In my childhood, I had a book called Peter Piper’s Practical Principles for Plain and Perfect Pronunciation.

Most people are familiar with the verse, “Peter Piper picked a Peck of pickled peppers”. That’s the title and the most famous one.

What you may not know is, the same author penned a verse for every letter of the alphabet. Every verse was a four-liner with the same structure: one line of Assertion, one line of Question, and then two lines of Investigation. Here’s the one for the letter “D”:

Davy Doldrum dreamt he drove a Dragon.
Did Davy Doldrum dream he drove a Dragon?
If Davy Doldrum dreamt he drove a Dragon,
Where’s the Dragon Davy Doldrum dreamt he drove?

The illustration shows a kid herding a dragon along with a whip. Here’s “A”:

Andrew Airpump asked his Aunt her Ailment.
Did Andrew Airpump ask his Aunt her Ailment?
If Andrew Airpump asked his Aunt her Ailment,
Where’s the Aunt whose Ailment Andrew Airpump asked?

The idea was to recite all the poems out loud and thus gain Eloquence in speech. Notice also that the last line always turns the verbiage around, requiring a little agility. They aren’t tongue-twisters on the Dr. Seuss level, but they’re fun. Here’s “C”:

Captain Crackskull crack’d a Catchpoll’s Cockscomb
Did Captain Crackskull crack a Catchpoll’s Cockscomb?
If Captain Crackskull crack’d a Catchpoll’s Cockscomb,
Where’s the Catchpoll’s Cockscomb Captain Crackskull crack’d?

Complete with an illustration of some guy hitting another guy with a bat.

So in this spirit let’s talk about our dear and departed Colonel Jeff Cooper:

Colonel Cooper concocted a Curious Coinage
Did Colonel Cooper concoct a Curious Coinage?
If Colonel Cooper concocted a Curious Coinage,
What Curious Coinage did Colonel Cooper concoct?

By “coinage” is meant linguistic coinage; the invention or definition of new words. Colonel Cooper, rest his soul, would likely reject the idea of himself as a linguistic originator; he would say he learned the definition from someone else. Nevertheless, he insisted on some definitions that nobody else seemed to share.

Col. Cooper bristled at the use of the word “shrapnel” to describe things like shell fragments and broken glass. Shrapnel, the Colonel informed us, was a man’s name and the name of the artillery shell he invented. It was World War One, and Shrapnel wanted to blast the enemy with grapeshot, but the enemy were all in trenches, in defilade. Shrapnel figured, if he could only get an artillery piece high enough, he could fire grapeshot at a steep angle over the parapet and enfilade those enemy trenches. So he developed a kind of artillery-launched artillery; a thing like a loaded cannon or shotgun shell, launched from a cannon, with a secondary charge to deploy a load of grapeshot in a downwards direction. People learned to call this weapon shrapnel.

Then they started calling any kind of flying debris shrapnel. Col. Cooper wasn’t having it. Call it fragments or nails or whatever it is, it’s not shrapnel unless it comes from a genuine Shrapnel projectile.

Is it proper to call a revolver a pistol? Col. Cooper certainly didn’t think so. To his mind, a pistol is a hand-held firearm where the chamber and the barrel are the same piece of metal. Semiautomatics, derringers, and single-shots are pistols. Revolvers are not. Now you know.

Col. Cooper scoffed at the idea of DAO (Double-Action Only) pistols. Double action, in his view, meant two ways of operating the trigger; either you cock the hammer first or you don’t. Double action doesn’t mean the trigger pull always cocks the hammer; that’s single action, and kind of crappy single action to boot. Finally Col. Cooper threw up his hands and said don’t bring a gun to school that can’t be cocked. The only exception he would allow was the Glock.