed and all the gall
Is boiled away for once and all.
Then out he comes! And now! By grace!
A miracle has taken place!
This boy, who only just before
Was loathed by men from shore to shore,
This greedy brute, this louse’s ear,
Is loved by people everywhere!
For who could hate or bear a grudge
Against a luscious bit of fudge?”
* There really is a conspiracy to squash the existence of the real oompa-loompa. I had a really terrible time trying find a picture of the real oompa-loompas. The figurine above is made by Robert Harrop. He has a website @ http://www.robertharrop.com/.