ASTRONAUT talk is literally out of this world, and yet it has its own necessary coherence--as shown by the dramatic moments described in this week's cover story on the epic flight of Gordon Cooper. Nowadays everyone from garage mechanics to gospel singers have their own lingo, their own shorthand, and their own vivid phraseology. It might be possible to put out an issue of TIME in the 850 words of Basic English, but to do so would be to leave out an essential vitality in the way Americans do and say things.

In this week's Sport section, Pitcher Warren Spahn, a man of superb control, tries to describe how he throws to the outer edge of the plate, and says, "I couldn't throw one down the pipe if I tried.'' The enlivening speech of natural conversationalists, the alphabetical shorthand of bureaucrats, the foreign words that sometimes say it better, the new names and phrases that describe the latest art fad or music craze, all find their way into our pages. A sampler from this week's issue:

besu-boro is a game brought to Japan by the nation's biggest newspaper publisher, Matsutaro Shoriki, 78. If a man fails to banto, it's a sutoraiki. (See PRESS.)

hard edge is the phrase for painters who prefer a defined line to splatter and splash. But it's still abstract. (See ART.)

parochial captivity means that churches are badly organized to reach the metropolitan masses, and it is what Theologian Henry Pitney Van Dusen thinks U.S. Christianity suffers from. (See RELIGION.)

pishkash is what makes the Iranian economy spin, and the Shah wishes it didn't. (See THE WORLD.)

koinonia cells are turning up all over the U.S. The word is Greek for fellowship, and describes a kind of Protestant do-it-yourself study movement. (See RELIGION.)

pop gospel is what comes in after bossa nova goes the way of the twist. It's a little bit of rhythm and blues, a little bit of soul jazz, and a lot of the oldtime religion. And it has now made the nightclubs. (See Music.)

SEALS are Navymen with sea, air and land capability, trained for "unconventional warfare." Tell that to the Marines, who have always practiced it. The new U.S. emphasis on counterguerrilla training is shown in six pages of color photos. (See THE NATION.)

weeds are the chinless boys who go to deb dances in England, affairs that a pear-shaped young English authoress describes as hell's boring. Her book is kind of, too. (See BOOKS.)

Mom and Pop Shops are small businesses that rent their name, product, design and sales methods from big franchisers, while mom and pop put in a little money and a lot of hours. There are now 100,000 of them. (See U.S. BUSINESS.)

This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so reader's discretion is required.