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+
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+Project Gutenberg (https://www.gutenberg.org) public repository for
+eBook #67503 (https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/67503)
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-The Project Gutenberg eBook of Parts of Speech: Essays on English, by
-Brander Matthews
-
-This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and
-most other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no restrictions
-whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms
-of the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online at
-www.gutenberg.org. If you are not located in the United States, you
-will have to check the laws of the country where you are located before
-using this eBook.
-
-Title: Parts of Speech: Essays on English
-
-Author: Brander Matthews
-
-Release Date: February 25, 2022 [eBook #67503]
-
-Language: English
-
-Produced by: Tim Lindell and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at
-             https://www.pgdp.net (This file was produced from images
-             generously made available by The Internet Archive/American
-             Libraries.)
-
-*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK PARTS OF SPEECH: ESSAYS ON
-ENGLISH ***
-
-
-
-
-
-  PARTS OF SPEECH
-
-  ESSAYS ON ENGLISH
-
-
-
-
- _Books by Brander Matthews_:
-
-
- ESSAYS AND CRITICISMS
-
- French Dramatists of the 19th Century
-
- Pen and Ink, Essays on subjects of more or less importance
-
- Aspects of Fiction, and other Essays
-
- The Historical Novel, and other Essays
-
- Parts of Speech, Essays on English
-
- The Development of the Drama (_in preparation_)
-
-
-
-
-  PARTS OF SPEECH
-
-  ESSAYS ON ENGLISH
-
-
-  BY
-
-  BRANDER MATTHEWS
-  PROFESSOR IN COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY
-
-
-  NEW YORK
-  CHARLES SCRIBNER’S SONS
-  1901
-
-
-
-
-  Copyright, 1901, by
-  BRANDER MATTHEWS
-
-  _Published September, 1901_
-
-
-  THE CAXTON PRESS
-  NEW YORK.
-
-
-
-
-  TO MY FRIEND AND COLLEAGUE
-  GEORGE RICE CARPENTER
-  PROFESSOR OF RHETORIC AND ENGLISH COMPOSITION
-  IN COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY
-
-
-
-
-PREFATORY NOTE
-
-
-Altho the various essays which are now brought together in this book
-have been written from time to time during the past ten years, nearly
-all of them have had their origin in a desire to make plain and to
-emphasize one fact: that the English language belongs to the peoples
-who speak it--that it is their own precious possession, to deal with at
-their pleasure and at their peril. The fact itself ought to be obvious
-enough to all of us; and yet there would be no difficulty in showing
-that it is not everywhere accepted. Perhaps the best way to present it
-so clearly that it cannot be rejected is to draw attention to some of
-its implications; and this is what has been attempted in one or another
-of these separate papers.
-
-The point of view from which the English language has been approached
-is that of the man of letters rather than that of the professed expert
-in linguistics. But the writer ventures to hope that the professed
-expert, even tho he discovers little that is new in these pages, will
-find also little that demands his disapproval. The final essay is
-frankly more literary than linguistic, for it is an attempt to define
-not so much a word as a thing.
-
-So wise a critic of literature and of language as Sainte-Beuve has
-declared that “orthography is like society: it will never be entirely
-reformed; but we can at least make it less vicious.” In this sensible
-saying is the warrant for the simplified spellings adopted in the
-following pages. As will be seen by readers of the two papers on our
-orthography, the writer is by no means a radical “spelling-reformer,”
-so called. But he believes that all of us who wish to keep the English
-language up to its topmost efficiency are bound always to do all in our
-power to aid the tendency toward simplification--whether of orthography
-or of syntax--which has been at work unceasingly ever since the
-language came into existence.
-
-  B. M.
-
-  COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY,
-  July 4, 1901.
-
-
-
-
-  _CONTENTS_
-
-
-                                                     PAGE
-
-  I _The Stock that Speaks the Language_                3
-
-  II _The Future of the Language_                      29
-
-  III _The English Language in the United States_      47
-
-  IV _The Language in Great Britain_                   81
-
-  V _Americanisms Once More_                           97
-
-  VI _New Words and Old_                              127
-
-  VII _The Naturalization of Foreign Words_           165
-
-  VIII _The Function of Slang_                        187
-
-  IX _Questions of Usage_                             217
-
-  X _An Inquiry as to Rime_                           241
-
-  XI _On the Poetry of Place-Names_                   271
-
-  XII _As to “American Spelling”_                     295
-
-  XIII _The Simplification of English Spelling_       319
-
-  XIV _Americanism--An Attempt at a Definition_       343
-
-
-
-
-  I
-
-  THE STOCK THAT SPEAKS
-  THE LANGUAGE
-
-
-It is a thousand years since the death of the great Englishman, King
-Alfred, in whose humble translations we may see the beginnings of
-English literature. Until it has a literature, however unpretending
-and however artless, a language is not conscious of itself; and it is
-therefore in no condition to maintain its supremacy over the dialects
-that are its jealous rivals. And it is by its literature chiefly that
-a language forever binds together the peoples who speak it--by a
-literature in which the characteristics of these peoples are revealed
-and preserved, and in which their ideals are declared and passed down
-from generation to generation as the most precious heritage of the race.
-
-The historian of the English people asserts that what made Alfred
-great, small as was his sphere of action, was “the moral grandeur of
-his life. He lived solely for the good of his people.” He laid the
-foundations for a uniform system of law, and he started schools,
-wishing that every free-born youth who had the means should “abide at
-his book till he can understand English writing.” He invited scholars
-from other lands to settle in England; but what most told on English
-culture was done not by them but by the king himself. He “resolved
-to throw open to his people in their own tongue the knowledge which
-till then had been limited to the clergy,” and he “took his books as
-he found them,” the popular manuals of the day, Bede and Boethius and
-Orosius. These he translated with his own hand, editing freely, and
-expanding and contracting as he saw fit. “Do not blame me if any know
-Latin better than I,” he explained with modest dignity; “for every
-man must say what he says and must do what he does according to his
-ability.” And Green, from whom this quotation is borrowed, insists
-that, “simple as was his aim, Alfred created English literature”--the
-English literature which is still alive and sturdy after a thousand
-years, and which is to-day flourishing not only in Great Britain, where
-Alfred founded it, but here in the United States, in a larger land, the
-existence of which the good king had no reason ever to surmise.
-
-This English literature is like the language in which it is written,
-and also like the stock that speaks the language, wherever the race
-may have planted or transplanted itself, whether by the banks of the
-little Thames or on the shores of the broad Hudson and the mighty
-Mississippi. Literature and language and people are practical, no
-doubt; but they are not what they are often called: they are not
-prosaic. On the contrary, they are poetic, essentially and indisputably
-poetic. The peoples that speak English are, and always have been,
-self-willed and adventurous. This they were long before King Alfred’s
-time, in the early days when they were Teutons merely, and had not yet
-won their way into Britain; and this they are to-day, when the most
-of them no longer dwell in old England, but in the newer England here
-in America. They have ever lacked the restraint and reserve which are
-the conditions of the best prose; and they have always exulted in the
-untiring energy and the daring imagination which are the vital elements
-of poetry. “In his busiest days Alfred found time to learn the old
-songs of his race by heart,” so the historian tells us; “and he bade
-them be taught in the palace-school.”
-
-Lyric is what English literature has always been at its best, lyric and
-dramatic; and the men who speak English have always been individual and
-independent, every man ready to fight for his own hand; and the English
-language has gone on its own way, keeping its strength in spite of
-the efforts of pedants and pedagogs to bind it and to stifle it, and
-ever insisting on renewing its freshness as best it could. Development
-there has been in language and in literature and in the stock itself,
-development and growth of many kinds; but no radical change can be
-detected in all these ten centuries. “No national art is good which
-is not plainly the nation’s own,” said Mr. Stopford Brooke in his
-consideration of the earliest English lyrics. “The poetry of England
-has owed much to the different races which mingled with the original
-English race; it has owed much to the different types of poetry it
-absorbed--Greek, Latin, Welsh, French, Italian, Spanish: but below all
-these admixtures the English nature wrought its steady will. It seized,
-it transmuted, it modified, it mastered these admixtures both of races
-and of song.”
-
-The English nature wrought its steady will; but what is this English
-nature, thus set up as an entity and endowed with conscious purpose? Is
-there such a thing, of a certainty? Can there be such a thing, indeed?
-These questions are easier to ask than to answer. It is true that we
-have been accustomed to credit certain races not merely with certain
-characteristics, but even with certain qualities, esteeming certain
-peoples to be specially gifted in one way or another. For example, we
-have held it as an article of faith that the Greeks, by their display
-of a surpassing sense of form, proved their possession of an artistic
-capacity finer and richer than that revealed by any other people since
-the dawn of civilization. And again, we have seen in the Roman skill
-in constructive administration, in the Latin success in law-making
-and in road-building--we have seen in this the evidence of a native
-faculty denied to their remote predecessors, the Egyptians. Now come
-the advocates of a later theory, who tell us that the characteristics
-of the Greeks and of the Romans are not the result of any inherent
-superiority of theirs, or of any native predisposition toward art
-or toward administration, but are caused rather by circumstances of
-climate, of geographical situation, and of historical position. We are
-assured now that the Romans, had they been in the place of the Greeks
-and under like circumstances, might have revealed themselves as great
-masters of form; while the Greeks, had their history been that of the
-Romans, would certainly have shown the same power of ruling themselves
-and others, and of compacting the most diverse nations into a single
-empire.
-
-No doubt the theory of race-characteristics, of stocks variously gifted
-with specific faculties, has been too vigorously asserted and unduly
-insisted upon. It was so convenient and so useful that it could not
-help being overworked. But altho it is not so impregnable as it was
-supposed to be, it need not be surrendered at the first attack; and
-altho we are compelled to abandon the theory as a whole, we can save
-what it contained of truth. And therefore it is well to bear in mind
-that even if the Greeks in the beginning had no sharper bent toward art
-than had the Phenicians,--from whom they borrowed so much of value to
-be made by them more valuable,--even if their esthetic superiority was
-the result of a happy chapter of chances, it was a fact nevertheless;
-and a time came at last when the Greeks were seen to be possessed of
-a fertility of invention and of a sense of form surpassing all their
-predecessors had ever exhibited. When this time came the Greeks were
-conscious of their unexampled achievements and properly proud of them;
-and they proved that they were able to transmit from sire to son this
-artistic aptitude--however the aptitude itself had been developed
-originally. So whether the Roman power to govern and to evolve the
-proper instruments of government was a native gift of the Latins,
-or whether it was developed in them by a fortuitous combination of
-geographical and historical circumstances, this question is somewhat
-academic, since we know that the Romans did display extraordinary
-administrative ability century after century. Whenever it was evolved,
-the artistic type in Greece and the administrative type in Italy was
-persistent; and it reappeared again and again in successive generations.
-
-This indeed needs always to be remembered, that race-characteristics,
-whatever their origin, are strangely enduring when once they are
-established. The English nature whereof Mr. Stopford Brooke speaks,
-when once it was conscious of itself, worked its steady will, despite
-the changes of circumstance; and only very slowly is it modified by the
-accidents of later history and geography. M. Fouillée has set side by
-side the description of the Germans by Tacitus and the account of the
-Gauls by Cæsar, drawing attention to the fact that the modern French
-are now very like the ancient Gauls, and that the descendants of the
-Germans of old, the various branches of the Teutonic race, have the
-characteristics of their remote ancestors whom the Roman historian
-chose to praise by way of warning for his fellow-citizens.
-
-The Romans conquered Gaul and held it for centuries; the Franks took
-it in turn and gave it their name; but the Gallic type was so securely
-fixed that the Roman first and then the Frank succumbed to it and were
-absorbed into it. The Gallic type is not now absolutely unchanged, for,
-after all, the world does move; but it is readily recognizable to this
-day. Certain of Cæsar’s criticisms read as tho they were written by
-a contemporary of Napoleon. As Cæsar saw them the Gauls were fickle
-in counsel and fond of revolutions. Believing in false rumors, they
-were led into deeds they regretted afterward. Deciding questions of
-importance without reflection, they were ready to war without reason;
-and they were weak and lacking in energy in time of disaster. They were
-cast down by a first defeat, as they were inflamed by a first victory.
-They were affable, light, inconstant, and vain; they were quick-witted
-and ready-tongued; they had a liking for tales and an insatiable
-curiosity for news. They cultivated eloquence, having an astonishing
-facility of speech, and of letting themselves be taken in by words. And
-having thus summed up Cæsar’s analysis of the Gaul, M. Fouillée asks
-how after this we can deny the persistence of national types.
-
-What Tacitus has to say of the Germans comes home more closely to
-us who speak English, since the Teutonic tribes the Latin historian
-was considering are not more the ancestors of the modern Prussians
-than they are of the wide-spread Anglo-Saxon peoples. As those who
-speak English went from the mainland across the North Sea to an
-island and dwelt there for centuries, and were joined by earlier kin
-from elsewhere, the race-characteristics were obviously modified a
-little--just as they have been as obviously modified a little more
-when some of those who spoke English went out again from the island
-to a boundless continent across the Atlantic, and were joined here by
-many others, most of whom were also derived from one or another of the
-varied Teutonic stocks.
-
-It is nearly two thousand years since Tacitus studied the Teutonic
-race-characteristics, and yet most of the peculiarities he noted
-then are evident now. Tacitus tells us that the Teutons were tall,
-fair-haired, and flegmatic. They were great eaters, not to say gross
-feeders; and they were given to strong drink. They were fond of games,
-and were ready to pay their losses with their persons, if need be. They
-were individual and independent. Their manners were rude, not to call
-them violent. They were possessed of the domestic virtues, the women
-being chaste and the husbands faithful. They loved war as they loved
-liberty. They had a passionate fidelity to their leaders. They decided
-important questions of policy in public assembly.
-
-The several peoples of our own time who are descended from the Teutons
-thus described by Tacitus with so sympathetic an insight have been
-developing for twenty centuries, more or less, each in its own way,
-under influences wholly unlike, influences both geographical and
-historical; and it is small wonder that they have diverged as they
-have, and that no one of them nowadays completely represents the
-original stock. Some of the points Tacitus made are true to-day in
-Prussia and are not true in Great Britain; and some hit home here
-in the United States, altho they miss the mark in Germany. The
-modern Germans still retain a few of these Tacitean characteristics
-which the peoples that speak English have lost in their adventurous
-career overseas. And on the other hand, certain of the remarks of
-Tacitus might be made to-day in the United States; for example, the
-willingness to run risks for the fun of the game--is not this a present
-characteristic of the American as we know him? And here we have always
-been governed by town-meeting, as the old Teutons were, whereas the
-modern German is only now getting this back by borrowing it from the
-English precedent. In our private litigations we continue to abide by
-the customs of our remote Teutonic ancestors, while the German has
-accepted as a legal guide the Roman law, wrought out by the countrymen
-of Tacitus.
-
-Second only to a community of language, no unifying force is more
-potent than a community of law. In the depths of their dark forests the
-Teutons had already evolved their own rudimentary code by which they
-did justice between man and man; and these customary sanctions were
-taken over to Britain by the Angles and the Saxons and the Jutes; and
-they served as the foundation of the common law by means of which the
-peoples that speak English still administer justice in their courts.
-And here again we find the handiwork of the great King Alfred, from
-whom we may date the codification of an English law as we may also
-reckon the establishing of an English literature. With the opportunism
-of our race, he had no thought of a new legislation, but merely merged
-the best of the tribal customs into a law for the whole kingdom. The
-king sought to bring to light and to leave on record the righteous
-rulings of the wise men who had gone before. “Those things which I met
-with,” so the historian transmits his words, “either of the days of
-Ine, my kinsman, or of Offa, King of the Mercians, or of Æthelberht,
-who first among the English race received baptism, those which seemed
-to me rightest, those I have gathered, and rejected the rest.”
-
-Law and language--these are the unrelaxing bands that hold a race
-firmly together. There are now two main divisions of the Teutonic
-stock, separated to-day by language and by law--the people who speak
-German and are ruled by Roman law, and the peoples who speak English
-and are governed by the common law; and the separation is as wide and
-as deep legally as it is linguistically. “By the forms of its language
-a nation expresses its very self,” said one of the acutest of British
-critics; and we have the proof of this at hand in the characteristic
-differences between the English language and the German. By the forms
-of its law a people expresses its political beliefs; and we have the
-evidence of this in the fact that we Americans regard our rulers merely
-as agents of the town-meeting of the old Teutons, while the modern
-Germans are submitting to a series of trials for lese-majesty.
-
-Laws have most weight when they are seen to be the expression of the
-common conscience; and they are most respected when they best reflect
-the ideals that are “the souls of the nations which cherish them,” as
-a historian of American literature has finely phrased it--“the living
-spirits which waken nationality into being, and which often preserve
-its memory long after its life has ebbed away.” The marked difference
-now obvious between the two great divisions of the Teutonic stock--that
-which speaks English and that which speaks German--is due in part to
-their not having each conserved exactly the same portion of the ideals
-inherited from their common ancestors, and in part to their having each
-acquired other ideals in the course of the many centuries of their
-separate existence. And the minor differences to be detected between
-the two great divisions of the stock that speaks English, that dwelling
-in Great Britain and that dwelling in the United States, are due to
-similar causes.
-
-While the ancestors of the people who speak German were abiding at
-home, where Tacitus had seen them, the ancestors of the peoples who
-speak English went forth across the North Sea and possessed themselves
-of the better part of Great Britain and gave it a new name. They
-were not content to defeat the earlier inhabitants in fair fight,
-and then to leave them in peace, as the Romans did, ruling them and
-intermarrying with them; the English thrust the natives out violently
-and harried them away. As Green puts it tersely, “The English conquest
-for a hundred and fifty years was a sheer dispossession and driving back
-of the people whom the English conquered.” No doubt this dispossession
-was ruthless; but was it complete? The newcomers took the land for
-their own, and they meant to kill out all the original owners; but
-was this possible? The country was rough and thickly wooded, and
-it abounded in nooks and corners where a family might hide itself.
-Moreover, what is more likely than that the invader should often spare
-a woman and take her to wife? For centuries the English kept spreading
-themselves and pushing back the Britons; but in the long war there
-were truces now and again, and what is more likely than an incessant
-intermingling of the blood all along the border as it was slowly driven
-forward?
-
-Certain it is that one of the influences which have modified the modern
-English stock is a Celtic strain. If the peoples that speak English
-are now not quite like the people that speak German, plainly this is
-one reason: they have had a Celtic admixture, which has lightened them
-and contributed elements lacking in the original Teuton. To declare
-just what these elements are is not easy; but to deny their presence is
-impossible. The Celt has an impetuosity and a swiftness of perception
-which we do not find in the original Teuton, and which the man who
-speaks English is now more likely to possess than the man who speaks
-German. The Celt has a certain shy delicacy; he has a happy sensibility
-and a turn for charming sentiment; he has a delightful lyric note;
-and he has at times a sincere and puissant melancholy. These are all
-qualities which we find in our English literature, and especially in
-its greatest figure. “The Celts do not form an utterly distinct part
-of our mixed population,” said Henry Morley in a striking passage.
-“But for early, frequent, and various contact with the race that in
-its half-barbarous days invented Ossian’s dialogues with St. Patrick,
-and that quickened afterward the Northmen’s blood in France, Germanic
-England would not have produced a Shakspere.”
-
-Here we see Morley declaring that the Celt had “quickened the
-Northmen’s blood in France”; and perhaps by his choice of a word he
-meant to remind us that whereas the Northmen who sailed down the
-mouth of the Seine were Teutons, the Normans who were to sail up to
-Hastings had been materially modified during their sojourn in France,
-which had once been Celtic Gaul. Two series of occasions there were
-when the English received an accession of Celtic blood: first, when
-they conquered England; and second, when they in turn were conquered
-by the Normans, who ruled them for centuries, and were finally merged
-in them, just as earlier the Romans had been merged in the Gauls. And
-this recalls to us the fact that there was more in the Norman than the
-intermingling of the Teuton and the Celt; there was in the Norman also
-not a little of the Roman who had so long ruled Gaul, and who had so
-deeply marked it with certain of his own characteristics. Thus it was
-that the Norman brought into England a Latin tradition; he had acquired
-something of the Roman administrative skill, something of the Roman’s
-genius for affairs. After the Renascence, Latin influences were to
-affect the English language and English literature; but it was after
-the conquest that the English people itself came first in contact with
-certain of the Roman ideals.
-
-Matthew Arnold thought that we owed “to the Latin element in our
-language the most of that very rapidity and clear decisiveness by which
-it is contradistinguished from the modern German”; and he found in the
-Latinized Normans in England “the sense for fact, which the Celts had
-not, and the love of strenuousness, clearness, and rapidity, the high
-Latin spirit, which the Saxons had not.” Perhaps the English feeling
-for style, our command of the larger rhetoric, may be due to this blend
-of the Norman; and it cannot be denied that this gift has not been
-granted to the modern German. The fantastic brilliancy of De Quincey
-and the sonorous picturesqueness of Ruskin are alike inconceivable in
-the language of Klopstock; and altho there is a pregnant concision in
-the speeches of Bismarck at his best, there is no German orator who
-ever attained the unfailing dignity and the lofty affluence of Webster
-at his best.
-
-Less than two centuries after the good King Alfred had declared English
-law and established English literature, the Normans came and saw and
-conquered. Less than three centuries after King William took the land
-there was born the first great English poet. If the language is to-day
-what it is, it is because of Chaucer, who chose the court dialect of
-London to write in, and who made it supple for his own use and the use
-of the poets that were to come after. The Norman conquest had brought a
-new and needed contribution to the English character; it had resulted
-in an immense enrichment of the English language; and it had related
-English literature again to the broad current of European life. To the
-original Teutonic basis had been added Celtic and Norman and Latin
-strains; and still the English nature wrought its steady will, still it
-expressed itself most freely and most fully in poetry. And in no other
-poet are certain aspects of this English nature more boldly displayed
-than in Chaucer, in whom we find a fresh feeling for the visible world,
-a true tenderness of sentiment, a joyous breadth of humor, and a
-resolute yet delicate handling of human character.
-
-Two centuries after Chaucer came Shakspere, in whom the English nature
-finds its fullest expression. The making of England was then complete;
-all the varied elements had been fused in the fire of a struggle
-for existence and welded by war with the most powerful of foes. The
-race-characteristics were then finally determined; and in Elizabethan
-literature they are splendidly exhibited. Something was contributed
-by the literature of the Spain that the Elizabethans had stoutly
-withstood, and something more by the literature of the Italy so many of
-them knew by travel; but all was absorbed, combined, and assimilated by
-the English nature, like the contributions that came from the classics
-of Rome and Greece. Bacon and Cecil, Drake and Ralegh, are not more
-typical of that sudden and glorious outpouring of English individuality
-than are Marlowe, Shakspere, and Jonson, Spenser, Chapman, and
-Massinger. In that greatest period of the race we do not know which
-is the greater, the daring energy, the enthusiastic impetuosity, the
-ability to govern, that the English then displayed, or the mighty sweep
-and range of the imagination as nobly revealed in their poetry. The
-works of the Elizabethan writers are with us, like the memory of the
-deeds of the Elizabethan adventurers, as evidence, if any was needful,
-that the peoples that speak English are of a truth poetic, that they
-are not prosaic.
-
-In the days of Elizabeth the English began to go abroad and to settle
-here and there. To those who came to America there were added in due
-season many vigorous folk from other Teutonic sources; and here in the
-centuries that have followed was to be seen a fusion of races and a
-welding into one nation such as had been seen in England itself several
-centuries earlier. To those who remained in England there came few
-accretions from the outside, altho when the edict of Nantes was revoked
-the English gained much that the French lost. The Huguenots were stanch
-men and sturdy, of great ability often, and of a high seriousness.
-Some crossed the Channel and some crossed the ocean; and no one of the
-strands which have been twisted to make the modern American is more
-worthy than this.
-
-More important than this French contribution, perhaps, was another
-infusion of the Celtic influence. When the King of Scotland became
-King of England, his former subjects swarmed to London--preceding by a
-century the Irishmen who made themselves more welcome in the English
-capital, with their airy wit and their touch of Celtic sentiment. Far
-heavier than the Scotch raid into England, and the Irish invasion,
-was the influx of Scotch, of Irish, and of Scotch-Irish into America.
-At the very time when Lord Lyndhurst was expressing the opinion that
-the English held the Irish to be “aliens in blood, aliens in speech,
-aliens in religion,” the Irish were withdrawing in their thousands
-from the rule of a people that felt thus toward them; and they were
-making homes for themselves where prejudice against them was not
-potent. Yet in England itself the Irish left their mark on literature,
-especially upon comedy, for which they have ever revealed a delightful
-aptitude; and in the eighteenth century alone the stage is lightened
-and brightened by the plays of Steele, of Sheridan, and of Goldsmith.
-About the end of the same century also the Scotch began to make their
-significant and stimulating contribution to English literature, which
-was refreshed again by Burns with his breath of sympathy, by Scott with
-his many-sided charm, and by Byron with his resonant note of revolt.
-
-Just as the Angles and the Saxons and the Jutes had mingled in Great
-Britain to make the Englishman, and had been modified by Celtic and
-Norman and Latin influences, so here in the United States the Puritan
-and the Cavalier, the Dutchman and the Huguenot and the German, the
-Irish and the Scotch and the Scotch-Irish, have all blended to make
-the American. Not a few of the original Teutonic race-characteristics
-recorded by Tacitus are here now, as active as ever; and not a few
-of the English race-characteristics as revealed by the Elizabethan
-dramatists survive in America, keeping company with many a locution
-which has dropped out of use in England itself. There is to-day in the
-spoken speech of the United States a larger freedom than in the spoken
-speech of Great Britain, a figurative vigor that the Elizabethans
-would have relished and understood. It is not without significance
-that the game of cards best liked by the adventurers who worried the
-Armada should have been born again to delight the Argonauts of ’49.
-The characteristic energy of the English stock, never more exuberantly
-displayed than under Elizabeth, suffered no diminution in crossing the
-Atlantic; rather has it been strengthened on this side, since every
-native American must be the descendant of some man more venturesome
-than his kin who thought best to stay at home. Nor is the energy less
-imaginative, altho it has not taken mainly a literary expression.
-“There was no chance for poetry among the Puritans,” so Lowell reminded
-us, “and yet if any people have a right to imagination, it should
-be the descendants of those very Puritans.” And he added tersely:
-“They had enough of it, or they could never have conceived the great
-epic they did, whose books are States, and which is written on this
-continent from Maine to California.”
-
-More than half those who speak English now dwell in the United States,
-and less than a third dwell within the British Isles. To some it may
-seem merely fanciful, no doubt, but still the question may be put,
-whether the British or the American is to-day really closer to the
-Elizabethan? It has recently been remarked that the typical John Bull
-was invisible in England while Shakspere was alive, and that he has
-become possible in Great Britain only since the day when these United
-States declared their independence. Walter Bagehot, the shrewdest of
-critics of his fellow-countrymen, maintained that the saving virtue
-of the British people of the middle of the nineteenth century was
-a stolidity closely akin to stupidity. But surely the Elizabethans
-were not stolid; and the Americans (who have been accused of many
-things) have never been accused of stupidity. Mr. Bernard Bosanquet
-has just been insisting that the two dominant notes of the British
-character at the beginning of the twentieth century are insularity and
-inarticulateness. The Elizabethan was braggart and self-pleased and
-arrogant, but he was not fairly open to the reproach of insularity,
-nor was he in the least inarticulate. Perhaps insularity and
-inarticulateness are inseparable; and it may be that it is the immense
-variety of the United States that has preserved the American from the
-one, as the practice of the town-meeting has preserved him from the
-other.
-
-No longer do we believe that there is any special virtue in the purity
-of race, even if we could discover nowadays any people who had a just
-right to pride themselves on this. The French are descended from the
-Gauls, but to the Gauls have been added Romans and Franks; the English
-are descended from the Teutons, but they have received many accretions
-from other sources; and the Americans are descended from the British,
-but it is undeniable that they have differentiated themselves somehow.
-The admixture of varied stocks is held to be a source of freshness
-and of renewed vitality; and it may be that this is the cause of the
-American alertness and venturesomeness. And as yet these foreign
-elements have but little modified the essential type; for just as
-the English nature wrought its steady will through the centuries, so
-the American characteristics have been imposed on all the welter of
-nationalities that swirl together in the United States.
-
-Throughout the land there is one language, a development of the
-language of King Alfred, and one law, a development of the law of King
-Alfred; and throughout the land there are schools such as the good
-king wished for. American ideals are not quite the same as British
-ideals, but they differ only a little, and they have both flowered
-from the English root, as the earlier English ideals had flowered
-from a Teutonic root. The English stock has displayed in the United
-States the same marvelous assimilating faculty that it displayed
-centuries ago in Great Britain, the same extraordinary power of getting
-the sojourners within its borders to accept its ideals. The law of
-imitation is irresistible, as M. Tarde has shown; and as M. Fouillée
-asserts, a nation is really united and unified only when its whole
-population thrills at the same appeal and vibrates when the same chord
-is struck. Then there is a consciousness of nationality and of true
-national solidarity. Throughout the United States there is a unanimous
-acceptance of the old English ideals--a liking for energy, a respect
-for character, a belief in equality before the law, and an acceptance
-of individual responsibility. These are the ideals which will echo
-again and again in English literature on both shores of the Atlantic,
-as they have echoed so often since King Alfred died. “A thousand years
-are but as yesterday when it is past, and as a watch in the night.”
-
- (1901)
-
-
-
-
-II
-
-THE FUTURE OF THE LANGUAGE
-
-
-Two apparently contradictory tendencies are to-day visible. One of
-them is revealed by our increasing interest in the less important
-languages and in the more important dialects. The other is to be seen
-in the immense expansion of the several peoples using the three or four
-most widely spoken European tongues, an expansion rapidly giving them
-a supremacy which renders hopeless any attempt of the less important
-European languages ever to equal them. (It may be noted now once for
-all that in this paper only the Indo-European languages are taken into
-account, altho Arabic did succeed for a while in making itself the
-chief tongue of the Mediterranean basin, overrunning Sicily and even
-thrusting itself up into Spain, and altho Chinese may have a fateful
-expansion in the dark future.)
-
-As an instance of the first of the two conflicting tendencies, we have
-in France the movement of the _félibres_ to revive Provençal, and to
-make it again a fit vehicle for poetry. We have in Norway an effort
-to differentiate written Norwegian from the Danish, which has hitherto
-been accepted as the standard speech of all Scandinavian authors.
-We have in Belgium an increasing resistance to French, which is the
-official tongue, and an attempt arbitrarily to resuscitate the Flemish
-dialect. We have in Switzerland a desire to keep alive the primitive
-and moribund Romansh. We have in North Britain a demand for at least a
-professorship of broad Scots. We see also that, among the languages of
-the smaller nations, neither Dutch nor Portuguese shows any symptoms of
-diminishing vitality, while Rumanian has been suddenly encouraged by
-the political independence of the people speaking it.
-
-All this is curious and interesting; and yet at the very period when
-these developments are in progress, other influences are at work on
-behalf of the languages of the greater races. The developments noted
-above are largely the work of scholars and of students; they are the
-artificial products of provincial pride; and they are destined to
-defeat by forces as invincible as those of nature itself. In their
-different degrees Provençal and Flemish are struggling for existence
-against French; but French itself is not gaining in its old rivalry
-with English and with German.
-
-At the end of the seventeenth century French was the language of
-diplomacy; it was the speech of the courts of Europe; it was the one
-modern tongue an educated man in England or in Germany, in Spain or in
-Italy, needed to acquire. As Latin had been the world-language in the
-days of the Empire, so French bade fair to be the world-language in the
-days when all the parts of the earth should be bound together by the
-bands of commerce and finance. In the eighteenth century the supremacy
-of French was still indisputable; but in the nineteenth century it
-disappeared. And, unless all calculations of probability fail us,
-somewhere in the twentieth century French will have fallen from the
-first place to the fifth, just below Spanish, just above Italian, and
-far, far beneath English and Russian and German.
-
-It was the social instinct of the French which made their language so
-neat, so apt for epigram and compliment, so admirable and so adequate
-for criticism; and it was the energy of the English-speaking peoples,
-their individuality, their independence, which made our language so
-sturdy, so vigorous, so powerful.
-
-An excess of the social instinct it is which has kept the French at
-home, close to the borders of France, and which has thus restricted the
-expansion of their language, while it is also an excess of the energy
-of our stock that has scattered English all over the world, on every
-shore of all the seven seas. And now that the nineteenth century has
-drawn to an end, if we can guess at the future from our acquaintance
-with the past, we are justified in believing that the world-language
-at the end of the twentieth century--should any one tongue succeed in
-winning universal acceptance--will be English. If it is not English,
-then it will not be German or Spanish or French; it will be Russian.
-
-This attempt to foretell the future is not a random venture or a
-reckless brag; it is based on a comparison of the number of people
-speaking the different European languages at different periods. At my
-request Mr. N. I. Stone, of the School of Political Science of Columbia
-University, made an examination of the statistics, in so far as they
-are obtainable. The figures are rarely absolutely trustworthy before
-the nineteenth century--indeed, they are sometimes little better than
-guesswork. Yet they are approximately accurate, and they will serve
-fairly well for purposes of comparison. They make plain the way in
-which one language has gained on another in the past; and they afford
-material for us to hazard a prediction as to the languages likely to
-gain most in the immediate future.
-
-In the fourteenth century the population of France was about ten
-millions, and that of the British Isles probably less than four
-millions. In both territories there were certainly many who did not
-speak the chief language; yet the proportion of those who spoke French
-to those who spoke English was at least ten to four.
-
-Toward the end of the fifteenth century the British Isles still had
-less than four millions, while France had more than twelve millions. At
-this same period Italy had a few more than nine millions, and Spain a
-few less, while the Germans (including always the Austrians who spoke
-German) were about ten millions.
-
-Coming toward the end of the sixteenth century, we find six millions
-in the British Isles, more than fourteen millions in France and in the
-French-speaking portions of the adjacent countries, and more than ten
-millions in Italy. The Russians then numbered nearly four millions and
-a half--only a million and a half less than the British.
-
-At the very end of the seventeenth century the number of those speaking
-English was nearly eight millions and a half--most of them still in the
-British Isles, but some of them already departed into the colonies in
-America and elsewhere. The number of those speaking French was twenty
-millions, of those speaking Italian a few less than twelve millions,
-and of those speaking Russian about fifteen millions. Those speaking
-Spanish were chiefly at home in the Iberian peninsula, but not a few
-were in the colonies in America: they amounted to about eight millions
-in all, the mother-country having wasted her people in ruinous wars.
-
-At the very end of the eighteenth century we find the English-speaking
-peoples on both shores of the Atlantic swollen to twenty-two millions,
-having nearly trebled in a hundred years, while the French had added
-only a third to their population, amounting in all to a few more than
-twenty-seven millions. The Germans were about thirty-three millions,
-having passed the French; and the Italians were a few more than
-thirteen millions, having increased very slowly. Neither Germans nor
-Italians had as yet been able either to achieve unity for themselves or
-to found colonies elsewhere. The Spanish, including their pure-blooded
-colonists, numbered perhaps ten millions. The Russians had increased to
-twenty-five millions, the boundaries of their empire having been widely
-extended.
-
-The nineteenth century was a period of unexampled expansion for the
-English-speaking race, who have spread to India, to Australia, and to
-Africa, besides filling up the western parts of the United States; they
-now number probably between a hundred and twenty-five and a hundred
-and thirty millions. The Russians have also pushed their borders across
-Asia, and they also show an immense increase, now numbering about a
-hundred and thirty millions, altho probably a very large proportion
-of their conglomerate population does not yet speak Russian. The
-Germans have supplied millions of immigrants to the United States,
-and thousands of expatriated traders to all the great cities of the
-world; and in spite of this loss they now number about seventy millions
-(including, as before, the German portions of the Austro-Hungarian
-monarchy). The Spanish-speaking peoples in the old world and the new
-are about forty-two millions, not half of them being in Spain itself.
-
-The French lag far behind in this multiplication; they number now a
-few more than forty millions, including those Belgians and Swiss who
-have French for their mother-tongue. The relative loss of the French
-can best be shown by a comparison with the English after an interval of
-five hundred years. In the fourteenth century, as we have seen, those
-who spoke French were to those who spoke English as ten to four; in
-the nineteenth century those who speak English are to those who speak
-French as one hundred and thirty to forty. In other words, the French
-during five centuries have increased fourfold, while the English have
-multiplied more than thirtyfold.
-
-French is still the language most frequently employed by diplomatists;
-it is still the tongue in which educated men of differing nationalities
-are most likely to be able to converse with each other. But its
-supremacy has departed forever. It has long been fighting a losing
-battle. Its hope of becoming the world-language of the future vanished,
-never to reappear, when Clive grasped India and when Wolfe defeated
-Montcalm. At a brief interval the French let slip their final chances
-of holding either the east or the west.
-
-The English-speaking peoples and the Russians have entered into the
-inheritance which the French have renounced. The future is theirs, for
-they are ready to go forth and subdue the waste places of the earth.
-They are the great civilizing forces of the twentieth century, each in
-its own way and each in its own degree. The Russians have revealed a
-remarkable faculty of assimilation, and have taken over the wild tribes
-of the east, which they are slowly starting along the path of progress.
-The English--by which I mean always the peoples who speak the English
-language--have possessed themselves of North America and of South
-Africa and of Australia; and there is no sign yet visible of any lack
-of energy or of any decrease of vigor in the branches of this hardy and
-prolific stock.
-
-At the rate of increase of the nineteenth century, the end of the
-twentieth century will find eight hundred and forty millions speaking
-English and five hundred millions speaking Russian, while those who
-speak German will be one hundred and thirty millions and those who
-speak French perhaps sixty millions. But it is very unlikely that the
-rate of increase in the twentieth century will be what it was in the
-nineteenth. The extraordinary expansion of the United States is the
-salient phenomenon of the nineteenth century; and it is doubtfully
-possible and certainly improbable that any such expansion can take
-place in the twentieth century, even in South Africa. On the other
-hand, the building of the Siberian railroad may open to the Russians
-an outlet for the overflow of their population not unlike that offered
-to the English by the opening of the middle west of the United States.
-The outpouring of Germans, hitherto directed chiefly to the United
-States (where they have been taught to speak English), may perhaps
-hereafter be diverted to German colonies, where the native tongue will
-be cherished.
-
-Thus it seems likely that, while the estimate for the year 2000 of
-one hundred and thirty million Germans is none too large, that of
-five hundred million Russians is perhaps too small, and that of eight
-hundred and fifty millions for the English-speaking peoples is
-probably highly inflated. What, however, we have no reasonable right
-to doubt is that German will be a bad third, as French will be a bad
-fourth; and that the English language and the Russian will stand far
-at the head of the list, one all-powerful in the west and the other
-all-powerful in the east. Which of them will prevail against the other
-in the twenty-first century no man can now foretell, nor can he get any
-help from statistics.
-
-The issue of that conflict cannot be foreseen by any inspection of
-figures, for it will turn not so much on mere numbers--altho the
-possession of these will be an immense advantage: it will be decided
-rather by the race-characteristics of the two stocks when thrust into
-irresistible opposition. The manners and customs of the people who
-speak Russian and of the peoples who speak English, their physical
-strength and their vitality, their ideals, social and political--all
-these things will be the decisive factors in the final combat. Whether
-Russian or English shall be the world-language of the future depends
-not on the language itself and its merits and demerits, but on the
-sturdiness of those who shall then speak it, on their strength of
-will, on their power of organization, on their readiness to sacrifice
-themselves for the common cause, and on their fidelity to their ideals.
-
-Russian is a beautiful language, so those say who know it best: it is
-fresh and vigorous, as might be expected in a speech the literature of
-which is not yet old; it is also as clear and as direct as French. But
-it has one insuperable disadvantage: its grammar is as primitive and
-as complex as the grammar of German or the grammar of Greek. The verb
-has an elaborate conjugation, the noun an elaborate declension, the
-adjective an elaborate method of agreement in gender, number, and case.
-
-Now English is fortunate in having discarded nearly all this primitive
-machinery, which is always a sign of linguistic immaturity. The English
-language has shed almost all its unnecessary complications; it has
-advanced from complexity toward simplicity, while Russian still lingers
-in its unreformed condition of arbitrary elaboration. One objection,
-it may be noted, to Volapük, which a German scholar kindly invented
-as the world-language of the future, was that its grammar was of this
-primitive and complicated type.
-
-In these days of the printing-press and of the schoolmaster any
-radical modification of the mother-tongue is increasingly difficult,
-so that it is highly improbable that Russian can now ever shake off
-these grammatical encumbrances that really unfit it for use as a
-world-language to be acquired by all men. Russian is one of the
-most backward of modern languages in its progress toward grammatical
-simplicity; and English is one of the most forward. Italian is also a
-language which had the good fortune partly to reform its grammar before
-the invention of printing made the operation almost impossible; and
-Italian is like English in that it is a very easy language to learn
-by word of mouth, as the rules of grammar we must needs obey are very
-few,--tho in this respect English is superior even to Italian. If
-English is hard to learn when it is taught by the eye instead of the
-ear, this is because of our cumbersome and antiquated spelling; here
-the Italian is far better off than the English.
-
-Indeed, it is not a little strange that the English language, which is
-one of the most advanced in grammatical simplicity, is one of the most
-belated in orthographic simplicity. In no other modern language is the
-system of spelling--if system that can be called which has no rule or
-reason--more arbitrary and more chaotic than in English; and no other
-peculiarity of our language does more to retard its diffusion than its
-wantonly foolish orthography.
-
-Probably much of the violent opposition to the simplification of our
-spelling is due to the fanatic zeal of the phonetic reformers, who
-have frightened away all the timid respecters of tradition by their
-rash insistence upon the immediate adoption of some brand-new and
-comprehensive scheme. The English-speaking peoples are essentially
-conservative and unfailingly opportunist; they abhor all radical
-remedies. They are wont to remove ancient abuses piecemeal, and not
-root and branch. The most they can be got to do in the immediate future
-is to follow the example of the Italians, and to lop off gradually the
-most flagrant inconsistencies and absurdities of our present spelling,
-here a little and there a little, going forward hesitatingly, but never
-stopping.
-
-In this good work of injecting a little more sense into our
-orthography, as in the other good work of still further simplifying our
-grammar as occasion serves and opportunity offers, we Americans may
-have to take the lead. The English language is ours by inheritance,
-and our interest in it is as deep and as wide as that of our British
-cousins. As Mark Twain has put it, with his customary shrewdness, it
-is “the King’s English” no longer, for it has gone into the hands of
-a company, and a majority of the stock is held on our side of the
-Atlantic.
-
-We Americans must awake to a sense of our responsibility as the chief
-of the English-speaking peoples. The tie that binds the British
-colonies to the British crown is strong only because it is loose; and
-in Australia and in Canada the conditions of life resemble those of
-the United States rather than those of Great Britain. The British Isles
-are the birthplace of our race, but they no longer contain the most
-important branch of the English-speaking peoples. On both sides of the
-Atlantic, and afar in the Pacific also, and along the shores of the
-Indian Ocean, are “the subjects of King Shakspere,” the students of
-Chaucer and Dryden, the readers of Scott and Thackeray and Hawthorne;
-but most of them, or at least the largest single group, will be in the
-United States at the end of the twentieth century, as they are at the
-end of the nineteenth.
-
-No one has more clearly seen the essential unity of the
-English-speaking race, and no one has more accurately stated the
-relation of the American branch of this race to the British branch,
-than the late John Richard Green. In his chapter on the independence
-of America, he recorded the fact that since 1776 “the life of the
-English people has flowed not in one current, but in two; and while the
-older has shown little sign of lessening, the younger has fast risen
-to a greatness which has changed the face of the world. In wealth and
-material energy, as in numbers, it far surpasses the mother-country
-from which it sprang. It is already the main branch of the English
-people; and in the days that are at hand the main current of that
-people’s history must run along the channel, not of the Thames or the
-Mersey, but of the Hudson and the Mississippi.”
-
-When English becomes the world-language,--if our speech ever is raised
-to fill that position of honor and usefulness,--it will be the English
-language as it is spoken by all the branches of the English race, no
-doubt; but the dominant influence in deciding what the future of that
-language shall be must come from the United States. The English of the
-future will be the English that we shall use here in the United States;
-and it is for us to hand it down to our children fitted for the service
-it is to render.
-
-This task is ours, not to be undertaken boastfully or vaingloriously
-or in any spirit of provincial self-assertion, on the one hand, or
-of colonial self-depreciation on the other, but with a full sense of
-the burden imposed upon us and of the privilege that accompanies it.
-It is our duty to do what we can to keep our English speech fresh and
-vigorous, to help it draw new life and power from every proper source,
-to resist all the attempts of pedants to cramp it and restrain its
-healthy growth, and to urge along the simplification of its grammar and
-its orthography, so that it shall be ready against the day when it is
-really a world-language.
-
- (1898)
-
-
-
-
-III
-
-THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE IN THE UNITED STATES
-
-
-When Benjamin Franklin was in England in 1760, he received a letter
-from David Hume commenting on the style of an essay of his writing and
-on his choice of words; and in his reply Franklin modestly thanked his
-friend for the criticism, and took occasion to declare his hope that
-we Americans would always “make the best English of this island our
-standard.” And yet when France acknowledged the independence of the
-United States in 1778 and Franklin was sent to Paris as our minister,
-Congress duly considered the proper forms and ceremonies to be observed
-in doing business with foreign countries, and finally resolved that
-“all speeches or communications may, if the public ministers choose it,
-be in the language of their respective countries; and all replies or
-answers shall be in the language of the United States.”
-
-What is “the language of the United States”? Is it “the best English”
-of Great Britain, as Franklin hoped it would always be? Franklin
-was unusually far-sighted, but even he could not foresee what is
-perhaps the most extraordinary event of the nineteenth century,--an
-era abounding in the extraordinary,--the marvelous spread and immense
-expansion of the English language. It is not only along the banks of
-the Thames and the Tweed and the Shannon that children are now losing
-irrecoverable hours on the many absurdities of English orthography: a
-like wanton wastefulness there is also on the shores of the Hudson,
-of the Mississippi, and of the Columbia, while the same A B C’s are
-parroted by the little ones of those who live where the Ganges rolls
-down its yellow sand and of those who dwell in the great island which
-is almost riverless. No parallel can be found in history for this
-sudden spreading out of the English language in the past hundred
-years--not even the diffusion of Latin during the century when the rule
-of Rome was most widely extended.
-
-Among the scattered millions who now employ our common speech, in
-England itself, in Scotland, Wales, and Ireland, in the United
-States and Canada, in India and in Australia, in Egypt and in South
-Africa, there is no stronger bond of union than the language itself.
-There is no likelihood that any political association will ever
-be sought or achieved. The tie that fastens the more independent
-colonies to the mother-country is loose enough now, even if it is
-never further relaxed; and less than half of those who have English
-for their mother-tongue owe any allegiance whatever to England. The
-English-speaking inhabitants of the British Empire are apparently fewer
-than the inhabitants of the American republic; and the population
-of the United Kingdom itself is only a little more than half the
-population of the United States.
-
-To set down these facts is to point out that the English language is
-no longer a personal possession of the people of England. The power of
-the head of the British Empire over what used to be called the “King’s
-English” is now as little recognized as his power over what used to be
-called the “king’s evil.” We may regret that this is the case, or we
-may rejoice at it; but we cannot well deny the fact itself. And thus
-we are face to face with more than one very interesting question. What
-is going to become of the language now it is thus dispersed abroad and
-freed from all control by a central authority and exposed to all sorts
-of alien influences? Is it bound to become corrupted and to sink from
-its high estate into a mire of slang and into a welter of barbarously
-fashioned verbal novelties? What, more especially, is going to be the
-future of the English language here in America? Must we fear the dread
-possibility that the speech of the peoples on the opposite sides of
-the Western Ocean will diverge at last until the English language will
-divide into two branches, those who speak British being hardly able to
-understand those who speak American, and those who speak American being
-hardly able to understand those who speak British? Mark Twain is a
-humorist, it is true, but he is very shrewd and he has abundant common
-sense; and it was Mark Twain who declared a score of years ago that he
-spoke the “American language.”
-
-The science of linguistics is among the youngest, and yet it has
-already established itself so firmly on the solid ground of ascertained
-truth that it has been able to overthrow with ease one and another
-of the many theories which were accepted without question before it
-came into being. For example, time was--and the time is not so very
-remote, it may be remarked--time was when the little group of more or
-less highly educated men who were at the center of authority in the
-capital of any nation had no doubt whatsoever as to the superiority
-of their way of speaking their own language over the manner in which
-it might be spoken by the vast majority of their fellow-citizens
-deprived of the advantages of a court training. This little group set
-the standard of speech; and the standard they set was accepted as
-final and not to be tampered with under penalty of punishment for the
-crime of lese-majesty. They held that any divergence from the customs
-of speaking and writing they themselves cherished was due to ignorance
-and probably to obstinacy. They believed that the court dialect which
-they had been brought up to use was the only true and original form of
-the language; and they swiftly stigmatized as a gross impropriety every
-usage and every phrase with which they themselves did not happen to be
-familiar. And in thus maintaining the sole validity of their personal
-habits of speech they had no need for self-assertion, since it never
-entered into the head of any one not belonging to the court circle to
-question for a second the position thus tacitly declared.
-
-Yet if modern methods of research have made anything whatever
-indisputable in the history of human speech, they have completely
-disproved the assumption which underlies this implicit claim of the
-courtiers. We know now that the urban dialect is not the original
-language of which the rural dialects are but so many corruptions.
-We know, indeed, that the rural dialects are often really closer
-to the original tongue than the urban dialect; and that the urban
-dialect itself was once as rude as its fellows, and that it owes its
-preëminence rarely to any superiority of its own over its rivals, but
-rather to the fact that it chanced to be the speech of a knot of men
-more masterful than the inhabitants of any other village, and able
-therefore to expand their village to a town and at last to a city,
-which imposed its rule on the neighboring villages, the inhabitants of
-these being by that time forgetful that they had once striven with it
-on almost equal terms. Generally it is the stability given by political
-pre-eminence which leads to the development of a literature, without
-which no dialect can retain its linguistic supremacy.
-
-When the sturdy warriors whose homes were clustered on one or another
-of the seven hills of Rome began to make alliances and conquests, they
-rendered possible the future development of their rough Italic into the
-Latin language which has left its mark on almost every modern European
-tongue. The humble allies of the early Romans, who possessed dialects
-of an equal antiquity and of an equal possibility of improvement, could
-not but obey the laws of imitation; and they sought, perforce, to
-bring their vocabulary and their syntax into conformity with that of
-the men who had shown themselves more powerful. Thus one of the Italic
-dialects was singled out by fortune for an extraordinary future, and
-the other Italic dialects were left in obscurity, altho they were each
-of them as old as the Roman and as available for development. These
-other dialects have even suffered the ignominy of being supposed to be
-corruptions of their triumphant brother.
-
-The French philologist Darmesteter concisely explained the stages of
-this development of one local speech at the expense of its neighbors.
-As it gains in dignity its fellows fall into the shadow. A local speech
-thus neglected is a patois; and a local speech which achieves the
-dignity of literature is a dialect. These written tongues spread on
-all sides and impose themselves on the surrounding population as more
-noble than the patois. Thus a linguistic province is created, and its
-dialect tends constantly to crush out the various patois once freely
-used within its boundaries.
-
-In time one of these provinces becomes politically more powerful than
-the others and extends its rule over one after another of them. As
-it does this, its dialect replaces the dialects of the provinces as
-the official tongue, and it tends constantly to crush out these other
-dialects, as they had tended constantly to crush out the various
-patois. Thus the local speech of the population of the tiny island in
-the Seine, which is the nucleus of the city of Paris, rose slowly to
-the dignity of a written dialect, and the local speech of each of the
-neighboring villages sank into a patois--altho originally it was in no
-wise inferior. In the course of centuries Paris became the capital of
-France, and its provincial dialect became the official language of the
-kingdom. When the kings of France extended their rule over Normandy
-and over Burgundy and over Provence, the Parisian dialect succeeded in
-imposing itself upon the inhabitants of those provinces as superior;
-and in time the Norman dialect and the Burgundian and the Provençal
-were ousted.
-
-The dialect of the province in which the king dwelt and in which the
-business of governing was carried on, could not but dispossess the
-dialects of all the other provinces; and thus the French language,
-as we know it now, was once only the Parisian dialect. Yet there was
-apparently no linguistic inferiority of the _langue d’oc_ to the
-_langue d’oil_; and the reasons for the dominion of the one and the
-decadence of the other are purely political. Of course, as the Parisian
-dialect grew and spread itself, it was enriched by locutions from the
-other provincial dialects, and it was simplified by the dropping of
-many of its grammatical complexities not common to the most of the
-others.
-
-The French language was developed from one particular provincial
-dialect probably no better adapted for improvement than any one of half
-a dozen others; but it is to-day an instrument of precision infinitely
-finer than any of its pristine rivals, since they had none of them
-the good fortune to be chosen for development. But the patois of the
-peasant of Normandy or of Brittany, however inadequate it may be as a
-means of expression for a modern man, is not a corruption of French,
-any more than Doric is a corruption of Attic Greek. It is rather in the
-position of a twin brother disinherited by the guile of his fellow,
-more adroit in getting the good will of their parents. It was the
-literary skill of the Athenians themselves, and not the superiority
-of the original dialect, that makes us think of Attic as the only
-genuine Greek, just as it was the prowess of the Romans in war and
-their power of governing which raised their provincial dialect into the
-language of Italy, and then carried it triumphant to every shore of the
-Mediterranean.
-
-The history of the development of the English language is like the
-history of the development of Greek and Latin and French; and the
-English language as we speak it to-day is a growth from the Midland
-dialect, itself the victor of a struggle for survivorship with the
-Southern and Northern dialects. “With the accession of the royal house
-of Wessex to the rule of Teutonic England,” so Professor Lounsbury
-tells us, “the dialect of Wessex had become the cultivated language of
-the whole people--the language in which books were written and laws
-were published.” But when the Norman conquest came, altho, to quote
-from Professor Lounsbury again, “the native tongue continued to be
-spoken by the great majority of the population, it went out of use as
-the language of high culture,” and “the educated classes, whether lay
-or ecclesiastical, preferred to write either in Latin or in French--the
-latter steadily tending more and more to become the language of
-literature as well as of polite society.” And as a result of this the
-West-Saxon had to drop to the low level of the other dialects; “it had
-no longer any preëminence of its own.” There was in England from the
-twelfth to the fourteenth centuries no national language, but every one
-was free to use with tongue and pen his own local speech, altho three
-provincial dialects existed, “each possessing a literature of its own
-and each seemingly having about the same chance to be adopted as the
-representative national speech.”
-
-These three dialects were the Southern (which was the descendant of
-Wessex, once on the way to supremacy), the Northern, and the Midland
-(which had the sole advantage that it was a compromise between its
-neighbors to the north and the south). London was situated in the
-region of the Midland dialect, and it was therefore “the tongue mainly
-employed at the court” when French slowly ceased to be the language
-of the upper classes. As might be expected in those days before the
-printing-press and the spelling-book imposed uniformity, the Midland
-dialect was spoken somewhat differently in the Eastern counties from
-the way it was spoken in the Western counties of the region. London
-was in the Eastern division of the Midland dialect, and London was
-the capital. Probably because the speech of the Eastern division of
-the Midland dialect was the speech of the capital, it was used as the
-vehicle of his verse by an officer of the court--who happened also to
-be a great poet and a great literary artist. Just as Dante’s choice of
-his native Tuscan dialect controlled the future development of Italian,
-so Chaucer’s choice controlled the future development of English. It
-was Chaucer, so Professor Lounsbury declares, “who first showed to all
-men the resources of the language, its capacity of representing with
-discrimination all shades of human thought and of conveying with power
-all manifestations of human feeling.”
-
-The same writer tells us that “the cultivated English language, in
-which nearly all English literature of value has been written, sprang
-directly from the East-Midland division of the Midland dialect, and
-especially from the variety of the East-Midland which was spoken at
-London and the region immediately to the north of it.” That this
-magnificent opportunity came to the London dialect was not due to any
-superiority it had over any other variety of the Midland dialect: it
-was due to the single fact that it was the speech of the capital--just
-as the dialect of the Île-de-France in like manner served as the stem
-from which the cultivated French language sprang. The Parisian dialect
-flourished and imposed itself on all sides; within the present limits
-of France it choked out the other local dialects, even the soft and
-lovely Provençal; and beyond the boundaries of the country it was
-accepted in Belgium and in Switzerland.
-
-So the dialect of London has gone on growing and refining and enriching
-itself as the people who spoke it extended their borders and passed
-over the wide waters and won their way to far countries, until to-day
-it serves not merely for the cockney Tommy Atkins, the cow-boy of
-Montana, and the larrikin of Melbourne: it is adequate for the various
-needs of the Scotch philosopher and of the American humorist; it is
-employed by the Viceroy of India, the Sirdar of Egypt, the governor of
-Alaska, and the general in command over the Philippines. In the course
-of some six centuries the dialect of a little town on the Thames has
-become the mother-tongue of millions and millions of people scattered
-broadcast over the face of the earth.
-
-If the Norman conquest had not taken place the history of the English
-race would be very different, and the English language would not be
-what it is, since it would have had for its root the Wessex variety
-of the Southern dialect. But the Norman conquest did take place, and
-the English language has for its root the Eastern division of the
-Midland dialect. The Norman conquest it was which brought the modest
-but vigorous young English tongue into close contact with the more
-highly cultivated French. The French spoken in England was rather the
-Norman dialect than the Parisian (which is the true root of modern
-French), and whatever slight influence English may have had upon it
-does not matter now, for it was destined to a certain death. But this
-Norman-French enlarged the plastic English speech against which it was
-pressing; and English adopted many French words, not borrowing them,
-but making them our own, once for all, and not dropping the original
-English word, but keeping both with slight divergence of meaning.
-
-Thus it is in part to the Norman conquest that we owe the double
-vocabulary wherein our language surpasses all others. While the
-framework of English is Teutonic, we have for many things two names,
-one of Germanic origin and one of Romance. Our direct, homely words,
-that go straight to our hearts and nestle there--these are most of
-them Teutonic. Our more delicate words, subtle in finer shades of
-meaning--these often come to us from the Latin through the French.
-The secondary words are of Romance origin, and the primary words of
-Germanic. And this--if the digression may here be hazarded--is one
-reason why French poetry touches us less than German, the words of the
-former seeming to us remote, not to say sophisticated, while the words
-of the latter are akin to our own simpler and swifter words.
-
-One other advantage of the pressure of French upon English in the
-earlier stages of its development, when it was still ductile, was
-that this pressure helped us to our present grammatical simplicity.
-Whenever the political intelligence of the inhabitants of the capital
-of a district raises the local dialect to a position of supremacy, so
-that it spreads over the surrounding districts and casts their dialects
-into the shadow, the dominant dialect is likely to lose those of its
-grammatical peculiarities not to be found also in the other dialects.
-Whatever is common to them all is pretty sure to survive, and what
-is not common may or may not be given up. The London dialect, in its
-development, felt the influence, not only of the other division of the
-Midland dialect, and of the two rival dialects, one to the north of it
-and the other to the south, but also of a foreign tongue spoken by all
-who pretended to any degree of culture. This attrition helped English
-to shed many minor grammatical complexities still retained by languages
-which had not this fortunate experience in their youth.
-
-Perhaps the late Richard Grant White was going a little too far when he
-asserted that English was a grammarless tongue; but it cannot be denied
-that English is less infested with grammar than any other of the great
-modern languages. German, for example, is a most grammarful tongue; and
-Mark Twain has explained to us (in ‘A Tramp Abroad’) just how elaborate
-and intricate its verbal machinery is; and the Volapük, which was made
-in Germany, had the syntactical convolutions of its inventor’s native
-tongue.
-
-By its possession of this grammatical complexity, Volapük was unfitted
-for service as a world-language. A fortunate coincidence it is that
-English, which is becoming a world-language by sheer force of the
-energy and determination of those whose mother-speech it is, should
-early have shed most of these cumbersome and retarding grammatical
-devices. The earlier philologists were wont to consider this throwing
-off of needless inflections as a symptom of decay. The later
-philologists are coming to recognize it as a sign of progress. They are
-getting to regard the unconscious struggle for short-cuts in speech,
-not as degeneration, but rather as regeneration. As Krauter asserts,
-“The dying out of forms and sounds is looked upon by the etymologists
-with painful feelings; but no unprejudiced judge will be able to see
-in it anything but a progressive victory over lifeless material.” And
-he adds, with terse common sense: “Among several tools performing
-equal work, that is the best which is the simplest and most handy.”
-This brief excerpt from the German scholar is borrowed here from a
-paper prepared for the Modern Language Association by Professor C. A.
-Smith, in which may be found also a dictum of the Danish philologist
-Jespersen: “The fewer and shorter the forms, the better; the analytic
-structure of modern European languages is so far from being a drawback
-to them that it gives them an unimpeachable superiority over the
-earlier stages of the same languages.” And it is Jespersen who boldly
-declares that “the so-called full and rich forms of the ancient
-languages are not a beauty, but a deformity.”
-
-In other words, language is merely an instrument for the use of man;
-and like all other instruments, it had to begin by being far more
-complicated than is needful. The watch used to have more than a
-hundred separate parts, and now it is made with less than twoscore,
-losing nothing in its efficiency and in precision. Greek and German are
-old-fashioned watches; Italian and Danish and English are watches of a
-later style. Of the more prominent modern languages, German and Russian
-are the most backward, while English is the most advanced. And the end
-is not yet, for the eternal forces are ever working to make our tongue
-still easier. The printing-press is a most powerful agent on the side
-of the past, making progress far more sluggish than it was before books
-were broadcast; yet the English language is still engaged in sloughing
-off its outworn grammatical skin. Altho in the nineteenth century the
-changes in the structure of English have probably been less than in any
-other century of its history, yet there have been changes not a few.
-
-For example, the subjunctive mood is going slowly into innocuous
-desuetude; the stickler for grammar, so-called, may protest in vain
-against its disappearance: its days are numbered. It serves no useful
-purpose; it has to be laboriously acquired; it is now a matter of
-rule and not of instinct; it is no longer natural: and therefore it
-will inevitably disappear, sooner or later. Careful investigation has
-shown that it has already been discarded by many even among those
-who are very careful of their style--some of whom, no doubt, would
-rise promptly to the defense of the form they have been discarding
-unconsciously. One authority declares that altho the form has seemed to
-survive, it has been empty of any distinct meaning since the sixteenth
-century.
-
-This is only one of the tendencies observable in the nineteenth
-century; and we may rest assured that others will become visible in
-the twentieth. But when English is compared with German, we cannot
-help seeing that most of this work is done already. Grammar has
-been stripped to the bone in English; and for us who have to use
-the language to-day it is fortunate that our remote ancestors, who
-fashioned it for their own use without thought of our needs, should
-have had the same liking we have for the simplest possible tool, and
-that they should have cast off, as soon as they could, one and another
-of the grammatical complexities which always cumber every language in
-its earlier stages, and most of which still cumber German. In nothing
-is the practical directness of our stock more clearly revealed than in
-this immediate beginning upon the arduous task of making the means of
-communication between man and man as easy and as direct as possible.
-Doubly fortunate are we that this job was taken up and put through
-before the invention of printing multiplied the inertia of conservatism.
-
-It was the political supremacy of Paris which made the Parisian dialect
-the standard of French; and it was the genius of Dante which made the
-Tuscan dialect the standard of Italian. That the London dialect is
-the standard of English is due partly to the political supremacy of
-the capital and partly to the genius of Chaucer. As the French are
-a home-keeping people, Paris has retained its political supremacy;
-while the English are a venturesome race and have spread abroad and
-split into two great divisions, so that London has lost its political
-supremacy, being the capital now only of the less numerous portion of
-those who have English as their mother-tongue.
-
-It is true, of course, that a very large proportion of the inhabitants
-of the United States, however independent politically of the great
-empire of which London is the capital, look with affection upon the
-city by the Thames. Their feeling toward England is akin to that which
-led Hawthorne to entitle his record of a sojourn in England ‘Our Old
-Home.’ The American liking for London itself seems to be increasing;
-and, as Lowell once remarked, “We Americans are beginning to feel that
-London is the center of the races that speak English, very much in the
-sense that Rome was the center of the ancient world.” It was at a
-dinner of the Society of Authors that he said this, and he then added:
-“I confess that I never think of London, which I also confess I love,
-without thinking of the palace David built, ‘sitting in the hearing of
-a hundred streams’--streams of thought, of intelligence, of activity.”
-
-While the London dialect is the stem from which the English language
-has grown, the vocabulary of the language has never been limited by
-the dialect. It has been enriched by countless words and phrases and
-locutions of one kind or another from the other division of the Midland
-dialect and from both the Northern and the Southern dialects--just
-as modern Italian has not limited itself to the narrow vocabulary of
-Florence. Yet in the earlier stages of the development of English the
-language benefited by the fact that there was a local standard. The
-attempt of all to assimilate their speech to that of the inhabitants of
-London tended to give uniformity without rigidity. As men came up to
-court they brought with them the best of the words and turns of speech
-peculiar to their own dialect; and the language gained by all these
-accretions.
-
-Shakspere contributed Warwickshire localisms not a few, just as Scott
-procured the acceptance of Scotticisms hitherto under a ban. As Spenser
-had gone back to Chaucer, so Keats went to the Elizabethans and dug
-out old words for his own use; and William Morris pushed his researches
-farther and brought up words almost pre-Chaucerian. Every language in
-Europe has been put under contribution at one time or another for one
-purpose or another. The military vocabulary, for instance, reveals the
-former superiority of the French, just as the naval vocabulary reveals
-the former superiority of the Dutch. And as modern science has extended
-its conquests, it has drawn on Greek for its terms of precision.
-
-Under this influx of foreign words, old and new, the framework of the
-original London dialect stands solidly enough, but it is visible only
-to the scholarly specialist in linguistic research. But the latest
-London dialect, the speech of the inhabitants of the British capital
-at the end of the nineteenth century, has ceased absolutely to serve
-as a standard. Whatever utility there was in the past in accepting
-as normal English the actual living dialect of London has long since
-departed without a protest. No educated Englishman any longer thinks of
-conforming his syntax or his vocabulary to the actual living dialect
-of London, whether of the court or of the slums. Indeed, so far is he
-from accepting the verbal habits of the man in the street as suggesting
-a standard for him that he is wont to hold them up to ridicule as
-cockney corruptions. He likes to laugh at the tricks of speech that
-he discovers on the lips of the Londoners, at their dropping of their
-initial _h_’s more often than he deems proper, and at their more recent
-substitution of _y_ for _a_--as in “tyke the cyke, lydy.”
-
-The local standard of London has thus been disestablished in the course
-of the centuries simply because there was no longer a necessity for any
-local standard. The speech of the capital served as the starting-point
-of the language; and in the early days a local standard of usage was
-useful. But now, after English has enjoyed a thousand years of growth,
-a standard so primitive is not only useless, but it would be very
-injurious. Nor could any other local standard be substituted for that
-of London without manifest danger--even if the acceptance of such a
-standard was possible. The peoples that speak English are now too
-widely scattered and their needs are too many and too diverse for any
-local standard not to be retarding in its limitations.
-
-To-day the standard of English is to be sought not in the actual living
-dialect of the inhabitants of any district or of any country, but in
-the language itself, in its splendid past and in its mighty present.
-Five hundred years ago, more or less, Chaucer sent forth the first
-masterpieces of English literature; and in all those five centuries the
-language has never lacked poets and prose-writers who knew its secrets
-and could bring forth its beauties. Each of them has helped to make
-English what it is now; and a study of what English has been is all
-that we need to enable us to see what it will be--and what it should
-be. Any attempt to trammel it by a local standard, or by academic
-restrictions, or by school-masters’ grammar-rules, is certain to fail.
-In the past, English has shaken itself free of many a limitation; and
-in the present it is insisting on its own liberty to take the short-cut
-whenever that enables it to do its work with less waste of time. We
-cannot doubt that in the future it will go on in its own way, making
-itself fitter for the manifold needs of an expanding race which has the
-unusual characteristic of having lofty ideals while being intensely
-practical. A British poet it was, Lord Houghton, who once sent these
-prophetic lines to an American lady:
-
-  That ample speech! That subtle speech!
-  Apt for the need of all and each;
-  Strong to endure, yet prompt to bend
-  Wherever human feelings tend.
-  Preserve its force; _expand its powers_;
-  And through the maze of civic life,
-  In Letters, Commerce, even in Strife,
-  Forget not it is yours and ours.
-
-The English language is the most valuable possession of the peoples
-that speak it, and that have for their chief cities, not London
-alone, or Edinburgh or Dublin, but also New York and Chicago, Calcutta
-and Bombay, Melbourne and Montreal. The English language is one and
-indivisible, and we need not fear that the lack of a local standard may
-lead it ever to break up into fragmentary dialects. There is really no
-danger now that English will not be uniform in all the four quarters of
-the world, and that it will not modify itself as occasion serves. We
-can already detect divergencies of usage and of vocabulary; but these
-are only trifles. The steamship and the railroad and the telegraph
-bring the American and the Briton and the Australian closer together
-nowadays than were the users of the Midland dialect when Chaucer
-set forth on his pilgrimage to Canterbury; and then there is the
-printing-press, whereby the newspaper and the school-book and the works
-of the dead-and-gone masters of our literature bind us together with
-unbreakable links.
-
-These divergencies of usage and of vocabulary--London from Edinburgh,
-and New York from Bombay--are but evidences of the healthy activity of
-our tongue. It is only when it is dead that a language ceases to grow.
-It needs to be constantly refreshed by new words and phrases as the
-elder terms are exhausted. Lowell held it to be part of Shakspere’s
-good fortune that he came when English was ripe and yet fresh, when
-there was an abundance of words ready to his hand, but none of them
-yet exhausted by hard work. So Mr. Howells has recently recorded
-his feeling that any one who now employs English “to depict or to
-characterize finds the phrases thumbed over and worn and blunted with
-incessant use,” and experiences a joy in the bold locutions which are
-now and again “reported from the lips of the people.”
-
-“From the lips of the people”;--here is a phrase that would have sadly
-shocked a narrow-minded scholar like Dr. Johnson. But what the learned
-of yesterday denied--and, indeed, have denounced as rank heresy--the
-more learned of to-day acknowledge as a fact. The real language of
-a people is the spoken word, not the written. Language lives on the
-tongue and in the ear; there it was born, and there it grows. Man wooed
-his wife and taught his children and discussed with his neighbors for
-centuries before he perfected the art of writing. Even to-day the work
-of the world is done rather by the spoken word than by the written. And
-those who are doing the work of the world are following the example of
-our remote ancestors who did not know how to write; when they feel new
-needs they will make violent efforts to supply those needs, devising
-fresh words put together in rough-and-ready fashion, often ignorantly.
-The mouth is ever willing to try verbal experiments, to risk a new
-locution, to hazard a wrenching of an old term to a novel use. The hand
-that writes is always slow to accept the result of these attempts to
-meet a demand in an unauthorized way. The spoken language bristles with
-innovations, while the written language remains properly conservative.
-Few of these oral babes are viable, and fewer still survive; while only
-now and again does one of these verbal foundlings come of age and claim
-citizenship in literature.
-
-In the antiquated books of rhetoric which our grandfathers handed down
-to us there are solemn warnings against neologisms--and neologism was
-a term of reproach designed to stigmatize a new word as such. But in
-the stimulating study of certain of the laws of linguistics, which
-M. Bréal, one of the foremost of French philologists, has called
-‘Semantics,’ we are told that to condemn neologisms absolutely would be
-most unfortunate and most useless. “Every progress in a language is,
-first of all, the act of an individual, and then of a minority, large
-or small. A land where all innovation should be forbidden would take
-from its language all chance of development.” And M. Bréal points out
-that language must keep on transforming itself with every new discovery
-and invention, with the incessant modification of our manners, of
-our customs, and even of our ideas. We are all of us at work on the
-vocabulary of the future, ignorant and learned, authors and artists,
-the man of the world and the man in the street; and even our children
-have a share in this labor, and by no means the least.
-
-Among all these countless candidates for literary acceptance, the
-struggle for existence is very fierce, and only the fittest of the new
-words survive. Or, to change the figure, conversation might be called
-the Lower House, where all the verbal coinages must have their origin,
-while literature is the Upper House, without whose concurrence nothing
-can be established. And the watch-dogs of the treasury are trustworthy;
-they resist all attempts of which they do not approve. In language, as
-in politics, the power of the democratic principle is getting itself
-more widely acknowledged. The people blunders more often than not, but
-it knows its own mind; and in the end it has its own way. In language,
-as in politics, we Americans are really conservative. We are well
-aware that we have the right to make what change we please, and we
-know better than to exercise this right. Indeed, we do not desire to
-do so. We want no more change in our laws or in our language than is
-absolutely necessary.
-
-We have modified the common language far less than we have modified
-the common law. We have kept alive here many a word and many a meaning
-which was well worthy of preservation, and which our kin across the
-seas had permitted to perish. Professor Earle of Oxford, in his
-comprehensive volume on ‘English Prose,’ praises American authors for
-refreshing old words by novel combinations. When Mr. W. Aldis Wright
-drew up a glossary of the words, phrases, and constructions in the
-King James translation of the Bible and in the Book of Common Prayer,
-which were obsolete in Great Britain in the sense that they would no
-longer naturally find a place in ordinary prose-writing, Professor
-Lounsbury pointed out that at least a sixth of these words, phrases,
-and constructions are not now obsolete in the United States, and
-would be used by any American writer without fear that he might not
-be understood. As Lowell said, our ancestors “unhappily could bring
-over no English better than Shakspere’s,” and by good fortune we have
-kept alive some of the Elizabethan boldness of imagery. Even our
-trivial colloquialisms have often a metaphoric vigor now rarely to be
-matched in the street-phrases of the city where Shakspere earned his
-living. Ben Jonson would have relished one New York phrase that an
-office-holder gives an office-seeker, “the glad hand and the marble
-heart,” and that other which described a former favorite comedian as
-now having “a fur-lined voice.”
-
-When Tocqueville came over here in 1831, he thought that we Americans
-had already modified the English language. British critics, like Dean
-Alford, have often animadverted upon the deterioration of the language
-on this side of the Atlantic. American humorists, like Mark Twain,
-have calmly claimed that the tongue they used was not English, but
-American. It is English as Mark Twain uses it, and English of a force
-and a clarity not surpassed by any living writer of the language; but
-in so far as American usage differs from British, it was according to
-the former and not according to the latter. But they differ in reality
-very slightly indeed; and whatever divergence there may be is rather
-in the spoken language than in the written. That the spoken language
-should vary is inevitable and advantageous, since the more variation is
-attempted, the better opportunity the language has to freshen up its
-languishing vocabulary and to reinvigorate itself. That the written
-language should widely vary would be the greatest of misfortunes.
-
-Of this there is now no danger whatever, and never has been. The
-settlement of the United States took place after the invention of
-printing; and the printing-press is a sure preventive of a new dialect
-nowadays. The disestablishment of the local standard of London leaves
-English free to develop according to its own laws and its own logic.
-There is no longer any weight of authority to be given to contemporary
-British usage over contemporary American usage--except in so far as
-the British branch of English literature is more resplendent with
-names of high renown than the American branch. That this was the case
-in the nineteenth century--that the British poets and prose-writers
-outnumber and outvalue the American--must be admitted at once; that
-it will be the case throughout the twentieth century may be doubted.
-And whenever the poets and prose-writers of the American branch of
-English literature are superior in number and in power to those of the
-British branch, then there can be no doubt as to where the weight of
-authority will lie. The shifting of the center of power will take place
-unconsciously; and the development of English will go on just the same
-after it takes place as it is going on now. The conservative forces
-are in no danger of overthrow at the hands of the radicals, whether
-in the United States or in Great Britain or in any of her colonial
-dependencies.
-
-Perhaps the principle which will govern can best be stated in another
-quotation from M. Bréal: “The limit within which the right to innovate
-stops is not fixed by any idea of ‘purity’ (which can always be
-contested); it is fixed by the need we have to keep in contact with
-the thought of those who have preceded us. The more considerable the
-literary past of a people, the more this need makes itself felt as a
-duty, as a condition of dignity and force.” And there is no sign that
-either the American or the British half of those who have our language
-for a mother-tongue is in danger of becoming disloyal to the literary
-past of English literature, that most magnificent heritage--the
-birthright of both of us.
-
- (1899)
-
-
-
-
-IV
-
-THE LANGUAGE IN GREAT BRITAIN
-
-
-There is a wide gap between the proverb asserting that “figures never
-lie” and the opinion expressed now and again by experts that nothing
-can be more mendacious than statistics misapplied; and the truth
-seems to lie between these extreme sayings. Just as chronology is the
-backbone of history, so a statement of fact can be made terser and more
-convincing if the figures are set forth that illuminate it. If we wish
-to perceive the change of the relative position of Great Britain and
-the United States in the course of the centuries, nothing can help us
-better to a firm grasp of the exact facts of the case than a comparison
-of the population of the two countries at various periods.
-
-In 1700 the inhabitants of Great Britain and Ireland numbered between
-eight and nine millions, while the inhabitants of what is now the
-United States were, perhaps, a scant three hundred thousand. In 1900,
-the people of the British Isles are reckoned at some thirty-seven
-millions more or less, and the people of the United States are almost
-exactly twice as many, being about seventy-five millions. To project a
-statistical curve into the future is an extra-hazardous proceeding; and
-no man can now guess at the probable population either of the United
-Kingdom or of the United States in the year 2000; but as the rate of
-increase is far larger in America than in England, there is little
-risk in suggesting that a hundred years from now the population of the
-American republic will be at least four or five times as large as that
-of the British monarchy.
-
-Just as the center of population of the United States has been
-steadily working its way westward, having been in 1800 in Maryland
-and being in 1900 in Indiana, so also the center of population of the
-English-speaking race has been steadily moving toward the Occident.
-Just as the first of these has had to cross the Alleghanies during
-the nineteenth century, so will the second of them have to cross the
-Atlantic during the twentieth century. Whether this latter change shall
-take place early in the century or late, is not important; one day or
-another it will take place, assuredly.
-
-Inevitably it will be accompanied or speedily followed by another
-change of almost equal significance. London sooner or later will
-cease to be the literary center of the English-speaking race. For
-many centuries the town by the Thames has been the heart of English
-literature; and there are now visible very few signs that the days of
-its supremacy are numbered. Even in the United States to-day the old
-colonial attitude, not yet abandoned, causes us Americans often to be
-as well acquainted with second-rate British authors as the British
-are with American authors of the first rank. Yet it is not without
-significance that at the close of the nineteenth century the two most
-widely known writers of the language should be one of them an American
-citizen and the other a British colonial, owing no local allegiance to
-London--Mark Twain and Rudyard Kipling.
-
-The disestablishment of London as the literary center of English will
-be retarded by various circumstances. Only very reluctantly is a
-tradition of preëminence overthrown when consecrated by the centuries.
-The conditions of existence in England are likely long to continue to
-be more favorable to literary productivity than are the conditions
-in America. In a new country literature finds an eager rival in
-life itself, with all its myriad opportunities for self-expression.
-No paradox is it to say that more than one American bard may have
-preferred to build his epic in steel or in stone rather than in words.
-The creative imagination has outlets here denied it in a long-settled
-community, residing tranquilly in a little island, where even the
-decorous landscape seems to belong to the Established Church. But the
-Eastern States are already, many of them, as orderly and as placid as
-Great Britain has been for a century. The conditions in England and in
-America are constantly tending toward equalization.
-
-A time will come, and probably long before the close of the twentieth
-century, when there will be in the United States not only several
-times as many people as there are in the British Isles, but also far
-more literary activity. Sooner or later most of the leading authors of
-English literature will be American and not British in their training,
-in their thought, in their ideals. That is to say, the British in
-the middle of the twentieth century will hold to the Americans about
-the same position that the Americans held toward the British in the
-middle of the nineteenth century. The group of American authors between
-1840 and 1860 contained Irving and Cooper, Emerson and Hawthorne,
-Longfellow and Lowell, Poe and Whitman and Thoreau. These are names
-endeared to us and highly important to us, and not to be neglected
-in any consideration of English literature; but it is foolish for an
-American to seek to set them up as the equal of the British group
-flourishing during the same score of years. So in the middle of the
-twentieth century the British group will probably not lack striking
-individualities; but, as a whole, it will probably be surpassed by
-the American group. The largest portion of the men of letters who use
-English to express themselves, as well as the largest body of the
-English-speaking race, will have its residence on the western shore of
-the Western Ocean.
-
-What will then happen to the English language in England when England
-awakens to the fact that the center of the English-speaking race is no
-longer within the borders of the little island? Will the speech of the
-British sink into dialectic corruption, or will the British resolutely
-stamp out their undue local divergences from the normal English of
-the main body of the users of the language in the United States? Will
-they frankly accept the inevitable? Will they face the facts as they
-are? Will they follow the lead of the Americans when we shall have the
-leadership of the language, as the Americans followed their lead when
-they had it? Or will they insist on an arbitrary independence, which
-can have only one result--the splitting off of the British branch of
-our speech from the main stem of the language? To ask these questions
-is to project an inquiry far into the future, but the speculation is
-not without an interest of its own. And altho it is difficult to
-decide so far in advance of the event, yet we have now some of the
-material on which to base a judgment as to what is likely to happen.
-
-Of course, the question is not one to be answered offhand; and not a
-few arguments could be brought forward in support of the opinion that
-the British speech of the future is likely to separate itself from
-the main body of English as then spoken in this country. In the first
-place, England, altho it has already ceased to be the most populous of
-the countries using English, will still be the senior partner of the
-great trading-company known as the British Empire. That the British
-Empire may be dissolved is possible, no doubt. The Australian colonies
-have federated; and having formed a strong union of their own, they
-may prefer to stand alone. South Africa may follow the example of
-Australia. India may arise in the might of her millions and cast out
-its English rulers. Canada may decide to throw in its lot with the
-greater American republic. But each of these things is improbable;
-and that they should all come to pass is practically inconceivable.
-All signs now seem to point not only to a continuance of the British
-Empire, but also to its steady expansion. London is likely long to be
-the capital of an empire upon which the sun never sets, an empire
-inhabited by men of every color and every creed and every language. For
-these men English must serve as the means of communication one with
-another, Hindu with Parsee, Boer with Zulu, Chinook with Canuck.
-
-That this will put a strain on the language is indisputable. Wherever
-any tongue serves as a _lingua franca_ for men of various stocks,
-there is an immediate tendency toward corruption. There is a constant
-pressure to simplify and to lop off and to reduce to the bare elements.
-The Pidgin-English of the Chinese coast is an example of what may
-befall a noble language when it is enslaved to serve many masters,
-ignorant of its history and careless of its idioms. Mr. Kipling’s
-earliest tales are some of them almost incomprehensible to readers
-unacquainted with the vocabulary of the competition-walla; and the
-reports of the British generals during the war with the Boers were
-besprinkled with words not hitherto supposed to be English.
-
-Some observers see in this a menace to the integrity of the language, a
-menace likely to become more threatening as the British Empire spreads
-itself still farther over the waste places of the earth. But is there
-not also a danger in the integrity of English close at home--in England
-itself, even in London, and not afar in the remote borders of the
-Empire--the danger due to the prevalence of local dialects? To the
-student of language one of the most obvious differences between Great
-Britain and the United States lies in the fact that we in America have
-really no local dialects such as are common in England. Every county
-of England has an indigenous population, whose ancestors dwelt in the
-same place since a time whereof the memory of man runneth not to the
-contrary; and this indigenous population has its own peculiarities of
-pronunciation, of vocabulary, and of idiom, handed down from father
-to son, generation after generation. But no one of the United States
-was settled exclusively by immigrants from a single English county;
-and, therefore, no one of these local dialects was ever transplanted
-bodily to America. And no considerable part of the United States
-has a stationary population, inbreeding and stagnant and impervious
-to outside influences; indeed, to be nomadic, to be here to-day and
-there to-morrow, to be born in New England, to grow up in the middle
-west, to be married in New York, and to die in Colorado--is not this
-a characteristic of us Americans? And it is a characteristic fatal to
-the development of real dialects in this country such as are abundant
-in England. Of course we have our local peculiarities of idiom and of
-pronunciation, but these are very superficial indeed. Probably there
-has been a closer uniformity of speech throughout the United States
-for fifty years past than there is even to-day in Great Britain, where
-the Yorkshireman cannot understand the cockney, and where the Scot sits
-silent in the house of the Cornishman.
-
-This uniformity of speech throughout the United States is, perhaps,
-partly the result of Noah Webster’s ‘Spelling-Book.’ It has certainly
-been aided greatly by the public-school system, firmly established
-throughout the country, and steadily strengthening itself. The
-school system of the United Kingdom is younger by far; it is not yet
-adequately organized; it has still to be adjusted to its place in
-a proper scheme of national education. In the higher institutions
-of learning in England, at Oxford and at Cambridge, there is no
-postgraduate work in English; and whatever instruction an undergraduate
-may get there in English literature is incidental, not to say
-accidental.
-
-Probably there is no connection between this lack of university
-instruction in English and a carelessness in the use of the language
-which strikes us unpleasantly, not merely in the unpremeditated letters
-of scholarly Englishmen, but sometimes even in their more academic
-efforts. Jowett’s correspondence, for example, and Matthew Arnold’s,
-offer examples of a slovenliness of phrase not to be found in Lowell’s
-letters or in Emerson’s.
-
-Certain Briticisms are very prevalent, not merely among the uneducated,
-but among the more highly cultivated. _Directly_ is used for _as soon
-as_ by Archbishop Trench (the author of a lively little book on words)
-and by Mr. Courthope (the Oxford professor of poetry). _Like_ is used
-for _as_--that is, “like we do”--by Charles Darwin, and in more than
-one volume of the English Men of Letters series, edited by Mr. John
-Morley. The elision of the initial _h_, which the British themselves
-like to think a test of breeding, is discoverable far more often than
-they imagine on the lips of those who ought to know better. It is said
-that Lord Beaconsfield, for example, sometimes dropped his _h_’s, and
-that he once spoke of “the ’urried ’Udson.” And if we may rely on the
-evidence of spelling, the British often leave the _h_ silent where we
-Americans sound it. They write _an historical essay_ from which it is
-a fair inference that they pronounce the adjective _’istorical_. In
-Mr. Kipling’s ‘From Sea to Sea’ he writes not only _an hotel_ and _an
-hospital_, but also _an hydraulic_.
-
-Thus we see that the immense size and variegated population of the
-British Empire may be considered as a menace to the integrity of the
-English language in the British Isles; and that a second source of
-danger is to be discovered in the local dialects of Great Britain; and,
-finally, that there is observable in England even now a carelessness
-in the use of the language and a willingness to innovate both in
-vocabulary and in idiom.
-
-But however formidable these three tendencies may look when massed
-together, there is really no weight to be attached to any of them
-singly or to all of them combined. The language has already for two
-centuries been exposed to contact with countless other tongues in
-America and Asia and Africa without appreciable deterioration up to the
-present time; and there is no reason to fear that this contact will
-be more corrupting in the twentieth century than it has been in the
-nineteenth. On the contrary, it will result rather in an enrichment
-and refreshment of the vocabulary. The danger from the local dialects
-of Great Britain, instead of increasing, is decreasing day by day as
-the facilities for travel improve and as the schoolmaster is able to
-impose his uniform English upon the young. Lastly, the willingness to
-use new words not authorized by the past of the language is in itself
-not blameworthy; it may be indeed commendable when it is restrained by
-a conservative instinct and controlled by reason.
-
-The Briticisms that besprinkle the columns of London newspapers
-are like the Americanisms to be seen in the pages of the New York
-newspapers in that they are evidences of vitality, of the healthiness
-of the language itself. In Latin it may be proper enough for us to set
-up a Ciceronian standard and to reject any usage not warranted by the
-masterly orator; but in English it is absurd to declare any merely
-personal standard and to reject any term or any idiom because it was
-unknown to Chaucer or to Shakspere, to Addison or to Franklin, to
-Thackeray or to Hawthorne. Latin is dead, and the Ciceronian decision
-as regards the propriety of any usage may be accepted as final. English
-is a living tongue, and the great writers of every generation make
-unhesitating use of words and of constructions which the great writers
-of earlier generations were ignorant of or chose to ignore.
-
-The most of these British innovations, both of to-day and of to-morrow,
-will be individual and freakish; and, therefore, they will win no
-foothold even in the British vocabulary. But a few of them will prove
-their own excuse for being, and these will establish themselves in
-Great Britain. The best of them, those of which the necessity is
-indisputable, will spread across the Atlantic and will be welcomed by
-the main body of users of English over here--just as certain American
-innovations and revivals were hospitably received in England when
-only the smaller branch of the English-speaking race was on the
-American side of the ocean. And, of course, the new terms which spring
-into existence in the United States after the literary center of the
-language has crossed the Atlantic will be carried over to England in
-books and in periodicals.
-
-When the bulk of contemporary English literature is produced by
-American authors, and when the British themselves have accepted the
-situation and resigned themselves at last to the departure of the
-literary supremacy of London, then the weight of American precedent
-will be overwhelming. Without knowing it, British readers of American
-books will be led to conform to American usage; and American terms will
-not seem outlandish to them, as these words and phrases do even now,
-when comparatively few American authors are read in Great Britain.
-And these American innovations will be very few, for the conservative
-instinct is in some ways stronger in the United States than it is in
-Great Britain, due perhaps partly to the more wide-spread popular
-education here, which gives to every child a certain solidarity with
-the past.
-
-It is education and the school-book; it is the printing-press and
-the newspaper and the magazine; it is the ease of travel across the
-Atlantic and the swiftness of the voyage;--it is a combination of all
-these things which will prevent any development of a British branch
-of the language after the numerical preponderance of the American
-people becomes overwhelming. And working toward the same union is a
-loyal conservatism, due in a measure to a proud enjoyment of the great
-literature of the language, the common possession of both British and
-Americans, having its past in the keeping of the elder division of the
-stock, and certain to transfer its future to the care of the younger
-division.
-
-To declare that the literary center of English is to be transferred
-sooner or later from the British Isles to the United States may seem
-to some a hazardous prediction; and yet it is as safe as any prophecy
-before the event can hope to be. Such a transfer, it is true, is
-perhaps unprecedented in literary history,--altho the scholar may see
-a close parallel in the preëminence once attained by Alexandria as the
-capital of Greek culture. Unprecedented or not, phenomenal or not, the
-transfer is inevitable sooner or later.
-
- (1899)
-
-
-
-
-V
-
-AMERICANISMS ONCE MORE
-
-
-It is a reflection upon what we are wont to term a liberal education
-that the result of college training sometimes appears to be rather a
-narrowing of the mental outlook than the broadening we have a right
-to anticipate. What a student ought to have got from his four years
-of labor is a conviction of the vastness of human knowledge and a
-proper humility, due to his discovery that he himself possesses only an
-infinitesimal fraction of the total sum. Many graduates--indeed, most
-of them nowadays, we may hope--have attained to this much of wisdom:
-that they are not puffed up by the few things they do know, so much
-as made modest by the many things they cannot but admit themselves
-to be ignorant of. With the increasing specialization of the higher
-education, the attitude of the graduate is likely to be increasingly
-humble; and a college man will not be led to feel that he is expected
-to know everything about everything.
-
-Perhaps the disputatious arrogance of a few of the younger graduates
-of an earlier generation was due to the dogmatism of the teaching
-they sat under. In nothing is our later instruction more improved
-than in the disappearance of this authoritative tone--due in great
-measure, it may be, to the unsettling of old theories by new facts.
-In no department of learning was the manner more dogmatic than in the
-teaching of the English language. The older rhetoricians had no doubts
-at all on the subject. They never hesitated as to the finality of their
-own judgment on all disputed points. They were sure that they knew
-just what the English language ought to be; and it never entered into
-their heads to question their own competence to declare the standard of
-speech. Yet, as a matter of fact, they knew little of the long history
-of the language, and they had no insight into the principles that were
-governing its development. At most, their information was limited to
-the works of their immediate predecessors; and for a more remote past
-they had the same supreme contempt they were ever displaying toward the
-actual present. Thus they were ever ready to lay down rules made up out
-of their own heads; and their acts were as arbitrary as their attitude
-was intolerant.
-
-In his ‘Philosophy of Rhetoric,’ which he tells us was planned in
-1750, Dr. George Campbell quotes with approval Dr. Johnson’s assertion
-that the “terms of the laboring and mercantile part of the people”
-are mere “fugitive cant,” not to be “regarded as part of the durable
-matter of a language.” Dr. Campbell himself refuses to consider it
-as an evidence of reputable and present use that a word or a phrase
-has been employed by writers of political pamphlets or by speakers in
-the House of Commons, and he declares that he has selected his prose
-examples “neither from living authors, nor from those who wrote before
-the Revolution: not from the first, because an author’s fame is not so
-firmly established in his lifetime; nor from the last, that there may
-be no suspicion that his style is superannuated.” Now contrast this
-narrow-mindedness with the liberality discoverable in our more recent
-text-books--in the ‘Elements of Rhetoric,’ for example, of Professor
-George R. Carpenter, who tells us frankly that “whenever usage seems to
-differ, one’s own taste and sense must be called into play.” Professor
-Carpenter then pleads “for a considerable degree of tolerance in such
-matters. If we know what a man means, and if his usage is in accordance
-with that of a large number of intelligent and educated people, it
-cannot justly be called incorrect. For language rests, at bottom, on
-convention or agreement, and what a large body of reputable people
-recognize as a proper word or a proper meaning of a word cannot be
-denied its right to a place in the English vocabulary.”
-
-For an Englishman to object to an Americanism as such, regardless
-of its possible propriety or of its probable pertinence, and for an
-American to object to a Briticism as such--either of these things is
-equivalent to a refusal to allow the English language to grow. It is
-to insist that it is good enough now and that it shall not expand in
-response to future needs. It is to impose on our written speech a
-fatal rigidity. It is an attempt on the part of pedants so to bind the
-limbs of the language that a vigorous life will soon be impossible.
-With all such efforts those who have at heart the real welfare of our
-tongue will have no sympathy--least of all the strong men of literature
-who are forever ravenous after new words and old. Victor Hugo, for
-example, so far back as 1827, when the modern science of linguistics
-was still in its swaddling-clothes, had no difficulty in declaring the
-truth. “The French language,” he wrote in the preface to ‘Cromwell,’
-“is not fixed, and it never will be. A living language does not fix
-itself. Mind is always on the march, or, if you will, in movement, and
-languages move with it.... In vain do our literary Joshuas command the
-language to stand still; neither the language nor the sun stands still
-any more. The day they do they fix themselves; it will be because they
-are dying. That is why the French of a certain contemporary school is a
-dead language.”
-
-In the ‘Art of French Poetry,’ first printed in 1565, Ronsard, one
-of the most adroit of Victor Hugo’s predecessors in the mastery of
-verse, proffers this significant advice to his fellow-craftsmen (I am
-availing myself of the satisfactory translation of Professor B. W.
-Wells): “You must choose and appropriate dexterously to your work the
-most significant words of the dialects of our France, especially if you
-have not such good or suitable words in your own dialect; and you must
-not mind whether the words are of Gascony, of Poitiers, of Normandy,
-Manche, or Lyonnais, as long as they are good and signify exactly what
-you want to say.... And observe that the Greek language would never
-have been so rich in dialects or in words had it not been for the great
-number of republics that flourished at that time, ... whence came many
-dialects, all held without distinction as good by the learned writers
-of those times. For a country can never be so perfect in all things
-that it cannot borrow sometimes from its neighbors.”
-
-Here we have Ronsard declaring clearly that local varieties of speech
-are most useful to the common tongue. Indeed, we may regard the dialect
-of any district as a cache--a hidden storehouse--at which the language
-may replenish itself whenever its own supplies are exhausted. Whoever
-has had occasion to study any of these dialects, whether in Greek
-or in French or in English, must have been delighted often at the
-freshness and the force of words and phrases unexpectedly discovered.
-Edward Fitzgerald, the translator of Omar Khayyam, made an affectionate
-collection of Suffolk sea-phrases, and from these a dozen might be
-culled, or a score or more, by the use of which the English language
-would be the gainer. Lowell’s loving and learned analysis of the speech
-of his fellow New-Englanders is familiar to all readers of the ‘Biglow
-Papers.’ It was Lowell also who has left us this brilliant definition:
-“True Americanisms are self-cocking phrases or words that are wholly of
-our own make, and do their work shortly and sharply at a pinch.”
-
-Characteristically witty this definition is, no doubt, but not wholly
-adequate. What is an Americanism? And what is a Briticism? Not long ago
-a friendly British writer rebuked his fellow-countrymen for a double
-failing of theirs--for their twin tricks of assuming, first, that every
-vulgarism unfamiliar to them is an Americanism, and that therefore,
-and secondly, every Americanism is a vulgarism. In the mouths of many
-British speakers “Americanism” serves as a term of reproach; and so
-does “Briticism” in the mouths of some American speakers. But this
-should not be; the words ought to be used with scientific precision and
-with no flush of feeling. Before using them, we must ascertain with
-what exact meaning it is best to employ them.
-
-An American investigator gathered together a dozen or two queer words
-and phrases that he had noted in recent British books and journals,
-and as they were then wholly unknown to America, he branded them as
-Briticisms, only to evoke a prompt protest from Mr. Andrew Lang. For
-the stigmatized words and phrases Mr. Lang proffered no defense; but
-he boldly denied that it was fair to call them Briticisms. True, one
-or another of them had been detected in pages of this or that British
-author. Yet they were not common property: they were individualisms;
-they were to be charged against each separate perpetrator and not
-against the whole United Kingdom. Mr. Lang maintained that when Walter
-Pater used so odd a term as _evanescing_, this use “scarcely makes it a
-Briticism; it was a Paterism.”
-
-This is a plea in confession and avoidance, but its force is
-indisputable. To admit it, however, gives us a right to insist that the
-same justice shall be meted out to the so-called Americanisms which
-Mr. Lang has more than once held up to British execration. If the use
-of an ill-made word like _essayette_ or _leaderette_ or _sermonette_
-by one or more British writers does not make it a Briticism until it
-can be proved to have come into general use in Great Britain, then,
-of course, the verbal aberrations of careless Americans, or even the
-freakish dislocations of the vocabulary indulged in by some of our
-more acrobatic humorists, does not warrant a British writer in calling
-any chance phrase of theirs an Americanism. Mr. W. S. Gilbert once
-manufactured the verb “to burgle,” and Mr. Gilbert is a British writer
-of good repute; but _burgling_ is not therefore a Briticism: it is a
-Gilbertism. Mr. Edison, an inventor of another sort, once affirmed that
-a certain article giving an account of his kineto-phonograph had his
-“entire indorsation.” According to Mr. Lang’s theory, _indorsation_,
-not being in use generally in the United States, is not an Americanism:
-it is an Edisonism.
-
-The more Mr. Lang’s theory is considered, the sounder it will appear.
-Individual word-coinages are not redeemable at the national treasury
-either in the United Kingdom or in the United States. Before a word or
-a phrase can properly be called a Briticism or an Americanism there
-must be proof that it has won its way into general use on its own side
-of the Atlantic. _Right away_ for “at once” is an Americanism beyond
-all dispute, for it is wide-spread throughout the United States;
-and so is _back of_ for “behind.” _Directly_ for “as soon as” is a
-Briticism equally indisputable; and so is _different to_ for “different
-from.” In each of these four cases there has been a local divergence
-from the traditional usage of the English language. All four of these
-divergences may be advantageous, and all four of them may even be
-accepted hereafter on both sides of the Atlantic; but just now there is
-no doubt that two of them are fairly to be called Americanisms and two
-of them are properly to be recorded as Briticisms.
-
-Every student of our speech knows that true Americanisms are abundant
-enough; but the omission of terms casually employed here and there,
-seed that fell by the wayside, springing up only to wilt away--the
-omission of all individualisms of this sort simplifies the list
-immensely, just as a like course of action in England cuts down the
-number of Briticisms fairly to be catalogued as such. It must be
-remarked, however, that the collecting of so-called Americanisms
-is a pastime that has been carried on since the early years of the
-nineteenth century, whereas it was only in the closing decades of that
-century that attention was called to the existence of Briticisms, and
-to the necessity of a careful collection of them. The bulky tomes which
-pretend to be ‘Dictionaries of Americanisms’ are stuffed with words
-and phrases having no right there.
-
-These dictionaries would be very slim if they contained only true
-Americanisms, that is to say, words and phrases in common use in the
-United States and not in common use in the United Kingdom. Yet they
-would be slimmer still if another limitation is imposed on the use
-of the word. Is a term fairly to be called an Americanism if it can
-be shown to have been formerly in use in England, even though it may
-there have dropped out of sight in the past century or two? Now,
-everybody knows that dozens of so-called Americanisms are good old
-English, neglected by the British and allowed to die out over there,
-but cherished and kept alive over here. Such is _guess_=“incline to
-think”; such is _realise_=“to make certain or substantial”; such is
-_reckon_=“consider” or “deem”; such is _a few_=“a little”; such is
-_nights_=“at night”; and such are dozens of other words often foolishly
-animadverted upon as indefensible Americanisms, and all of them solidly
-established in honorable ancestry. An instructive collection of these
-survivals can be seen in Mr. H. C. Lodge’s aptly entitled and highly
-interesting essay on ‘Shakspere’s Americanisms.’
-
-It is with an amused surprise that an American in his occasional
-reading keeps coming across in the pages of British authors of one
-century or another what he had supposed to be Americanisms, and even
-what he had taken sometimes for mere slang. The _cert_ of the New York
-street-boy, apparently a contraction of _certainly_, is it not rather
-the _certes_ of the Elizabethans? And the interrogative _how?_=“what
-is it?”--a usage abhorred by Dr. Holmes,--this can be discovered in
-Massinger’s plays more than once (‘Duke of Milan,’ iii. 3, and ‘Believe
-as You List,’ ii. 2). “I’m _pretty considerably_ glad to see you,” says
-Manuel, in Colley Cibber’s ‘She Would and She Would Not.’ _To fire
-out_=“expel forcibly,” is in Shakspere’s Sonnets and also in ‘Ralph
-Roister Doister’--altho, perhaps, with a slightly different connotation
-from that now obtaining in America. A theatrical manager nowadays likes
-to have the first performance of a new play out of town so that he can
-come to the metropolis with a perfected work, and he calls this _trying
-it on the dog_; the same expression, almost, is to be found in Pope. In
-‘Pickwick,’ Sam Weller proposes to _settle the hash_ of an opponent;
-and in ‘Tess of the d’Urbervilles’ we find _down to the ground_ used as
-a superlative, and quite in our own later sense. The Southern _peart_
-is in ‘Lorna Doone,’ and the Southwestern _dog-gone it_ is in the
-‘Little Minister.’ In Mr. Barrie’s story also do we find _to go back on
-your word_; just as in Mr. William Watson’s ‘Excursions in Criticism’
-we discover _grit_=“staying power” or “doggedness.”
-
-Very amusing indeed is the attitude of the ordinary British newspaper
-reviewer toward words and phrases in this category. Not being a scholar
-in English, he is unaware that scholarship is a condition precedent to
-judgment; and he is swift to denounce as American innovations terms
-firmly rooted in the earlier masters of the language, while he passes
-the frequent Briticisms in the pages of contemporary London writers
-without a hint of reproof. From a British author like Rossetti he
-accepts “the _gracile_ spring,” while he rejects “_gracile_ ease” in
-an American author like Mr. Howells. Behind this arrogant ignorance
-is to be perceived the assumption that the English language is in
-immediate peril of disease and death from American license if British
-newspapers fail to do their duty. The shriller the shriek of protest
-is, the slighter the protester’s competence upon the question at issue.
-No outcry against the deterioration of English in America has come from
-any of the British scholars who can speak with authority about the
-language.
-
-What we Americans have done is to keep alive or to revive many a good
-old English term; and for this service to our common speech our British
-cousins ought to be properly grateful. We must admit that words and
-phrases and usages thus reinstated are not true Americanisms--however
-much we might like to claim them for our very own. We have already
-seen that most of the individualisms of eccentric or careless writers
-are also not to be received as true Americanisms. And there is yet a
-third group of so-called Americanisms not fairly entitled to the name.
-These are the terms devised in the United States to meet conditions
-unknown in England. Here is no divergence from the accepted usage of
-the language, but a development of the common tongue to satisfy a
-new necessity. The need for the new word or phrase was first felt in
-America, and here the new term had to be found to supply the immediate
-want. But the word itself, altho frankly of American origin, is not
-to be styled an Americanism. It is a new English word, that is all--a
-word to be used hereafter in the United Kingdom as in the United
-States. It is an American contribution to the English language; but
-it is not an Americanism--if we limit Americanism to mean a term
-having currency only in North America, just as Briticism means a term
-having currency only in the British Islands. The new thing exists now,
-and as it came into existence in America, we stood sponsors for it;
-but the name we gave it is its name once for all, to be used by the
-British and the Australians and the Canadians as well as by ourselves.
-_Telephone_, for example,--both the thing and the word are of American
-invention,--is there any one so foolish as to call _telephone_ an
-Americanism?
-
-These American contributions to the English language are not a
-few. Some of them are brand-new words, minted at the minute of
-sudden demand, and well made or ill made, as chance would have it;
-_phonograph_ is one of these; _dime_ is another; and _typewriter_
-is a third. Some of them are old words wrenched to a new use, like
-_elevator_=“storehouse for grain,” and like _ticker_=“telegraphic
-printing-machine.” Some of them are taken from foreign tongues, either
-translated, like _statehouse_ (from the Dutch), or unchanged, like
-_prairie_ (from the French), _adobe_ (from the Spanish), and _stoop_
-(from the Dutch). Some of them are borrowed from the rude tongues of
-our predecessors on this continent, like _moccasin_ and _tomahawk_ and
-_wigwam_. To be compared with this last group are the words adopted
-into English from the native languages of India--_punka_, for example.
-And I make no doubt that the Australians have taken over from the
-aborigines round about them more than one word needed in a hurry as a
-name for something until then nameless in our common language because
-the something itself was until then unknown or unnoticed. But these
-Australian contributions to English cannot be called Australianisms
-any more than _telephone_ and _prairie_ and _wigwam_ can be called
-Americanisms.
-
-So far the attempt has been here made to subtract from the immense and
-heterogeneous mass of so-called Americanisms three classes of terms
-falsely so called: first, the mere individualisms, for which America as
-a whole has a right to shirk the responsibility; second, the survivals
-in the United States of words and usages that happen to have fallen
-into abeyance in Great Britain; and, third, the American contributions
-to the English language. As to each of these three groups the case
-is clear enough; but as to a fourth group, which ought also to be
-deducted, one cannot speak with quite so much confidence.
-
-This group would include the peculiarities of speech existing
-sporadically in this or that special locality and contributing what
-are often called the American dialects--the Yankee dialect first of
-all, then the dialect of the Appalachian mountaineers, the dialect of
-the Western cow-boys, etc. Are these localisms fairly to be classed as
-Americanisms? The question, so far as I know, has never been raised
-before, for it has been taken for granted that if any such things as
-Americanisms existed at all, they could surely be collected from the
-mouth of Hosea Biglow. And yet if we pause to think, we cannot but
-admit that the so-called Yankee dialect is local, that it is unknown
-outside of New England, and that a majority of the inhabitants of the
-United States find it almost as strange in their ears as the broad
-Scotch of Burns. As for the so-called dialect of the cow-boy, it is not
-a true dialect at all; it is simply carelessly colloquial English with
-a heavy infusion of fugitive slang; and whatever it may be in itself,
-it is local to the cow-country. The Appalachian dialect is perhaps more
-like a true dialect; but it is even less wide-spread than either of the
-others here picked out for consideration. No one of these three alleged
-dialects is in any sense national; all three of them are narrowly
-local--altho the New England speech has spread more or less into the
-middle west.
-
-Perhaps some light on this puzzle may be had by considering how they
-regard a similar problem in England itself. The local dialects which
-still abound throughout the British Isles are under investigation, each
-by itself. No one has ever suggested the lumping of them all together
-as Briticisms. Indeed, the very definition of Briticism would debar
-this. What is a Briticism but a term frequently used throughout Great
-Britain and not accepted in the United States? And if this definition
-is acceptable, we are forced to declare that an Americanism is a term
-frequently used throughout the United States and not accepted in Great
-Britain. The terms of the Yankee dialect, of the Appalachian, and of
-the cow-boy, are localisms; they are not frequently used throughout the
-United States; they are not to be classed as Americanisms any more than
-the cockney idioms, the Wessex words, and the Yorkshire phrases are to
-be classed as Briticisms.
-
-It is greatly to be regretted that Dr. Murray and Mr. Bradley and the
-other editors of the comprehensive Oxford Dictionary have not been
-so careful as they might be in identifying the locality of American
-dialectic peculiarities. They have taken great pains to record and
-circumscribe British dialectic peculiarities; but they are in the habit
-of appending a vague and misleading (U. S.) to such American words and
-usages as they may set down. It is to be hoped that they may hereafter
-aim at a greater exactness in their attributions, since their present
-practice is quite misleading, as it often suggests that a term is a
-true Americanism, used freely throughout the United States, when it is
-perhaps merely an individualism or at best a localism.
-
-Of true Americanisms there are not so very many left, when we have
-ousted from their usurped places these four groups of terms having
-no real title to the honorable name. And true Americanisms might be
-subdivided again into two groups, the one containing the American
-terms for which there are equivalent Briticisms, thus indicating a
-divergence of usage, and the other including only the words and phrases
-which have sprung up here without correlative activity on the other
-side of the Atlantic.
-
-When the attempt is made to set up parallel columns of Briticisms
-and Americanisms, each more or less equal to the other, it is with
-surprise that we discover how few of these equivalencies there
-are. In other words, the variations of usage between Great Britain
-and the United States are infrequent. In England the railway was
-preceded by the stage-coach, and in America the railroad was
-preceded rather by the river steamboat; and probably this accounts
-for the slight differentiation observable in the vocabulary of the
-traveler. But this is not the reason why we in America make misuse
-of a French word, _dépôt_, while the British prefer the Latin word
-_terminus_,--restricting its application accurately to the terminal
-station of a line. In England they name him a _guard_ whom we in
-America name _brakeman_ or _trainman_; and it is to be noted that
-when Stevenson was an Amateur Emigrant he sought to use the word of
-the country and so mentions the _brakesman_--thus proving again the
-difficulty of attaining exactness in local usage. The British call
-that a _goods-train_ which we call a _freight-train_; and they speak
-of a _crossing-plate_ when they mean what we know as a _frog_. In the
-United States a _sleeping-car_ is often termed a _sleeper_, whereas
-in Great Britain what they call a _sleeper_ is what we here call a
-_tie_. They say a _keyless watch_ where we say a _stem-winder_. They
-say _leader_ where we say _editorial_. They call that a _lift_ which
-we call an _elevator_; and we call him a _farm-hand_ whom they call
-an _agricultural laborer_. They have even borrowed one Americanism,
-_caucus_, and made it a Briticism by changing its meaning to signify
-what we are wont to describe as the _machine_ or the _organisation_.
-It is to be noted also that _corn_ in England refers to _wheat_ and
-in America to _maize_; and that in Great Britain _calico_ is a plain
-cotton cloth and in the United States a printed cotton cloth.
-
-This list of correlative Americanisms and Briticisms might be extended,
-of course; but however sweeping our investigations may be we cannot
-make it very long. Far longer is the list of American words and phrases
-and usages for which there is no British equivalent--far too long,
-indeed, for inclusion in this essay. All that can be done here and
-now is to pick up a surface specimen or two from the outcroppings to
-show the quality of the vein. For instance, the vocabulary of the
-university is largely indigenous--altho we have recently borrowed
-a British vulgarism, speaking now of the _varsity team_ and the
-_varsity crew_. _Campus_ seems to be unknown to the British, and so
-does _sophomoric_, a most useful epithet understood at once all over
-the United States. Its absence from the British vocabulary is probably
-due to the fact that the four-year course of the old-fashioned American
-college is unknown in England, where there are _freshmen_ indeed, but
-no _sophomores_.
-
-Going out from the academic groves to the open air of the wider West,
-as so many of our college graduates do every year, we meet with a host
-of Americanisms vigorous with the free life of the great river and
-of the grand mountains. But is _blaze_=“to mark a trail through the
-woods by chipping off bits of bark”--is this a true Americanism? Is it
-not rather an American contribution to the English language? Surely
-every man in Africa or in Asia who wishes to retrace his path through
-a virgin forest must needs _blaze_ his way as he goes. But _shack_=“a
-cabin of logs driven perpendicularly into the ground”--this is a true
-Americanism undoubtedly. And its compound _claim-shack_=“a shack built
-to hold a claim on a preëmption”--this is another true Americanism
-likely to puzzle a British reader. Even _preëmpt_ and _preëmption_ are
-probably Americanisms in that they have with us a meaning somewhat
-different from that they may have on the other side of the Atlantic.
-Another true Americanism, which comes to us from the plains, is
-_mavericks_=“the unbranded cattle at large to become the property of
-the first ranch-owner whose men may chance upon them.” And _ranch_,
-while it is itself a contribution to the language, has usages in which
-it is an Americanism merely--as in the Californian _hen-ranch_, for
-example.
-
-There is a large freedom about the Western vernacular and a swift
-directness not elsewhere observable in the English language, whether
-in the United States or in the British Empire. These are most valuable
-qualities, and they are likely to be of real service to English in
-helping to refresh the jaded vocabulary of more scholarly communities.
-The function of slang as a true feeder of language is certain to get
-itself more widely recognized as time goes on; and there is no better
-nursery for these seedlings of speech than the territory west of the
-Mississippi and east of the Rockies. To say this is not to say that
-there are not to be found east of the Mississippi many interesting
-locutions still inadequately established in the language. For example,
-there are three words applied to the same thing in different parts of
-the East; perhaps they ought to be styled localisms, but as they would
-be comprehended all over the United States, they are probably entitled
-to be received as true Americanisms--if, on the other hand, they are
-not in fact good old English words. A pass through the hills is often
-called a _notch_ in the White Mountains, a _clove_ in the Catskills,
-and a _gap_ in the Blue Ridge. Yet even as I write this I have my
-doubts as to there being any narrow geographical delimitation of usage,
-since I can recall a Parker Notch in the Catskills, not far from Stony
-Clove and Kaaterskill Clove.
-
-One of the best known of true Americanisms is _lumber_=“timber.” When
-we speak of the _lumbering_ industry we mean not only the cutting down
-of trees and their sawing up into planks, but also their marketing.
-From the apparent participle _lumbering_ a verb has been made _to
-lumber_--a not uncommon process in the history of the language, one
-British analog being the making of the verb _to bant_ from the innocent
-name of Mr. Banting. _To lumber_ is apparently now used in the sense
-of _to deforest_, if we may rely on a newspaper paragraph which
-informed us that a certain tract of twenty-five thousand acres in the
-Adirondacks had “been lumbered, but not in such a way as to injure
-it for a park.” The verb _to launder_=“to wash,” has been revived of
-late in America, if indeed it has not been made anew from the noun
-_laundry_; and shirt-makers in their price-lists specify whether
-the shirts are to be sold _laundered_ or _unlaundered_. And to the
-word _laundry_ itself has been given a further extension of meaning.
-In New York, at least,--and the verbal fashions of the metropolis
-spread swiftly throughout the Union,--it signifies not only the place
-where personal linen is washed but the personal linen itself. An
-advertisement in a college magazine informed the lone student that
-“gentlemen’s _laundry_” was “mended free.”
-
-When an American student of English printed a collection of Briticisms
-in which more than one strange wild fowl of speech had been snared on
-the wing in newspapers and advertisements, Mr. Andrew Lang protested
-against the acceptance of phrases so gathered as representative
-Briticisms; and it is only fair to admit that they represented
-colloquial or industrial rather than literary usage. Yet they were
-interesting in that they gave us a glimpse of the actual speech of the
-common people--just such a glimpse, in fact, as we get from the Roman
-inscriptions. This actual speech of the people, whether in Rome or in
-London or in New York, is the real language, of which the literary
-dialect is but a sublimation. Language is born in the mouth, altho it
-dies young unless it is brought up by hand. Language is made sometimes
-in the library, it is true, and in the parlor also, but far more often
-in the workshop and on the sidewalk; and nowadays the newspaper and
-the advertisement record for us the simple and unstilted phrases of the
-workshop and the sidewalk.
-
-The most of these will fade out of sight unregretted; but a few will
-prove themselves possessed of sturdy vitality. Briticisms, it may be,
-or Americanisms, as it happens, they will fight their way up from the
-workshop to the library, from the sidewalk to the study. Born in a
-single city, they will serve usefully throughout a great nation, and
-perhaps in the end all over the world, wherever our language is spoken.
-
-The ideal of style, so it has been tersely put, is the speech of the
-people in the mouth of the scholar. One reason why so much of the
-academic writing of educated men is arid is because it is as remote
-as may be from the speech of the people. One reason why Mark Twain
-and Rudyard Kipling are now the best-beloved authors of the English
-language is because they have each of them a welcome ear for the speech
-of the people. Mark Twain abounds in true Americanisms; on the other
-hand, Rudyard Kipling is sparing of real Briticisms--having, indeed,
-a certain hankering after Americanisms. Kipling’s case is not unlike
-that of Æschylus, who was a native of Greece but a frequent resident
-in Sicily, and in whose vocabulary occasional Sicilianisms have been
-found by the keen-eyed German critics. So Plautus greedily availed
-himself of the vigorous fertility he discovered in the vocabulary of
-the Roman populace; and when Cicero went to the works of Plautus for
-the words he needed, we had once more the speech of the people in the
-mouth of the scholar.
-
-Something of the toploftiness of the elder rhetoricians yet lingers
-in the tone many British writers of to-day see fit to adopt whenever
-they take occasion to discuss the use of the English language here in
-America. A trenchant critic like Mr. Frederic Harrison, in a lecture
-on the masters of style, went out of his way to warn his hearers
-that though they might be familiar in their writing they were by no
-means to be vulgar. “At any rate, be easy, colloquial if you like,
-but shun those vocables which come to us across the Atlantic, or from
-Newmarket and Whitechapel.” This linking of America and Whitechapel
-may seem to us to be rather vulgar than familiar; and it was Goethe--a
-master of style well known to Mr. Harrison--who reminded us that
-“when self-esteem expresses itself in contempt of another, be he the
-meanest, it must be repellant.” It is only fair to say that fewer
-British writers than ever before sink to so low a level as this; and
-it is right to admit that a definite recognition of the American
-joint-ownership of the English language is not now so rare as once it
-was in England.
-
-Not often, however, do we find so frank and ungrudging acknowledgment
-of the exact truth as is to be found in Mr. William Archer’s ‘America
-To-day.’ Part of one of the Scotch critic’s paragraphs calls for
-quotation here because it sets forth, perhaps more clearly and
-concisely than any American has yet dared to do, what the facts of the
-case really are:
-
-“There can be no rational doubt, I think, that the English language has
-gained, and is gaining, enormously by its expansion over the American
-continent. The prime function of a language, after all, is to interpret
-the ‘form and pressure’ of life--the experience, knowledge, thought,
-emotion, and aspiration of the race which employs it. This being so,
-the more tap-roots a language sends down into the soil of life, and
-the more varied the strata of human experience from which it draws its
-nourishment, whether of vocabulary or idiom, the more perfect will be
-its potentialities as a medium of expression. We must be careful, it
-is true, to keep the organism healthy, to guard against disintegration
-of tissue; but to that duty American writers are quite as keenly alive
-as we. It is not a source of weakness but of power and vitality to
-the English language that it should embrace a greater variety of
-dialects than any other civilized tongue. A new language, says the
-proverb, is a new sense; but a multiplicity of dialects means, for the
-possessors of the main language, an enlargement of the pleasures of the
-linguistic sense without the fatigue of learning a totally new grammar
-and vocabulary. So long as there is a potent literary tradition keeping
-the core of the language one and indivisible, vernacular variations can
-only tend, in virtue of the survival of the fittest, to promote the
-abundance, suppleness, and nicety of adaptation of the language as a
-literary instrument. The English language is no mere historic monument,
-like Westminster Abbey, to be religiously preserved as a relic of the
-past, and reverenced as the burial-place of a bygone breed of giants.
-It is a living organism, ceaselessly busied, like any other organism,
-in the processes of assimilation and excretion.”
-
- (1899)
-
-
-
-
-VI
-
-NEW WORDS AND OLD
-
-
-Not long before the opening of the splendid exhibition which, for the
-short space of six months, made Chicago the most interesting city in
-the world, its leading literary journal editorially rejoiced that
-English was becoming a world-language, but sorrowed also that it was
-sadly in danger of corruption, especially from the piebald jargon of
-our so-called dialect stories. Not long before the celebration of
-the Diamond Jubilee of Queen Victoria a notorious sensation-monger
-of London, having founded a review in which to exploit himself,
-proclaimed that English was in a parlous state, and that something
-ought to be done at once or the language would surely die. The Chicago
-editor was grieved at the sorry condition of our language in the
-United States, while the London editor wept over its wretched plight
-in Great Britain. The American journalist called upon us to take
-pattern by the British; and the British journalist cried out for an
-Academy like that of the French to lay down laws for the speaking of
-our mother-tongue--intending perhaps to propose later the revival of
-the pillory or of the ducking-stool for those who shall infringe the
-stringent provisions of the new code.
-
-There is nothing novel in these shrill outbreaks, which serve only to
-alarm the timid and to reveal an unhesitating ignorance of the history
-of our language. The same kind of protest has been made constantly ever
-since English has been recognized as a tongue worthy of preservation
-and protection; and it would be easy to supply parallels without
-number, some of them five hundred years old. A single example will
-probably suffice. In Steele’s ‘Tatler’ Swift wrote a letter denouncing
-“the deplorable ignorance that for some years hath reigned among our
-English writers, the great depravity of our taste, and the continual
-corruption of our style.” Here we find the ‘Tatler’ (of London) in the
-first decade of the eighteenth century saying exactly what the ‘Dial’
-(of Chicago) echoed in the last decade of the nineteenth. But the
-earlier writer had an excuse the later writer was without; Swift wrote
-before the history of our language was understood.
-
-We know now that growth is a condition of life; and that only a dead
-language is rigid. We know now that it is dangerous to elevate the
-literary diction too far above the speech of the plain people. We
-have found out that nobody in Rome ever spoke Ciceronian Latin;
-Cicero did not speak it himself; he did not even write it naturally;
-he wrote it with an effort and not always to his own satisfaction
-at the first attempt. We have discovered that there was a wide gap
-between the elegance of the orator’s polished periods and the uncouth
-bluntness of the vulgar tongue of the Roman people; and we believe
-that this divergence was broader than that between the perfect style
-of Hawthorne, for example, and the every-day dialect of Salem or of
-Concord.
-
-By experts like Whitney we are told that there has been less structural
-modification of our language in the second half of the nineteenth
-century than in any other fifty-year period of its existence. Our
-vocabulary has been enormously enriched, but the skeleton of our speech
-has been only a little developed. With the decrease in illiteracy
-the conserving force of the printing-press must always hereafter
-make change increasingly difficult--even in the obvious cases where
-improvement is possible. The indirect influence of the novelist and the
-direct influence of the schoolmaster--very powerful each of them and
-almost irresistible when united--will always be exerted on the side of
-the conservatives. To seize these facts firmly and to understand their
-applications is to have ready always an ample answer for all those who
-chatter about the impending corruption of our noble tongue.
-
-But we may go further. The study of history shows us that the future
-of English is dependent not on the watchfulness of its guardians, not
-upon the increasing richness and flexibility of its vocabulary, not
-upon the modification of its syntax, not upon the needed reform of its
-orthography; it is not dependent upon any purity or any corruption of
-the language itself. The future of the English language is dependent
-upon the future of the two great peoples that speak it; it is dependent
-upon the strength, the energy, the vigor, and the virtue of the British
-and the Americans. A language is but the instrument of those who use
-it; and English has flourished and spread not because of its own
-merits, many as they are, but because of the forthputting qualities of
-the masterful English stock. It must rise and fall with us who speak
-it. “No speech can do more than express the ideas of those who employ
-it at the time,” so a recent historian of our language has reminded us.
-“It cannot live upon its past meanings, or upon the past conceptions of
-great men that have been recorded in it, any more than the race which
-uses it can live upon its past glory or its past achievements.”
-
-When we have once possessed ourselves of the inexorable fact that it
-is not in our power to warp the development of our language by any
-conscious effort, we can listen with amused toleration to the excited
-outcries of those who are constantly protesting against this or that
-word or phrase or usage which may seem to them new and therefore
-unjustifiable. We discover also that the self-appointed legislators
-who lay down the law thus peremptorily are often emphatic in exact
-proportion to their ignorance of the history of the language.
-
-“Every word we speak,” so Dr. Holmes told us, “is the medal of a dead
-thought or feeling, struck in the die of some human experience, worn
-smooth by innumerable contacts, and always transferred warm from one to
-another.” We must admit that these chance medalists of language have
-not always been gifted artists or skilled craftsmen, so the words of
-their striking are sometimes misshapen; nor have they always respected
-the standard, so there is counterfeit coin in circulation sometimes.
-Even when the word is sterling and well minted, be it new or old,
-
-  Now stamped with the image of Good Queen Bess,
-      And now of a Bloody Mary,
-
-the coin itself is sometimes locked up in the reserve, to be
-misrepresented by a shabby paper promise to pay. So fierce is the
-popular demand for an increased _per capita_ that the verbal currency
-is ever in danger of debasement. This is the apparent justification
-of the self-appointed tellers who busy themselves with touchstones of
-their own and who venture to throw out much false coin. Their tests are
-trustworthy now and again; but more often than not the pieces they have
-nailed to the counter are of full weight and ought to pass current.
-
-“There is a purism,” Whitney said, “which, while it seeks to maintain
-the integrity of the language, in effect stifles its growth; to be too
-fearful of new words and phrases, new meanings, familiar and colloquial
-expressions, is little less fatal to the well-being of a spoken tongue
-than to rush into the opposite extreme.” And Professor Lounsbury goes
-further and asserts that our language is not to-day in danger from
-the agencies commonly supposed to be corrupting it, but rather “from
-ignorant efforts made to preserve what is called its purity.” And
-elsewhere the same inexpugnable authority reminds us that “the history
-of language is the history of corruptions,” and that “the purest of
-speakers uses every day, with perfect propriety, words and forms which,
-looked at from the point of view of the past, are improper, if not
-scandalous.”
-
-There would be both interest and instruction in a list of the many
-words securely intrenched in our own vocabulary to-day which were
-bitterly assaulted on their first appearance. Swift praises himself for
-his valiant effort against certain of these intruders: “I have done my
-utmost for some years past to stop the progress of _mob_ and _banter_,
-but have been plainly borne down by numbers and betrayed by those who
-promised to assist me.” Puttenham (or whoever it was that wrote the
-anonymous ‘Arte of English Poesie,’ published in 1589) admitted the
-need of certain words to which the purists might justly object, and
-then adds that “many other like words borrowed out of the Latin and
-French were not so well to be allowed by us,” citing then, among those
-of which he disapproved, _audacious_, _egregious_, and _compatible_. In
-the ‘Poetaster,’ acted in 1601, Ben Jonson satirized Marston’s verbal
-innovations, and among the words he reviled are _clumsy_, _inflate_,
-_spurious_, _conscious_, _strenuous_, _defunct_, _retrograde_, and
-_reciprocal_; and in his ‘Discoveries’ Jonson shrewdly remarked that
-“a man coins not a new word without some peril and less fruit; for if
-it happen to be received, the praise is but moderate; if refused, the
-scorn is assured.”
-
-Puttenham wrote at the end of the sixteenth century, Jonson at the
-beginning of the seventeenth, Swift at the beginning of the eighteenth;
-and at the beginning of the nineteenth we find Lady Holland declaring
-_influential_ to be a detestable word and asserting that she had tried
-in vain to get Sheridan to forego it.
-
-At the end of the nineteenth century the battle was still raging over
-_standpoint_, for example, and over _reliable_ and over _lengthy_, and
-over a score of others, all of which bid fair to establish themselves
-ultimately because they supply a demand more or less insistent. The
-fate is more doubtful of _photo_ for _photograph_ and of _phone_ for
-_telephone_; they both strike us now as vulgarisms, just as _mob_ (and
-for the same reason) struck Swift as vulgar; and it may be that in
-time they will live down this stigma of illegitimacy just as _mob_ has
-survived it. Then there is the misbegotten verb, _to enthuse_, in my
-sight the most hideous of vocables. What is to be its fate? Altho I
-have detected it in the careful columns of the ‘Nation,’ it has not as
-yet been adopted by any acknowledged master of English; none the less,
-I fear me greatly, it has all the vitality of other ill weeds. And is
-_bike_ going to get itself recognized as a substitute for _bicycle_,
-both as verb and as noun? It seems to be possible, since a monosyllable
-has always an advantage over a trisyllable in our impatient mouths.
-
-Swift objected sharply to the curtailing of words “when we are
-already overloaded with monosyllables, which are the disgrace of our
-language.” Then he wittily characterizes the process by which _mob_
-had been made, _cab_ was to be made, and _photo_ is now in the making:
-“Thus we cram one syllable and cut off the rest, as the owl fattened
-her mice after she had bit off their legs to prevent them from running
-away; and if ours be the same reason for maiming our words, it will
-certainly answer the end: for I am sure no other nation will desire
-to borrow them.” Swift was rash enough to assert that _speculation_,
-_operation_, _preliminaries_, _ambassador_, _communication_, and
-_battalion_ were words newly introduced, and also to prophesy that
-they were too poly-syllabic to be able to endure many more campaigns.
-As it happens no attempt has been made to shorten any one of them
-except _speculation_, and it can hardly be maintained that _spec_ has
-established itself. Certainly it has not disestablished _speculation_,
-as _mob_ has driven out _mobile vulgus_.
-
-Dryden declared that he traded “both with the living and the dead
-for the enrichment of our native language”; but he denied that he
-Latinized too much; and most of the Gallicisms he attempted have not
-won acceptance. Lowell thought that Dryden did not add a single word
-to the language, unless “he first used _magnetism_ in its present
-sense of moral attraction.” Dr. Holmes also discovered that it is not
-enough to make a new word when it is needed and to fashion it fitly;
-its fortune still depends on public caprice or popular instinct. “I’ve
-sometimes made new words,” he told a friend; “I made _chrysocracy_,
-thinking it would take its place, but it didn’t; _plutocracy_, meaning
-the same thing, was adopted instead.” But _anesthesia_ is a word of Dr.
-Holmes’s making which has won its way not only in English but in most
-of the other modern languages. It may be doubted whether a like fortune
-will follow another word to be found quoted in one of his letters,
-_aproposity_, a bilingual hybrid not without analogues in our language.
-
-It is with surprise that in Stevenson’s very Scotch romance ‘David
-Balfour’ we happen upon another malformation--_come-at-able_, hitherto
-supposed to be Yankee in its origin and in its aroma. Elsewhere in
-the same story we read “you _claim_ to be innocent,” a form which the
-cockney critics are wont to call American. Stevenson in this novel
-uses both the modern _jeopardize_ and the ancient _enjeopardy_. Just
-why _to jeopardize_ should have driven _to jeopard_ out of use, it
-is not easy to declare, nor why _leniency_ is supplanting _lenity_.
-As _drunk_ seems to suggest total intoxication, it is possible to
-discover the cause of the increasing tendency to say “I have _drank_.”
-No defense is easy of _in our midst_ for _in the midst of us_, and
-yet it will prevail inevitably, for it is a convenient short-cut. Dr.
-Holmes confessed to Richard Grant White that he had used it once, and
-that Edward Everett (who had also once fallen from grace) made him see
-the error of his ways. It is to be found twice in Stevenson’s ‘Amateur
-Emigrant,’ and again in the ‘Res Judicatæ’ of Mr. Augustine Birrell, a
-brisk essayist, altho not an impeccable stylist.
-
-It is nothing against a noun that it is new. To call it a neologism
-is but begging the question. Of necessity every word was new once.
-It was “struck in the die of human experience,” to come back to Dr.
-Holmes’s figure; and it is at its best before it is “worn smooth
-by innumerable contacts.” Lowell thought it was a chief element of
-Shakspere’s greatness that “he found words ready to his use, original
-and untarnished--types of thought whose sharp edges were unworn by
-repeated impressions.” He “found a language already established but not
-yet fetlocked by dictionary and grammar mongers.” For the same reason
-Mérimée delighted in Russian, because it was “young, the pedants not
-having had time to spoil it; it is admirably fit for poetry.”
-
-This native relish for the uncontaminated word it was that led Hugo and
-Gautier to ransack all sorts of special vocabularies. This thirst for
-the unhackneyed epithet it is that urges Mr. Rudyard Kipling to avail
-himself of the technical terms of trade, which serve his purpose, not
-merely because they are exact, but also because they are unexpected.
-The device is dangerous, no doubt, but a writer of delicate perceptions
-can find his advantage in it. Perhaps George Eliot was a little too
-fond of injecting into fiction the terminology of science, but there
-was nothing blameworthy in the desire to enlarge the vocabulary which
-should be at the command of the novelist. Professor Dowden records
-that when she used in a story words and phrases like _dynamic_ and
-_natural selection_, the reviewer pricked up his delicate ears and
-shied; and he makes bold to suggest that “if the thoroughbred critic
-could only be led close up to _dynamic_, he would find that _dynamic_
-would not bite.” Every lover of our language will sympathize with
-Professor Dowden’s assertion that “a protest of common sense is really
-called for against the affectation which professes to find obscurity
-in words because they are trisyllabic or because they carry with them
-scientific associations. Language, the instrument of literary art, is
-an instrument of ever-extending range, and the truest pedantry, in an
-age when the air is saturated with scientific thought, would be to
-reject those accessions to the language which are the special gain of
-the time.”
-
-Where George Eliot erred--if err she did at all in this matter--was in
-the use of scientific terms inappropriately, or, so to say, boastfully,
-whereby she aroused an association of ideas foreign to the purpose in
-hand. Every writer needs to consider most carefully both the obvious
-and the remote associations of the phrases he employs, that these may
-intensify the thought he wishes to convey. A word is known by the
-company it has kept. Especially must a poet have a keen nose for the
-fragrant word, or else his stanzas will lack savor. The magic of his
-art lies largely in the syllables he selects, in their sound and in
-their color. Not their meanings merely are important to him, but their
-suggestions also--not what they denote more than what they connote. An
-American psychologist has recently told us that every word has not only
-its own note but also its overtones. With unconscious foresight, the
-great poets have always acted on this theory.
-
-Perhaps this is a reason why the poets have ever been ready to rescue
-a cast-off word from the rubbish-heap of the past. Professor Earle (of
-Oxford) declares that “it has been one of the most interesting features
-of the new vigor and independence of American literature, that it has
-often displayed in a surprising manner what springs of novelty there
-are in reserve and to be elicited by novel combinations”--a statement
-more complimentary in its intent than felicitous in its phrasing. And
-Professor Earle praises Emerson and Lowell and Holmes for their skill
-in enriching our modern English with the old words locked up out of
-sight in the treasuries of the past. Lowell said of Emerson that “his
-eye for a fine, telling phrase that will carry true is like that of a
-backwoodsman for a rifle; and he will dredge you up a choice word from
-the mud of Cotton Mather himself.”
-
-Of course this effort to recover the scattered pearls of speech,
-dropped by the wayside in the course of the centuries, is peculiar
-neither to the United States nor to the nineteenth century--altho
-perhaps it has been carried further in our country and in our time
-than anywhere else. Modern Greek has recalled to its aid as much old
-Greek as it can assimilate. Sallust was accused by an acrid critic of
-having made a list of obsolete words, which he strove deliberately to
-reintroduce into Latin. This is, in effect, what Spenser sought to do
-with Chaucer’s vocabulary; and it is curious to reflect that, owing,
-it may be, in part, to the example set by the author of the ‘Faerie
-Queene,’ the language of the ‘Canterbury Tales’ is far less strange,
-less remote, less archaic to us to-day than it was to the Elizabethans.
-
-A rapid consumption of the vocabulary is going on constantly. Words
-are swiftly worn out and used up and thrown aside. New words are made
-or borrowed to fill the vacancies; and old words are impressed into
-service and forced to do double duty. No sooner is a new dictionary
-completed than the editor sets about his inevitable supplement. And the
-dictionary is not only of necessity incomplete: it is also inadequate
-in its definitions, for it may happen that a word will take on an
-added meaning while the big book is at the bindery. Our language is
-fluctuating always; and now one word and now another has expanded its
-content or has shrunk away into insignificance. No definition is surely
-stable for long. When Cotton Mather wrote in defense of his own style
-_disgust_ was fairly equivalent to _dislike_; “and if a more massy way
-of writing be never so much disgusted at this day, a better gust will
-come on.”
-
-Once upon a time _to aggravate_ meant to increase an offense; now it
-is often used as tho it meant to irritate. Formerly _calculated_--as
-in the sentence “it was _calculated_ to do harm”--implied a deliberate
-intention to injure; now the idea of intention has been eliminated
-and the sentence is held to be roughly equivalent to “it was likely
-to do harm.” _Verbal_ is slowly getting itself accepted as synonymous
-with _oral_, in antithesis to _written_. _Lurid_ was really _pale_,
-_wan_, _ghastly_; but how often of late has it been employed as tho it
-signified _red_ or _ruddy_ or _bloody_?
-
-At first these new uses of these old words were slovenly and
-inadmissible inaccuracies, but by sheer insistence they are winning
-their pardon, until at last they will gain authority as they broaden
-down from precedent to precedent. It is well to be off with the old
-word before you are on with the new; and no writer who respects his
-mother-tongue is ever in haste to take up with words thus wrested from
-the primitive propriety.
-
-But, as Dryden declared when justifying his modernizing of Chaucer’s
-vocabulary, “Words are not like landmarks, so sacred as never to
-be removed; customs are changed, and even statutes are silently
-repealed when the reason ceases for which they were enacted.” It was
-Dryden’s “Cousin Swift” who once declared that “a nice man is a man
-of nasty ideas”--an assertion which I venture to believe to be wholly
-incomprehensible to-day to the young ladies of England in whose mouths
-_nice_ means _agreeable_ and _nasty_ means _disagreeable_. _Nice_
-has suffered this inexplicable metamorphosis in the United States as
-well as in Great Britain, but _nasty_ has not yet been emptied of its
-original offensiveness here as it has over there. And even in British
-speech the transformation is relatively recent; I think Stevenson was
-guilty of an anachronism in ‘Weir of Hermiston’ when he put it in the
-mouth of a young Scot.
-
-If the Scotch have followed the evil example of the English in misusing
-_nasty_, the English in turn have twisted the _ilk_ of North Britain
-to serve their own ends. _Of that ilk_ is a phrase added to a man’s
-surname to show that this name and the name of his estate are the same;
-thus Bradwardine of Bradwardine would be called “Bradwardine _of that
-ilk_.” But it is not uncommon now to see a phrase like “people of that
-ilk,” meaning obviously “people of that sort.”
-
-In like manner _awful_ and _terrible_ and _elegant_ have been so
-misused as mere intensives that a careful writer now strikes them out
-when they come off the end of his pen in their original meaning. So
-_quite_ no longer implies _completely_ but is almost synonymous with
-_somewhat_--_quite poor_ meaning _somewhat poor_ and _quite good_
-meaning _pretty good_. _Unique_ is getting to imply merely excellent
-or perhaps only unusual; its exact etymological value is departing
-forever. _Creole_, which should be applied only to Caucasian natives of
-tropical countries born of Latin parents, is beginning to carry with it
-in the vulgar tongue of to-day a vague suspicion of negro blood.
-
-While the perversion of _nice_ and _nasty_ is British, there is an
-American perversion of _dirt_ not unlike it. To most Americans, I
-think, _dirt_ suggests _earth_ or _soil_ or _clay_ or _dust_; to most
-Americans, I think, _dirt_ no longer carries with it any suggestion
-of _dirtiness_. I have heard a mother send her little boy off to make
-mud-pies on condition that he used only “clean _dirt_”; and I know
-that a lawn-tennis ground of compacted earth is called a _dirt_ court.
-Yet, tho the noun has thus been defecated, the adjective keeps its
-earlier force; and there even lingers something of the pristine value
-in the noun itself when it is employed in the picturesque idiom of the
-Rocky Mountains, where to be guilty of an underhand injury against any
-one is _to do him dirt_. Lovers of Western verse will recall how the
-frequenters of Casey’s table d’hôte went to see “Modjesky as Cameel,”
-and how they sat in silence until the break occurs between the lover
-and his mistress:
-
-  At that Three-fingered Hoover says: “I’ll chip into this game,
-  And see if Red Hoss Mountain cannot reconstruct the same.
-  I won’t set by and see the feelin’s of a lady hurt--
-  Gol durn a critter, anyhow, that does a woman dirt!”
-
-Here no doubt, we have crossed the confines of slang; but having done
-so, I venture upon an anecdote which will serve to show how completely
-sometimes the newer meaning of a word substitutes itself for the older.
-Two friends of mine were in a train of the elevated railroad, passing
-through that formerly craggy part of upper New York which was once
-called Shantytown and which now prefers to be known as Harlem. One of
-them drew the attention of the other to the capering young capricorns
-that sported over the blasted rocks by the side of the lofty track.
-“Just look at those kids,” were the words he used. He was overheard
-by a boy of the streets sitting in the next seat, who glanced out of
-the window at once, but failed to discover the children he expected to
-behold. Whereupon he promptly looked up and corrected my friend. “Them
-’s not kids,” declared the urchin of Manhattan; “them’s little goats!”
-In the mind of this native youngster there was no doubt at all as to
-the meaning of the word _kid_; to him it meant _child_; and he would
-have scorned any explanation that it ever had meant _young goat_.
-
-In ignorance is certainty, and with increase of wisdom comes hesitancy.
-For example, what does the word _romantic_ really mean? Few adjectives
-are harder worked in the history of modern literature; and no two of
-those who use it would agree upon its exact context. It suggests one
-set of circumstances to the student of English literature, a second set
-to a student of German literature, and a third to a student of French
-literature; while every student of comparative literature must echo
-Professor Kuno Francke’s longing for “the formation of an international
-league for the suppression of the terms both _romanticism_ and
-_classicism_.”
-
-Other words there are almost as ambiguous--_philology_, for example,
-and _college_ and _chapel_. By _classical philology_ we understand
-the study of all that survives of the civilizations of Greece and
-Rome, their languages, their literature, their laws, their arts. But
-has _Romance philology_ or _Germanic philology_ so broad a basis? Has
-_English philology_? To nine out of ten of us, this use of the word now
-seems to put stress on the study of linguistics as against the study
-of literature; to ninety-nine out of a hundred, I think, _philologist_
-suggests the narrow student of linguistics; and therefore the wider
-meaning seems likely soon to fall into innocuous desuetude.
-
-The change in the application of _college_ is still in process of
-accomplishment. In England a college was a place of instruction,
-sometimes independent (as Eton College, in which case it is really a
-high school) and sometimes a component part of a university (in which
-case the rest of the organization is not infrequently non-existent).
-An English university is not unlike a federation of colleges; and
-the relation of Merton and Magdalen to Oxford is not unlike that of
-Massachusetts and Virginia to the United States. In America _college_
-and _university_ were long carelessly confused, as tho they were
-interconvertible terms; but of late a sharp distinction is being set
-up--a distinction quite different from that obtaining in England. In
-this new American usage, a _college_ is a place where undergraduates
-are trained, and a _university_ is a place where graduate-students
-are guided in research. Thus the college gives breadth, and the
-university adds depth. Thus the college provides general culture and
-the university provides the opportunity of specialization. If we
-accept this distinction,--and it has been accepted by all those who
-discuss the higher education in America,--we are forced to admit that
-the most of the self-styled universities of this country should be
-called colleges; and we are allowed to observe that the college and
-the university can exist side by side in the same institution, as at
-Harvard and at Columbia. We are forced also to admit that what is known
-in Great Britain as “University Extension” cannot fairly retain that
-title here in the United States, since its object is not the extension
-of university work, as we now understand the word _university_ here; it
-is at most the extension of college work.
-
-While this modification of the meaning of _college_ is being made in
-America, a modification of _chapel_ has been made in England. At first
-_chapel_ described a subordinate part of a _church_, devoted to special
-services. By natural extension it came to denote a smaller edifice
-subsidiary to a large church, as Grace Church, in New York, was once a
-chapel of Trinity Church. But in the nineteenth century _chapel_ came
-to be applied in England especially to the humbler meeting-houses of
-the various sects of dissenters, while _church_ is reserved for the
-places of worship of the established religion. Thus Sir Walter Besant
-classifies the population of a riverside parish in London into those
-who go to _church_ and those who go to _chapel_, having no doubt that
-all his British readers will understand the former to be Episcopalians
-and the latter Methodists or the like.
-
-This is a Briticism not likely ever to be adopted in America. But
-another Briticism bids fair to have a better fortune. Living as they
-do on a little group of islands, the British naturally are in the
-habit of referring to the rest of Europe as the _Continent_. They run
-across the Channel to take a little tour “on the Continent.” They speak
-of the pronunciation of Latin that obtains everywhere but in Great
-Britain and Ireland as the _continental_ pronunciation. When they
-wish to differentiate their authors, for instance, from the French
-and the German and the Italians, they lump these last together as
-the _continental_ authors. The division of Europe into _continental_
-and _British_ is so convenient that it is certain to be adopted on
-this side of the Atlantic. Already has a New York literary review,
-after having had a series of papers on “Living Critics” (in which
-were included both British writers and American), followed it with a
-series of “Living Continental Critics” (in which the chief critics of
-France, Germany, Spain, and Scandinavia were considered). Yet there is
-no logic in this use of the word over here, since we Americans are not
-insular; and since North America is a continent just as Europe is. As
-it happens, the word _continental_ in a wholly contradictory meaning is
-glorious in the history of the United States. Who does not know how,
-
-  In their ragged regimentals,
-  Stood the old Continentals,
-      Yielding not?
-
-None the less will the convenience of this British use of the word
-outweigh its lack of logic in America--as convenience has so often
-overridden far more serious considerations. Language is only a
-tool, after all; and it must ever be shaped to fit the hand that
-uses it. This is why another illogical misuse of a word will get
-itself recognized as legitimate sooner or later--the limitations of
-_American_ to mean only that which belongs to the United States. When
-we speak of American ideas we intend to exclude not only the ideas of
-South America but also those of Mexico and of Canada; we are really
-arrogating to ourselves a supremacy so overwhelming as to warrant our
-ignoring altogether all the other peoples having a right to share
-in the adjective. Our reason for this is that there is no national
-adjective available for us. We can speak of _Mexican_ ideas and of
-_Canadian_ ideas; but we cannot--or at least we do not and we will
-not--speak of _United Statesian_ ideas. And this appropriation to
-ourselves of an adjective really the property of all the inhabitants of
-the continent seems to be perfectly acceptable to the only other group
-of those inhabitants speaking our language,--the English colonists to
-the north of us. On both sides of the Niagara River the smaller brother
-of the gigantic Horseshoe cataract is known as the “American fall.”
-Even in the last century the British employed _American_ to indicate
-the inhabitants of the thirteen colonies; and Dr. Johnson wrote in
-1775: “That the _Americans_ are able to bear taxation is indubitable.”
-But our ownership of _American_ as a national adjective, if tolerated
-by the Canadians and the British, is not admitted by those who do not
-speak our language. Probably to both the Italians and the Spaniards
-South America rather than North is the part of the world that rises in
-the mental vision when the word _American_ is suddenly pronounced.
-
-Another distinction not unlike this, but logical as well as convenient,
-is getting itself recognized. This distinction results from accepting
-the obvious fact that the literature of the English language has
-nowadays two independent divisions--that produced in the British Isles
-and that produced in the United States. The writers of both nations
-speak the English language, and therefore their works--whensoever these
-rise to the level of literature--belong to English literature. We are
-wont to call one division _American_ literature, and we are beginning
-to see that logic will soon force us to call the other division
-_British_ literature. Mr. Stedman has dealt with the poetry of the
-English language of the past sixty years in two volumes, one on the
-‘Victorian Poets,’ and the other on the ‘Poets of America,’ and this
-serves to show how sharp is the line of separation. With his customary
-carefulness of epithet, Mr. Stedman in the preface to the earlier
-volume always uses _British_ as the antithesis of _American_, reserving
-_English_ as the broader adjective to cover both branches of our
-literature. Probably the many collections of the ‘British Poets,’ the
-‘British Novelists,’ the ‘British Theater,’ were so called to allow
-the inclusion of works produced in the sister kingdoms; it is well to
-remember that Scott and Moore were neither of them Englishmen. There is
-a certain piquancy in the fact that the adjective _British_, available
-in the beginning of the nineteenth century because it included the
-Scotch and the Irish, is even more useful at the end of the nineteenth
-century because it differentiates the English, Scotch, and Irish, taken
-all together, from the Americans.
-
-_Telegram_ was denounced as a mismade word, and _cablegram_ was
-rejected with abhorrence by all defenders of purity. Yet the firm
-establishment of _telegraph_ and _telephone_ made certain the ultimate
-acceptance of _telegram_. But _cablegram_ is still on probation, and
-may fail of admission in the end, perhaps, because a part of the word
-seems to be better fitted for its purpose than the whole. A message
-received by the telegraph under the ocean is often curtly called a
-_cable_, as when a man says, “I’ve just had a cable from my wife in
-Paris.” This, I think, is rather American than British; but it is
-akin to the British use of _wire_ as synonymous with both _telegram_
-and _to telegraph_. An Englishman invites you to a house-party, and
-writes that he will meet you at the station “on a _wire_,” intending to
-convey to you his desire that you should telegraph him the hour of your
-arrival. In a short story by Mr. Henry James, that most conscientious
-of recorders of British speech, he tells us that after _wires_ and
-_counterwires_ one of the characters of his tale was at last able to
-arrive at the house where the action takes place. The locution is hot
-from the verbal foundry; and it seems to imply what an American writer
-would have expressed by saying that there had been “telegraphing to and
-fro.”
-
-American, probably, is the verb _to process_, and also its past
-participle _processed_. When new methods of photo-engraving were
-introduced here in the United States, a black-and-white artist would
-express a preference either to have his drawing engraved on wood or
-have it reproduced mechanically by a photo-engraving process; and as
-he needed a brief word to describe this latter act, one was promptly
-forthcoming, and he asked, “Is this thing of mine to be engraved
-or _processed_?” The word _half-tone_ seems also to be of American
-manufacture; and it describes one of these methods of photo-engraving.
-It is not only a noun, but also, on occasions, a verb; and the artist
-will ask if his wash-drawing is to be _half-toned_. Of necessity the
-several improvements in the art of photo-engraving brought with them
-a variety of new terms absolutely essential in the terminology of the
-craft, most of them remaining hidden in the technical vocabulary,
-altho now and again one or another has thrust itself up into the
-general language.
-
-Any attempt to declare the British or the American origin of an idiom
-is most precarious; and he who ventures upon it has need of double
-caution. When a friend of mine asked the boy at the door of the club
-if it was still raining, and was answered, “No, sir; it’s _fairing
-up_ now,” he was at first inclined to think that he had captured an
-Americanism hitherto unknown and delightfully fresh; but he consulted
-the Century Dictionary, only to find that it was a Scoticism,--there
-was even a quotation from Stevenson’s ‘Inland Voyage,’--and that it was
-not uncommon in the southwestern states. And when Captain Mahan brought
-out the difference between _preparation_ for war and _preparedness_
-for war, this friend was ready to credit the naval historian with the
-devising not only of a most valuable distinction but also of a most
-useful word; but a dip into the Century Dictionary again revealed that
-a Scotchman had not waited for an American to use the word, and that it
-had been employed by Bain, not even as tho it was a novelty.
-
-Once in the pages of Hawthorne, who was affluent in words and
-artistically adroit in his management of them, I met a phrase
-that pleased me mightily, “a _heterogeny_ of things”; and I find
-_heterogeny_ duly collected in the Century Dictionary but without
-any quotation from Hawthorne. Another word of Hawthorne’s in the
-‘Blithedale Romance’ is _improvability_: “In my own behalf, I rejoice
-that I could once think better of the world’s _improvability_ than it
-deserved.” This I fancy may be Hawthorne’s very own; but it is in the
-Century Dictionary, all the same, and without any indication of its
-origin. Quite possibly the New England romancer disinterred it from
-some forgotten tome of the “somniferous school of literature,” as he
-had humorously entitled the writings of his theological ancestors.
-
-There is a word of Abraham Lincoln’s that I long for the right to use.
-Mr. Noah Brooks has recorded that he once heard the President speak of
-a certain man as _interruptious_. This adjective conveys a delicate
-shade of meaning not discoverable in any other; it may not be inscribed
-in the bead-roll of the King’s English, but it was a specimen of the
-President’s English; and has any Speech from the Throne in this century
-really rivaled the force and felicity of the Second Inaugural?
-
-It was not the liberator of the negro but one of the freedmen
-themselves who made offhand use of a delicious word, for which it is
-probably hopeless for us to expect acceptance, however useful the new
-term might prove. During a debate in the legislature of South Carolina
-in the Reconstruction days, a sable ally of the carpet-baggers rose
-to repel the taunts of his opponents, declaring energetically that he
-hurled back with scorn all their _insinuendos_. The word holds a middle
-ground between _insinuation_ and _innuendo_; and between the two it has
-scant chance of survival. But it is an amusing attempt, for all its
-failure; and it would have given pleasure to the author of ‘Alice in
-Wonderland.’ And how many of Lewis Carroll’s own verbal innovations,
-wantonly manufactured for his sport, are likely to get themselves
-admitted into the language of literature? _Chortle_ stands the best
-chance of them all, I think; and I believe that many a man has said
-that he _chortled_, with no thought of the British bard who ingeniously
-devised the quaint vocable.
-
-So Mr. W. S. Gilbert’s _burgle_ seems to be winning its way into
-general use. At first those who employed it followed the example of
-the comic lyrist, and did so with humorous intent; but of late it
-is beginning to serve those who are wholly devoid of humor. Perhaps
-the verb _to burgle_ (from the noun _burglar_) supplied the analogy
-on which was made the verb _to ush_ (from the noun _usher_). With my
-own ears I once heard a well-known clergyman in New York express the
-thanks of the congregation to “the gentlemen who _ush_ for us.”
-
-It is well that strange uses like these do not win early acceptance
-into our speech--that there should be alert challengers at the portal
-to cry “Halt!” and to examine a newcomer’s credentials. It is well also
-that the stranger should have leave to prove his usefulness and so in
-time gain admittance even to the inner sanctuary of the language. John
-Dryden discussed the reception into English of new words and phrases
-with the sturdy common sense which was one of the characteristics
-most endearing him to us as a true type of the man of letters who was
-also a man of the world. “It is obvious,” he wrote in his ‘Defense of
-the Epilog,’ “that we have admitted many, some of which we wanted,
-and therefore our language is the richer for them, as it would be by
-importation of bullion; others are rather ornamental than necessary;
-yet by their admission the language is become more courtly and our
-thoughts are better dressed.”
-
-Historians of the language have had no difficulty in bringing together
-a mass of quotations from the British writers of the eighteenth century
-to show that they were then possessed of the belief that it was
-feasible and necessary to set bounds to the growth of English. They
-were afraid that the changes going on in the language would make it
-“impossible for succeeding ages to read or appreciate the literature
-produced.” In his interesting and instructive lecture on the ‘Evolution
-of English Lexicography,’ Dr. Murray remarks that “to us of a later
-age, with our fuller knowledge of the history of language, and our
-wider experience of its fortunes, when it has to be applied to entirely
-new fields of knowledge, such as have been opened to us since the birth
-of modern science, this notion seems childlike and pathetic. But it was
-eminently characteristic of the eighteenth century.”
-
-It is small wonder therefore that this absurd notion infected two of
-the most characteristic figures of the eighteenth century--Johnson and
-Franklin. Dr. Johnson set forth in the plan of his dictionary that
-“one great end of this undertaking is to fix the English language.”
-Even so shrewd a student of all things as was Franklin seems to have
-accepted this current fallacy. When he acknowledged the dedication of
-Noah Webster’s ‘Dissertations on the English Language,’ he declared
-that he could not “but applaud your zeal for preserving the purity of
-our language, both in its expressions and pronunciation.” Then, as tho
-to prove to us, once for all, the futility of all efforts to “fix the
-language” and to “preserve its purity,” Franklin picks out half a dozen
-novelties of phrase and begs that Webster will use his “authority in
-reprobating them.” Among these innovations that Franklin disapproved of
-are _improved_, _noticed_, _advocated_, _progressed_, and _opposed_.
-
-This letter to Webster was written in 1789; and already in 1760
-Franklin had yielded to certain of David Hume’s criticisms upon his
-parts of speech: “I thank you for your friendly admonition relating to
-some unusual words in the pamphlet. It will be of service to me. The
-_pejorate_ and the _colonize_, since they are not in common use here, I
-give up as bad; for certainly in writings intended for persuasion and
-for general information, one cannot be too clear; and every expression
-in the least obscure is a fault. The _unshakable_, too, tho clear, I
-give up as rather low. The introducing new words, where we are already
-possessed of old ones sufficiently expressive, I confess must be
-generally wrong, as it tends to change the language.”
-
-With all his intellect and all his insight and all his common
-sense--and with this most precious quality Franklin was better
-furnished than either Johnson or Dryden--he could not foresee that
-_to notice_ and _to advocate_ and _to colonize_ were words without
-which the English language could not do its work in the world. And
-when he gives up _unshakable_ “as rather low” he stands confessed
-as a contemporary of the men whom Fielding and Goldsmith girded
-at. In spite of the example of Steele and Addison, in spite of his
-own vigorous directness in ‘Poor Richard’ and in all his political
-pamphlets, Franklin feels that there is and that there ought to be
-a wide gap between the English that is spoken and the English that
-is written. He did not perceive that spoken English, with all its
-hazardous expressions, its clipped words, its violent metaphors, its
-picturesque slang, its slovenly clumsiness, is none the less the
-proving-ground of the literary vocabulary, which is forever tending to
-self-exhaustion.
-
-Nobody has better stated the wiser attitude of a writer toward the
-tools of his trade than Professor Harry Thurston Peck in his incisive
-discussion of ‘What is Good English?’ He begins by noting that “the
-English language, as a whole, is the richest of all modern tongues,
-and it is not to be bounded by the comparatively narrow limits of
-its literature. There exists, as well, the easy, fluent usage of
-conversation, and there is also the strong, simple, homely speech of
-the common people, rooted in plain Saxon, smacking of the soil, and
-having a sturdy power about it that is unsurpassable for downright
-force and blunt directness.” And Professor Peck, having pointed out
-how an artist in words is free to avail himself of the term he needs
-from books or from life, declares that “the writer of the best English
-is he whose language responds exactly to his mood and thought, now
-thundering and surging with the majestic words whose immediate ancestry
-is Roman, now rippling and singing with the smooth harmonies of later
-speech, now forging ahead with the irresistible energy of the Saxon,
-and now laughing and wantoning in the easy lightness of our modern
-phrase.”
-
- (1897-99)
-
-
-
-
-VII
-
-THE NATURALIZATION OF FOREIGN WORDS
-
-
-When Taine was praising that earliest of analytical novels, the
-‘Princess of Cleves,’ he noted the simplicity of Madame de Lafayette’s
-style. “Half of the words we use are unknown to Madame de Lafayette,”
-he declared. “She is like the painters of old, who could make every
-shade with only five or six colors.” And he asserts that “there is no
-easier reading” than this story of Madame de Lafayette’s; “a child
-could understand without effort all her expressions and all her
-phrases.... Nowadays every writer is a pedant, and every style is
-obscure. All of us have read three or four centuries, and three or four
-literatures. Philosophy, science, art, criticism have weighted us with
-their discoveries and their jargons.”
-
-This is true enough, no doubt; and one of the strange phenomenons of
-the nineteenth century was the sudden and enormous swelling of our
-vocabularies. Perhaps the distention of the dictionary is even more
-obvious in English than in French, for there are now three times as
-many human beings using the language of Shakspere as there are now
-using the language of Molière; and while the speakers of French are
-compacted in one country and take their tone from its capital, the
-speakers of English are scattered in the four quarters of the earth,
-and they use each man his own speech in his own fashion. From the wider
-variety of interests among those who speak English, our language is
-perforce more hospitable to foreign words than French needs to be,
-since it is used rather by a conservative people who prefer to stay at
-home.
-
-Perhaps the French are at times even too inhospitable to the foreign
-phrase. A friend of mine who came to the reading of M. Paul Bourget’s
-‘Essais de Psychologie Contemporaine,’ fresh from the perusal of
-the German philosophers, told me that he was pained by M. Bourget’s
-vain effort to express the thoughts the French author had absorbed
-from the Germans. It seemed as tho M. Bourget were struggling for
-speech, and could not say what was in his mind for lack of words in
-his native tongue capable of conveying his meaning. Of course it
-must be remembered that German philosophy is vague and fluctuating,
-and that the central thought is often obscured by a penumbra, while
-French is the most precise of languages. Those who are proud of it
-have declared that what is not clear is not French. When Hegel was
-asked by a traveler from Paris for a succinct statement of his system
-of philosophy, he smiled and answered that it could not be explained
-summarily--“especially in French!”
-
-The English language extends a warmer welcome to the foreign term, and
-also exercises more freely its right to make a word for itself whenever
-one is needed. The manufactured article is not always satisfactory,
-but if it gets into general use, no further evidence is required that
-it was made to supply a genuine want. _Scientist_, for example, is an
-ugly word (altho an invention of Whewell’s), and yet it was needed. How
-necessary it was can be seen by any reader of the late F. W. H. Myers’s
-essay on ‘Science and a Future Life,’ who notes that Myers refused
-resolutely to use it, altho it conveys exactly the meaning the author
-wanted, and that the British writer preferred to employ instead the
-French _savant_, which does not--etymologically at least--contain his
-full intention. Myers’s fastidiousness did not, however, prevent his
-using _creationist_ as an adjective, and also _bonism_ as a substitute
-for _optimism_, “with no greater barbarism in the form of the word and
-more accuracy in the meaning.”
-
-Just as Myers used _savant_ so Ruskin was willing to arrest the
-rhythm of a fine passage by the obtrusion of two French words: “A
-well-educated gentleman may not know many languages; may not be able
-to speak any but his own; may have read very few books. But whatever
-language he knows, he knows precisely; whatever word he pronounces,
-he pronounces rightly; above all, he is learned in the peerage of
-words; knows the words of true descent and ancient blood at a glance
-from words of modern _canaille_; remembers all their ancestry, their
-intermarriages, distantest relationships, and the extent to which they
-were admitted, and offices they hold among the national _noblesse_ of
-words, at any time and in any country.” There seems to be little or
-no excuse for the employment here of _noblesse_=nobility; and as for
-_canaille_, perhaps Ruskin held that to be a French word on the way
-to become an English word--a naturalization not likely to take place
-without a marked modification of the original pronunciation, which is
-difficult for the English mouth.
-
-Every one who loves good English cannot but have a healthy hatred
-for the style of a writer who insists on bespattering his pages with
-alien words and foreign phrases; and yet we are more tolerant, I
-think, toward a term taken from one of the dead languages than toward
-one derived from any of the living tongues. Probably the bishop who
-liked now and then to cite a Hebrew sentence was oversanguine in his
-explanation that “everybody knows a little Hebrew.” It is said that
-even a Latin quotation is now no longer certain to be recognized in
-the British House of Commons; and yet it was a British statesman who
-declared that, altho there was no necessity for a gentleman to know
-Latin, he ought at least to have forgotten it.
-
-For a bishop to quote Hebrew is now pedantic, no doubt, and even for
-the inferior clergy to quote Latin. It is pedantic, but it is not
-indecorous; whereas a French quotation in the pulpit, or even the
-use of a single French word, like _savant_, for example, would seem
-to most of us almost a breach of the proprieties. It would strike
-us, perhaps, not merely as a social solecism, but somehow as morally
-reprehensible. A preacher who habitually cited French phrases would
-be in danger of the council. To picture Jonathan Edwards as using the
-language of Voltaire is impossible. That a French quotation should
-seem more incongruous in the course of a religious argument than a
-Latin, a Greek, or a Hebrew quotation, is perhaps to be ascribed to the
-fact that many of us hold the Parisians to be a more frivolous people
-than the Romans, the Athenians, or the Israelites; and as the essay
-of Mr. Myers was a religious argument, this may be one reason why his
-employment of _savant_ was unfortunate.
-
-Another reason is suggested by Professor Dowden’s shrewd remark that “a
-word, like a comet, has a tail as well as a head.” An adroit craftsman
-in letters is careful always that the connotations of the terms he
-chooses shall be in accord with the tone of his thesis. It may be
-disputed whether _savant_ denotes the same thing as _scientist_, but
-it can hardly be denied that the connotations of the two words are
-wholly different. For my own part, some lingering memory of Abbott’s
-‘Napoleon,’ absorbed in boyhood, links the wise men of France with the
-donkeys of Egypt, because whenever the Mameluke cavalry threatened the
-French squares the cry went up, “Asses and _savants_ to the center!”
-
-After all, it is perhaps rather a question whether or not _savant_ is
-now an English noun. There are many French words knocking at the door
-of the English language and asking for admission. Is _littoral_ for
-_shore_ now an English noun? Is _blond_ an English adjective meaning
-_light-haired_ and opposed to _brunette_? Is _brunette_ itself really
-Anglicized? (I ask this in spite of the fact that a friend of mine once
-read in a country newspaper a description of a _brunette_ horse.) Has
-_inedited_ for _unpublished_ won its way into our language finally?
-Lowell gave it his warrant, at least by using it in his ‘Letters’; but
-I confess that it has always struck me as liable to confusion with
-_unedited_.
-
-Foreign words must always be allowed to land on our coasts without a
-passport; yet if any of them linger long enough to warrant a belief
-that they may take out their papers sooner or later, we must decide
-at last whether or not they are likely to be desirable residents of
-our dictionary; and if we determine to naturalize them, we may fairly
-enough insist on their renouncing their foreign allegiance. They must
-cast in their lot with us absolutely, and be bound by our laws only.
-The French _chaperon_, for example, has asked for admission to our
-vocabulary, and the application has been granted, so that we have
-now no hesitation in recording that Daisy Miller was _chaperoned_ by
-Becky Sharp at the last ball given by the Marquis of Steyne; and we
-have even changed the spelling of the noun to correspond better with
-our Anglicized pronunciation, thus _chaperone_. Thus _technique_ has
-changed its name to _technic_, and is made welcome; so early as 1867
-Matthew Arnold used _technic_ in his ‘Study of Celtic Literature,’ but
-even now his fellow-islanders are slow in following his example. Thus
-_employé_ is accepted in the properly Anglicized form of _employee_.
-Thus the useful _clôture_ undergoes a sea-change and becomes the
-English _closure_. And why not _cotery_ also? I note that in his
-‘Studies in Literature,’ published in 1877, Professor Dowden put
-_technique_ into italics as tho it was still a foreign word, while he
-left _coterie_ in ordinary type as tho it had been adopted into English.
-
-So _toilette_ has been abbreviated to _toilet_; at least, I should
-have said so without any hesitation if I had not recently seen the
-foreign spelling reappearing repeatedly in the pages of Robert Louis
-Stevenson’s ‘Amateur Emigrant’--and this in the complete Edinburgh
-edition prepared by Mr. Sidney Colvin. To find a Gallic spelling in the
-British prose of Stevenson is a surprise, especially since the author
-of the ‘Dynamiter’ is on record as a contemner of another orthographic
-Gallicism. In a foot-note to ‘More New Arabian Nights’ Stevenson
-declares that “any writard who writes _dynamitard_ shall find in me a
-never-resting fightard.”
-
-I should like to think that the naturalized _literator_ was supplanting
-the alien _littérateur_, but I cannot claim confidence as to the
-result. _Literator_ is a good English word: I have found it in the
-careful pages of Lockhart’s ‘Life of Scott’; and I make no doubt
-that it can prove a much older pedigree than that. It seems to me a
-better word by far than _literarian_, which the late Fitzedward Hall
-manufactured for his own use “some time in the fifties,” and which he
-defended against a British critic who denounced it as “atrocious.”
-Hall, praising the word of his own making, declared that “to
-_literatus_ or _literator_, for _literary person_ or a longer phrase of
-equivalent import, there are obvious objections.” Nobody, to the best
-of my belief, ever attempted to use in English the Latin _literatus_,
-altho its plural Poe made us familiar with by his series of papers on
-the ‘Literati of America.’ Since Poe’s death the word has ceased to be
-current, altho it was not uncommon in his day.
-
-Perhaps one of the obvious objections to _literatus_ is that if it be
-treated as an English word the plural it forms is not pleasant to the
-ear--_literatuses_. Here, indeed, is a moot point: How does a foreign
-word make its plural in English? Some years ago Mr. C. F. Thwing,
-writing in _Harper’s Bazar_ on the college education of young women,
-spoke of _foci_. Mr. Churton Collins, preparing a book about the study
-of English literature in the British universities, expressed his desire
-“to raise Greek, now gradually falling out of our _curricula_ and
-degenerating into the cachet and shibboleth of cliques of pedants, to
-its proper place in education.” Here we see Mr. Thwing and Mr. Collins
-treating _focus_ and _curriculum_ as words not yet assimilated by our
-language, and therefore required to assume the Latin plural.
-
-Does not this suggest a certain lack of taste on the part of these
-writers? If _focus_ and _curriculum_ are not good English words, what
-need is there to employ them when you are using the English language
-to convey your thoughts? There are occasions, of course, where the
-employment of a foreign term is justifiable, but they must always
-be very rare. The imported word which we really require we had best
-take to ourselves, incorporating it in the language, treating it
-thereafter absolutely as an English word, and giving it the regular
-English plural. If the word we use is so foreign that we should print
-it in italics, then of course the plural should be formed according
-to the rules of the foreign language from which it has been borrowed;
-but if it has become so acclimated in our tongue that we should not
-think of underlining it, then surely it is English enough to take an
-English plural. If _cherub_ is now English, its plural is the English
-_cherubs_, and not the Hebrew _cherubim_. If _criterion_ is now
-English, its plural is the English _criterions_, and not the Greek
-_criteria_. If _formula_ is now English, its plural is the English
-_formulas_, and not the Latin _formulæ_. If _bureau_ is now English,
-its plural is the English _bureaus_, and not the French _bureaux_.
-
-What is the proper plural in English of _cactus_? of _vortex_? of
-_antithesis_? of _phenomenon_? In a volume on the ‘Augustan Age,’ in
-Professor George Saintsbury’s ‘Periods of European Literature,’ we find
-_lexica_--a masterpiece of petty pedantry and of pedantic pettiness.
-As Landor made himself say in his dialog with Archdeacon Hare, “There
-is an affectation of scholarship in compilers of spelling-books, and
-in the authors they follow for examples, when they bring forward
-_phenomena_ and the like. They might as well bring forward _mysteria_.
-We have no right to tear Greek and Latin declensions out of their
-grammars: we need no _vortices_ when we have _vortexes_ before us; and
-while we have _memorandums_, _factotums_, and _ultimatums_, let our
-shepherd dogs bring back to us by the ear such as have wandered from
-the flock.”
-
-Landor’s own scholarship was too keen and his taste was too fine for
-him not to abhor such affectation. He held that Greek and Latin words
-had no business in an English sentence unless they had been frankly
-acclimated in the English language, and that one of the conditions of
-this acclimatizing was the shedding of their original plurals. And
-that this is also the common-sense view of most users of English is
-obvious enough. Nobody now ventures to write _factota_ or _ultimata_;
-and even _memoranda_ seems to be vanishing. But _phenomena_ and _data_
-still survive; and so do _errata_ and _candelabra_. Whatever may be
-the fate of _phenomena_, that of the three other words may perhaps be
-like unto the fate of _opera_--which is also a Latin plural and which
-has become an English singular. We speak unhesitatingly of the _operas_
-of Rossini; are we going, in time, to speak unhesitatingly of the
-_candelabras_ of Cellini? In his vigorous article on the orthography
-of the French language--which is still almost as chaotic and illogical
-as the orthography of the English language--Sainte-Beuve noted as a
-singular peculiarity the fact that _errata_ had got itself recognized
-as a French singular, but that it did not yet take the French plural;
-thus we see _un errata_ and _des errata_.
-
-It is true also that when we take over a term from another language
-we ought to be sure that it really exists in the other language. For
-lack of observance of this caution we find ourselves now in possession
-of phrases like _nom de plume_ and _déshabille_, of which the French
-never heard. And even when we have assured ourselves of the existence
-of the word in the foreign language, it behooves us then to assure
-ourselves also of its exact meaning before we take it for our own. In
-his interesting and instructive book about ‘English Prose,’ Professor
-Earle reminds us that the French of Stratford-atte-Bowe is not yet an
-extinct species; and he adds in a note that “the word _levée_ seems to
-be another genuine instance of the same insular dialect,” since it is
-not French of any date, but an English improvement upon the verb (or
-substantive) _lever_, “getting up in the morning.”
-
-An example even more extraordinary than any of these, I think, will
-occur to those of us who are in the habit of glancing through the
-theatrical announcements of the American newspapers. This is the taking
-of the French word _vaudeville_ to designate what was once known
-as a “variety show” and what is now more often called a “specialty
-entertainment.” For any such interpretation of _vaudeville_ there is no
-warrant whatever in French. Originally the “vaudeville” was a satiric
-ballad, bristling with hits at the times, and therefore closely akin to
-the “topical song” of to-day; and it is at this stage of its evolution
-that Boileau asserted that
-
- Le Français, né malin, créa le vaudeville.
-
-In time there came to be spoken words accompanying those sung, and
-thus the “vaudeville” expanded slowly into a little comic play in
-which there were one or more songs. Of late the Parisian “vaudeville”
-has been not unlike the London “musical farce.” At no stage of its
-career had the “vaudeville” anything to do with the “variety show”;
-and yet to the average American to-day the two words seem synonymous.
-There was even organized in New York, in the fall of 1892, a series of
-subscription suppers during which “specialty entertainments” were to
-be given; and in spite of the fact that the organizers were presumably
-persons who had traveled, they called their society the “Vaudeville
-Club,” altho no real “vaudeville” was ever presented before the members
-during its brief and inglorious career. Of course explanation and
-protest are now equally futile. The meaning of the word is forever
-warped beyond correction; and for the future here in America a
-“vaudeville performance” is a “variety show,” no matter what it may be
-or may have been in France. When the people as a whole accept a word as
-having a certain meaning, that is and must be the meaning of the word
-thereafter; and there is no use in kicking against the pricks.
-
-The fate in English of another French term is even now trembling in
-the balance. This is the word _née_. The French have found a way out
-of the difficulty of indicating easily the maiden name of a married
-woman; they write unhesitatingly about Madame Machin, _née_ Chose; and
-the Germans have a like idiom. But instead of taking a hint from the
-French and the Germans, and thus of speaking about Mrs. Brown, _born_
-Gray, as they do, not a few English writers have simply borrowed the
-actual French word, and so we read about Mrs. Black, _née_ White. As
-usual, this borrowing is dangerous; and the temptation seems to be
-irresistible to destroy the exact meaning of _née_ by using it in the
-sense of “formerly.” Thus in the ‘Letters of Matthew Arnold, 1848-88,’
-collected and arranged by Mr. George W. E. Russell, the editor supplies
-in foot-notes information about the persons whose names appear in the
-correspondence. In one of these annotations we read that the wife of
-Sir Anthony de Rothschild was “_née_ Louisa Montefiore” (i. 165),
-and in another that the Hon. Mrs. Eliot Yorke was “_née_ Annie de
-Rothschild” (ii. 160). Now, neither of these ladies was _born_ with
-a given name as well as a family name. It is obvious that the editor
-has chosen arbitrarily to wrench the meaning of _née_ to suit his own
-convenience, a proceeding of which I venture to think that Matthew
-Arnold himself would certainly have disapproved. In fact, I doubt
-if Mr. Russell is not here guilty of an absurdity almost as obvious
-as that charged against a wealthy western lady now residing at the
-capital of the United States, who is said to have written her name on
-the register of a New York hotel thus: “Mrs. Blank, Washington, _née_
-Chicago.”
-
-Why is it that the wandering stars of the theatrical firmament are
-wont to display themselves in a _répertoire_ when it would be so
-much easier for them to make use of a _repertory_? And why does the
-teacher of young and ambitious singers insist on calling his school
-a _conservatoire_ when it would assert its rank just as well if it
-was known as a _conservatory_? What strange freak of chance has led
-so many of the women who have made themselves masters of the technic
-of the piano to announce themselves as _pianistes_ in the vain belief
-that _pianiste_ is the feminine of _pianist_? How comes it that a man
-capable of composing so scholarly a book as the ‘Greek Drama’ of Mr.
-Lionel D. Barnett really is should be guilty of saying that certain
-declamations in the later theater “were adapted to the style of popular
-_artistes_”? And why does Mr. Andrew Lang (in his ‘Angling Sketches’)
-write about the _asphalte_, when the obvious English is either
-_asphalt_ or _asphaltum_?
-
-And yet Mr. Lang, himself convicted of this dereliction, has no
-hesitation in objecting to a “delightful grammatical form which closes
-a scene in one of the new rag-bag journals. The author gets his
-characters off the stage with the announcement: ‘They exit.’ He seems
-to think that _exit_ is a verb. I _exit_, he _exits_, they _exit_. It
-would be interesting to learn how he translates _exeunt omnes_. One is
-accustomed to ‘a _penetralia_’ from young lions, and to ‘a _strata_,’
-but ‘they _exit_’ is original.”
-
-But the verb _to exit_ is not original with the writer in the new
-rag-bag journal. It has been current in England for three quarters of a
-century at least, and it can be found in the pages of that vigorously
-written pair of volumes, Mrs. Trollope’s ‘Domestic Manners of the
-Americans’ (published in 1831), in the picturesque passage in which she
-describes how the American women, left alone, “all console themselves
-together for whatever they may have suffered in keeping awake by
-taking more tea, coffee, hot cake and custard, hoe-cake, johnny-cake,
-waffle-cake and dodger-cake, pickled peaches and preserved cucumbers,
-ham, turkey, hung-beef, apple-sauce, and pickled oysters, than ever
-were prepared in any other country of the known world. After this
-massive meal is over, they return to the drawing-room, and it always
-appeared to me that they remained together as long as they could bear
-it, and then they rise _en masse_, cloak, bonnet, shawl, and exit.”
-
-The verb _to exit_, with the full conjugation Mr. Lang thought so
-strange, has long been common among theatrical folk. The stage-manager
-will tell the leading lady “You _exit_ here, and she _exits_ up left.”
-The theatrical folk, who probably first brought the verb into use, did
-not borrow it from the Latin, as Mr. Lang seems to suppose; they simply
-made a verb of the existing English noun _exit_, meaning a way out. We
-old New-Yorkers who can recall the time when Barnum’s Museum stood at
-the corner of Broadway and Ann Street, remember also the signs which
-used to declare
-
- THIS WAY
-
- TO THE
-
- GRAND EXIT
-
-and we have not forgotten the facile anecdote of the countryman who
-went wonderingly to discover what manner of strange beast the “exit”
-might be, and who unexpectedly found himself in the street outside.
-
-The unfortunate remark of Mr. Lang was due to his happening not to
-recall the fact that _exit_ had become, first, an English noun, and,
-second, an English verb. When once it was Anglicized, it had all the
-rights of a native; it was a citizen of no mean country. The principle
-which it is well to keep in mind in any consideration of the position
-in English of terms once foreign is that no word can serve two masters.
-The English language is ever ravenous and voracious; its appetite is
-insatiable. It is forever taking over words from strange tongues, dead
-and alive. These words are but borrowed at first, and must needs
-conform to all the grammatical peculiarities of their native speech.
-But some of them are sooner or later firmly incorporated into English;
-and thereafter they must cease to obey any laws but those of the
-language into which they have been adopted. Either a word is English or
-it is not; and a decision on this point is rarely difficult.
-
- (1895-1900)
-
-
-
-
-VIII
-
-THE FUNCTION OF SLANG
-
-
-It is characteristic of the interest which science is now taking in
-things formerly deemed unworthy of consideration that philologists
-no longer speak of slang in contemptuous terms. Perhaps, indeed, it
-was not the scholar, but the amateur philologist, the mere literary
-man, who affected to despise slang. To the trained investigator
-into the mutations of language and into the transformations of the
-vocabulary, no word is too humble for respectful consideration; and it
-is from the lowly, often, that the most valuable lessons are learned.
-But until recently few men of letters ever mentioned slang except
-in disparagement and with a wish for its prompt extirpation. Even
-professed students of speech, like Trench and Alford (now sadly shorn
-of their former authority), are abundant in declarations of abhorrent
-hostility. De Quincey, priding himself on his independence and on his
-iconoclasm, was almost alone in saying a good word for slang.
-
-There is this excuse for the earlier author who treated slang with
-contumely, that the differentiation of _slang_ from _cant_ was not
-complete in his day. _Cant_ is the dialect of a class, often used
-correctly enough, as far as grammar is concerned, but often also
-unintelligible to those who do not belong to the class or who are
-not acquainted with its usages. _Slang_ was at first the _cant_ of
-thieves, and this seems to have been its only meaning until well into
-the present century. In ‘Redgauntlet,’ for example, published in 1824,
-Scott speaks of the “thieves’ Latin called _slang_.” Sometime during
-the middle of the century _slang_ seems to have lost this narrow
-limitation, and to have come to signify a word or a phrase used with a
-meaning not recognized in polite letters, either because it had just
-been invented, or because it had passed out of memory. While _cant_,
-therefore, was a language within a language, so to speak, and not to be
-understanded of the people, _slang_ was a collection of colloquialisms
-gathered from all sources, and all bearing alike the bend sinister of
-illegitimacy.
-
-Certain of its words were unquestionably of very vulgar origin, being
-survivals of the “thieves’ Latin” Scott wrote about. Among these are
-_pal_ and _cove_, words not yet admitted to the best society. Others
-were merely arbitrary misapplications of words of good repute, such as
-the employment of _awfully_ and _jolly_ as synonyms for _very_--as
-intensives, in short. Yet others were violent metaphors, like _in the
-soup_, _kicking the bucket_, _holding up_ (a stage-coach). Others,
-again, were the temporary phrases which spring up, one scarcely knows
-how, and flourish unaccountably for a few months, and then disappear
-forever, leaving no sign; such as _shoo-fly_ in America and _all
-serene_ in England.
-
-An analysis of modern slang reveals the fact that it is possible to
-divide the words and phrases of which it is composed into four broad
-classes, of quite different origin and of very varying value. Toward
-two of these classes it may be allowable to feel the contempt so often
-expressed for slang as a whole. Toward the other two classes such a
-feeling is wholly unjustifiable, for they are performing an inestimable
-service to the language.
-
-Of the two unworthy classes, the first is that which includes the
-survivals of the “thieves’ Latin,” the vulgar terms used by vulgar men
-to describe vulgar things. This is the slang which the police-court
-reporter knows and is fond of using profusely. This is the slang which
-Dickens introduced to literature. This class of slang it is which
-is mainly responsible for the ill repute of the word. Much of the
-dislike for slang felt by people of delicate taste is, however, due to
-the second class, which includes the ephemeral phrases fortuitously
-popular for a season, and then finally forgotten once for all. These
-mere catchwords of the moment are rarely foul, as the words and phrases
-of the first class often are, but they are unfailingly foolish. _There
-you go with your eye out_, which was accepted as a humorous remark in
-London, and _Where did you get that hat?_ which had a like fleeting
-vogue in New York, are phrases as inoffensive as they are flat. These
-temporary terms come and go, and are forgotten swiftly. Probably
-most readers of Forcythe Wilson’s ‘Old Sergeant’ need now to have it
-explained to them that during the war a _grape-vine_ meant a lying
-rumor.
-
-It must be said, however, that even in the terms of the first class
-there is a striving upward, a tendency to disinfect themselves, as any
-reader of Grose’s ‘Dictionary of the Vulgar Tongue’ must needs remark
-when he discovers that phrases used now with perfect freedom had a
-secret significance in the last century. There are also innuendos not a
-few in certain of Shakspere’s best-known plays which fortunately escape
-the notice of all but the special student of the Elizabethan vocabulary.
-
-The other two classes of slang stand on a different footing. Altho
-they suffer from the stigma attached to all slang by the two classes
-already characterized, they serve a purpose. Indeed, their utility
-is indisputable, and it was never greater than it is to-day. One of
-these classes consists of old and forgotten phrases or words, which,
-having long lain dormant, are now struggling again to the surface.
-The other consists of new words and phrases, often vigorous and
-expressive, but not yet set down in the literary lexicon, and still
-on probation. In these two classes we find a justification for the
-existence of slang--for it is the function of slang to be a feeder of
-the vocabulary. Words get threadbare and dried up; they come to be
-like evaporated fruit, juiceless and tasteless. Now it is the duty of
-slang to provide substitutes for the good words and true which are worn
-out by hard service. And many of the recruits slang has enlisted are
-worthy of enrolment among the regulars. When a blinded conservative is
-called a _mossback_, who is so dull as not to perceive the poetry of
-the word? When an actor tells us how the traveling company in which
-he was engaged got _stranded_, who does not recognize the force and
-the felicity of the expression? And when we hear a man declare that
-he would to-day be rich if only his foresight had been equal to his
-_hindsight_, who is not aware of the value of the phrase? No wonder
-is it that the verbal artist hankers after such words which renew
-the lexicon of youth! No wonder is it that the writer who wishes to
-present his thought freshly seeks these words with the bloom yet on
-them, and neglects the elder words desiccated as tho for preservation
-in a herbarium!
-
-The student of slang is surprised that he is able to bring forward an
-honorable pedigree for many words so long since fallen from their high
-estate that they are now treated as upstarts when they dare to assert
-themselves. Words have their fates as well as men and books; and the
-ups and downs of a phrase are often almost as pathetic as those of a
-man. It has been said that the changes of fortune are so sudden here
-in these United States that it is only three generations from shirt
-sleeves to shirt sleeves. The English language is not quite so fast
-as the American people, but in the English language it is only three
-centuries from shirt sleeves to shirt sleeves. What could seem more
-modern, more western even, than _deck_ for _pack_ of cards, and _to lay
-out_ or to _lay out cold_ for _to knockdown_? Yet these are both good
-old expressions, in decay no longer, but now insisting on their right
-to a renewed life. _Deck_ is Elizabethan, and we find in Shakspere’s
-‘King Henry VI.’ (part iii., act v., sc. i.) that
-
-  The king was slyly finger’d from the deck.
-
-_To lay out_ in its most modern sense is very early English.
-
-Even more important than this third class of slang expressions is the
-fourth, containing the terms which are, so to speak, serving their
-apprenticeship, and as yet uncertain whether or not they will be
-admitted finally into the gild of good English. These terms are either
-useful or useless; they either satisfy a need or they do not; they
-therefore live or die according to the popular appreciation of their
-value. If they expire, they pass into the limbo of dead-and-gone slang,
-than which there is no blacker oblivion. If they survive it is because
-they have been received into the literary language, having appealed to
-the perceptions of some master of the art and craft of speech, under
-whose sponsorship they are admitted to full rights. Thus we see that
-slang is a training-school for new expressions, only the best scholars
-getting the diploma which confers longevity, the others going surely to
-their fate.
-
-Sometimes these new expressions are words only, sometimes they are
-phrases. _To go back on_, for instance, and _to give one’s self away_
-are specimens of the phrase characteristic of this fourth and most
-interesting class of slang at its best. In its creation of phrases
-like these, slang is what idiom was before language stiffened into
-literature, and so killed its earlier habit of idiom-making. After
-literature has arrived, and after the schoolmaster is abroad, and
-after the printing-press has been set up in every hamlet, the
-idiom-making faculty of a language is atrophied by disuse. Slang is
-sometimes, and to a certain extent, a survival of this faculty, or at
-least a substitute for its exercise. In other words (and here I take
-the liberty of quoting from a private letter of one of the foremost
-authorities on the history of English, Professor Lounsbury), “slang is
-an effort on the part of the users of language to say something more
-vividly, strongly, concisely than the language as existing permits it
-to be said”; and he adds that slang is therefore “the source from which
-the decaying energies of speech are constantly refreshed.”
-
-Being contrary to the recognized standards of speech, slang finds no
-mercy at the hands of those who think it their duty to uphold the
-strict letter of the law. Nothing amazes an investigator more, and
-nothing more amuses him, than to discover that thousands of words now
-secure in our speech were once denounced as interlopers. “There is
-death in the dictionary,” said Lowell, in his memorable linguistic
-essay prefixed to the second series of the ‘Biglow Papers’; “and
-where language is too strictly limited by convention, the ground
-for expression to grow in is limited also, and we get a _potted_
-literature--Chinese dwarfs instead of healthy trees.” And in the paper
-on Dryden he declared that “a language grows and is not made.” Pedants
-are ever building the language about with rules of iron in a vain
-effort to keep it from growing naturally and according to its needs.
-
-It is true that _cab_ and _mob_ are clipped words, and there has always
-been a healthy dislike of any clipping of the verbal currency. But
-_consols_ is firmly established. Two clipped words there are which have
-no friends--_gents_ and _pants_. Dr. Holmes has put them in the pillory
-of a couplet:
-
-  The things named _pants_, in certain documents,
-  A word not made for gentlemen, but _gents_.
-
-And recently a sign, suspended outside a big Broadway building,
-announced that there were “Hands wanted on pants,” the building being a
-clothing factory, and not, as one might suppose, a boys’ school.
-
-The slang of a metropolis, be that where you will, in the United States
-or in Great Britain, in France or in Germany, is nearly always stupid.
-There is neither fancy nor fun in the Parisian’s _Ohé Lambert_ or _on
-dirait du veau_, nor in the Londoner’s _all serene_ or _there you go
-with your eye out_--catchwords which are humorous, if humorous they
-are, only by general consent and for some esoteric reason. It is to
-such stupid phrases of a fleeting popularity that Dr. Holmes refers,
-no doubt, when he declares that “the use of slang, or cheap generic
-terms, as a substitute for differentiated specific expressions is at
-once a sign and a cause of mental atrophy.” And this use of slang is
-far more frequent in cities, where people often talk without having
-anything to say, than in the country, where speech flows slowly.
-
-Perhaps the more highly civilized a population is, the more it has
-parted with the power of pictorial phrase-making. It may be that a
-certain lawlessness of life is the cause of a lawlessness of language.
-Of all metropolitan slang that of the outlaws is most vigorous. It
-was after Vidocq had introduced thieves’ slang into polite society
-that Balzac, always a keen observer and always alert to pick up unworn
-words, ventured to say, perhaps to the astonishment of many, that
-“there is no speech more energetic, more colored, than that of these
-people.” Balzac was not academic in his vocabulary, and he owed not
-a little of the sharpness of his descriptions to his hatred of the
-cut-and-dried phrases of his fellow-novelists. He would willingly have
-agreed with Montaigne when the essayist declared that the language
-he liked, written or spoken, was “a succulent and nervous speech,
-short and compact, not so much delicated and combed out as vehement
-and brusk, rather arbitrary than monotonous, ... not pedantic, but
-soldierly rather, as Suetonius called Cæsar’s.” And this brings us
-exactly to Mr. Bret Harte’s
-
-  Phrases such as camps may teach,
-  Saber-cuts of Saxon speech,
-
-There is a more soldierly frankness, a greater freedom, less restraint,
-less respect for law and order, in the west than in the east; and
-this may be a reason why American slang is superior to British and to
-French. The catchwords of New York may be as inept and as cheap as the
-catchwords of London and of Paris, but New York is not as important
-to the United States as London is to Great Britain and as Paris is to
-France; it is not as dominating, not as absorbing. So it is that in
-America the feebler catchwords of the city give way before the virile
-phrases of the west. There is little to choose between the _how’s your
-poor feet?_ of London and the _well, I should smile_ of New York, for
-neither phrase had any excuse for existence, and neither had any hope
-of survival. The city phrase is often doubtful in meaning and obscure
-in origin. In London, for example, the four-wheel cab is called a
-_growler_. Why? In New York a can brought in filled with beer at a
-bar-room is called a _growler_, and the act of sending this can from
-the private house to the public house and back is called _working the
-growler_. Why?
-
-But when we find a western writer describing the effects of
-_tanglefoot_ whisky, the adjective explains itself, and is justified
-at once. And we discover immediately the daringly condensed metaphor
-in the sign, “Don’t _monkey_ with the _buzz-saw_”; the picturesqueness
-of the word _buzz-saw_ and its fitness for service are visible at a
-glance. So we understand the phrase readily and appreciate its force
-when we read the story of ‘Buck Fanshaw’s Funeral,’ and are told that
-“he never _went back on_ his mother,” or when we hear the defender of
-‘Banty Tim’ declare that
-
-  “Ef one of you teches the boy
-  He’ll _wrestle his hash_ to-night in hell,
-    Or my name’s not Tilman Joy.”
-
-_To wrestle one’s hash_ is not an elegant expression, one must admit,
-and it is not likely to be adopted into the literary language; but it
-is forcible at least, and not stupid. _To go back on_, however, bids
-fair to take its place in our speech as a phrase at once useful and
-vigorous.
-
-From the wide and wind-swept plains of the west came _blizzard_, and
-altho it has been suggested that the word is a survival from some local
-British dialect, the west still deserves the credit of having rescued
-it from desuetude. From the logging-camps of the northwest came _boom_,
-an old word again, but with a new meaning which the language promptly
-accepted. From still farther west came the use of _sand_ to indicate
-staying power, backbone--what New England knows as _grit_ and old
-England as _pluck_ (a far less expressive word). From the southwest
-came _cinch_, from the tightening of the girths of the pack-mules, and
-so by extension indicating a grasp of anything so firm that it cannot
-get away.
-
-Just why a _dead cinch_ should be the securest of any, I confess I
-do not know. _Dead_ is here used as an intensive; and the study of
-intensives is as yet in its infancy. In all parts of Great Britain
-and the United States we find certain words wrenched from their true
-meaning and most arbitrarily employed to heighten the value of other
-words. Thus we have a _dead cinch_, or a _dead sure thing_, a _dead
-shot_, a _dead level_--and for these last two terms we can discover
-perhaps a reason. Lowell noted in New England a use of _tormented_ as
-a euphemism for _damned_, as “not a _tormented_ cent.” Every American
-traveler in England must have remarked with surprise the British use of
-the Saxon synonym of _sanguinary_ as an intensive, the chief British
-rivals of _bloody_ in this respect being _blooming_ and _blasted_.
-All three are held to be shocking to polite ears, and it was with
-bated breath that the editor of a London newspaper wrote about the
-prospects of “a b----y war”; while, as another London editor declared
-recently, it is now impossible for a cockney to read with proper
-sympathy Jeffrey’s appeal to Carlyle, after a visit to Craigenputtock,
-to bring his “blooming Eve out of her blasted paradise.” Of the other
-slang synonyms for _very_--_jolly_, “he was _jolly_ ill,” is British;
-_awfully_ was British first, and is now American also; and _daisy_ is
-American. But any discussion of intensives is a digression here, and I
-return as soon as may be to the main road.
-
-_To freeze to_ anything or any person is a down-east phrase, so Lowell
-records, but it has a far-western strength; and so has _to get solid
-with_, as when the advice is given that “if a man is courting a girl it
-is best _to get solid with_ her father.” What is this phrase, however,
-but the French _solidarité_, which we have recently taken over into
-English to indicate a communion of interests and responsibilities?
-The likeness of French terms to American is no new thing; Lowell
-told us that Horace Mann, in one of his public addresses, commented
-at some length on the beauty and moral significance of the French
-phrase _s’orienter_, and called upon his young friends to practise
-it, altho “there was not a Yankee in his audience whose problem had
-not always been to find out what was _about east_, and to shape his
-course accordingly.” A few years ago, in turning over ‘Karikari,’ a
-volume of M. Ludovic Halévy’s clever and charming sketches of Parisian
-character, I met with a delightful young lady who had _pas pour deux
-liards de coquetterie_; and I wondered whether M. Halévy, if he were an
-American, and one of the forty of an American Academy, would venture
-the assertion that his heroine was _not coquettish for a cent_.
-
-Closely akin to _to freeze to_ and _to be solid with_ is _jumped on_.
-When severe reproof is administered the culprit is said to be _jumped
-on_; and if the reproof shall be unduly severe, the sufferer is said
-then to be _jumped on with both feet_. All three of these phrases
-belong to a class from which the literary language has enlisted many
-worthy recruits in the past, and it would not surprise me to see them
-answer to their names whenever a new dictionary calls the roll of
-English words. Will they find themselves shoulder to shoulder with
-_spook_, a word of Dutch origin, now volunteering for English service
-both in New York and in South Africa? And by that time will _slump_
-have been admitted to the ranks, and _fad_, and _crank_, in the
-secondary meaning of a man of somewhat unsettled mind? _Slump_ is an
-Americanism, _crank_ is an Americanism of remote British descent, and
-_fad_ is a Briticism; this last is perhaps the most needed word of the
-three, and from it we get a name for the _faddist_, the bore who rides
-his hobby hard and without regard to the hounds.
-
-Just as in New York the “Upper Ten Thousand” of N. P. Willis have
-shrunk to the “Four Hundred” of Mr. Ward McAllister, so in London the
-_swells_ soon became the _smart_ set, and after a while developed into
-_swagger_ people, as they became more and more exclusive and felt the
-need of new terms to express their new quality. But in no department of
-speech is the consumption of words more rapid than in that describing
-the degrees of intoxication; and the list of slang synonyms for the
-drunkard, and for his condition, and for the act which brings it about,
-is as long as Leporello’s. Among these, _to get loaded_ and _to carry
-a load_ are expressions obvious enough; and when we recall that _jag_
-is a provincialism meaning a light load, we see easily that the man
-who _has a jag on_ is in the earlier stages of intoxication. This use
-of the word is, I think, wholly American, and it has not crossed the
-Atlantic as yet, or else a British writer could never have blundered
-into a definition of _jag_ as an umbrella, quoting in illustration a
-paragraph from a St. Louis paper which said that “Mr. Brown was seen on
-the street last Sunday in the rain carrying a large fine jag.” One may
-wonder what this British writer would have made out of the remark of
-the Chicago humorist, that a certain man was not always drunk, even if
-he did jump “from jag to jag like an alcoholic chamois.”
-
-Here, of course, we are fairly within the boundaries of slang--of the
-slang which is temporary only, and which withers away swiftly. But
-is _swell_ slang now, and _fad_, and _crank_? Is _boom_ slang, and
-is _blizzard_? And if it is difficult to draw any line of division
-between mere slang on the one side, and idiomatic words and phrases
-on the other, it is doubly difficult to draw this line between mere
-slang and the legitimate technicalities of a calling or a craft. Is
-it slang to say of a picture that the chief figure in it is _out of
-drawing_, or that the painter has got his _values_ wrong? And how could
-any historian explain the ins and outs of New York politics who could
-not state frankly that the _machine_ made a _slate_, and that the
-_mugwumps_ broke it. Such a historian must needs master the meaning of
-_laying pipe_ for a nomination, or _pulling wires_ to secure it, of
-_taking the stump_ before election, and of _log-rolling_ after it; he
-must apprehend the exact relation of the _boss_ to his _henchmen_ and
-his _heelers_; and he must understand who the _half-breeds_ were, and
-the _stalwarts_, and how the _swallowtails_ were different from the
-_short-hairs_.
-
-To call one man a _boss_ and another a _henchman_ may have been slang
-once, but the words are lawful now, because they are necessary. It
-is only by these words that the exact relation of a certain kind
-of political leader to a certain kind of political follower can be
-expressed succinctly. There are, of course, not a few political phrases
-still under the ban because they are needless. Some of these may some
-day come to convey an exact shade of meaning not expressed by any
-other word, and when this shall happen, they will take their places
-in the legitimate vocabulary. I doubt whether this good fortune will
-ever befall a use of _influence_, now not uncommon in Washington. The
-statesman at whose suggestion and request an office-holder has received
-his appointment is known as that office-holder’s _influence_. Thus
-a poor widow, suddenly turned out of a post she had held for years,
-because it was wanted by the henchman of some boss whose good will a
-senator or a department chief wished to retain, explained to a friend
-that her dismissal was due to the fact that her _influence_ had died
-during the summer. The inevitable extension of the merit system in
-the civil service of our country will probably prevent the permanent
-acceptance of this new meaning.
-
-The political is only one of a vast number of technical vocabularies,
-all of which are proffering their words for popular consumption. Every
-art and every science, every trade and every calling, every sect and
-every sport, has its own special lexicon, the most of the words in
-which must always remain outside of the general speech of the whole
-people. They are reserves, to be drawn upon to fill up the regular army
-in time of need. Legitimate enough when confined to their proper use,
-those technicalities become slang when employed out of season, and when
-applied out of the special department of human endeavor in which they
-have been evolved. Of course, if the public interest in this department
-is increased for any reason, more and more words from that technical
-vocabulary are adopted into the wider dictionary of popular speech; and
-thus the general language is still enriching itself by the taking over
-of words and phrases from the terminology devised by experts for their
-own use. Not without interest would it be if we could ascertain exactly
-how much of the special vocabulary of the mere man of letters is now
-understandable by the plain people. It is one of the characters in
-‘Middlemarch’ who maintains that “correct English” is only “the slang
-of prigs who write history and essays, and the strongest slang of all
-is the slang of poets.”
-
-Of recent years many of the locutions of the Stock Exchange have won
-their way into general knowledge; and there are few of us who do not
-know what _bears_ and _bulls_ are, what a _corner_ is, and what is a
-_margin_. The practical application of scientific knowledge makes the
-public at large familiar with many principles hitherto the exclusive
-possession of the experts, and the public at large gets to use freely
-to-day technicalities which even the learned of yesterday would not
-have understood. _Current_, for example, and _insulation_, made
-familiar by the startlingly rapid extension of electrical possibilities
-in the last few years, have been so fully assimilated that they are
-now used independently and without avowed reference to their original
-electrical meanings.
-
-The prevalence of a sport or of a game brings into general use the
-terms of that special amusement. The Elizabethan dramatists, for
-example, use _vy_ and _revy_ and the other technicalities of the game
-of primero as freely as our western humorists use _going it blind_ and
-_calling_ and the other technicalities of the game of poker, which has
-been evolved out of primero in the course of the centuries. Some of the
-technicalities of euchre also, and of whist, have passed into every-day
-speech; and so have many of the terms of baseball and of football, of
-racing and of trotting, of rowing and of yachting. These made their
-way into the vocabulary of the average man one by one, as the seasons
-went around and as the sports followed one another in popularity. So
-during the civil war many military phrases were frequent in the mouths
-of the people; and some of these established themselves firmly in the
-vocabulary.
-
-“In language, as in life,” so Professor Dowden tells us, “there is, so
-to speak, an aristocracy and a commonalty: words with a heritage of
-dignity, words which have been ennobled, and a rabble of words which
-are excluded from positions of honor and trust.” Some writers and
-speakers there are with so delicate a sense of refinement that they are
-at ease only with the ennobled words, with the words that came over
-with the conquerer, with the lords, spiritual and temporal, of the
-vocabulary. Others there are, parvenus themselves, and so tainted with
-snobbery that they are happy only in the society of their betters; and
-these express the utmost contempt for the mass of the vulgar. Yet again
-others there are who have Lincoln’s liking for the plain words of the
-plain people--the democrats of the dictionary, homely, simple, direct.
-These last are tolerant of the words, once of high estate, which have
-lost their rank and are fallen upon evil days, preferring them over
-the other words, plebeian once, but having pushed their fortunes
-energetically in successive generations, until now there are none more
-highly placed.
-
-Perhaps the aristocratic figure of speech is a little misleading,
-because in the English language, as in France after the Revolution,
-we find _la carrière ouverte aux talents_, and every word has a fair
-chance to attain the highest dignity in the gift of the dictionary. No
-doubt family connections are still potent, and it is much easier for
-some words to rise in life than it is for others. Most people would
-hold that war and law and medicine made a more honorable pedigree for a
-technical term than the stage, for example, or than some sport.
-
-And yet the stage has its own enormous vocabulary, used with the utmost
-scientific precision. The theater is a hotbed of temporary slang, often
-as lawless, as vigorous, and as picturesque as the phrases of the west;
-but it has also a terminology of its own, containing some hundreds of
-words, used always with absolute exactness. A _mascot_, meaning one who
-brings good luck, and a _hoodoo_, meaning one who brings ill fortune,
-are terms invented in the theater, it is true; and many another odd
-word can be credited to the same source. But every one behind the
-scenes knows also what _sky-borders_ are, and _bunch-lights_, and
-_vampire-traps_, and _raking-pieces_--technical terms all of them,
-and all used with rigorous exactitude. Like the technicalities of
-any other profession, those of the stage are often very puzzling to
-the uninitiated, and a greenhorn could hardly even make a guess at
-the meaning of terms which every visitor to a green-room might use
-at any moment. What layman could explain the office of a _cut-drop_,
-the utility of a _carpenter’s scene_, or the precise privileges of a
-_bill-board ticket_?
-
-There is one word which the larger vocabulary of the public has lately
-taken from the smaller vocabulary of the playhouse, and which some
-strolling player of the past apparently borrowed from some other
-vagabond familiar with thieves’ slang. This word is _fake_. It has
-always conveyed the suggestion of an intent to deceive. “Are you going
-to get up new scenery for the new play?” might be asked; and the answer
-would be, “No; we shall _fake_ it,” meaning thereby that old scenery
-would be retouched and readjusted so as to have the appearance of new.
-From the stage the word passed to the newspapers, and a _fake_ is a
-story invented, not founded on fact, “made out of whole cloth,” as
-the stump-speakers say. Mr. Howells, always bold in using new words,
-accepts _fake_ as good enough for him, and prints it in the ‘Quality
-of Mercy’ without the stigma of italics or quotation-marks; just as in
-the same story he has adopted the colloquial _electrics_ for _electric
-lights_--i.e., “He turned off the electrics.”
-
-And hereafter the rest of us may use either _fake_ or _electrics_
-with a clear conscience, either hiding ourselves behind Mr. Howells,
-who can always give a good account of himself when attacked, or
-else coming out into the open and asserting our own right to adopt
-either word because it is useful. “Is it called for? Is it accordant
-with the analysis of the language? Is it offered or backed by good
-authority? These are the considerations by which general consent is
-won or repelled,” so Professor Whitney tells us, “and general consent
-decides every case without appeal.” It happens that Don Quixote
-preceded Professor Whitney in this exposition of the law, for when
-he was instructing Sancho Panza, then about to be appointed governor
-of an island, he used a Latinized form of a certain word which had
-become vulgar, explaining that “if some do not understand these terms
-it matters little, for custom will bring them into use in the course
-of time so that they will be readily understood. That is the way a
-language is enriched; custom and the public are all-powerful there.”
-Sometimes the needful word which is thought to be too common for use
-is Latinized, as Don Quixote preferred, but more often it is ennobled
-without change, being simply lifted out from among its former low
-companions.
-
-One of the hardest lessons for the amateurs in linguistics to
-learn--and most of them never attain to this wisdom--is that
-affectations are fleeting, that vulgarisms die of their own weakness,
-and that corruptions do little harm to the language. And the reason
-is not far to seek: either the apparent affectation, the alleged
-vulgarism, the so-called corruption, is accidental and useless, in
-which case its vogue will be brief and it will sink swiftly into
-oblivion; or else it represents a need and fills a want, in which
-case, no matter how careless it may be or how inaccurately formed, it
-will hold its own firmly, and there is really nothing more to be said
-about it. In other words, slang and all other variations from the high
-standard of the literary language are either temporary or permanent.
-If they are temporary only, the damage they can do is inconsiderable.
-If they are permanent, their survival is due solely to the fact that
-they were convenient or necessary. When a word or a phrase has come to
-stay (as _reliable_ has, apparently), it is idle to denounce a decision
-rendered by the court of last resort. The most that we can do with
-advantage is to refrain from using the word ourselves, if we so prefer.
-
-It is possible to go further, even, and to turn the tables on those
-who see in slang an ever-growing evil. Not only is there little
-danger to the language to be feared from those alleged corruptions,
-and from these doubtful locutions of evanescent popularity, but real
-harm is done by the purists themselves, who do not understand every
-modification of our language, and who seek to check the development
-of idiom and to limit the liberty which enables our speech freely to
-provide for its own needs as these are revealed by time. It is these
-half-educated censors, prompt to protest against whatever is novel to
-them, and swift to set up the standard of a narrow personal experience,
-who try to curb the development of a language. It cannot be declared
-too often and too emphatically how fortunate it is that the care of our
-language and the control of its development is not in the hands even of
-the most competent scholars. In language, as in politics, the people
-at large are in the long run better judges of their own needs than any
-specialist can be. As Professor Whitney says, “the language would soon
-be shorn of no small part of its strength if placed exclusively in the
-hands of any individual or of any class.” In the hands of no class
-would it be enfeebled sooner than if it were given to the guardianship
-of the pedants and the pedagogs.
-
-A sloven in speech is as offensive as a sloven in manners or in dress;
-and neatness of phrase is as pleasant to the ear as neatness of attire
-to the eye. A man should choose his words at least as carefully as he
-chooses his clothes; a hint of the dandy even is unobjectionable, if
-it is but a hint. But when a man gives his whole mind to his dress, it
-is generally because he has but little mind to give; and so when a man
-spends his force wholly in rejecting words and phrases, it is generally
-because he lacks ideas to express with the words and phrases of which
-he does approve. In most cases a man can say best what he has to say
-without lapsing into slang; but then a slangy expression which actually
-tells us something is better than the immaculate sentence empty of
-everything but the consciousness of its own propriety.
-
- (1893)
-
-
-
-
-IX
-
-QUESTIONS OF USAGE
-
-
-If any proof were needed of the fact that an immense number of people
-take an intense interest in the right and wrong use of the English
-language, and also of the further fact that their interest is out
-of all proportion to their knowledge of the history of our speech,
-such proof could be found in the swift and unceasing eruption of
-“letters to the editor” which broke out in many of the American
-newspapers immediately after the publication of Mr. Rudyard Kipling’s
-‘Recessional.’ The exciting cause of this rash exhibition was found in
-the line which told us that
-
-  The shouting and the tumult dies.
-
-The gross blunder in this sentence leaped to the eyes of many whose
-acquaintance with the principles of English construction was confined
-to what they chanced to remember of the rules learned by heart in their
-grammar-school days. But there were others whose reading was a little
-wider, and who were able to cite precedents in Mr. Kipling’s favor
-from Milton and from Shakspere and from the King James translation
-of the Bible. Yet the argument from the past failed to convince some
-of the original protestants, one of whom suggested that the erring
-poet should be sent to a night-school, while another objected to any
-further discussion of the subject, since “a person who doesn’t know
-that the plural form of the verb is used when the subject of said verb
-is two or more nouns in the singular number should receive no mention
-in a reputable newspaper.” It may be doubted whether the altercation
-was really bloody enough to demand attention from the disreputable
-newspapers, altho it was fierce and intolerant while it lasted.
-
-The battle raged for a fortnight, and the foundations of the deep
-were broken up. Yet it was really a tempest in a teapot, and oil for
-the troubled waters was ready at hand had any of those in danger of
-shipwreck thought to make use of it. In Professor Lounsbury’s ‘History
-of the English Language’--a book from which it is a constant pleasure
-to quote, since it combines sound scholarship, literary skill, and
-common sense in an uncommon degree--we are told that “rules have been
-and still are laid down ... which never had any existence outside of
-the minds of grammarians and verbal critics. By these rules, so far
-as they are observed, freedom of expression is cramped, idiomatic
-peculiarity destroyed, and false tests for correctness set up, which
-give the ignorant opportunity to point out supposed error in others,
-while the real error lies in their own imperfect acquaintance with the
-best usage.”
-
-And then Professor Lounsbury cites in illustration the rule which was
-brought up against Mr. Kipling: “There is a rule of Latin syntax that
-two or more substantives joined by a copulative require the verb to
-be in the plural. This has been foisted into the grammar of English,
-of which it is no more true than it is of modern German.... The
-grammar of English, as exhibited in the utterances of its best writers
-and speakers, has from the very earliest period allowed the widest
-discretion as to the use either of the singular or the plural in such
-cases. The importation and imposition of rules foreign to its idiom,
-like the one just mentioned, does more to hinder the free development
-of the tongue, and to dwarf its freedom of expression, than the widest
-prevalence of slovenliness of speech, or of affectation of style; for
-these latter are always temporary in their character, and are sure to
-be left behind by the advance in popular cultivation, or forgotten
-through the change in popular taste.”
-
-This is really a declaration of independence for writers of English.
-It is the frank assertion that a language is made by those who use
-it--made by that very use. Language is not an invention of the
-grammarians and of the word-critics, whose business, indeed, is not
-to make language or to prescribe rules, but more modestly to record
-usage and to discover the principles which may underlie the incessant
-development of our common speech. And here in discussing the syntax
-Professor Lounsbury is at one with Mr. George Meredith discussing the
-vocabulary of our language, when the British novelist notes his own
-liking for “our blunt and racy vernacular, which a society nourished
-upon Norman English and English Latin banishes from print, largely to
-its impoverishment, some think.”
-
-Those who have tried to impose a Latin syntax on the English language
-are as arbitrary as those who have insisted on an English pronunciation
-of the Latin language. Their attitude is as illogical as it is
-dogmatic; and nowhere is dogmatism less welcome than in the attempt to
-come to a just conclusion in regard to English usage; and nowhere is
-the personal equation more carefully to be allowed for. A term is not
-necessarily acceptable because we ourselves are accustomed to it, nor
-is it necessarily to be rejected because it reaches us as a novelty.
-The Americanism which a British journalist glibly denounces may be
-but the ephemeral catchword of a single street-gang, or it may have
-come over in the ‘Mayflower’ and be able to trace its ancestry back to
-a forefather that crossed with William the Conqueror. The Briticism
-which strikes some of us as uncouth and vulgar may be but a chance bit
-of cockney slang, or it may be warranted by the very genius of our
-language.
-
-Most of the little manuals which pretend to regulate our use of our
-own language and to declare what is and what is not good English are
-grotesque in their ignorance; and the best of them are of small value,
-because they are prepared on the assumption that the English language
-is dead, like the Latin, and that, like Latin again, its usage is fixed
-finally. Of course this assumption is as far as possible from the fact.
-The English language is alive now--very much alive. And because it
-is alive it is in a constant state of growth. It is developing daily
-according to its needs. It is casting aside words and usages that
-are no longer satisfactory; it is adding new terms as new things are
-brought forward; and it is making new usages, as convenience suggests,
-short-cuts across lots, and to the neglect of the five-barred gates
-rigidly set up by our ancestors. It is throwing away as worn out words
-which were once very fashionable; and it is giving up grammatical forms
-which seem to be no longer useful. It is continually trying to keep
-itself in the highest state of efficiency for work it has to do. It is
-ever urging ahead in the direction of increased utility; and if any of
-the so-called “rules” happens to stand in the path of its progress--so
-much the worse for the rule! As Stephenson said, “It will be bad for
-the coo!”
-
-The English language is the tool of the peoples who speak English
-and who have made it to fit their hands. They have fashioned it to
-suit their own needs, and it is quite as characteristic as anything
-else these same peoples have made--quite as characteristic as the
-common law and as parliamentary government. A language cannot but be
-a most important witness when we wish to inquire into the special
-peculiarities of a race. The French, for instance, are dominated by the
-social instinct, and they are prone to rely on logic a little too much,
-and their language is therefore a marvel of transparency and precision.
-In like manner we might deduce from an analysis of the German language
-an opinion as to the slowness of the individual Teuton, as to his
-occasional cloudiness, as to his willingness to take trouble, and as to
-his ultimate thoroughness.
-
-The peoples who speak English are very practical and very direct; they
-are impatient of needless detail; and they are intolerant of mere
-theory. These are some of the reasons why English is less embarrassed
-with niceties of inflection than other languages, why it has cut its
-syntax to the bone, why it has got rid of most of its declensions
-and conjugations--why, in short, it has almost justified the critic
-who called it a grammarless tongue. In every language there is a
-constant tendency toward uniformity and an unceasing effort to get rid
-of abnormal exceptions to the general rule; but in no language are
-these endeavors more effective than in English. In the past they have
-succeeded in simplifying the rules of our speech; and they are at work
-now in the present on the same task of making English a more efficient
-instrument for those who use it.
-
-This effort of the language to do its duty as best it can is partly
-conscious and partly unconscious; and where the word-critic can be of
-service is in watching for the result of the unconscious endeavor, so
-that it can be made plain, and so that it can be aided thereafter by
-conscious endeavor. The tendency toward uniformity is irresistible;
-and one of its results just now to be observed is an impending
-disappearance of the subjunctive mood. Those who may have supposed that
-the subjunctive was as firmly established in English as the indicative
-can discover easily enough by paying a little attention to their own
-daily speech and to the speech of their educated neighbors that “if I
-_be_ not too late,” for instance, is a form now rarely heard even in
-cultivated society.
-
-And the same tendency is to be observed also in the written language.
-Letters in the London _Author_ in June and July, 1897, showed that
-in a few less than a million words chosen from the works of recent
-authors of good repute there were only 284 instances of the subjunctive
-mood, and that of these all but fifteen were in the verb “to be.”
-This reveals to us that the value of this variation of form is no
-longer evident, not merely to careless speakers, but even to careful
-writers; and it makes it probable that it is only a question of time
-how soon the subjunctive shall be no longer differentiated from the
-indicative. Where our grandfathers would have taken pains to say “if I
-_were_ to go away,” and “if I _be_ not misinformed,” our grandchildren
-will unhesitatingly write, “if I _was_ to go away,” and “if I _am_
-not misinformed.” And so posterity will not need to clog its memory
-with any rule for the employment of the subjunctive; and the English
-language will have cleansed itself of a barnacle.
-
-It is this same irresistible desire for the simplest form and for the
-shortest which is responsible for the increasing tendency to say “he
-don’t” and “she don’t,” on the analogy of “we don’t,” “you don’t,”
-and “they don’t,” instead of the more obviously grammatical “he does
-n’t” and “she does n’t.” A brave attempt has been made to maintain
-that “he don’t” is older than “he does n’t,” and that it has at least
-the sanction of antiquity. However this may be, “he don’t” is certain
-to sustain itself in the future because it calls for less effort and
-because any willingness to satisfy the purist will seem less and less
-worth while as time goes on. It is well that the purist should fight
-for his own hand; but it is well also to know that he is fighting a
-losing battle.
-
-The purist used to insist that we should not say “the house is _being
-built_,” but rather “the house is _building_.” So far as one can judge
-from a survey of recent writing the purist has abandoned this combat;
-and nobody nowadays hesitates to ask, “What is being done?” The purist
-still objects to what he calls the Retained Object in such a sentence
-as “he was given a new suit of clothes.” Here again the struggle is
-vain, for this usage is very old; it is well established in English;
-and whatever may be urged against it theoretically, it has the final
-advantage of convenience. The purist also tells us that we should say
-“come to see me” and “try to do it,” and not “come and see me” and “try
-and do it.” Here once more the purist is setting up a personal standard
-without any warrant. He may use whichever of these forms he likes best,
-and we on our part have the same permission, with a strong preference
-for the older and more idiomatic of them.
-
-Theory is all very well, but to be of any value it must be founded
-on the solid rock of fact; and even when it is so established it has
-to yield to convenience. This is what the purist cannot be induced
-to understand. He seems to think that the language was made once for
-all, and that any deviation from the theory acted on in the past is
-intolerable in the present. He is often wholly at sea in regard to his
-theories and to his facts--more often than not; but no doubt as to his
-own infallibility ever discourages him. He just knows that he is right
-and that everybody else is wrong; and he has no sense of humor to save
-him from himself. And he makes up in violence what he lacks in wisdom.
-He accepts himself as a prophet verbally inspired, and he holds that
-this gives him the right to call down fire from heaven on all who do
-not accept his message.
-
-It was a purist of this sort who once wrote to a little literary weekly
-in New York, protesting against the use of _people_ when _persons_
-would seem to be the better word, and complacently declaring that
-“for twenty-five years or more I have kept my eye on this little word
-_people_ and I have yet to find a single American or English author who
-does not misuse it.” We are instantly reminded of the Irish juryman who
-said, “Eleven more obstinate men I never met in the whole course of my
-life.” In this pitiful condition of affairs one cannot discover on what
-this purist bases the hope he expresses that “in the course of two or
-three hundred years the correct employment of it may possibly become
-general.” Rather may it be hoped that in the course of two or three
-hundred years a knowledge of the principles which govern English usage
-may become general.
-
-What is called the Split Infinitive is also a cause of pain to the
-purist, who is greatly grieved when he finds George Lewes in the
-‘Life of Goethe’ saying “to completely understand.” This inserting
-of an adverb between the _to_ and the rest of the verb strikes the
-word-critic as pernicious, and he denounces it instantly as a novelty
-to be stamped out before it permanently contaminates our speech. Even
-Professor A. S. Hill, in his ‘Foundations of Rhetoric,’ while admitting
-its antiquity, since it has been in use constantly from the days of
-Wyclif to the days of Herbert Spencer, still declares it to be “a
-common fault” not sanctioned or even condoned by good authority.
-
-The fact is, I think, that the Split Infinitive has a most respectable
-pedigree, and that it is rather the protest against it which is the
-novelty now establishing itself. The Split Infinitive is to be found
-in the pages of Shakspere, Massinger, Sir Thomas Browne, Defoe, Burke,
-Coleridge, Byron, De Quincey, Macaulay, Matthew Arnold, Browning,
-Motley, Lowell, and Holmes. But it is a fact also, I think, that
-since the protest has been raised there has been a tendency among
-careful writers to eschew the Split Infinitive, or at least to employ
-it only when there is a gain in lucidity from its use, as there is,
-for example, in Professor Lounsbury’s “to more than counterbalance”
-(‘Studies in Chaucer,’ i. 447).
-
-A writer who has worked out for himself a theory of style, and who has
-made up his mind as to the principles he ought to follow in writing,
-often yields to protests the validity of which he refuses to admit. He
-gives the protestant the benefit of the doubt and drops the stigmatized
-words from his vocabulary and refrains from the stigmatized usages,
-reserving always the right to avail himself of them at a pinch. What
-such a writer has for his supreme object is to convey his thought
-into the minds of his readers with the least friction; and he tries
-therefore to avoid all awkwardness of phrase, all incongruous words,
-all locutions likely to arouse resistance, since any one of these
-things will inevitably lessen the amount of attention which this reader
-or that will then have available for the reception of the writer’s
-message. This is what Herbert Spencer has called the principle of
-Economy of Attention; and a firm grasp of this principle is a condition
-precedent to a clear understanding of literary art.
-
-For a good and sufficient reason such a writer stands ready at any
-time to break this self-imposed rule. If a solecism, or a vulgarism
-even, will serve his purpose better at a given moment than the more
-elegant word, he avails himself of it, knowing what he is doing, and
-risking the smaller loss for the greater gain. M. Legouvé tells us that
-at a rehearsal of a play of Scribe’s he drew the author’s attention
-to a bit of bad French at the climax of one of the acts, and Scribe
-gratefully accepted the correct form which was suggested. But two or
-three rehearsals later Scribe went back unhesitatingly to the earlier
-and incorrect phrase, which happened to be swifter, more direct, and
-dramatically more expressive than the academically accurate sentence
-M. Legouvé had supplied. Shakspere seems often to have been moved by
-like motives, and to have been willing at any time to sacrifice strict
-grammar to stage-effectiveness.
-
-Two tendencies exist side by side to-day, and are working together
-for the improvement of our language. One is the tendency to disregard
-all useless distinctions and to abolish all useless exceptions and to
-achieve simplicity and regularity. The other is the tendency toward a
-more delicate precision which shall help the writer to present his
-thought with the utmost clearness.
-
-Of the first of these abundant examples can be cited phrases which the
-word-critic would denounce, and which are not easy to defend on any
-narrow ground, but which are employed freely even by conscientious
-writers, well aware that no utility is served by a pedantic precision.
-So we find Matthew Arnold in his lectures ‘On Translating Homer’
-speaking of “the _four first_,” where the purist would prefer to have
-said “the _first four_.” So we find Hawthorne in the ‘Blithedale
-Romance’ writing “fellow, clown, or bumpkin, to _either_ of these,”
-when the purist would have wished him to say “to any one of these,”
-holding that “either” can be applied only when there are but two
-objects.
-
-In like manner the word-critics object to the use of the superlative
-degree when the comparative is all that is needed; yet we find in the
-King James translation of Genesis, “her eldest son, Esau,” and she
-had but two sons. And they refuse to allow either a comparative or a
-superlative to adjectives which indicate completeness; yet we find in
-Gibbon’s ‘Decline and Fall,’ “its success was not more universal.” They
-do not like to see a writer say that anything is “more perfect” or
-“most complete,” holding that what is universal or perfect or complete
-“does not admit of augmentation,” as one of them declared more than a
-century ago in the _Gentleman’s Magazine_ for July, 1797. In all these
-cases logic may be on the side of the word-critic. But what of it?
-Obedience to logic would here serve no useful purpose, and therefore
-logic is boldly disobeyed. However inexact these phrases may be, they
-mislead no one and they can be understood without hesitation.
-
-Side by side with this tendency to take the short-cut exists the
-other tendency to go the long way round if by so doing the writer’s
-purpose is more easily accomplished. There is a common usage which
-is frequently objurgated by the word-critics and which may fall into
-desuetude, not through their attacks, but because of its conflict
-with this second tendency. This is the insertion of an unnecessary
-_who_ or _which_ after an _and_ or a _but_, as in this sentence from
-Professor Butcher’s admirable discussion of Aristotle’s ‘Theory of
-Poetry’: “Nature is an artist capable indeed of mistakes, but _who_ by
-slow advances and through many failures realizes her own idea.” So in
-Gibbon’s ‘Decline and Fall’ we are told of “a chorus of twenty-seven
-youths and as many virgins, of noble family, and _whose_ parents were
-both alive.” This locution is proper in French, but it is denounced as
-improper in English by the purists, who would strike out the _but_
-from Professor Butcher’s and the _and_ from Gibbon’s.
-
-It is a constant source of amusement to those interested in observing
-the condition and the development of the language to note the frequency
-with which the phrases put under taboo by the word-critics occur in the
-writings of the masters of English. In my own recent reading I have
-found this despised construction in the pages of Fielding, Johnson,
-Thackeray, Matthew Arnold, Robert Louis Stevenson, Mr. John Morley,
-Mr. Henry James, and Professor Jebb in Great Britain, and in pages of
-Hawthorne, Lowell, Holmes, and Mr. John Fiske in the United States.
-What is more significant perhaps is its discovery in the works of
-professed students of language--Trench, Isaac Taylor, Max Müller, and
-W. D. Whitney.
-
-And yet, in spite of this array of authorities, I am inclined to
-believe that this usage may perhaps disappear with the increasing
-attention which the best writers are now giving to the rhythm and
-balance of their sentences. It is not that the form is wrong--that is
-a matter not to be decided offhand; it is that the form is awkward
-and that it jars on the feeling for symmetry--the feeling which leads
-us to put a candlestick on each side of the clock on the mantelpiece.
-Professor Whitney began one of his sentences thus: “Castrén, himself a
-Finn, and whose long and devoted labors have taught us more respecting
-them than has been brought to light by any other man, ventures,” etc.
-Would not this sentence have been easier and more elegant if Whitney
-had either struck out _and_ (which is not needed at all) or else
-inserted _who was_ after Castrén? In the sentence as Whitney wrote
-it _and whose_ makes me look back for the _who_ which my feeling for
-symmetry leads me to suppose must have preceded it somewhere, and
-in this vain search part of my attention is abstracted. I have been
-forced to think of the manner of his remarks when my mind ought to have
-given itself so far as might be to the matter of them. In other words,
-the real objection to this usage is that it is in violation of the
-principle of Economy of Attention.
-
-Another usage also under fire from the purists is exemplified in
-another extract from Whitney: “It is, I am convinced, a mistake to
-commence at once upon a course of detailed comparative philology with
-pupils who have _only_ enjoyed the ordinary training in the classical
-or modern languages.” Obviously his meaning would be more sharply
-defined if he had put _only_ after instead of before _enjoyed_. So
-Froude, writing about ‘English Seamen in the Sixteenth Century,’ says
-that “the fore-and-aft rig alone would enable a vessel to tack, as
-it is called, and this could _only_ be used with craft of moderate
-tonnage”; and here again a transposition after the verb would increase
-the exactness of the statement.
-
-The proposition of _only_ is really important only when the misplacing
-of it may cause ambiguity; and Professor F. N. Scott has shown how
-Webster, always careful in the niceties of style, unhesitatingly put
-_only_ out of its proper place, if by so doing he could improve the
-rhythm of his period, as in this sentence from the second Bunker Hill
-oration: “It did not, indeed, put an end to the war; but, in the then
-existing hostile state of feeling, the difficulties could only be
-referred to the arbitration of the sword.” This is as it should be,
-the small effect promptly sacrificed for the larger. The rule--if rule
-it really is--must be broken unhesitatingly when there is greater gain
-than loss.
-
-There is an anecdote in some volume of French theatrical memoirs
-narrating an experience of Mademoiselle Clairon, the great tragic
-actress, with a pupil of hers, a girl of fine natural gifts for
-the histrionic art, but far too frequent and too exuberant in her
-gesticulation. So when the pupil was once to appear before the public
-in a recitation, Mademoiselle Clairon bound the girl’s arms to her side
-by a stiff thread and sent her thus upon the stage. With the first
-strong feeling she had to express the pupil tried to raise her arms,
-only to be restrained by the thread. A dozen times in the course of
-her recitation she was prevented from making the gestures she desired,
-until at the very end she could stand it no longer, and in the climax
-of her emotion she broke her bonds and lifted her hands to her head.
-When she came off the stage she went humbly to where Mademoiselle
-Clairon was standing in the wings and apologized for having snapped the
-thread. “But you did quite right!” said the teacher. “That was the time
-to make the gesture--not before!”
-
-Rules exist to aid in composition; and by wise men composition is not
-undertaken merely to prove the existence of the rules. Circumstances
-may alter even codes of manners; in Paris, for instance, it is
-permissible to sop bread in the sauce, a practice which is bad form in
-London--since nobody would want any more of a British sauce than could
-be avoided. This paper, however, has failed of its purpose if it is
-taken as a plea for license. Rather is it intended as an argument for
-liberty. It has been written as the result of a belief that a frank
-protest is needed now and again against the excessive demands of the
-linguistic dogmatists. That what the linguistic dogmatists write is
-as widely read as it seems to be is a sign of a healthy interest in
-the speech which must serve us all, scholars and school-masters and
-plain people. This interest should be aroused also to shake off the
-shackles with which pedagogs and pedants seek to restrain not only
-the full growth of our noble tongue, but even its free use. As Renan
-pithily put it, every time that “grammarians have tried deliberately to
-reform a language, they have succeeded only in making it heavy, without
-expression, and often less logical than the humblest dialect.”
-
-If English is to be kept fit to do the mighty work it bids fair to be
-called upon to accomplish in the future, it must be allowed to develop
-along the line of least resistance. It must be encouraged to follow its
-own bent and to supply its own needs and to shed its worn-out members.
-It must not be hampered by syntax taken from Latin or by rules evolved
-out of the inner consciousness of word-critics. It must not be too
-squeamish or even too particular, since excessive refinement goes only
-with muscular weakness. It must be allowed to venture on solecisms, on
-neologisms, on Americanisms, on Briticisms, on Australianisms, if need
-be, however ugly some of these may seem, for the language uses itself
-up fast, and has to be replenished that it shall not lose its vigor and
-its ardor.
-
-To say this is not to say that every one of us who uses English in
-speaking or in writing should not always choose his words carefully
-and decide on his forms judiciously. Only by a wise selection can the
-language be kept at its highest efficiency; only thus can its full
-powers be revealed to us. And if we decide that we prefer to keep
-to the very letter of the law as laid down by the grammarians--why,
-that is our privilege and no one shall say us nay. But let us not
-think scorn of those who are careless in paying their tithes of mint
-and anise and cummin, if also they stand upright and speak the truth
-plainly.
-
-For myself--if a personal confession is not here out of place--I shrink
-always from profiting by any license I have just claimed for others; I
-strive always to eschew the Split Infinitive, to avoid _and who_ when
-there is no preceding _who_ which may balance it, and to put _only_
-always in the place where it will do most good. It is ever my aim
-to avail myself of the phrase which will convey my meaning into the
-reader’s mind with the least friction; and out of the effort to achieve
-this approach along the line of least resistance, I get something of
-the joy an honest craftsman ought always to feel in the handling of
-his tools. For this is what words are, after all; they are the tools
-of man, devised to serve his daily needs. As Bagehot once suggested,
-we may not know how language was first invented and made, “but beyond
-doubt it was shaped and fashioned into its present state by common,
-ordinary men and women using it for common and ordinary purposes. They
-wanted a carving-knife, not a razor or lancet; and those great artists
-who have to use language for more exquisite purposes, who employ it to
-describe changing sentiments and momentary fancies and the fluctuating
-and indefinite inner world, must use curious nicety and hidden but
-effectual artifice, else they cannot duly punctuate their thoughts
-and slice the fine edges of their reflections. A hair’s breadth is as
-important to them as a yard’s breadth to a common workman.”
-
- (1898)
-
-
-
-
-X
-
-AN INQUIRY AS TO RIME
-
-
-“I have a theory about double rimes for which I shall be attacked by
-the critics, but which I could justify perhaps on high authority, or,
-at least, analogy,” wrote Mrs. Browning to a friend not long after
-the publication of one of her books. “These volumes of mine have
-more double rimes than any two books of English poems that ever to
-my knowledge were printed; I mean of English poems not comic. Now of
-double rimes in use which are perfect rimes you are aware how few there
-are; and yet you are also aware of what an admirable effect in making
-a rhythm various and vigorous double riming is in English poetry.
-Therefore I have used a certain license; and after much thoughtful
-study of the Elizabethan writers have ventured it with the public.
-And do you tell me--you who object to the use of a different vowel in
-a double rime--why you rime (as everybody does, without blame from
-everybody) _given_ to _heaven_, when you object to my riming _remember_
-to _chamber_? The analogy is all on my side, and I believe that the
-spirit of the English language is also.”
-
-Here Mrs. Browning raises a question of interest to all who have paid
-any attention to the technic of verse. No doubt double rimes do give
-vigor and variety to a poem, altho no modern English lyrist has really
-rivaled the magnificent medieval ‘Dies Iræ,’ wherein the double rimes
-thrice repeated fall one after the other like the beating of mighty
-trip-hammers. There is no doubt also that the English language is not
-so fertile in double rimes as the Latin, the German, or the Italian;
-and that some of the English poets, clutching for these various and
-vigorous effects, have refused to abide by the strict letter of the
-law, and have claimed the license of modifying the emphatic vowel from
-one line to another. Mrs. Browning defends this revolt, and finds
-it easy to retort to her correspondent that he himself has ventured
-to link _heaven_ and _given_. Many another poet has coupled these
-unwilling words; and not a few have also married _river_ and _ever_,
-_meadow_ and _shadow_, _spirit_ and _inherit_.
-
-Mrs. Browning is prepared to justify herself by authority, or at least
-by analogy; and yet, in bringing about the espousal of _chamber_ and
-_remember_, she is evidently aware that it is no love-match she is
-aiding and abetting, but at best a marriage of convenience. She pleads
-precedence to excuse her infraction of a statute the general validity
-of which she apparently admits. The most that she claims is that the
-tying together of _chamber_ and _remember_ is permissible. She seems to
-say that these ill-mated pairs are, of course, not the best possible
-rimes, but that, since double rimes are scarce in English, the lyrist
-may, now and then, avail himself of the second best. An American poet
-of my acquaintance is bolder than the British poetess; he has the full
-courage of his convictions. He assures me that he takes pleasure in the
-tying together of incompatible words like _river_ and _ever_, _meadow_
-and _shadow_, finding in these arbitrary matings a capricious and
-agreeable relief from the monotony of more regular riming.
-
-This forces us to consider the basis upon which any theory of
-“allowable” rimes must rest--any theory, that is, which, after
-admitting that certain rimes are exact and absolutely adequate,
-asserts also that certain other combinations of terminal words, altho
-they do not rime completely and to the satisfaction of all, are still
-tolerable. This theory accepts certain rimes as good, and it claims in
-addition certain others as “good enough.”
-
-Any objection to the pairing of _spirit_ and _inherit_, of _remember_
-and _chamber_, and the like, cannot be founded upon the fact that in
-the accepted orthography of the English language the spelling of the
-terminations differs. Rime has to do with pronunciation and not with
-orthography; rime is a match between sounds. The symbols that represent
-these sounds--or that may misrepresent them more or less violently--are
-of little consequence. What is absurdly called a “rime to the eye” is a
-flagrant impossibility, or else _hiccough_ may pair off with _enough_,
-_clean_ with _ocean_, and _plague_ with _ague_. The eye is not the
-judge of sound, any more than the nose is the judge of color. _Height_
-is not a rime to _eight_; but it is a rime to _sight_, to _bite_,
-to _proselyte_, and to _indict_. So _one_ does not rime with either
-_gone_ or _tone_; but it does with _son_ and with _bun_. _Tomb_ and
-_comb_, and _rhomb_ and _bomb_ are not rimes; but _tomb_ and _doom_,
-and _spume_ and _rheum_ are. The objection to the linking together of
-_meadow_ and _shadow_, and of _ever_ and _river_ is far deeper than any
-superficial difference of spelling; it is rooted in the difference of
-the sounds themselves. In spite of the invention of printing, or even
-of writing itself, the final appeal of poetry is still to the ear and
-not to the eye.
-
-Probably the first utterances of man were rhythmic, and probably poetry
-had advanced far toward perfection long before the alphabet was devised
-as an occasional substitute for speech. In the beginning the poet had
-to charm the ears of those whom he sought to move, since there was
-then no way by which he could reach the eye also. To the rhapsodists
-verse was an oral art solely, as it is always for the dramatists,
-whose speeches must fall trippingly from the tongue, or fail of
-their effect. The work of the lyrist--writer of odes, minnesinger,
-troubadour, ballad-minstrel--has always been intended to be said or
-sung; that it should be read is an afterthought only. Even to-day, when
-the printing-press has us all under its wheels, it is by our tongues
-that we possess ourselves of the poetry we truly relish. A poem is not
-really ours till we know it by heart and can say it to ourselves, or at
-least until we have read it aloud, and until we can quote it freely.
-If a poem has actually taken hold on our souls, it rings in our ears,
-even if we happen to be visualizers also, and can call up at will the
-printed page whereon it is preserved.
-
-This fact, that poetry is primarily meant to be spoken aloud rather
-than read silently, altho obvious when plainly stated, has not been
-firmly grasped by many of those who have considered the technic of the
-art, and therefore there is often obscurity in the current discussions
-of rime and rhythm. In the rhetoric of verse there is to-day not a
-little of the confusion which existed in the rhetoric of prose before
-Herbert Spencer put forth his illuminating and stimulating essay on
-the ‘Philosophy of Style.’ Even in that paper he suggested that the
-principle of Economy of Attention was as applicable to verse as to
-prose; and he remarked that “were there space, it might be worth while
-to inquire whether the pleasure we take in rime, and also that which we
-take in euphony, are not partly ascribable to the same general cause.”
-
-This principle of Economy of Attention explains why it is that any
-style of speaking or writing is more effective than another, by
-reminding us that we have, at any given moment, only so much power
-of attention, and that, therefore, however much of this power has to
-be employed on the form of any message must be subtracted from the
-total power, leaving just so much less attention available for the
-apprehension of the message itself. To convey a thought from one mind
-to another, we must use words the reception of which demands more
-or less mental exertion; and therefore that statement is best which
-carries the thought with the least verbal friction. Some friction there
-must be always; but the less there is, the more power of attention the
-recipient has left to master the transmitted thought.
-
-It is greatly to be regretted that Spencer did not spare the space
-to apply to verse this principle, which has been so helpful in the
-analysis of prose. He did go so far as to suggest that metrical
-language is more effective than prose, because when “we habitually
-preadjust our perceptions to the measured movement of verse” it is
-“probable that by so doing we economize attention.” This suggestion
-has been elaborated by one of his disciples, the late Mr. Grant Allen,
-in his treatise on ‘Physiological Esthetics,’ and it has been formally
-controverted by the late Mr. Gurney, in his essay on the ‘Power of
-Sound.’ Perhaps both Spencer and Gurney are right; part of our pleasure
-in rhythm is due to the fact that “the mind may economize its energies
-by anticipating the attention required for each syllable,” as the
-former says, and part of it is “of an entirely positive kind, acting
-directly on the sense,” as the latter maintains.
-
-Whether or not Spencer’s principle of Economy of Attention adequately
-explains our delight in rhythm, there is no doubt that it can easily be
-utilized to construct a theory of rime. Indeed, it is the one principle
-which provides a satisfactory solution to the problem propounded by
-Mrs. Browning. No one can deny that more or less of our enjoyment of
-rimed verse is due to the skill with which the poet satisfies with the
-second rime the expectation he has aroused with the first. When he ends
-a line with _gray_, or _grow_, or _grand_, we do not know which of the
-twoscore or more of possible rimes to each of these the lyrist will
-select, and we await his choice with happy anticipation. If he should
-balk us of our pleasure, if he should omit the rime we had confidently
-counted upon, we are rudely awakened from our dream of delight, and
-we ask ourselves abruptly what has happened. It is as tho the train
-of thought had run off the track. Spencer notes how we are put out by
-halting versification; “much as at the bottom of a flight of stairs a
-step more or less than we counted upon gives us a shock, so too does a
-misplaced accent or a supernumerary syllable.”
-
-So, too, does an inaccurate or an arbitrary rime give us a shock. If
-verse is something to be said or sung, if its appeal is to the ear
-primarily, if rime is a terminal identity of sound, then any theory
-of “allowable” rimes is impossible, since an “allowable” rime is
-necessarily inexact, and thus may tend to withdraw attention from the
-matter of the poem to its manner. No doubt there are readers who do not
-notice the incompatibility of these matings, and there are others who
-notice yet do not care. But the more accurately trained the ear is, the
-more likely these alliances are to annoy; and the less exact the rime,
-the more likely the ear is to discover the discrepancy. The only safety
-for the rimester who wishes to be void of all offense is to risk no
-union of sounds against whose marriage anybody knows any just cause
-of impediment. Perhaps a wedding within the prohibited degrees may be
-allowed to pass without protest now and again; but sooner or later
-somebody will surely forbid the banns.
-
-Just as a misplaced accent or a supernumerary syllable gives us a
-shock, so does the attempt of Mrs. Browning to pair off _remember_ and
-_chamber_; so may also the attempt of Poe to link together _valleys_
-and _palace_. The lapse from the perfect ideal may be but a trifle,
-but a lapse it is nevertheless. A certain percentage of our available
-attention may thus be wasted, and worse than wasted; it may be
-called away from the poem itself, and absorbed suddenly by the mere
-versification. For a brief moment we may be forced to consider a defect
-of form, when we ought to have our minds absolutely free to receive the
-poet’s meaning. Whenever a poet cheats us of our expectancy of perfect
-rime, he forces us to pay exorbitant freight charges on the gift he has
-presented to us.
-
-It is to be noted, however, that as rime is a matching of sounds,
-certain pairs of words whose union is not beyond reproach can hardly
-be rejected without pedantry, since the ordinary pronunciation of
-cultivated men takes no account of the slight differences of sound
-audible if the words are uttered with absolute precision. Thus
-Tennyson in the ‘Revenge’ rimes _Devon_ and _Heaven_; and thus Lowell
-in the ‘Fable for Critics’ rimes _irresistible_ and _untwistable_. In
-‘Elsie Venner’ Dr. Holmes held up to derision “the inevitable rime of
-cockney and Yankee beginners, _morn_ and _dawn_”; but, at the risk
-of revealing myself as a Yankee of New York, I must confess that any
-pronunciation of this pair of words seems to me stilted that does not
-make them quite impeccable as a rime.
-
-We are warned, however, to be on our guard against pushing any
-principle to an absurd extreme. If certain pairs of words have been
-sent forth into the world by English poets from a time whereof the
-memory of man runneth not to the contrary, then perhaps they may now
-plead prescription whenever any cold-hearted commentator is disposed to
-doubt the legitimacy of their conjunction. Altho the union is forbidden
-by the strict letter of the law,--like marriage with a deceased
-wife’s sister in England,--only the censorious are disposed to take
-the matter into court. In time certain rimes--falsely so called--“are
-legitimated by custom,” one British critic has declared, citing _love_
-and _prove_, for example, and asserting that “_river_ has just got
-to rime with _ever_ or the game cannot be played.” You must have
-_forgiven_ or you will never get to _heaven_. “We expect these licenses
-and do not resent them, as we do resent Poe’s _valleys_ and _palace_
-and the eccentricities of Mrs. Browning.” That there is force in this
-contention cannot be denied; but it must be remembered that those who
-urge it are necessarily lovers of poetry, or at least fairly familiar
-with a large body of English verse, or else they would not be aware of
-the fact that _love_ and _prove_, _heaven_ and _given_, have often been
-tied together. But even if these critics, who have been sophisticated
-by over-familiarity with poetic license, do not resent this pairing of
-unequal sounds, it does not follow that those who for the first time
-hear _dove_ linked with _Jove_ are equally forgiving or negligent.
-Even if these licenses are pardoned by some as venial offenses, there
-are others whose ears are annoyed by them and whose attention is
-distracted. In other words, we are here face to face with the personal
-equation; and the only way for a writer of verse to be certain that one
-or another of his rimes will not be resented by this reader or that is
-to make sure that all his marriages are flawless.
-
-Thus and thus only can he avoid offense with absolute certainty. If
-his rimes are perfect to the ear when read aloud or recited, then they
-will never divert the attention of the auditor from the matter of the
-poem to the mere manner. On the other hand, it is only fair to confess
-that there are some lovers of poetry who find a charm in lawlessness
-and in eccentricity. A series of perfect rimes pleases them; but so
-also does an occasional rime in which the vowel is slightly varied. And
-the poet’s consolation for the loss of these must lie in the knowledge
-that he cannot hope to satisfy everybody. Consolation may lie also in
-the belief that any lapse from the perfect rime is dangerous, for even
-if there are some who enjoy the divergence when it is delicate,--that
-is, when the vowel sound, even if not absolutely identical, is
-sympathetically akin,--there are very few who are not annoyed when the
-difference becomes as obvious as in the attempt to link together _dial_
-and _ball_ or _water_ and _clear_.
-
-And as it is only a sophisticated ear which enjoys the mating of
-_valleys_ with _palace_, for example, so the attempted rime of this
-type is to be found chiefly in the more labored poets--in those who
-are consciously literary. The primitive lyrist, the unconscious singer
-who makes a ballad of a May morning or rimes a jingle for the nursery
-or puts together a couplet to give point to a fragment of proverbial
-wisdom, is nearly always exact in the repetition of his vowel. Where
-he is careless is in the accompanying consonants. As is remarked by
-the British critic from whom quotation has already been made, “we may
-observe that in all early European poetry, from the ‘Song of Roland’ to
-the popular ballads, the ear was satisfied with assonance, that is,
-the harmony of the vowel sounds; _hat_ is assonant to _tag_, and that
-was good enough.” So in the proverbial couplet,
-
-  See a pin and pick it _up_,
-  All day long you’ll have good _luck_.
-
-So again more than once in the unaffected lyrics of the laureate of the
-nursery, Mother Goose:
-
-  Goosy, goosy _gander_,
-    Where do you _wander_?
-  Upstairs and downstairs,
-    And in my lady’s _chamber_.
-
-  Leave them _alone_
-  And they will come _home_.
-
-This assonance is visible in the linking of _wild wood_ and
-_childhood_, which many versifiers have proffered as tho it was a
-double rime; it is to be seen again in Whittier’s _main land_ and
-_trainband_; and it is obvious in Mr. Bret Harte’s ‘Her Letter’:
-
-  Of that ride--that to me was the _rarest_;
-    Of--the something you said at the gate.
-  Ah! Joe, then I wasn’t an _heiress_
-    To the best-paying lead in the State.
-
-Altho this substitution of assonance for rime is uncommon in the more
-literary lyrics, which we may suppose to have been composed with the
-pen, it is still frequently to be found in the popular song, born on
-the lips of the singer, and set down in black and white only as an
-afterthought. It abounds in the college songs which have been sung into
-being, and in the brisk ballads of the variety-show--which Planché
-neatly characterized as “most music-hall, most melancholy.” In one
-dime song-book containing the words set to music by Mr. David Braham
-to enliven one of Mr. Edward Harrigan’s amusing pictures of life among
-the lowly in the tenement-house districts of New York, there can be
-discovered at least a dozen instances of this use of assonance as tho
-it were rime:
-
-  De gal’s name is _Nannie_,
-  And she’s just left her _mammie_.
-
-  He can get a pair of crutches
-    From the doctor, it’s well _known_,
-  And feel like the King of Persia,
-    When he goes marching _home_.
-
-  One husband was a _toper_,
-  The other was a _loafer_.
-
-  ’T is there the solid _voters_
-  Wear Piccadilly _chokers_.
-
-  On Sundays, then, the _ladies_
-  With a hundred million _babies_.
-
-  To the poor of suffering Ireland:
-    Time and time _again_;
-  We thank you for our countrymen,
-    And Donavan is our _name_.
-
-When these lines are sung, rough as they are, the ear is satisfied
-by the absolute identity of the final vowel, upon which the voice
-lingers--while the final consonant is elided or almost suppressed.
-It may be doubted whether one in a hundred of those who heard these
-songs ever discovered any deficiency in the rimes. In more literary
-ballads only an exact rime attains to the sterling standard; but in
-folk-songs, ancient and modern, assonance seems to be legal tender by
-tacit convention. When Benedick was trying to make a copy of verses
-for Beatrice, he declared that he could “find out no rime to _lady_
-but _baby_, an innocent rime”--a remark which shows us that Benedick’s
-theory of riming was much the same as Mr. Harrigan’s.
-
-Probably, however, the attempt to substitute assonance for rime would
-be resented by many of the readers who are tolerant toward such
-departures from exactness as _heaven_ and _shriven_ or _grove_ and
-_dove_. That is to say, the unliterary ear insists on the identity of
-the vowel while careless as to the consonant, and the literary ear
-insists on the identity of the consonant while not quite so careful as
-to the vowel. And here is another reason for exact accuracy, which
-satisfies alike the learned and the unlearned, and is also in accord
-with Herbert Spencer’s principle. It is true, probably, that such minor
-divergencies as the mating of _home_ and _alone_ and of _shadow_ and
-_meadow_--to take one of each class--are not generally conscious on the
-part of the poet himself. Nor are they generally noticed by the reader
-or the auditor; and even when noticed they are not always resented
-as offensive. But just so long as there is a chance that they may be
-noticed and that they may be resented, they had best be avoided. The
-poet avails himself of his license at his peril. That way danger lies.
-
-It is in the ‘Adventures of Philip’ that Thackeray records his hero’s
-disapproval of a poet who makes _fire_ rime with _Marire_. Even
-if the rime is made accurate to the ear, it is only by convicting
-the lyrist of carelessness of speech--not to call it vulgarity of
-pronunciation. But Dr. Holmes himself, sharp as he was upon those who
-rimed _dawn_ and _morn_, was none the less guilty of a peccadillo
-quite as reprehensible--_Elizas_ and _advertisers_. Whittier ventured
-to chain _Eva_ not only with _leave her_ and _receive her_, which
-suggest a slovenly utterance, but also with _give her_, _river_,
-and _never_, which are all of them wrenched from their true sounds
-to force them unto a vain and empty semblance of a rime. A kindred
-cockney recklessness can be found in one of Mrs. Browning’s misguided
-modernizations of Chaucer:
-
-  Now grant my ship some smooth haven _win her_;
-  I follow Statius first, and then _Corinna_.
-
-In each of these cases the poet takes out a wedding license for his
-couplet, only at the cost of compelling the reader to miscall the names
-of these ladies, and to address them as _Marire_, _Elizer_, _Ever_,
-and _Corinner_; and tho the rimes themselves are thus placed beyond
-reproach, the poet is revealed as regardless of all delicacy and
-precision of speech. Surely such a vulgarity of pronunciation is as
-disenchanting as any vulgarity in grammar.
-
-Not quite so broad in the mispronunciation that makes these rimes are
-certain of Mr. Kipling’s, as to which we are a little in doubt whether
-he is making his rime by violence to the normal sound or whether his
-own pronunciation is so abnormal that the rime itself seems to him
-accurate:
-
-  Railways and roads they _wrought_
-    For the needs of the soil within;
-  A time to scribble in _court_.
-    A time to bear and grin.
-
- Long he pondered o’er the question in his scantly furnished _quarters_,
- Then proposed to Minnie Boffkin, eldest of Judge Boffkin’s _daughters_.
-
-  I quarrel with my wife at home.
-    We never fight _abroad_;
-  But Mrs. B. has grasped the fact,
-    I am her only _lord_.
-
-Far less offensive than this wilful slovenliness, and yet akin to it,
-is the trick of forcing an emphasis upon a final syllable which is
-naturally short, in order that it may be made to rime with a syllable
-which is naturally long. For example, in the exquisite lyric of
-Lovelace’s, ‘To Althea from Prison,’ in the second quatrain of the
-second stanza we find that we must prolong the final syllable of the
-final word:
-
-  When thirsty grief in wine we steep,
-    When healths and draughts go _free_,
-  Fishes that tipple in the deep
-    Know no such liber_ty_.
-
-Here the rime evades us unless we read the last word _libertee_. But
-what then are we to do with the same word in the second quatrain of the
-first stanza? To get his rime here, the poet insists on our reading the
-last word _libertie_:
-
-  When I lie tangled in her hair
-    And fettered to her _eye_,
-  The birds that wanton in the air
-    Know no such liber_ty_.
-
-Lovelace thus forces us not only to give an arbitrary pronunciation
-to the final word of his refrain, but also to vary this arbitrary
-pronunciation from stanza to stanza, awkwardly arresting our attention
-to no purpose, when we ought to be yielding ourselves absolutely to the
-charm of his most charming poem. Many another instance of this defect
-in craftsmanship can be discovered in the English poets, one of them in
-a lyric by that master of metrics, Poe, who opens the ‘Haunted Palace’
-with a quatrain in which _tenanted_ is made to mate with _head_:
-
-  In the greenest of our valleys,
-    By good angels tenan_ted_,
-  Once a fair and stately palace--
-    Radiant palace--reared its _head_.
-
-In the one poem of Walt Whitman’s in which he seemed almost willing
-to submit to the bonds of rime and meter, and which--perhaps for that
-reason partly--is the lyric of his now best known and best beloved,
-in ‘O Captain, My Captain,’ certain of the rimes are possible only by
-putting an impossible stress upon the final syllables of both words of
-the pair:
-
-  The port is near, the bells I hear, the people all _exulting_,
-  While follow eyes the steady keel, the vessel grim and _daring_.
-
-And again:
-
- For you bouquets and ribbon’d wreaths, for you the shores _a-crowding_;
- For you they call, the swaying mass, their eager faces _turning_.
-
-In all these cases--Lovelace’s, Poe’s, Whitman’s--we find that the
-principle of Economy of Attention has been violated, with a resulting
-shock which diminishes somewhat our pleasure in the poems, delightful
-as they are, each in its several way. We have been called to bestow a
-momentary consideration on the mechanism of the poem, when we should
-have preferred to reserve all our power to receive the beauty of its
-spirit.
-
-It may be doubted whether any pronunciation, however violently
-dislocated, can justify Whittier’s joining of _bruised_ and _crusade_
-in his ‘To England,’ or Browning’s conjunction of _windows_ and
-_Hindus_ in his ‘Youth and Art.’ In ‘Cristina’ Browning tries to
-combine _moments_ and _endowments_; in his ‘Another Way of Love’ he
-conjoins _spider_ and _consider_; and in his ‘Soliloquy in a Spanish
-Cloister’ he binds together _horse-hairs_ and _corsair’s_. Perhaps
-one reason why Browning has made his way so slowly with the broad
-public--whom every poet must conquer at last, or in the end confess
-defeat--is that his rimes are sometimes violent and awkward, and
-sometimes complicated and arbitrary. The poet has reveled in his own
-ingenuity in compounding them, and so he flourishes them in the face
-of the reader. The principle of Economy of Attention demands that in
-serious verse the rime must be not only so accurate as to escape
-remark, but also wholly unstrained. It must seem natural, necessary,
-obvious, even inevitable, or else our minds are wrested from a rapt
-contemplation of the theme to a disillusioning consideration of the
-sounds by which it is bodied forth.
-
-“Really the meter of some of the modern poems I have read,” said
-Coleridge, “bears about the same relation to meter, properly
-understood, that dumb-bells do to music; both are for exercise, and
-pretty severe too, I think.” A master of meter Browning proved himself
-again and again, very inventive in the new rhythms he introduced, and
-almost unfailingly felicitous; and yet there are poems of his in which
-the rimes impose on the reader a steady muscular exercise. In the
-‘Glove,’ for example, there not only abound manufactured rimes, each
-of which in turn arrests the attention, and each of which demands a
-most conscientious articulation before the ear can apprehend it, but
-with a persistent perversity the poet puts the abnormal combination
-first, and puts last the normal word with which it is to be united in
-wedlock. Thus _aghast I’m_ precedes _pastime_, and _well swear_ comes
-before _elsewhere_. This is like presenting us with the answer before
-propounding the riddle.
-
-In comic verse, of course, difficulty gaily vanquished may be a part
-of the joke, and an adroit and unexpected rime may be a witticism in
-itself. But in the ‘Ingoldsby Legends’ and in the ‘Fable for Critics’
-it is generally the common word that comes before the uncommon
-combination the alert rimester devises to accompany it. When a line of
-Barham’s ends with _Mephistopheles_ we wonder how he is going to solve
-the difficulty, and our expectation is swiftly gratified with _coffee
-lees_; and when Lowell informs us that Poe
-
-  ... talks like a book of iambs and _pentameters_,
-
-we bristle our ears while he adds:
-
-  In a way to make people of common sense _damn meters_.
-
-But the ‘Glove’ is not comic in intent; the core of it is tragic,
-and the shell is at least romantic. Perhaps a hard and brilliant
-playfulness of treatment might not be out of keeping with the
-psychologic subtlety of its catastrophe; but not a few readers
-resentfully reject the misplaced ingenuity of the wilfully artificial
-double rimes. The incongruity between the matter of the poem and the
-manner of it attracts attention to the form, and leaves us the less for
-the fact.
-
-It would be interesting to know just why Browning chose to do what he
-did in the ‘Glove’ and in more than one other poem. He had his reasons,
-doubtless, for he was no unconscious warbler of unpremeditated lays. If
-he refused to be loyal to the principle of Economy of Attention, he
-knew what he was doing. It was not from any heedlessness--like that of
-Emerson when he recklessly rimed _woodpecker_ with _bear_; or like that
-of Lowell when he boldly insisted on riming the same _woodpecker_ with
-_hear_. Emerson and Lowell--and Whittier also--it may be noted, were
-none of them enamoured of technic; and when a couplet or a quatrain or
-a stanza of theirs happened to attain perfection, as not infrequently
-they do, we cannot but feel it to be only a fortunate accident. They
-were not untiring students of versification, forever seeking to spy out
-its mysteries and to master its secrets, as Milton was, and Tennyson
-and Poe.
-
-And yet no critic has more satisfactorily explained the essential
-necessity of avoiding discords than did Lowell when he affirmed that
-“not only meter but even rime itself is not without suggestion in
-outward nature. Look at the pine, how its branches, balancing each
-other, ray out from the tapering stem in stanza after stanza, how spray
-answers to spray, strophe and antistrophe, till the perfect tree stands
-an embodied ode, Nature’s triumphant vindication of proportion, number,
-and harmony. Who can doubt the innate charm of rime who has seen the
-blue river repeat the blue o’erhead; who has been ravished by the
-visible consonance of the tree growing at once toward an upward and a
-downward heaven on the edge of the twilight cove; or who has watched
-how, as the kingfisher flitted from shore to shore, his visible echo
-flies under him, and completes the fleeting couplet in the visionary
-vault below?... You must not only expect, but you must expect in the
-right way; you must be magnetized beforehand in every fiber by your own
-sensibility in order that you may feel what and how you ought.”
-
-Here Lowell is in full agreement with Poe, who declared that “what,
-in rime, first and principally pleases, may be referred to the human
-sense or appreciation of equality.” But there is no equality in the
-sound of _valleys_ and _palace_, and so the human sense is robbed of
-its pleasure; and there is no consonance, visible or audible, between
-_woodpecker_ and _hear_, and so we are suddenly demagnetized by our own
-sensibility, and cannot feel what and how we ought.
-
-So long as the poet gives us rimes exact to the ear and completely
-satisfactory to the sense to which they appeal, he has solid ground
-beneath his feet; but if once he leaves this, then is chaos come again.
-Admit _given_ and _heaven_, and it is hard to deny _chamber_ and
-_remember_. Having relinquished the principle of uniformity of sound,
-you land yourself logically in the wildest anarchy. Allow _shadow_
-and _meadow_ to be legitimate, and how can you put the bar sinister
-on _hear_ and _woodpecker_? Indeed, we fail to see how you can help
-feeling that John Phœnix was unduly harsh when he rejected the poem of
-a Young Astronomer beginning, “O would I had a telescope with fourteen
-slides!” on account of the atrocious attempt in the second line to rime
-_Pleiades_ with _slides_.
-
-Lieutenant Derby was a humorist; but is his tying together of
-incompatible vocables much worse than one offense of which Keats is
-guilty?
-
-      Then who would go
-      Into dark Soho,
-  And chatter with dack’d-haired _critics_,
-      When he can stay
-      For the new-mown hay
-  And startle the dappled _prickets_?
-
-This quotation is due to Professor F. N. Scott, who has drawn attention
-also to an astounding quatrain of Tennyson’s ‘Palace of Art’:
-
-  Or in a clear-wall’d city on the sea,
-    Near gilded organ-pipes, her _hair_
-  Wound with white roses, slept St. Cecily;
-    An angel look’d at _her_.
-
-Professor Scott declares that he hesitates “for a term by which to
-characterize such rimes as these. Certainly they are not eye-rimes
-in the proper meaning of that term. Perhaps ... they may be called
-nose-rimes.”
-
-Just as every instance of bad grammar interferes with the force of
-prose, so in verse every needless inversion and every defective rime
-interrupts the impression which the poet wishes to produce. There are
-really not so many in Pope’s poems as there may seem to be, for since
-Queen Anne’s day our language has modified its pronunciation here and
-there, leaving now only to the Irish the _tea_ which is a perfect rime
-to _obey_, and the _join_ which is a perfect rime to _line_.
-
-Perhaps the prevalence in English verse of the intolerable “allowable
-rimes” is due in part to an acceptance of what seems like an
-evil precedent, to be explained away by our constantly changing
-pronunciation. Perhaps it is due in part also to the present wretched
-orthography of our language. The absurd “rimes to the eye” which abound
-in English are absent from Italian verse and from French. The French,
-as the inheritors through the Latin of the great Greek tradition,
-have a finer respect for form, and strive constantly for perfection
-of technic, altho the genius of their language seems to us far less
-lyric than ours. Théodore de Banville, in his little book on French
-versification, declared formally and emphatically that there is no
-such thing as a poetic license. And Voltaire, in a passage admirably
-rendered into English by the late Frederick Locker-Lampson, says that
-the French “insist that the rime shall cost nothing to the ideas, that
-it shall be neither trivial, nor too far-fetched; we exact vigorously
-in a verse the same purity, the same precision, as in prose. We do not
-admit the smallest license; we require an author to carry without a
-break all these chains, yet that he should appear ever free.”
-
-In a language as unrhythmic as the French, rime is far more important
-than it need be in a lilting and musical tongue like our own; but in
-the masterpieces of the English lyrists, as in those of the French,
-rime plays along the edges of a poem, ever creating the expectation it
-swiftly satisfies and giving most pleasure when its presence is felt
-and not flaunted. Like the dress of the well-bred woman, which sets
-off her beauty without attracting attention to itself, rime must be
-adequate and unobtrusive, neither too fine nor too shabby, but always
-in perfect taste.
-
- (1898-1900)
-
-
-
-
-XI
-
-ON THE POETRY OF PLACE-NAMES
-
-
-Plutarch tells us that the tragedian Æsopus, when he spoke the opening
-lines of the ‘Atreus,’ a tragedy by Attius,
-
-  I’m Lord of Argos, heir of Pelops’ crown.
-  As far as Helle’s sea and Ion’s main
-  Beat on the Isthmus,
-
-entered so keenly into the spirit of this lofty passage that he struck
-dead at his feet a slave who approached too near to the person of
-royalty; and Professor Tyrrel notes how these verses affect us with
-“the weight of names great in myth-land and hero-land,” and he suggests
-that they produce “a vague impression of majesty,” like Milton’s
-
-  Jousted in Aspromont or Montalban,
-  Damasco or Morocco or Trebizond,
-  Or whom Biserta sent from Afric’s shore,
-  When Charlemagne with all his peerage fell
-  By Fontarabia.
-
-It is a question how far the beauty of the resonant lines of the
-‘Agamemnon’ of Æschylus, where the news of the fall of Troy is flashed
-along the chain of beacons from hilltop to promontory, is due even
-more to the mere sounds of the proper names than it is to the memories
-these mighty names evoke. Far inferior to this, and yet deriving its
-effect also from the sonorous roll of the lordly proper names (which
-had perhaps lingered in the poet’s memory ever since the travels of his
-childhood), is the passage in the ‘Hernani’ of Victor Hugo, when, the
-new emperor ordering all the conspirators to be set free who are not of
-noble blood, the hero steps forward hotly to declare his rank:
-
-  Puisqu’il faut être grand pour mourir, je me lève.
-  Dieu qui donne le sceptre et qui te le donna
-  M’a fait duc de Segorbe et duc de Cardona,
-  Marquis de Mouroy, comte Albatera, vicomte
-  De Gor, seigneur de lieux dont j’ignore le compte.
-  Je suis Jean d’Aragon, grand maître d’Avis, né
-  Dans l’exil, fils proscrit d’un père assassiné
-  Par sentence du tien, roi Carlos de Castille!
-
-Lowell, after telling us that “precisely what makes the charm of poetry
-is what we cannot explain any more than we can describe a perfume,”
-proceeds to point out that it is a prosaic passage of Drayton’s
-‘Polyolbion’ which gave a hint to Wordsworth, thus finely utilized in
-one of the later bard’s ‘Poems on the Naming of Places’:
-
-  Joanna, looking in my eyes, beheld
-  That ravishment of mine, and laughed aloud.
-  The Rock, like something starting from a sleep,
-  Took up the Lady’s voice, and laughed again;
-  The ancient Woman seated on Helm-crag
-  Was ready with her cavern; Hammar-scar,
-  And the tall steep of Silver-how, sent forth
-  A noise of laughter; southern Loughrigg heard,
-  And Fairfield answered with a mountain tone;
-  Helvellyn, far into the clear blue sky,
-  Carried the Lady’s voice,--old Skiddaw blew
-  His speaking-trumpet;--back out of the clouds
-  Of Glaramara southward came the voice;
-  And Kirkstone tossed it from his misty head.
-
-Not a little of this same magic is there in many a line of Walt
-Whitman; especially did he rejoice to point out the beauty of Manahatta:
-
-  I was asking something specific and perfect for my city,
-  Whereupon lo! upsprang the aboriginal name.
-
-Longfellow has recorded his feeling that
-
-          The destined walls
-  Of Cambalu and of Cathain Can
-
-(from the eleventh book of ‘Paradise Lost’) is a “delicious line.”
-Longfellow was always singularly sensitive to the magic power of words,
-and not long after that entry in his journal there is this other: “I
-always write the name October with especial pleasure. There is a secret
-charm about it, not to be defined. It is full of memories, it is full
-of dusky splendors, it is full of glorious poetry.” And Poe was so
-taken with the melody of this same word that in ‘Ulalume’ he invented a
-proper name merely that he might have a rime for it:
-
-  It was night in the lonesome October
-    Of my most immemorial year;
-  It was hard by the dim lake of Auber,
-    In the misty mid-region of Weir--
-  It was down by the dank tarn of Auber,
-    In the ghoul-haunted woodland of Weir.
-
-The charm of these lines is due mainly to their modulated music, and
-to the contrast of the vowel sounds in _Auber_ and _Weir_, just as a
-great part of the beauty of Landor’s exquisite lyric, ‘Rose Aylmer,’ is
-contained in the name itself. Is there any other reason why Mesopotamia
-should be a “blessed word,” save that its vowels and its consonants are
-so combined as to fill the ear with sweetness? Yet Mr. Lecky records
-Garrick’s assertion that Whitefield could pronounce Mesopotamia so as
-to make a congregation weep. And others have found delight in repeating
-a couplet of Campbell’s:
-
-  And heard across the waves’ tumultuous roar
-  The wolfs long howl from Oonalaska’s shore--
-
-a delight due, I think, chiefly to the unexpected combination of open
-vowels and sharp consonants in the single Eskimo word, the meaning of
-it being unknown and wholly unimportant, and the sound of it filling
-the ear with an uncertain and yet awaited pleasure.
-
-Just as Oonalaska strikes us at once as the fit title for a shore along
-which the lone wolf should howl, so Atchafalaya bears in its monotonous
-vowel a burden of melancholy, made more pitiful to us by our knowledge
-that it was the name of the dark water where Evangeline and Gabriel
-almost met in the night and then parted again for years. Charles
-Sumner wrote to Longfellow that Mrs. Norton considered “the scene on
-the Lake Atchafalaya, where the two lovers pass each other, so typical
-of life that she had a seal cut with that name upon it”; and shortly
-afterward Leopold, the King of the Belgians, speaking of ‘Evangeline,’
-“asked her if she did not think the word Atchafalaya was suggestive of
-experience in life, and added that he was about to have it cut on a
-seal”--whereupon, to his astonishment, she showed him hers.
-
-It would be difficult indeed to declare how much of the delight our
-ear may take in these words--Atchafalaya, Oonalaska, Mesopotamia,--is
-due simply to their own melody, and how much to the memories they
-may stir. Here we may see one reason why the past seems so much more
-romantic than the present. In tales of olden time even the proper
-names linger in our ears with an echo of “the glory that was Greece
-and the grandeur that was Rome.” Here is, in fact, an unfair advantage
-which dead-and-gone heroes of foreign birth have over the men of our
-own day and our own country. “If we dilate in beholding the Greek
-energy, the Roman pride, it is that we are already domesticating the
-same sentiment,” said Emerson in his essay on ‘Heroism,’ and he added
-that the first step of our worthiness was “to disabuse us of our
-superstitious associations with places and times.” And he asks, “Why
-should these words, Athenian, Roman, Asia, and England, so tingle in
-the ear? Where the heart is, there the muses, there the gods sojourn,
-and not in any geography of fame. Massachusetts, Connecticut River,
-and Boston Bay you think paltry places, and the ear loves the names
-of foreign and classic topography. But here we are; and if we hurry a
-little, we may come to learn that here is best.... The Jerseys were
-honest ground enough for Washington to tread.”
-
-Emerson penned these sentences in the first half of the nineteenth
-century, when we Americans were still fettered by the inherited
-shackles of colonialism. Fifty years after he wrote, it would have been
-hard to find an American who thought either Boston Bay or Massachusetts
-a paltry place. And Matthew Arnold has recorded that to him, when he
-was an undergraduate, Emerson was then “but a voice speaking from three
-thousand miles away; but so well he spoke that from that time forth
-Boston Bay and Concord were names invested to my ear with a sentiment
-akin to that which invests for me the names of Oxford and Weimar.”
-
-As for the Connecticut River, had not Thoreau done it the service
-Irving had rendered long before to the Hudson?--had he not given it a
-right to be set down in the geography of literature? It is well that
-we should be reminded now and again that the map which the lover of
-letters has in his mind’s eye is different by a whole world from the
-projection which the school-boy smears with his searching finger, since
-the tiny little rivers on whose banks great men grew to maturity, the
-Tiber and the Po, the Seine and the Thames, flow across its pages with
-a fuller stream than any Kongo or Amazon. And on this literary map
-the names of not a few American rivers and hills and towns are now
-inscribed.
-
-It is fortunate that many of the American places most likely to be
-mentioned in the poetic gazetteer have kept the liquid titles the
-aborigines gave them. “I climbed one of my hills yesterday afternoon
-and took a sip of Wachusett, who was well content that Monadnock was
-out of the way,” wrote Lowell in a letter. “How lucky our mountains
-(many of them) are in their names, tho they must find it hard to live
-up to them sometimes! The Anglo-Saxon sponsor would Nicodemus ’em to
-nothing in no time.” It will be pitiful if the Anglo-Saxons on the
-Pacific coast allow Mount Tacoma to be Nicodemused to Mount Rainier, as
-the Anglo-Saxons of the Atlantic coast allowed Lake Andiatarocte to be
-Nicodemused into Lake George. Fenimore Cooper strove in vain for the
-acceptance of Horicon as the name of this lovely sheet of water, which
-the French discoverer called the Lake of the Holy Sacrament.
-
-Marquette spoke of a certain stream as the River of the Immaculate
-Conception, altho the Spaniards were already familiar with it as the
-River of the Holy Spirit; and later La Salle called it after Colbert;
-but an Algonquin word meaning “many waters” clung to it always; and so
-we know it now as the Mississippi. The Spaniard has been gone from its
-banks for more than a hundred years, and the Frenchman has followed the
-Indian, and the Anglo-Saxon now holds the mighty river from its source
-to its many mouths; but the broad stream bears to-day the name the red
-men gave it. And so also the Ohio keeps its native name, tho the French
-hesitated between St. Louis and La Belle Rivière as proper titles
-for it. Cataraqui is one old name for an American river, and Jacques
-Cartier accepted for this stream another Indian word, Hochelaga, but
-(as Professor Hinsdale reminded us) “St. Lawrence, the name that
-Cartier had given to the Gulf, unfortunately superseded it.”
-
-Much of the charm of these Indian words, Atchafalaya, Ohio,
-Andiatarocte, Tacoma, is due no doubt to their open vowels; but is
-not some of it to be ascribed to our ignorance of their meanings? We
-may chance to know that Mississippi signifies “many waters” and that
-Minnehaha can be interpreted as “laughing water,” but that is the
-furthermost border of our knowledge. If we were all familiar with the
-Algonquin dialects, I fancy that the fascination of many of these names
-would fade swiftly. And yet perhaps it would not, for we could never be
-on as friendly terms with the Indian language as we are with our own;
-and there is ever a suggestion of the mystic in the foreign tongue.
-
-We engrave _Souvenir_ on our sweetheart’s bracelet or brooch; but
-the French for this purpose prefer _Remember_. “The difficulty of
-translation lies in the _color_ of words,” Longfellow declared. “Is
-the Italian _ruscilletto gorgoglioso_ fully rendered by _gurgling
-brooklet_? Or the Spanish _pojaros vocingleros_ by _garrulous birds_?
-Something seems wanting. Perhaps it is only the fascination of foreign
-and unfamiliar sounds; and to the Italian and Spanish ear the English
-words may seem equally beautiful.”
-
-After the death of the Duke of Wellington, Longfellow wrote a poem on
-the ‘Warden of the Cinque Ports’; and to us Americans there was poetry
-in the very title. And yet it may be questioned whether the Five Ports
-are necessarily any more poetic than the Five Points or the Seven
-Dials. So also Sanguelac strikes us as far loftier than Bloody Pond,
-but is it really? I have wondered often whether to a Jew of the first
-century Aceldama, the field of blood, and Golgotha, the place of a
-skull, were not perfectly commonplace designations, quite as common, in
-fact, as Bone Gulch or Hangman’s Hollow would be to us, and conveying
-the same kind of suggestion.
-
-We are always prone to accept the unknown as the magnificent,--if I may
-translate the Latin phrase,--to put a higher value on the things veiled
-from us by the folds of a foreign language. The Bosporus is a more
-poetic place than Oxford, tho the meaning of both names is the same.
-Montenegro fills our ears and raises our expectations higher than could
-any mere Black Mountain. The “Big River” is but a vulgar nickname, and
-yet we accept the equivalent Guadalquivir and Rio Grande; we even allow
-ourselves sometimes to speak of the Rio Grande River--which is as
-tautological as De Quincey declared the name of Mrs. Barbauld to be.
-Bridgeport is as prosaic as may be, while Alcantara has a remote and
-romantic aroma, and yet the latter word signifies only “the bridge.” We
-can be neighborly, most of us, with the White Mountains; but we feel a
-deeper respect for Mont Blanc and the Weisshorn and the Sierra Nevada.
-
-Sometimes the hard facts are twisted arbitrarily to force them into
-an imported falsehood. Elberon, where Garfield died, was founded by
-one L. B. Brown, so they say, and the homely name of the owner was
-thus contorted to make a seemingly exotic appellation for the place.
-And they say also that the man who once dammed a brook amid the pines
-of New Jersey had three children, Carrie, Sally, and Joe, and that he
-bestowed their united names upon Lake Carasaljo, the artificial piece
-of water on the banks of which Lakewood now sits salubriously. In Mr.
-Cable’s ‘John March, Southerner,’ one of the characters explains: “You
-know an ancestor of his founded Suez. That’s how it got its name. His
-name was Ezra and hers was Susan, don’t you see?” And I have been told
-of a town on the Northern Pacific Railroad which the first comers
-called Hell-to-Pay, and which has since experienced a change of heart
-and become Eltopia.
-
-In the third quarter of the nineteenth century a thirst for
-self-improvement raged among the villages of the lower Hudson River,
-and many a modest settlement thought to better itself and to rise in
-the world by the assumption of a more swelling style and title. When a
-proposition was made to give up the homely Dobbs Ferry for something
-less plebeian, the poet of ‘Nothing to Wear’ rimed a pungent protest:
-
-  They say “Dobbs” ain’t melodious;
-  It’s “horrid,” “vulgar,” “odious”;
-    In all their crops it sticks;
-  And then the worse addendum
-  Of “Ferry” does offend ’em
-    More than its vile prefix.
-  Well, it does seem distressing,
-  But, if I’m good at guessing,
-    Each one of these same nobs
-  If there was money in it,
-  Would ferry in a minute,
-    And change his name to Dobbs!
-
-  That’s it--they’re not partic’lar
-  Respecting the auric’lar
-    At a stiff market rate;
-  But Dobbs’s special vice is
-  That he keeps down the prices
-    Of all their real estate!
-  A name so unattractive
-  Keeps villa-sites inactive,
-    And spoils the broker’s jobs;
-  They think that speculation
-  Would rage at “Paulding’s Station,”
-    Which stagnates now at “Dobbs.”
-
-In the later stanzas Mr. Butler denounces changes nearer to New York:
-
-  Down there, on old Manhattan,
-  Where land-sharks breed and fatten,
-    They wiped out Tubby Hook.
-  That famous promontory,
-  Renowned in song and story,
-    Which time nor tempest shook,
-  Whose name for aye had been good,
-  Stands newly christened “Inwood,”
-    And branded with the shame
-  Of some old rogue who passes
-  By dint of aliases,
-    Afraid of his own name!
-
-  See how they quite outrival
-  Plain barn-yard Spuyten Duyvil
-    By peacock Riverdale,
-  Which thinks all else it conquers,
-  And over homespun Yonkers
-    Spreads out its flaunting tail!
-
-No loyal Manhattaner but would regret to part with Spuyten Duyvil
-and Yonkers and Harlem, and the other good old names that recall the
-good old Dutchmen who founded New Amsterdam. Few loyal Manhattaners,
-I think, but would be glad to see the Greater New York (now at last
-an accomplished fact) dignified by a name less absurd than New York.
-If Pesth and Buda could come together and become Budapest, why may
-not the Greater New York resume the earlier name and be known to
-the world as Manhattan? Why should the people of this great city of
-ours let the Anglo-Saxons “Nicodemus us to nothing,” or less than
-nothing, with a name so pitiful as New York? “I hope and trust,” wrote
-Washington Irving, “that we are to live to be an old nation, as well as
-our neighbors, and have no idea that our cities when they shall have
-attained to venerable antiquity shall still be dubbed New York and New
-London and new this and new that, like the Pont Neuf (the new bridge)
-at Paris, which is the oldest bridge in that capital, or like the Vicar
-of Wakefield’s horse, which continued to be called the colt until he
-died of old age.”
-
-Whenever any change shall be made we must hope that the new will be
-not only more euphonious than the old, but more appropriate and more
-stately. Perhaps Hangtown in California made a change for the better
-many years ago when it took the name of Placerville; but perhaps
-Placerville was not the best name it could have taken. “We will be
-nothing but Anglo-Saxons in the old world or in the new,” wrote
-Matthew Arnold when he was declaring the beauty of Celtic literature;
-“and when our race has built Bold Street in Liverpool, and pronounced
-it very good, it hurries across the Atlantic, and builds Nashville
-and Jacksonville and Milledgeville, and thinks it is fulfilling the
-designs of Providence in an incomparable manner.” In this sentence the
-criticism cuts both British habits and American. Later in life Matthew
-Arnold sharpened his knife again for use on the United States alone.
-“What people,” he asked, “in whom the sense for beauty and fitness
-was quick, could have invented or tolerated the hideous names ending
-in _ville_--the Briggsvilles, Higginsvilles, Jacksonvilles--rife from
-Maine to Florida?”
-
-Now, it must be confessed at once that we have no guard against a
-thrust like that. Such names do abound and they are of unsurpassed
-hideousness. But could not the same blow have got home as fatally had
-it been directed against his own country? A glance at any gazetteer of
-the British Isles would show that the British are quite as vulnerable
-as the Americans. In fact, this very question of Matthew Arnold’s
-suggested to an anonymous American rimester the perpetration of a copy
-of verses, the quality of which can be gaged by these first three
-stanzas:
-
-  Of Briggsville and Jacksonville
-    I care not now to sing;
-  They make me sad and very mad--
-    My inmost soul they wring.
-  I’ll hie me back to England,
-    And straightway I will go
-  To Boxford and to Swaffham,
-    To Plunger and Loose Hoe.
-
-  At Scrooby and at Gonerby,
-    At Wigton and at Smeeth,
-  At Bottesford and Runcorn,
-    I need not grit my teeth.
-  At Swineshead and at Crummock,
-    At Sibsey and Spithead,
-  Stoke Poges and Wolsoken
-    I will not wish me dead.
-
-  At Horbling and at Skidby,
-    At Chipping Ongar, too,
-  At Botterel Stotterdon and Swops,
-    At Skellington and Skew,
-  At Piddletown and Blumsdown,
-    At Shanklin and at Smart,
-  At Gosberton and Wrangle
-    I’ll soothe this aching heart.
-
-To discover a mote in our neighbor’s eyes does not remove the mote
-in our own, however much immediate relief it may give us from the
-acuteness of our pain. When Matthew Arnold animadverted upon “the
-jumbles of unnatural and inappropriate names everywhere,” he may have
-had in mind the most absurd medley existing anywhere in the world--the
-handful of Greek and Roman names of all sorts which was sown broadcast
-over the western part of New York State. Probably this region of
-misfortune it was that Irving was thinking about when he denounced the
-“shallow affectation of scholarship,” and told how “the whole catalog
-of ancient worthies is shaken out of the back of Lemprière’s Classical
-Dictionary, and a wide region of wild country is sprinkled over with
-the names of heroes, poets, sages of antiquity, jumbled into the most
-whimsical juxtaposition.”
-
-Along the road from Dublin, going south to Bray, the traveler finds
-Dumdrum and Stillorgan, as tho--to quote the remarks of the Irish
-friend who gave me these facts--a band of wandering musicians had
-broken up and scattered their names along the highway. For sheer
-ugliness it would be hard to beat two other proper names near Dublin,
-where the Sallynoggin road runs into the Glenageary.
-
-It may be that these words sound harsher in our strange ears than
-they do to a native wonted to their use. We take the unknown for the
-magnificent sometimes, no doubt; but sometimes also we take it for
-the ridiculous. To us New-Yorkers, for instance, there is nothing
-absurd or ludicrous in the sturdy name of Schenectady; perhaps there
-is even a hint of stateliness in the syllables. But when Mr. Laurence
-Hutton was in the north of Scotland some years ago there happened to
-be in his party a young lady from that old Dutch town; and when a
-certain laird who lived in those parts chanced to be told that this
-young lady dwelt in Schenectady he was moved to inextinguishable
-laughter. He ejaculated the outlandish sounds again and again in the
-sparse intervals of his boisterous merriment. He announced to all his
-neighbors that among their visitors was a young lady from Schenectady,
-and all who called were presented to her, and at every repetition of
-the strange syllables his violent cachinnations broke forth afresh.
-Never had so comic a name fallen upon his ears; and yet he himself
-was the laird of Balduthro (pronounced Balduthy); his parish was
-Ironcross (pronounced Aron-crouch); his railway-station was Kilconquhar
-(pronounced Kinŏcher); and his post-office was Pittenweem!
-
-Robert Louis Stevenson was a Scotchman who had changed his point of
-view more often than the laird of Balduthro; he had a broader vision
-and a more delicate ear and a more refined perception of humor. When he
-came to these United States as an amateur immigrant on his way across
-the plains, he asked the name of a river from a brakeman on the train;
-and when he heard that the stream “was called the Susquehanna, the
-beauty of the name seemed part and parcel of the beauty of the land.
-As when Adam with divine fitness named the creatures, so this word
-Susquehanna was at once accepted by the fancy. That was the name, as no
-other could be, for that shining river and desirable valley.”
-
-And then Stevenson breaks from his narrative to sing the praises of
-our place-names. The passage is long for quotation in a paper where
-too much has been quoted already; and yet I should be derelict to my
-duty if I did not transcribe it here. Stevenson had lived among many
-peoples, and he was far more cosmopolitan than Matthew Arnold, and more
-willing, therefore, to dwell on beauties than on blemishes. “None can
-care for literature in itself,” he begins, “who do not take a special
-pleasure in the sound of names; and there is no part of the world
-where nomenclature is so rich, poetical, humorous, and picturesque as
-the United States of America. All times, races, and languages have
-brought their contribution. Pekin is in the same State with Euclid,
-with Bellefontaine, and with Sandusky. Chelsea, with its London
-associations of red brick, Sloane Square, and the King’s Road, is own
-suburb to stately and primeval Memphis; there they have their seat,
-translated names of cities, where the Mississippi runs by Tennessee and
-Arkansas.... Old, red Manhattan lies, like an Indian arrow-head under
-a steam-factory, below Anglified New York. The names of the States
-and Territories themselves form a chorus of sweet and most romantic
-vocables: Delaware, Ohio, Indiana, Florida, Dakota, Iowa, Wyoming,
-Minnesota, and the Carolinas; there are few poems with a nobler music
-for the ear; a songful, tuneful land; and if the new Homer shall arise
-from the western continent, his verse will be enriched, his pages sing
-spontaneously, with the names of states and cities that would strike
-the fancy in a business circular.”
-
-As Campbell had utilized the innate beauty of the word Wyoming, so
-Stevenson himself made a ballad on the dreaded name of Ticonderoga;
-and these are two of the proper names of modern America that sing
-themselves. But there is nothing canorous in Anglified New York; there
-is no sonority in its syllables; there is neither dignity nor truth in
-its obvious meaning. It might serve well enough as the address of a
-steam-factory in a business circular; but it lacks absolutely all that
-the name of a metropolis demands. Stevenson thought that the new Homer
-would joy in working into his strong lines the beautiful nomenclature
-of America; but Washington Irving had the same anticipation, and it
-forced him to declare that if New York “were to share the fate of Troy
-itself, to suffer a ten years’ siege, and be sacked and plundered, no
-modern Homer would ever be able to elevate the name to epic dignity.”
-Irving went so far as to wish not only that New York city should be
-Manhattan again, but that New York State should be Ontario, the Hudson
-River the Mohegan, and the United States themselves Appalachia. Edgar
-Allan Poe, than whom none of our poets had a keener perception of the
-beauty of sounds and the fitness of words, approved of Appalachia as
-the name of the whole country.
-
-Perhaps we must wait yet a little while for Appalachia and Ontario
-and the Mohegan; but has not the time come to dig up that old red
-arrow-head Manhattan, and fit it to a new shaft?
-
- (1895)
-
-
-
-
-XII
-
-AS TO “AMERICAN SPELLING”
-
-
-[This paper is here reprinted from an earlier volume now out of print.]
-
-
-When the author of the ‘Cathedral’ was accosted by the wandering
-Englishmen within the lofty aisles of Chartres, he cracked a joke,
-
-  Whereat they stared, then laughed, and we were friends.
-  The seas, the wars, the centuries interposed,
-  Abolished in the truce of common speech
-  And mutual comfort of the mother-tongue.
-
-In this common speech other Englishmen are not always ready to
-acknowledge the full rights of Lowell’s countrymen. They would put us
-off with but a younger brother’s portion of the mother-tongue, seeming
-somehow to think that they are more closely related to the common
-parent than we are. But Orlando, the younger son of Sir Rowland du
-Bois, was no villain; and tho we have broken with the fatherland, the
-mother-tongue is none the less our heritage. Indeed, we need not care
-whether the division is _per stirpes_ or _per capita_; our share is not
-the less in either case.
-
-Beneath the impotent protests which certain British newspapers are
-prone to make every now and again against the “American language” as
-a whole, and against the stray Americanism which has happened last
-to invade England, there is a tacit assumption that we Americans are
-outer barbarians, mere strangers, wickedly tampering with something
-which belongs to the British exclusively. And the outcry against the
-“American language” is not as shrill nor as piteous as the shriek of
-horror with which certain of the journals of London greet “American
-spelling,” a hideous monster which they feared was ready to devour them
-as soon as the international copyright bill should become law. In the
-midst of every discussion of the effect of the copyright act in Great
-Britain, the bugbear of “American spelling” reared its grisly head.
-The London _Times_ declared that English publishers would never put
-any books into type in the United States because the people of England
-would never tolerate the peculiarities of orthography which prevailed
-in American printing-offices. The _St. James’s Gazette_ promptly
-retorted that “already newspapers in London are habitually using the
-ugliest forms of American spelling, and these silly eccentricities do
-not make the slightest difference in their circulation.” The _Times_
-and the _St. James’s Gazette_ might differ as to the effect of the
-copyright act on the profits of the printers of England, but they
-agreed heartily as to the total depravity of “American spelling.” I
-think that any disinterested foreigner who might chance to hear these
-violent outcries would suppose that English orthography was as the law
-of the Medes and Persians, which altereth not; he would be justified
-in believing that the system of spelling now in use in Great Britain
-was hallowed by the Established Church, and in some way mysteriously
-connected with the state religion.
-
-Just what the British newspapers were afraid of it is not easy to say,
-and it is difficult to declare just what they mean when they talk of
-“American spelling.” Probably they do not refer to the improvements in
-orthography suggested by the first great American--Benjamin Franklin.
-Possibly they do refer to the modifications in the accepted spelling
-proposed by another American, Noah Webster--not so great, and yet not
-to be named slightingly by any one who knows how fertile his labors
-have been for the good of the whole country. Noah Webster, so his
-biographer, Mr. Scudder, tells us, “was one of the first to carry a
-spirit of democracy into letters.... Throughout his work one may detect
-a confidence in the common sense of the people which was as firm as
-Franklin’s.” But the innovations of Webster were hesitating and often
-inconsistent; and most of them have been abandoned by later editors of
-Webster’s American Dictionary of the English Language.
-
-What, then, do British writers mean when they animadvert upon “American
-spelling”? So far as I have been able to discover, the British
-journalists object to certain minor labor-saving improvements of
-American orthography, such as the dropping of the _k_ from _almanack_,
-the omission of one _g_ from _waggon_, and the like; and they protest
-with double force, with all the strength that in them lies, against
-the substitution of a single _l_ for a double _l_ in such words as
-_traveller_, against the omission of the _u_ from such words as
-_honour_, against the substitution of an _s_ for a _c_ in such words as
-_defence_, and against the transposing of the final two letters of such
-words as _theatre_. The objection to “American spelling” may lie deeper
-than I have here suggested, and it may have a wider application; but
-I have done my best to state it fully and fairly as I have deduced it
-from a painful perusal of many columns of exacerbated British writing.
-
-Now if I have succeeded in stating honestly the extent of the British
-journalistic objections to “American spelling,” the unprejudiced
-reader may be moved to ask: “Is this all? Are these few and slight
-and unimportant changes the cause of this mighty commotion?” One may
-agree with Sainte-Beuve in thinking that “orthography is the beginning
-of literature,” without discovering in these modifications from the
-Johnsonian canon any cause for extreme disgust. And since I have quoted
-Sainte-Beuve once, I venture to cite him again, and to take from the
-same letter of March 15, 1867, his suggestion that “if we write more
-correctly, let it be to express especially honest feelings and just
-thoughts.”
-
-Feelings may be honest tho they are violent, but irritation is not the
-best frame of mind for just thinking. The tenacity with which some
-of the newspapers of London are wont to defend the accepted British
-orthography is perhaps due rather to feeling than to thought. Lowell
-told us that esthetic hatred burned nowadays with as fierce a flame
-as ever once theological hatred; and any American who chances to note
-the force and the fervor and the frequency of the objurgations against
-“American spelling” in the columns of the _Saturday Review_, for
-example, and of the _Athenæum_, may find himself wondering as to the
-date of the papal bull which declared the infallibility of contemporary
-British orthography, and as to the place where the council of the
-church was held at which it was made an article of faith.
-
-The _Saturday Review_ and the _Athenæum_, highly pitched as their
-voices are, yet are scarcely shriller in their cry to arms against the
-possible invasion of the sanctity of British orthography by “American
-spelling” than is the London _Times_, the solid representative of
-British thought, the mighty organ-voice of British feeling. Yet
-the _Times_ is not without orthographic eccentricities of its own,
-as Matthew Arnold took occasion to point out. In his essay on the
-‘Literary Influence of Academies,’ he asserted that “every one has
-noticed the way in which the _Times_ chooses to spell the word
-_diocese_; it always spells it _diocess_, deriving it, I suppose, from
-_Zeus_ and _census_.... Imagine an educated Frenchman indulging himself
-in an orthographical antic of this sort!”
-
-When we read what is written in the _Times_ and the _Saturday Review_
-and the _Athenæum_, sometimes in set articles on the subject, and
-even more often in casual and subsidiary slurs in the course of
-book-reviews, we wonder at the vehemence of the feeling displayed.
-If we did not know that ancient abuses are often defended with more
-violence and with louder shouts than inheritances of less doubtful
-worth, we might suppose that the present spelling of the English
-language was in a condition perfectly satisfactory alike to scholar and
-to student. Such, however, is not the case. The leading philologists
-of Great Britain and of the United States have repeatedly denounced
-English spelling as it now is on both sides of the Atlantic, Professor
-Max Müller at Oxford being no less emphatic than Professor Whitney
-at Yale. There is now living no scholar of any repute who any longer
-defends the ordinary orthography of the English language.
-
-The fact is that a little learning is quite as dangerous a thing now
-as it was in Pope’s day. Those who are volubly denouncing “American
-spelling” in the columns of British journals are not students of
-the history of English speech; they are not scholars in English; in
-so far as they know anything of the language, they are but amateur
-philologists. As a well-known writer on spelling reform once neatly
-remarked, “The men who get their etymology by inspiration are like the
-poor in that we have them always with us.” Altho few of them are as
-ignorant and dense as the unknown unfortunate who first tortured the
-obviously jocular _Welsh rabbit_ into a ridiculously impossible _Welsh
-rarebit_, still the most of their writing serves no good purpose. Nor
-do we discover in these specimens of British journalism that abundant
-urbanity which etymology might lead us to look for in the writing of
-inhabitants of so large a city as London.
-
-Any one who takes the trouble to inform himself on the subject will
-soon discover that it is chiefly the half-educated men who defend the
-contemporary orthography of the English language, and who denounce the
-alleged “American spelling” of _center_ and _honor_. The uneducated
-reader may wonder perchance what the _g_ is doing in _sovereign_; the
-half-educated reader discerns in the _g_ a connecting-link between the
-English _sovereign_ and the Latin _regno_; the well-educated reader
-knows that there is no philological connection whatever between _regno_
-and _sovereign_.
-
-Most of those who write with ease in British journals, deploring the
-prevalence of “American spelling,” have never carried their education
-so far as to acquire that foundation of wisdom which prevents a man
-from expressing an opinion on subjects as to which he is ignorant. The
-object of education, it has been said, is to make a man know what he
-knows, and also to know how much he does not know. Despite the close
-sympathy between the intellectual pursuits, a student of optics is not
-necessarily qualified to express an opinion in esthetics; and on the
-other hand, a critic of art may easily be ignorant of science. Now
-literature is one of the arts, and philology is a science. Altho men
-of letters have to use words as the tools of their trade, orthography
-is none the less a branch of philology, and philology does not come
-by nature. Literature may even exist without writing, and therefore
-without spelling. Writing, indeed, has no necessary connection
-with literature; still less has orthography. A literary critic is
-rarely a scientific student of language; he has no need to be; but
-being ignorant, it is the part of modesty for him not to expose his
-ignorance. To boast of it is unseemly.
-
-Far be it from me to appear as the defender of the “American spelling”
-which the British journalists denounce. This “American spelling” is
-less absurd than the British spelling only in so far as it has varied
-therefrom. Even in these variations there is abundant absurdity. Once
-upon a time most words that now are spelled with a final _c_ had an
-added _k_. Even now both British and American usage retains this
-_k_ in _hammock_, altho both British and Americans have dropped the
-needless letter from _havoc_; while the British retain the _k_ at the
-end of _almanack_ and the Americans have dropped it. Dr. Johnson was
-a reactionary in orthography as in politics; and in his dictionary
-he wilfully put a final _k_ to words like _optick_, without being
-generally followed by the publick--as he would have spelled it.
-_Music_ was then _musick_, altho, even as late as Aubrey’s time, it
-had been _musique_. In our own day we are witnessing the very gradual
-substitution of the logical _technic_ for the form originally imported
-from France--_technique_.
-
-I am inclined to think that _technic_ is replacing _technique_ more
-rapidly--or should I say less slowly?--in the United States than in
-Great Britain. We Americans like to assimilate our words and to make
-them our own, while the British have rather a fondness for foreign
-phrases. A London journalist recently held up to public obloquy as an
-“ignorant Americanism” the word _program_, altho he would have found
-it set down in Professor Skeat’s Etymological Dictionary. “_Programme_
-was taken from the French,” so a recent writer reminds us, “and in
-violation of analogy, seeing that, when it was imported into English,
-we had already _anagram_, _cryptogram_, _diagram_, _epigram_, etc.”
-The logical form _program_ is not common even in America; and British
-writers seem to prefer the French form, as British speakers still give
-a French pronunciation to _charade_, and to _trait_, which in America
-have long since been accepted frankly as English words.
-
-Possibly it is idle to look for any logic in anything which has to
-do with modern English orthography on either side of the ocean.
-Perhaps, however, there is less even than ordinary logic in the
-British journalist’s objection to the so-called “American spelling” of
-_meter_; for why should any one insist on _metre_ while unhesitatingly
-accepting its compound _diameter_? Mr. John Bellows, in the preface to
-his inestimable French-English and English-French pocket dictionary,
-one of the very best books of reference ever published, informs us
-that “the act of Parliament legalizing the use of the metric system
-in this country [England] gives the words _meter_, _liter_, _gram_,
-etc., spelled on the American plan.” Perhaps now that the sanction of
-law has been given to this spelling, the final _er_ will drive out the
-_re_ which has usurped its place. In one of the last papers that he
-wrote, Lowell declared that “_center_ is no Americanism; it entered the
-language in that shape, and kept it at least as late as Defoe.” “In
-the sixteenth and in the first half of the seventeenth century,” says
-Professor Lounsbury, “while both ways of writing these words existed
-side by side, the termination _er_ is far more common than that in
-_re_. The first complete edition of Shakspere’s plays was published in
-1623. In that work _sepulcher_ occurs thirteen times; it is spelled
-eleven times with _er_. _Scepter_ occurs thirty-seven times; it is not
-once spelled with _re_, but always with _er_. _Center_ occurs twelve
-times, and in nine instances out of the twelve it ends in _er_.” So we
-see that this so-called “American spelling” is fully warranted by the
-history of the English language. It is amusing to note how often a
-wider and a deeper study of English will reveal that what is suddenly
-denounced in Great Britain as the very latest Americanism, whether
-this be a variation in speech or in spelling, is shown to be really a
-survival of a previous usage of our language, and authorized by a host
-of precedents.
-
-Of course it is idle to kick against the pricks of progress, and no
-doubt in due season Great Britain and her colonial dependencies will
-be content again to spell words that end in _er_ as Shakspere and Ben
-Jonson and Spenser spelled them. But when we get so far toward the
-orthographic millennium that we all spell _sepulcher_, the ghost of
-Thomas Campbell will groan within the grave at the havoc then wrought
-in the final line of ‘Hohenlinden,’ which will cease to end with even
-the outward semblance of a rime to the eye. We all know that
-
-  On Linden, when the sun was low,
-  All bloodless lay the untrodden snow,
-  And dark as winter was the flow
-      Of Iser, rolling rapidly;
-
-and those of us who have persevered may remember that with one
-exception every fourth line of Campbell’s poem ends with a _y_,--the
-words are _rapidly_, _scenery_, _revelry_, _artillery_, _canopy_, and
-_chivalry_,--not rimes of surpassing distinction, any of them, but
-perhaps passable to a reader who will humor the final syllable. The one
-exception is the final line of the poem--
-
-  Shall be a soldier’s _sepulchre_.
-
-To no man’s ear did _sepulchre_ ever rime justly with _chivalry_ and
-_canopy_ and _artillery_, altho Campbell may have so contorted his
-vision that he evoked the dim spook of a rime in his mind’s eye. A rime
-to the eye is a sorry thing at best, and it is sorriest when it depends
-on an inaccurate and evanescent orthography.
-
-Dr. Johnson was as illogical in his keeping in and leaving out of
-the _u_ in words like _honor_ and _governor_ as he was in many other
-things; and the makers of later dictionaries have departed widely
-from his practice, those in Great Britain still halting half-way,
-while those in the United States have gone on to the bitter end.
-The illogic of the burly lexicographer is shown in his omission of
-the _u_ from _exterior_ and _posterior_, and his retention of it in
-the kindred words _interiour_ and _anteriour_; this, indeed, seems
-like wilful perversity, and justifies Hood’s merry jest about “Dr.
-Johnson’s Contradictionary.” The half-way measures of later British
-lexicographers are shown in their omission of the _u_ from words which
-Dr. Johnson spelled _emperour_, _governour_, _oratour_, _horrour_, and
-_dolour_, while still retaining it in _favour_ and _honour_ and a few
-others.
-
-The reason for his disgust generally given by the London man of
-letters who is annoyed by the “American spelling” of _honor_ and
-_favor_ is that these words are not derived directly from the Latin,
-but indirectly through the French; this is the plea put forward by
-the late Archbishop Trench. Even if this plea were pertinent, the
-application of this theory is not consistent in current British
-orthography, which prescribes the omission of the _u_ from _error_ and
-_emperor_, and its retention in _colour_ and _honour_--altho all four
-words are alike derived from the Latin through the French. And this
-plea fails absolutely to account for the _u_ which the British insist
-on preserving in _harbour_ and in _neighbour_, words not derived from
-the Latin at all, whether directly or indirectly through the French.
-An American may well ask, “If the _u_ in _honour_ teaches etymology,
-what does the _u_ in _harbour_ teach?” There is no doubt that the _u_
-in _harbour_ teaches a false etymology; and there is no doubt also
-that the _u_ in _honour_ has been made to teach a false etymology,
-for Trench’s derivation of this final _our_ from the French _eur_ is
-absurd, as the old French was _our_, and sometimes _ur_, sometimes even
-_or_. Pseudo-philology of this sort is no new thing; Professor Max
-Müller noted that the Roman prigs used to spell _cena_ (to show their
-knowledge of Greek), _coena_, as if the word were somehow connected
-with _κοινή_.
-
-Thus we see that the _u_ in _honour_ suggests a false etymology; so
-does the _ue_ in _tongue_, and the _g_ in _sovereign_, and the _c_
-in _scent_, and the _s_ in _island_, and the _mp_ in _comptroller_,
-and the _h_ in _rhyme_; and there are many more of our ordinary
-orthographies which are quite as misleading from a philological point
-of view. As the late Professor Hadley mildly put it, “our common
-spelling is often an untrustworthy guide to etymology.” But why should
-we expect or desire spelling to be a guide to etymology? If it is to
-be a guide at all, we may fairly insist on its being trustworthy; and
-so we cannot help thinking scorn of those who insist on retaining a
-superfluous _u_ in _harbour_.
-
-But why should orthography be made subservient to etymology? What have
-the two things in common? They exist for wholly different ends, to be
-attained by wholly different means. To bend either from its own work
-to the aid of the other is to impair the utility of both. This truth
-is recognized by all etymologists, and by all students of language,
-altho it has not yet found acceptance among men of letters, who are
-rarely students of language in the scientific sense. “It may be
-observed,” Mr. Sweet declares, “that it is mainly among the class of
-half-taught dabblers in philology that etymological spelling has found
-its supporters”; and he goes on to say that “all true philologists
-and philological bodies have uniformly denounced it as a monstrous
-absurdity both from a practical and a scientific point of view.” I
-should never dare to apply to the late Archbishop Trench and the London
-journalists who echo his errors so harsh a phrase as Mr. Sweet’s
-“half-taught dabblers in philology”; but when a fellow-Briton uses it
-perhaps I may venture to quote it without reproach.
-
-As I have said before, the alleged “American spelling” differs but very
-slightly from that which prevails in England. A wandering New-Yorker
-who rambles through London is able to collect now and again evidences
-of orthographic survivals which give him a sudden sense of being in
-an older country than his own. I have seen a man whose home was near
-Gramercy Park stop short in the middle of a little street in Mayfair,
-and point with ecstatic delight to the strip of paper across the glass
-door of a bar proclaiming that _CYDER_ was sold within. I have seen the
-same man thrill with pure joy before the shop of a _chymist_ in the
-window of which _corn-plaisters_ were offered for sale. He wondered
-why a British house should have _storeys_ when an American house has
-_stories_; and he disliked intensely the wanton _e_ wherewith British
-printers have recently disfigured _form_, which in the latest London
-typographical vocabularies appears as _forme_. This _e_ in _form_
-is a gratuitous addition, and therefore contrary to the trend of
-orthographic progress, which aims at the suppression of all arbitrary
-and needless letters.
-
-The so-called “American spelling” differs from the spelling which
-obtains in England only in so far as it has yielded a little more
-readily to the forces which make for progress, for uniformity, for
-logic, for common sense. But just how fortuitous and chaotic the
-condition of English spelling is nowadays both in Great Britain and
-in the United States no man knows who has not taken the trouble to
-investigate for himself. In England, the reactionary orthography
-of Samuel Johnson is no longer accepted by all. In America, the
-revolutionary orthography of Noah Webster has been receded from even by
-his own inheritors. There is no standard, no authority, not even that
-of a powerful, resolute, and domineering personality.
-
-Perhaps the attitude of philologists toward the present spelling of
-the English language, and their opinion of those who are up in arms in
-defense of it, have never been more tersely stated than in Professor
-Lounsbury’s most admirable ‘Studies in Chaucer,’ a work which I should
-term eminently scholarly, if that phrase did not perhaps give a false
-impression of a book wherein the results of learning are set forth with
-the most adroit literary art, and with an uninsistent but omnipresent
-humor, which is a constant delight to the reader:
-
-“There is certainly nothing more contemptible than our present
-spelling, unless it be the reasons usually given for clinging to it.
-The divorce which has unfortunately almost always existed between
-English letters and English scholarship makes nowhere a more pointed
-exhibition of itself than in the comments which men of real literary
-ability make upon proposals to change or modify the cast-iron framework
-in which our words are now clothed. On one side there is an absolute
-agreement of view on the part of those who are authorized by their
-knowledge of the subject to pronounce an opinion. These are well aware
-that the present orthography hides the history of the word instead of
-revealing it; that it is a stumbling-block in the way of derivation
-or of pronunciation instead of a guide to it; that it is not in any
-sense a growth or development, but a mechanical malformation, which
-owes its existence to the ignorance of early printers and the necessity
-of consulting the convenience of printing-offices. This consensus of
-scholars makes the slightest possible impression upon men of letters
-throughout the whole great Anglo-Saxon community. There is hardly
-one of them who is not calmly confident of the superiority of his
-opinion to that of the most famous special students who have spent
-years in examining the subject. There is hardly one of them who does
-not fancy he is manifesting a noble conservatism by holding fast to
-some spelling peculiarly absurd, and thereby maintaining a bulwark
-against the ruin of the tongue. There is hardly one of them who has
-any hesitation in discussing the question in its entirety, while every
-word he utters shows that he does not understand even its elementary
-principles. There would be something thoroughly comic in turning into a
-fierce international dispute the question of spelling _honor_ without
-the _u_, were it not for the depression which every student of the
-language cannot well help feeling in contemplating the hopeless abysmal
-ignorance of the history of the tongue which any educated man must
-first possess in order to become excited over the subject at all.”
-(‘Studies in Chaucer,’ vol. iii., pp. 265-267.)
-
-Pronunciation is slowly but steadily changing. Sometimes it is going
-further and further away from the orthography; for example, _either_
-and _neither_ are getting more and more to have in their first syllable
-the long _i_ sound instead of the long _e_ sound which they had
-once. Sometimes it is being modified to agree with the orthography;
-for example, the older pronunciations of _again_ to rime with _men_,
-and of _been_ to rime with _pin_, in which I was carefully trained as
-a boy, seem to me to be giving way before a pronunciation in exact
-accord with the spelling, _again_ to rime with _pain_, and _been_ to
-rime with _seen_. These two illustrations are from the necessarily
-circumscribed experience of a single observer, and the observation of
-others may not bear me out in my opinion; but tho the illustrations
-fall to the ground, the main assertion, that pronunciation is changing,
-is indisputable.
-
-No doubt the change is less rapid than it was before the invention
-of printing; far less rapid than it was before the days of the
-public school and of the morning newspaper. There are variations of
-pronunciation in different parts of the United States and of Great
-Britain, as there are variations of vocabulary; but in the future
-there will be a constantly increasing tendency for these variations to
-disappear. There are irresistible forces making for uniformity--forces
-which are crushing out Platt-Deutsch in Germany, Provençal in France,
-Romansch in Switzerland. There is a desire to see a standard set up to
-which all may strive to conform. In France a standard of pronunciation
-is found at the Comédie Française; and in Germany, what is almost
-a standard of vocabulary has been set in what is now known as
-_Bühnen-Deutsch_.
-
-In France the Academy was constituted chiefly to be a guardian of the
-language; and the Academy, properly conservative as it needs must be,
-is engaged in a slow reform of French orthography, yielding to the
-popular demand decorously and judiciously. By official action, also,
-the orthography of German has been simplified and made more logical
-and brought into closer relation with modern pronunciation. Even more
-thorough reforms have been carried through in Italy, in Spain, and in
-Holland. Yet neither French nor German, not Italian, Spanish, or Dutch,
-stood half as much in need of the broom of reform as English, for in
-no one of these languages were there so many dark corners which needed
-cleaning out; in no one of them the difference between orthography and
-pronunciation so wide; and in no one of them was the accepted spelling
-debased by numberless false etymologies.
-
-Beyond all question, what is needed on both sides of the Atlantic, in
-the United States as well as in Great Britain, is a conviction that
-the existing orthography of English is not sacred, and that to tamper
-with it is not high treason. What is needed is the consciousness that
-neither Samuel Johnson nor Noah Webster compiled his dictionary under
-direct inspiration. What is needed is an awakening to the fact that
-our spelling, so far from being immaculate at its best, is, at its
-best, hardly less absurd than the haphazard, rule-of-thumb, funnily
-phonetic spelling of Artemus Ward and of Josh Billings. What is needed
-is anything which will break up the lethargy of satisfaction with
-the accepted orthography, and help to open the eyes of readers and
-writers to the stupidity of the present system and tend to make them
-discontented with it.
-
- (1892)
-
-
-
-
-XIII
-
-THE SIMPLIFICATION OF ENGLISH SPELLING
-
-
-In a communication to a London review Professor W. W. Skeat remarked
-that “it is notorious that all the leading philologists of Europe,
-during the last quarter of a century, have unanimously condemned the
-present chaotic spelling of the English language, and have received on
-the part of the public generally, and of the most blatant and ignorant
-among the self-constituted critics, nothing but abusive ridicule,
-which is meant to be scathing, but is harmless from its silliness”;
-and it cannot be denied that the orthographic simplifications which
-the leading philologists of Great Britain and the United States are
-advocating have not yet been widely adopted. In an aggressive article
-an American essayist has sought to explain this by the assertion that
-phonetic-reform “is hopelessly, unspeakably, sickeningly vulgar; and
-this is an eternal reason why men and women of taste, refinement,
-and discrimination will reject it with a shudder of disgust.”
-Satisfactory as this explanation may seem to the essayist, I have
-a certain difficulty in accepting it myself, since I find on the
-list of the vice-presidents of the Orthographic Union the names of
-Mr. Howells, of Colonel Higginson, of Dr. Eggleston, of Professor
-Lounsbury, and of President White; and even if I was willing to admit
-that these gentlemen were all of them lacking in taste, refinement, and
-discrimination, I still could not agree with the aggressive essayist so
-long as my own name was on the same list.
-
-What strikes me as a better explanation is that given by the president
-of the Orthographic Union, Mr. Benjamin E. Smith, who has suggested
-that phonetic-reformers have asked too much, and so have received too
-little; they have demanded an immediate and radical change, and as a
-result they have frightened away all but the most resolute radicals;
-they have failed to reckon with the immense conservatism which gives
-stability to all the institutions of the English-speaking race. As
-Mr. Smith puts it, “there is a deep-rooted feeling that the existing
-printed form is not only _a_ symbol but the _most fitting_ symbol for
-our mother-tongue, and that a radical change must impair _for us_ the
-beauty and spiritual effectiveness of that which it symbolizes.”
-
-A part of the unreadiness of the public to listen to the advocates of
-phonetic-reform has been due also to the general consciousness that
-pronunciation is not fixed but very variable indeed, being absolutely
-alike in no two places where English is spoken, and perhaps in no two
-persons who speak English. The humorous poet has shown to us how the
-little word _vase_ once served as a shibboleth to reveal the homes of
-each of the four young ladies who came severally from New York and
-Boston and Philadelphia and Kalamazoo. The difference between the
-pronunciation of New York and Boston is not so marked as that between
-London and Edinburgh--or as that between New York and London. And the
-pronunciation of to-day is not that of to-morrow; it is constantly
-being modified, sometimes by imperceptible degrees and sometimes by a
-sudden change like the arbitrary substitution of _aither_ and _naither_
-for _eether_ and _neether_. Now, if pronunciation is not uniform in any
-two persons, in any two places, at any two periods, the wayfaring man
-is not to blame if he is in doubt, first, as to the possibility of a
-uniform phonetic spelling, and, second, as to its permanence even if it
-was once to be attained.
-
-A glance down the history of English orthography discloses the fact
-that, however chaotic our spelling may seem to be now or may seem to
-have been in Shakspere’s day, it is and it always has been striving
-ineffectively to be phonetic. Always the attempt has been to use
-the letters of the word to represent its sounds. From the beginning
-there has been an unceasing struggle to keep the orthography as
-phonetic as might be. This continuous striving toward exactness of
-sound-reproduction has never been radical or violent; it has always
-been halting and half-hearted: but it has been constant, and it has
-accomplished marvels in the course of the centuries. The most that
-we can hope to do is to help along this good work, to hasten this
-inevitable but belated progress, to make the transitions as easy as
-possible, and to smooth the way so that the needful improvements may
-follow one another as swiftly as shall be possible. We must remember
-that a half-loaf is better than no bread; and we must remind ourselves
-frequently that the greatest statesmen have been opportunists, knowing
-what they wanted, but taking what they could get.
-
-We have now to face the fact that in no language is a sudden and
-far-reaching reform in spelling ever likely to be attained; and in
-none is it less likely than in English. The history of the peoples who
-use our tongue on both sides of the Atlantic proves that they belong
-to a stock which is wont to make haste slowly, to take one step at a
-time, and never to allow itself to be overmastered by mere logic.
-By a series of gradations almost invisible the loose confederacy of
-1776 developed into the firm union of 1861, which was glad to grant to
-Abraham Lincoln a power broader than that wielded by any dictator. Even
-the abolition of the corn-laws and the adoption of free-trade in Great
-Britain, sudden as it may seem, was only the final result of a long
-series of events.
-
-The securing of an absolutely phonetic spelling being
-impracticable,--even if it was altogether desirable,--the efforts of
-those who are dissatisfied with the prevailing orthography of our
-language had best be directed toward the perfectly practical end of
-getting our improvement on the instalment plan. We must seek now to
-have only the most flagrant absurdities corrected. We must be satisfied
-to advance little by little. We must begin by showing that there is
-nothing sacrosanct about the present spelling either in Great Britain
-or in the United States. We must make it clear to all who are willing
-to listen--and it is our duty to be persuasive always and never
-dogmatic--that the effort of the English language to rid itself of
-orthographic anomalies is almost as old as the language itself. We
-must show those who insist on leaving the present spelling undisturbed
-that in taking this attitude they are setting themselves in opposition
-to the past, which they pretend to respect. The average man is open
-to conviction if you do not try to browbeat him into adopting your
-beliefs; and he can be induced to accept improvements, one at a time,
-if he has it made plain to him that each of these is but one in a
-series unrolling itself since Chaucer. We must convince the average
-man that we want merely to continue the good work of our forefathers,
-and that the real innovators are those who maintain the absolute
-inviolability of our present spelling.
-
-Even the vehement essayist from whom I have quoted already, and who
-is the boldest of later opponents of phonetic-reform, is vehement
-chiefly against the various schemes of wholesale revision. He himself
-refuses to make any modification,--except to revert now and again to
-a medievalism like _pædagogue_,--but he knows the history of language
-too well not to be forced to admit that a simplification of some sort
-is certain to be achieved in the future. “The written forms of English
-words will change in time, as the language itself will change,” he
-confesses; “it will change in its vocabulary, in its idioms, in its
-pronunciation, and perhaps to some extent in its structural form. For
-change is the one essential and inevitable phenomenon of a living
-language, as it is of any living organism; and with these changes, slow
-and silent and unconscious, will come a change in the orthography.” As
-we read this admirable statement we cannot but wonder why a writer who
-understands so well the conditions of linguistic growth should wish to
-bind his own language in the cast-iron bonds of an outworn orthography.
-We may wonder also why he is not consistent in his own practice, and
-why he does not spell _phænomenon_ as Macaulay did only threescore and
-ten years ago.
-
-Underneath the American essayist’s objection to any orthographic
-simplification in English, and underneath the plaintive protests of
-certain British men of letters against “American spelling,” so called,
-lies the assumption that there is at the present moment a “regular”
-spelling, which has existed time out of mind and which the tasteless
-reformers wish to destroy. For this assumption there is no warrant
-whatever. The orthography of our language has never been stable; it
-has always been fluctuating; and no authority has ever been given to
-anybody to lay down laws for its regulation. For a convention to have
-validity it must have won general acceptance at some period; and the
-history of English shows that there has never been any such common
-agreement, expressed or implied, in regard to English spelling. Some of
-the unphonetic forms which are most vigorously defended, as hallowed by
-custom and by sentiment, are comparatively recent; and others which
-seem as sacred have had foisted into them needless letters conveying
-false impressions about their origins.
-
-That there is no theory or practice of English orthography universally
-accepted to-day is obvious to all who may take the trouble to observe
-for themselves. The spelling adopted by the ‘Century Magazine’ is
-different from that to be found in ‘Harper’s Magazine’; and this
-differs again from that insisted upon in the pages of the ‘Bookman.’
-The ‘Century’ has gone a little in advance of American spelling
-generally, as seen in ‘Harper’s,’ and the ‘Bookman’ is intentionally
-reactionary. In the United States orthography is in a healthier state
-of instability than it is in Great Britain, where there is a closer
-approximation to a deadening uniformity; but even in London and
-Edinburgh those who are on the watch can discover many a divergence
-from the strict letter of the doctrine of orthographic rigidity.
-
-And just as there is no system of English spelling tacitly agreed on by
-all men of education using the English language at present, so there
-was also no system of English spelling consistently and continually
-used by our ancestors in the past. The orthography of Matthew Arnold
-differs a little, altho not much, from the orthography of Macaulay; and
-that in turn a little from the orthography of Johnson. In like manner
-the spelling of Dryden is very different from the spelling of Spenser,
-and the spelling of Spenser is very different from the spelling of
-Chaucer. At no time in the long unrolling of English literature from
-Chaucer to Arnold has there been any agreement among those who used the
-language as to any precise way in which its words should be spelled
-or even as to any theory which should govern particular instances.
-The history of English orthography is a record still incomplete of
-incessant variation; and a study of it shows plainly how there have
-been changes in every generation, some of them logical and some of them
-arbitrary, some of them helpful simplifications, and some of them gross
-perversities.
-
-Thus we see that those who defend any existing orthography, which
-they choose to regard as “regular” and outside of which they affect
-to behold only vulgar aberration, are setting themselves against the
-example left us by our forefathers. We see also that those of us who
-are striving to modify our spelling in moderation are doing exactly
-what has been done by every generation that preceded us. To repeat
-in other words what I have said already, there is not any system of
-English orthography which is supported by a universal convention to-day
-or which has any sanctity from its supposed antiquity.
-
-The opponents of simplification have been greatly aided by the
-general acceptance of this assumption of theirs that the advocates
-of simplification wanted to remove ancient landmarks, to break with
-the past, to introduce endless innovations. The best part of their
-case will fall to the ground when it is generally understood that the
-orthography of our language has never been fixed for a decad at a
-time. And this understanding of the real facts of the situation is
-likely to be enlarged in the immediate future by the wide circulation
-of many recent reprints of the texts of the great authors of the past
-in the exact spelling of the original edition. So long as we were
-in the habit of seeing the works of Shakspere and Steele, of Scott,
-Thackeray, and Hawthorne, all in an orthography which, if not uniform
-exactly, did not vary widely, we were sorely tempted to say that the
-spelling which was good enough for them is good enough for us and for
-our children.
-
-But when we have in our hands the works of those great writers as they
-were originally printed, and when we are forced to remark that they
-spell in no wise alike one to the other; and when we discover that such
-uniformity of orthography they may have seemed to have was due, not to
-any theory of the authors themselves, but merely to the practice of
-the modern printing-offices and proof-readers--when these things are
-brought home to us, any superstitious reverence bids fair to vanish
-which we may have had for the orthography we believed to be Shakspere’s
-and Steele’s and Scott’s and Thackeray’s and Hawthorne’s.
-
-And one indirect result of this scholarly desire to get as near as may
-be to the masterpiece as the author himself presented it to the world,
-is that men of letters and lovers of literature--two classes hitherto
-strangely ignorant of the history of the English language and of the
-constant changes always going on in its vocabulary, in its syntax,
-and in its orthography--will at least have the chance to acquire
-information at first hand. Their resistance to simplification ought
-to become less irreconcilable when the men of letters, now its chief
-opponents, have discovered for themselves that there is not now and
-never has been any stable system of orthography. When they really grasp
-the fact that there has been no permanency in the past and that there
-is no uniformity in the present, perhaps they will show themselves
-less unwilling to take the next step forward. Just now they are rather
-like the Tories, who, as Aubrey de Vere declared, wanted to uninvent
-printing and to undiscover America.
-
-The most powerful single influence in fixing the present absurd
-spelling of our language was undoubtedly Johnson’s Dictionary,
-published in the middle of the eighteenth century. We cannot but
-respect the solid learning of Dr. Johnson and his indomitable energy;
-but the making of an English dictionary was not the task for which his
-previous studies had preëminently fitted him. Probably he would have
-succeeded better with a Latin dictionary; and indeed there is something
-characteristically incongruous in the spectacle of the burly doctor’s
-spending his toil in compiling a list of the words in a language the
-use of which he held to be disgraceful in a friend’s epitaph. Johnson
-was, in fact, as unfit a person as could be found to record English
-orthography, a task calling for a science the existence of which he
-did not even suspect, and for a delicacy of perception he lacked
-absolutely. In all matters of taste he was an elephantine pachyderm;
-and there are only a few of his principles of criticism which are not
-now disestablished.
-
-Any one whose reading is at all varied and who strays outside of books
-printed within the past quarter-century, can find abundant evidence
-of the former chaos of English orthography. In Moxon’s ‘Mechanic
-Exercises,’ published in 1683, for example, we read that “how well
-other Forrain languages are Corrected by the Author, we may perceive
-by the English that is Printed in Forrain Countries”; and this shows
-us that the phonetic form _forrain_ is older than the unphonetic
-_foreign_. In the ‘Spectator’ (No. 510) Steele wrote _landskip_ where
-we should now write _landscape_; in Addison’s criticism of ‘Paradise
-Lost,’ contributed to the same periodical, we find _critick_,
-_heroick_, and _epick_; and whether Steele or Addison held the pen,
-_ribbons_ were then always _ribands_.
-
-On the title-page of the first edition of ‘Robinson Crusoe,’ published
-in 1719, we are told that we can read within “an account of how he was
-at last strangely delivered by _Pyrates_.” Fielding, in the ‘Champion’
-in 1740, tells us that “dinner soon follow’d, being a gammon of bacon
-and some chickens, with a most excellent apple-_pye_.” In the same
-essay Fielding wrote that “our friends _exprest_ great pleasure at our
-drinking”; and in ‘Tom Jones’ he wrote _profest_ for _professed_ (as we
-should now spell it). Here we discover that the nineteenth century is
-sometimes more backward than the eighteenth, _profest_ and _exprest_
-being the very spellings which many are now advocating. Fielding also
-wrote _Salique_ where we should now write _Salic_, as Wotton had
-written _Dorique_ for _Doric_ in a letter to Milton; and here the
-advantage is with us. So it is also in our spelling of the italicized
-word in the playbill of the third night of Mr. Cooper’s engagement at
-the Charleston theater, Friday, April 18, 1796: “_Smoaking_ in the
-Theatre Prohibited.”
-
-Attention has already been called to Macaulay’s _phænomenon_ (and to
-Professor Peck’s _pædagogue_). The abolition of the digraph has been a
-protracted enterprise not yet completed. In a translation of Schlegel’s
-‘Lectures on Dramatic Literature,’ published in London early in the
-nineteenth century, I have found _æra_ for _era_; and in the eighteenth
-century _economics_ was _œconomics_. _Esthetic_ has not yet quite
-expelled _æsthetic_, altho _anesthetic_ seems now fairly established.
-
-The Greek _ph_ is also a stumbling-block. We write _phantom_ on the one
-hand and _fancy_ on the other, and either _phantasy_ or _fantasy_; yet
-all these words are derived from the same Greek root. Probably _phancy_
-would seem as absurd to most of us as _fantom_. Yet _fantasy_ has only
-recently begun to get the better of _phantasy_. The Italians are bolder
-than we are, for they have not hesitated to write _filosofia_ and
-_fotografia_. To most of us _fotografer_, as we read it on a sign in
-Union Square, seems truly outlandish; and yet if our great-grandfathers
-were willing to accept _fancy_ there is no logical reason why our
-great-grandchildren may not accept _fotografy_. There is no longer any
-logical basis for opposition on the ground of scholarship. Indeed,
-the scholarly opposition to these orthographic simplifications is
-not unlike the opposition in Germany to the adoption of the Roman
-alphabet by those who cling to the old Gothic letter on the ground
-that it is more German, altho it is in reality only a medieval
-corruption of the Roman letter. With those who speak German, as with
-those who speak English, the chief obstacle to the accomplishment of
-proposed improvements in writing the language is to be found in the
-general ignorance of its history--or perhaps rather in that conceited
-half-knowledge which is always more dangerous than modest ignorance.
-
-To diffuse accurate information about the history of English
-orthography is the most pressing and immediate duty now before those
-of us who wish to see our spelling simplified. We must keep reminding
-those we wish to convince that we want their aid in helping along the
-movement which has in the past changed _musique_ to _music_, _riband_
-to _ribbon_, _phantasy_ to _fantasy_, _æra_ to _era_, _phænomenon_
-to _phenomenon_, and which in the present is changing _catalogue_
-to _catalog_, _æsthetic_ to _esthetic_, _programme_ to _program_,
-_technique_ to _technic_.
-
-There never has been any “regular” spelling accepted by everybody, or
-any system of orthography sustained by universal convention. To assume
-that there is anything of the sort is adroitly to beg the very question
-at issue. There are always in English many words the spelling of which
-is not finally fixed; and these doubtful orthographies Professor Peck,
-for example, would decide in one way and Professor Skeat would decide
-in another. The most of Professor Peck’s decisions would result in
-conforming his spelling to that which obtains in the printing-office of
-the London _Times_, but in several cases he would exercise the right of
-private judgment, spelling _pædagogue_, for example, and _Vergil_. But
-if he chooses to exercise the right of private judgment, he is estopped
-from denying this right also to Professor Skeat; and the moment either
-of them sets up the personal equation as a guide, all pretense of an
-accepted system vanishes.
-
-It is our duty also to draw attention to the fact that it is a
-wholesome thing that there is no accepted system and that the
-orthography of our language should be free to modify itself in the
-future as it has in the past. It is this absence of system which gives
-fluidity and flexibility and the faculty of adaptation to changing
-conditions. The Chief Justice of England, when he addressed the
-American Bar Association, recorded his protest against a cast-iron
-code in law as tending to hinder legal development; and our language,
-like our law, must beware lest it lose its power of conforming to the
-needs of our people as these may be unexpectedly developed. Just as the
-conservatism of the English-speaking stock makes it highly improbable
-that any sweeping change in our spelling will ever be made, so the
-enterprise of the English-speaking stock, its energy and its common
-sense, make it highly improbable that any system will long endure which
-cramps and confines and prevents progress and simplification.
-
-Finally, we must all of us bend our energies to combating the notion
-that, as Mr. Smith has put it, “the existing printed form is not
-only _a_ symbol but the _most fitting_ symbol of our mother-tongue.”
-There is an almost superstitious veneration felt by most of us for
-the spellings we learnt at school; they seem to us sanctified by
-antiquity; and perhaps even an inquiry into the history of the language
-is not always enough to disestablish this reverence for false gods.
-Yet knowledge helps to free us from servitude to idols; and when we
-are told that the so-called “accepted spelling” has “dignity,” we may
-ask ourselves what dignity there can be in the spelling of _harbour_
-with an inserted _u_ which is not pronounced, which has been thrust in
-comparatively recently, and which is etymologically misleading.
-
-In his effective answer to Mr. Herbert Spencer’s argument against the
-metric system, President T. C. Mendenhall remarked that “ignorant
-prejudice” is not so dangerous an obstacle to human progress, nor as
-common, as what may be called “intelligent prejudice,” meaning thereby
-“an obstinate conservatism which makes people cling to what is or has
-been, merely because it is or has been, not being willing to take the
-trouble to do better, because already doing well, all the while knowing
-that doing better is not only the easier, but is more in harmony with
-existing conditions. Such conservatism is highly developed among
-English-speaking people on both sides of the Atlantic.” It is just such
-conservatism as this that those of us will have to overcome who wish
-to see our English orthography continue its lifelong efforts toward
-simplification.
-
-To understand how unfortunate for the cause of progress it is when its
-leaders miscalculate the popular inertia and when they are therefore
-moved to demand more than seems reasonable to the people as a whole,
-we have only to consider the result of the joint action, in 1883, of
-the Philological Society of England and of the American Philological
-Association, in consequence of which certain rules were prepared to
-simplify our spelling. Here was a union of indisputable authorities
-in favor of an amended orthography; but unfortunately the changes
-suggested were both many and various. They were too various to please
-any but the most resolute radicals; and they were too many to be
-remembered readily by the great majority of every-day folk taking no
-particular interest in the subject. They included _theater_, _honor_,
-_advertize_, _catalog_; and had they not included anything else, or had
-they included only a very few similar simplifications, these spellings
-might have won acceptance in the past score of years, even in Great
-Britain; the same authorities would now be in a position to make a few
-further suggestions equally easy to remember, with a fair hope that
-these would establish themselves in turn.
-
-Owing to this attempt to do too much all at once, the joint action of
-the two great philological organizations came to naught. Such effect
-as it had was indirect at best. It may have been the exciting cause of
-the so-called “Printers’ Rules,” which were approved and recommended
-by many of the leading typographers of the United States a few years
-later. These printers’ rules were few and obvious. They suggested
-_catalog_, _program_, _epaulet_, _esthetic_--all of which have become
-more familiar of late. They suggested further _opposit_, _hypocrit_,
-etc., and also _fotograf_, _fonetic_, etc.; and these simplifications
-have not yet been adopted widely enough to prevent the words thus
-emended from seeming a little strange to all those who had paid no
-special attention to the subject. And these uninterested outsiders are
-the very people who are to be converted. To them and to them only must
-all argument be addressed. We may rest assured that we have slight
-chance of bringing over to our side any of those who have actually
-enlisted against us. We must not count on desertions from the enemy; we
-must enroll the neutrals at every opportunity.
-
-Probably the most important action yet taken in regard to our
-orthography was that of the National Educational Association in
-formally adopting for use in all its official publications twelve
-simplified spellings--_program_, _tho_, _altho_, _thoro_, _thorofare_,
-_thru_, _thruout_, _catalog_, _prolog_, _decalog_, _demagog_,
-_pedagog_. These simplified spellings were immediately adopted in the
-‘Educational Review’ and in other periodicals edited by members of the
-association. They are very likely to appear with increasing frequency
-in the school-books which members may hereafter prepare; and any
-simplified spelling which once gets itself into a school-book is pretty
-sure to hold its own in the future. After an interval of ten or fifteen
-years the National Educational Association will be in a position to
-consider the situation again; and it may then decide that these twelve
-words have established themselves in their new form sufficiently widely
-and firmly to make it probable that the association could put forward
-another list of a dozen more simplified spellings with a reasonable
-certainty that those also will be accepted.
-
-The United States government appointed a board to decide on a uniform
-orthography for geographical names; and the recommendations of this
-body were generally in the direction of increased simplicity--_Bering_
-Straits, for example. The spellings thus officially adopted by the
-national government were at once accepted by the chief publishers
-of school text-books. And these makers of school-books also follow
-the rules formulated by a committee of the American Association for
-the Advancement of Science appointed to bring about uniformity in
-the spelling and pronunciation of chemical terms. Among the rules
-formulated by the committee and adopted by the association were two
-which dropped a terminal _e_ from certain chemical terms entering into
-more general use. Thus the men of science now write _oxid_, _iodid_,
-_chlorid_, etc., and _quinin_, _morphin_, _anilin_, etc., altho the
-general public has not relinquished the earlier orthography, _oxide_
-and _quinine_. Even the word _toxin_, which came into being since the
-adoption of these rules by the associated scientists, is sometimes to
-be seen in newspapers as _toxine_.
-
-Thus we see that there is progress all along the line; it may seem
-very slow, like that of a glacier, but it is as certain as it is
-irresistible. There is no call for any of us to be disheartened by the
-prospect. We may, indeed, each of us do what little we can severally
-toward hastening the result. We can form the habit of using in our
-daily writing such simplified spellings as will not seem affected or
-freakish, keeping ourselves always in the forefront of the movement,
-but never going very far in advance of the main body. We must not
-make a fad of orthographic amelioration, nor must we devote to it a
-disproportionate share of our activity--since we know that there are
-other reforms as pressing as this and even more important. But we can
-hold ourselves ready always to lend a hand to help along the cause; and
-we can show our willingness always to stand up and be counted in its
-favor.
-
- (1898-1901)
-
-
-
-
-XIV
-
-AMERICANISM--AN ATTEMPT AT A DEFINITION
-
-
-There are many words in circulation among us which we understand fairly
-well, which we use ourselves, and which we should, however, find it
-difficult to define. I think that _Americanism_ is one of these words;
-and I think also it is well for us to inquire into the exact meaning
-of this word, which is often most carelessly employed. More than
-once of late have we heard a public man praised for his “aggressive
-Americanism,” and occasionally we have seen a man of letters denounced
-for his “lack of Americanism.” Now what does the word really mean when
-it is thus used?
-
-It means, first of all, a love for this country of ours, an
-appreciation of the institutions of this nation, a pride in the history
-of this people to which we belong. And to this extent _Americanism_
-is simply another word for _patriotism_. But it means also, I think,
-more than this: it means a frank acceptance of the principles which
-underlie our government here in the United States. It means, therefore,
-a faith in our fellow-man, a belief in liberty and in equality. It
-implies, further, so it seems to me, a confidence in the future of this
-country, a confidence in its destiny, a buoyant hopefulness that the
-right will surely prevail.
-
-In so far as Americanism is merely patriotism, it is a very good thing.
-The man who does not think his own country the finest in the world
-is either a pretty poor sort of a man or else he has a pretty poor
-sort of a country. If any people have not patriotism enough to make
-them willing to die that the nation may live, then that people will
-soon be pushed aside in the struggle of life, and that nation will be
-trampled upon and crushed; probably it will be conquered and absorbed
-by some race of a stronger fiber and of a sterner stock. Perhaps it is
-difficult to declare precisely which is the more pernicious citizen of
-a republic when there is danger of war with another nation--the man who
-wants to fight, right or wrong, or the man who does not want to fight,
-right or wrong; the hot-headed fellow who would plunge the country
-into a deadly struggle without first exhausting every possible chance
-to obtain an honorable peace, or the cold-blooded person who would
-willingly give up anything and everything, including honor itself,
-sooner than risk the loss of money which every war surely entails. “My
-country, right or wrong,” is a good motto only when we add to it, “and
-if she is in the wrong, I’ll help to put her in the right.” To shrink
-absolutely from a fight where honor is really at stake, this is the act
-of a coward. To rush violently into a quarrel when war can be avoided
-without the sacrifice of things dearer than life, this is the act of a
-fool.
-
-True patriotism is quiet, simple, dignified; it is not blatant,
-verbose, vociferous. The noisy shriekers who go about with a chip on
-their shoulders and cry aloud for war upon the slightest provocation
-belong to the class contemptuously known as “Jingoes.” They may be
-patriotic,--and as a fact they often are,--but their patriotism is too
-frothy, too hysteric, too unintelligent, to inspire confidence. True
-patriotism is not swift to resent an insult; on the contrary, it is
-slow to take offense, slow to believe that an insult could have been
-intended. True patriotism, believing fully in the honesty of its own
-acts, assumes also that others are acting with the same honesty. True
-patriotism, having a solid pride in the power and resources of our
-country, doubts always the likelihood of any other nation being willing
-carelessly to arouse our enmity.
-
-In so far, therefore, as Americanism is merely patriotism it is a
-very good thing, as I have tried to point out. But Americanism is
-something more than patriotism. It calls not only for love of our
-common country, but also for respect for our fellow-man. It implies an
-actual acceptance of equality as a fact. It means a willingness always
-to act on the theory, not that “I’m as good as the other man,” but that
-“the other man is as good as I am.” It means leveling up rather than
-leveling down. It means a regard for law, and a desire to gain our
-wishes and to advance our ideas always decently and in order, and with
-deference to the wishes and the ideas of others. It leads a man always
-to acknowledge the good faith of those with whom he is contending,
-whether the contest is one of sport or of politics. It prevents a man
-from declaring, or even from thinking, that all the right is on his
-side, and that all the honest people in the country are necessarily of
-his opinion.
-
-And, further, it seems to me that true Americanism has faith and
-hope. It believes that the world is getting better, if not year by
-year, at least century by century; and it believes also that in this
-steady improvement of the condition of mankind these United States are
-destined to do their full share. It holds that, bad as many things may
-seem to be to-day, they were worse yesterday, and they will be better
-to-morrow. However dark the outlook for any given cause may be at
-any moment, the man imbued with the true spirit of Americanism never
-abandons hope and never relaxes effort; he feels sure that everything
-comes to him who waits. He knows that all reforms are inevitable in
-the long run; and that if they do not finally establish themselves it
-is because they are not really reforms, tho for a time they may have
-seemed to be.
-
-And a knowledge of the history of the American people will supply ample
-reasons for this faith in the future. The sin of negro-slavery never
-seemed to be more secure from overthrow than it did in the ten years
-before it was finally abolished. A study of the political methods of
-the past will show that there has been immense improvement in many
-respects; and it is perhaps in our political methods that we Americans
-are most open to censure. That there was no deterioration of the moral
-stamina of the whole people during the first century of the American
-republic any student can make sure of by comparing the spirit which
-animated the inhabitants of the thirteen colonies during the Revolution
-with the spirit which animated the population of the northern states
-(and of the southern no less) during the civil war. We are accustomed
-to sing the praises of our grandfathers who won our independence,
-and very properly; but our grandchildren will have also to sing the
-praises of our fathers who stood up against one another for four years
-of the hardest fighting the world has ever seen, bearing the burdens of
-a protracted struggle with an uncomplaining cheerfulness which was not
-a characteristic of the earlier war.
-
-True Americanism is sturdy but modest. It is as far removed from
-“Jingoism” in times of trouble as it is from “Spread-Eagleism” in
-times of peace. It is neither vainglorious nor boastful. It knows
-that the world was not created in 1492, and that July 4, 1776, is not
-the most important date in the whole history of mankind. It does not
-overestimate the contribution which America has made to the rest of the
-world, nor does it underestimate this contribution. True Americanism,
-as I have said, has a pride in the past of this great country of ours,
-and a faith in the future; but none the less it is not so foolish as to
-think that all is perfection on this side of the Atlantic, and that all
-is imperfection on the other side.
-
-It knows that some things are better here than anywhere else in the
-world, that some things are no better, and that some things are not
-so good in America as they are in Europe. For example, probably the
-institutions of the nation fit the needs of the population with less
-friction here in the United States than in any other country in the
-world. But probably, also, there is no other one of the great nations
-of the world in which the government of the large cities is so wasteful
-and so negligent.
-
-True Americanism recognizes the fact that America is the heir of the
-ages, and that it is for us to profit as best we can by the experience
-of Europe, not copying servilely what has been successful in the old
-world, but modifying what we borrow in accord with our own needs and
-our own conditions. It knows, and it has no hesitation in declaring,
-that we must always be the judges ourselves as to whether or not we
-shall follow the example of Europe. Many times we have refused to walk
-in the path of European precedent, preferring very properly to blaze
-out a track for ourselves. More often than not this independence was
-wise, but now and again it was unwise.
-
-Finally, one more quality of true Americanism must be pointed out. It
-is not sectional. It does not dislike an idea, a man, or a political
-party because that idea, that man, or that party comes from a certain
-part of the country. It permits a man to have a healthy pride in being
-a son of Virginia, a citizen of New York, a native of Massachusetts,
-but only on condition that he has a pride still stronger that he is an
-American, a citizen of the United States. True Americanism is never
-sectional. It knows no north and no south, no east and no west. And
-as it has no sectional likes and dislikes, so it has no international
-likes and dislikes. It never puts itself in the attitude of the
-Englishman who said, “I’ve no prejudices, thank Heaven, but I do hate
-a Frenchman!” It frowns upon all appeals to the former allegiance of
-naturalized citizens of this country; and it thinks that it ought
-to be enough for any man to be an American without the aid of the
-hyphen which makes him a British-American, an Irish-American, or a
-German-American.
-
-True Americanism, to conclude, feels that a land which bred Washington
-and Franklin in the last century, and Emerson and Lincoln in this
-century, and which opens its schools wide to give every boy the chance
-to model himself on these great men, is a land deserving of Lowell’s
-praise as “a good country to live in, a good country to live for, and a
-good country to die for.”
-
- (1896)
-
-
-
-
-Transcriber’s Notes
-
-In a few cases, obvious errors in punctuation have been corrected.
-
-Page 107: “‘Tess of the Durbervilles’” changed to “‘Tess of the
-d’Urbervilles’”
-
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-<p style='text-align:center; font-size:1.2em; font-weight:bold'>The Project Gutenberg eBook of Parts of Speech: Essays on English, by Brander Matthews</p>
-<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'>
-This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and
-most other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no restrictions
-whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms
-of the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online
-at <a href="https://www.gutenberg.org">www.gutenberg.org</a>. If you
-are not located in the United States, you will have to check the laws of the
-country where you are located before using this eBook.
-</div>
-
-<p style='display:block; margin-top:1em; margin-bottom:1em; margin-left:2em; text-indent:-2em'>Title: Parts of Speech: Essays on English</p>
-<p style='display:block; margin-top:1em; margin-bottom:0; margin-left:2em; text-indent:-2em'>Author: Brander Matthews</p>
-<p style='display:block; text-indent:0; margin:1em 0'>Release Date: February 25, 2022 [eBook #67503]</p>
-<p style='display:block; text-indent:0; margin:1em 0'>Language: English</p>
-  <p style='display:block; margin-top:1em; margin-bottom:0; margin-left:2em; text-indent:-2em; text-align:left'>Produced by: Tim Lindell and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net (This file was produced from images generously made available by The Internet Archive/American Libraries.)</p>
-<div style='margin-top:2em; margin-bottom:4em'>*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK PARTS OF SPEECH: ESSAYS ON ENGLISH ***</div>
-
-
-
-<h1><span class="big">PARTS OF SPEECH</span><br /><br />
-ESSAYS ON ENGLISH
-</h1>
-
-
-<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop" />
-
-<div class="chapter">
-<table class="autotable bbox square">
-<tr>
-<th class="tdc">
-<span class="big"><i>Books by Brander Matthews</i>:</span>
-</th>
-</tr>
-<tr>
-<td>
-<span class="smcap">Essays and Criticisms</span>
-</td>
-</tr>
-<tr>
-<td class="tdl">
-French Dramatists of the 19th Century
-</td>
-</tr>
-<tr>
-<td class="tdl">
-Pen and Ink, Essays on subjects of more
-or less importance
-</td>
-</tr>
-<tr>
-<td class="tdl">
-Aspects of Fiction, and other Essays
-</td>
-</tr>
-<tr>
-<td class="tdl">
-The Historical Novel, and other Essays
-</td>
-</tr>
-<tr>
-<td class="tdl">
-Parts of Speech, Essays on English
-</td>
-</tr>
-<tr>
-<td class="tdl">
-The Development of the Drama (<i>in
-preparation</i>)
-</td>
-</tr>
-</table>
-
-</div>
-
-<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop" />
-
-<div class="chapter">
-
-
-<p class="center xxbig p0">PARTS OF SPEECH</p>
-
-<p class="center xbig p0">ESSAYS ON ENGLISH</p>
-
-
-<p class="center p0 p4">BY</p>
-
-<p class="center p0"><span class="big">BRANDER MATTHEWS</span><br />
-<span class="small">PROFESSOR IN COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY</span></p>
-
-
-<p class="center big p0 p4">NEW YORK<br />
-CHARLES SCRIBNER’S SONS<br />
-1901
-</p>
-</div>
-
-
-<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop" />
-
-<div class="chapter">
-<p class="center p0 p2">Copyright, 1901, by<br />
-<span class="smcap">Brander Matthews</span></p>
-<hr class="r5" />
-<p class="center p0 small"><i>Published September, 1901</i></p>
-
-
-<p class="center p0 p4">THE CAXTON PRESS<br />
-NEW YORK.
-</p>
-</div>
-
-
-<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop" />
-
-<div class="chapter">
-
-<p class="center p0 p2">TO MY FRIEND AND COLLEAGUE<br />
-GEORGE RICE CARPENTER<br />
-PROFESSOR OF RHETORIC AND ENGLISH COMPOSITION<br />
-IN COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY
-</p>
-
-</div>
-<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop" />
-
-<div class="chapter">
-<h2 class="nobreak" id="PREFATORY_NOTE">PREFATORY NOTE</h2>
-</div>
-
-
-<p>Altho the various essays which are now
-brought together in this book have been
-written from time to time during the past ten
-years, nearly all of them have had their origin in
-a desire to make plain and to emphasize one
-fact: that the English language belongs to the
-peoples who speak it&mdash;that it is their own precious
-possession, to deal with at their pleasure
-and at their peril. The fact itself ought to be
-obvious enough to all of us; and yet there would
-be no difficulty in showing that it is not everywhere
-accepted. Perhaps the best way to present
-it so clearly that it cannot be rejected is to
-draw attention to some of its implications; and
-this is what has been attempted in one or another
-of these separate papers.</p>
-
-<p>The point of view from which the English language
-has been approached is that of the man of
-letters rather than that of the professed expert in
-linguistics. But the writer ventures to hope that
-the professed expert, even tho he discovers little
-that is new in these pages, will find also little
-that demands his disapproval. The final essay
-is frankly more literary than linguistic, for it is
-an attempt to define not so much a word as a
-thing.</p>
-
-<p>So wise a critic of literature and of language as
-Sainte-Beuve has declared that “orthography is
-like society: it will never be entirely reformed;
-but we can at least make it less vicious.” In this
-sensible saying is the warrant for the simplified
-spellings adopted in the following pages. As
-will be seen by readers of the two papers on our
-orthography, the writer is by no means a radical
-“spelling-reformer,” so called. But he believes
-that all of us who wish to keep the English language
-up to its topmost efficiency are bound always
-to do all in our power to aid the tendency
-toward simplification&mdash;whether of orthography
-or of syntax&mdash;which has been at work unceasingly
-ever since the language came into existence.</p>
-
-<p class="right p0">
-B. M.</p>
-<p>
-<span class="smcap">Columbia University</span>,<br />
-<span class="indent">July 4, 1901.</span><br />
-</p>
-
-
-<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop" />
-
-<div class="chapter">
-<h2 class="nobreak" id="CONTENTS"><i>CONTENTS</i></h2>
-</div>
-
-
-<table class="autotable wide">
-<tr>
-<th>
-</th>
-<th>
-</th>
-<th class="tdr page">
-PAGE
-</th>
-</tr>
-<tr>
-<td class="tdr page">
-<a href="#Chapter_I">I</a>
-</td>
-<td>
-<i>The Stock that Speaks the Language</i>
-</td>
-<td class="tdr page">
-<a href="#Page_3">3</a>
-</td>
-</tr>
-<tr>
-<td class="tdr page">
-<a href="#Chapter_II">II</a>
-</td>
-<td>
-<i>The Future of the Language</i>
-</td>
-<td class="tdr page">
-<a href="#Page_29">29</a>
-</td>
-</tr>
-<tr>
-<td class="tdr page">
-<a href="#Chapter_III">III</a>
-</td>
-<td>
-<i>The English Language in the United States</i>
-</td>
-<td class="tdr page">
-<a href="#Page_47">47</a>
-</td>
-</tr>
-<tr>
-<td class="tdr page">
-<a href="#Chapter_IV">IV</a>
-</td>
-<td>
-<i>The Language in Great Britain</i>
-</td>
-<td class="tdr page">
-<a href="#Page_81">81</a>
-</td>
-</tr>
-<tr>
-<td class="tdr page">
-<a href="#Chapter_V">V</a>
-</td>
-<td>
-<i>Americanisms Once More</i>
-</td>
-<td class="tdr page">
-<a href="#Page_97">97</a>
-</td>
-</tr>
-<tr>
-<td class="tdr page">
-<a href="#Chapter_VI">VI</a>
-</td>
-<td>
-<i>New Words and Old</i>
-</td>
-<td class="tdr page">
-<a href="#Page_127">127</a>
-</td>
-</tr>
-<tr>
-<td class="tdr page">
-<a href="#Chapter_VII">VII</a>
-</td>
-<td>
-<i>The Naturalization of Foreign Words</i>
-</td>
-<td class="tdr page">
-<a href="#Page_165">165</a>
-</td>
-</tr>
-<tr>
-<td class="tdr page">
-<a href="#Chapter_VIII">VIII</a>
-</td>
-<td>
-<i>The Function of Slang</i>
-</td>
-<td class="tdr page">
-<a href="#Page_187">187</a>
-</td>
-</tr>
-<tr>
-<td class="tdr page">
-<a href="#Chapter_IX">IX</a>
-</td>
-<td>
-<i>Questions of Usage</i>
-</td>
-<td class="tdr page">
-<a href="#Page_217">217</a>
-</td>
-</tr>
-<tr>
-<td class="tdr page">
-<a href="#Chapter_X">X</a>
-</td>
-<td>
-<i>An Inquiry as to Rime</i>
-</td>
-<td class="tdr page">
-<a href="#Page_241">241</a>
-</td>
-</tr>
-<tr>
-<td class="tdr page">
-<a href="#Chapter_XI">XI</a>
-</td>
-<td>
-<i>On the Poetry of Place-Names</i>
-</td>
-<td class="tdr page">
-<a href="#Page_271">271</a>
-</td>
-</tr>
-<tr>
-<td class="tdr page">
-<a href="#Chapter_XII">XII</a>
-</td>
-<td>
-<i>As to “American Spelling”</i>
-</td>
-<td class="tdr page">
-<a href="#Page_295">295</a>
-</td>
-</tr>
-<tr>
-<td class="tdr page">
-<a href="#Chapter_XIII">XIII</a>
-</td>
-<td>
-<i>The Simplification of English Spelling</i>
-</td>
-<td class="tdr page">
-<a href="#Page_319">319</a>
-</td>
-</tr>
-<tr>
-<td class="tdr page">
-<a href="#Chapter_XIV">XIV</a>
-</td>
-<td>
-<i>Americanism&mdash;An Attempt at a Definition</i>
-</td>
-<td class="tdr page">
-<a href="#Page_343">343</a>
-</td>
-</tr>
-</table>
-
-
-<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop" />
-
-<div class="chapter">
-<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_3">[Pg 3]</span></p>
-
-<h2 class="nobreak" id="Chapter_I">I<br />
-THE STOCK THAT SPEAKS
-THE LANGUAGE</h2>
-</div>
-
-
-<p>It is a thousand years since the death of
-the great Englishman, King Alfred, in whose
-humble translations we may see the beginnings
-of English literature. Until it has a literature,
-however unpretending and however artless, a
-language is not conscious of itself; and it is therefore
-in no condition to maintain its supremacy
-over the dialects that are its jealous rivals. And
-it is by its literature chiefly that a language forever
-binds together the peoples who speak it&mdash;by
-a literature in which the characteristics of these
-peoples are revealed and preserved, and in which
-their ideals are declared and passed down from
-generation to generation as the most precious
-heritage of the race.</p>
-
-<p>The historian of the English people asserts that
-what made Alfred great, small as was his sphere
-of action, was “the moral grandeur of his life.
-He lived solely for the good of his people.” He
-laid the foundations for a uniform system of law,<span class="pagenum" id="Page_4">[Pg 4]</span>
-and he started schools, wishing that every free-born
-youth who had the means should “abide at
-his book till he can understand English writing.”
-He invited scholars from other lands to settle in
-England; but what most told on English culture
-was done not by them but by the king himself.
-He “resolved to throw open to his people in their
-own tongue the knowledge which till then had
-been limited to the clergy,” and he “took his
-books as he found them,” the popular manuals
-of the day, Bede and Boethius and Orosius.
-These he translated with his own hand, editing
-freely, and expanding and contracting as he saw
-fit. “Do not blame me if any know Latin better
-than I,” he explained with modest dignity; “for
-every man must say what he says and must do
-what he does according to his ability.” And
-Green, from whom this quotation is borrowed,
-insists that, “simple as was his aim, Alfred created
-English literature”&mdash;the English literature which
-is still alive and sturdy after a thousand years, and
-which is to-day flourishing not only in Great
-Britain, where Alfred founded it, but here in the
-United States, in a larger land, the existence of
-which the good king had no reason ever to surmise.</p>
-
-<p>This English literature is like the language in
-which it is written, and also like the stock that
-speaks the language, wherever the race may have<span class="pagenum" id="Page_5">[Pg 5]</span>
-planted or transplanted itself, whether by the
-banks of the little Thames or on the shores of the
-broad Hudson and the mighty Mississippi. Literature
-and language and people are practical, no
-doubt; but they are not what they are often
-called: they are not prosaic. On the contrary,
-they are poetic, essentially and indisputably
-poetic. The peoples that speak English are, and
-always have been, self-willed and adventurous.
-This they were long before King Alfred’s time,
-in the early days when they were Teutons merely,
-and had not yet won their way into Britain;
-and this they are to-day, when the most of them
-no longer dwell in old England, but in the newer
-England here in America. They have ever lacked
-the restraint and reserve which are the conditions
-of the best prose; and they have always exulted
-in the untiring energy and the daring imagination
-which are the vital elements of poetry. “In his
-busiest days Alfred found time to learn the old
-songs of his race by heart,” so the historian tells
-us; “and he bade them be taught in the palace-school.”</p>
-
-<p>Lyric is what English literature has always
-been at its best, lyric and dramatic; and the
-men who speak English have always been individual
-and independent, every man ready to fight
-for his own hand; and the English language
-has gone on its own way, keeping its strength in<span class="pagenum" id="Page_6">[Pg 6]</span>
-spite of the efforts of pedants and pedagogs to
-bind it and to stifle it, and ever insisting on renewing
-its freshness as best it could. Development
-there has been in language and in literature
-and in the stock itself, development and growth
-of many kinds; but no radical change can be detected
-in all these ten centuries. “No national
-art is good which is not plainly the nation’s own,”
-said <abbr title="mister">Mr.</abbr> Stopford Brooke in his consideration of
-the earliest English lyrics. “The poetry of England
-has owed much to the different races which
-mingled with the original English race; it has
-owed much to the different types of poetry it
-absorbed&mdash;Greek, Latin, Welsh, French, Italian,
-Spanish: but below all these admixtures the
-English nature wrought its steady will. It
-seized, it transmuted, it modified, it mastered
-these admixtures both of races and of song.”</p>
-
-<p>The English nature wrought its steady will;
-but what is this English nature, thus set up as an
-entity and endowed with conscious purpose? Is
-there such a thing, of a certainty? Can there be
-such a thing, indeed? These questions are easier
-to ask than to answer. It is true that we have
-been accustomed to credit certain races not merely
-with certain characteristics, but even with certain
-qualities, esteeming certain peoples to be specially
-gifted in one way or another. For example,
-we have held it as an article of faith that the<span class="pagenum" id="Page_7">[Pg 7]</span>
-Greeks, by their display of a surpassing sense of
-form, proved their possession of an artistic capacity
-finer and richer than that revealed by any
-other people since the dawn of civilization. And
-again, we have seen in the Roman skill in constructive
-administration, in the Latin success in
-law-making and in road-building&mdash;we have seen
-in this the evidence of a native faculty denied to
-their remote predecessors, the Egyptians. Now
-come the advocates of a later theory, who tell us
-that the characteristics of the Greeks and of the
-Romans are not the result of any inherent superiority
-of theirs, or of any native predisposition
-toward art or toward administration, but are
-caused rather by circumstances of climate, of geographical
-situation, and of historical position.
-We are assured now that the Romans, had they
-been in the place of the Greeks and under like
-circumstances, might have revealed themselves
-as great masters of form; while the Greeks, had
-their history been that of the Romans, would
-certainly have shown the same power of ruling
-themselves and others, and of compacting the
-most diverse nations into a single empire.</p>
-
-<p>No doubt the theory of race-characteristics, of
-stocks variously gifted with specific faculties,
-has been too vigorously asserted and unduly insisted
-upon. It was so convenient and so useful
-that it could not help being overworked. But<span class="pagenum" id="Page_8">[Pg 8]</span>
-altho it is not so impregnable as it was supposed
-to be, it need not be surrendered at the
-first attack; and altho we are compelled to
-abandon the theory as a whole, we can save
-what it contained of truth. And therefore it is
-well to bear in mind that even if the Greeks in
-the beginning had no sharper bent toward art
-than had the Phenicians,&mdash;from whom they borrowed
-so much of value to be made by them
-more valuable,&mdash;even if their esthetic superiority
-was the result of a happy chapter of chances, it
-was a fact nevertheless; and a time came at last
-when the Greeks were seen to be possessed of a
-fertility of invention and of a sense of form surpassing
-all their predecessors had ever exhibited.
-When this time came the Greeks were conscious
-of their unexampled achievements and properly
-proud of them; and they proved that they were
-able to transmit from sire to son this artistic
-aptitude&mdash;however the aptitude itself had been
-developed originally. So whether the Roman
-power to govern and to evolve the proper instruments
-of government was a native gift of the
-Latins, or whether it was developed in them by
-a fortuitous combination of geographical and historical
-circumstances, this question is somewhat
-academic, since we know that the Romans did
-display extraordinary administrative ability century
-after century. Whenever it was evolved,<span class="pagenum" id="Page_9">[Pg 9]</span>
-the artistic type in Greece and the administrative
-type in Italy was persistent; and it reappeared
-again and again in successive generations.</p>
-
-<p>This indeed needs always to be remembered,
-that race-characteristics, whatever their origin,
-are strangely enduring when once they are established.
-The English nature whereof <abbr title="mister">Mr.</abbr> Stopford
-Brooke speaks, when once it was conscious
-of itself, worked its steady will, despite the
-changes of circumstance; and only very slowly
-is it modified by the accidents of later history and
-geography. M. Fouillée has set side by side the
-description of the Germans by Tacitus and the
-account of the Gauls by Cæsar, drawing attention
-to the fact that the modern French are now very
-like the ancient Gauls, and that the descendants
-of the Germans of old, the various branches of
-the Teutonic race, have the characteristics of their
-remote ancestors whom the Roman historian
-chose to praise by way of warning for his fellow-citizens.</p>
-
-<p>The Romans conquered Gaul and held it for
-centuries; the Franks took it in turn and gave it
-their name; but the Gallic type was so securely
-fixed that the Roman first and then the Frank
-succumbed to it and were absorbed into it. The
-Gallic type is not now absolutely unchanged, for,
-after all, the world does move; but it is readily
-recognizable to this day. Certain of Cæsar’s<span class="pagenum" id="Page_10">[Pg 10]</span>
-criticisms read as tho they were written by a
-contemporary of Napoleon. As Cæsar saw them
-the Gauls were fickle in counsel and fond of revolutions.
-Believing in false rumors, they were
-led into deeds they regretted afterward. Deciding
-questions of importance without reflection,
-they were ready to war without reason; and they
-were weak and lacking in energy in time of disaster.
-They were cast down by a first defeat, as
-they were inflamed by a first victory. They were
-affable, light, inconstant, and vain; they were
-quick-witted and ready-tongued; they had a liking
-for tales and an insatiable curiosity for news.
-They cultivated eloquence, having an astonishing
-facility of speech, and of letting themselves be
-taken in by words. And having thus summed
-up Cæsar’s analysis of the Gaul, M. Fouillée asks
-how after this we can deny the persistence of
-national types.</p>
-
-<p>What Tacitus has to say of the Germans comes
-home more closely to us who speak English, since
-the Teutonic tribes the Latin historian was considering
-are not more the ancestors of the modern
-Prussians than they are of the wide-spread Anglo-Saxon
-peoples. As those who speak English
-went from the mainland across the North Sea to
-an island and dwelt there for centuries, and were
-joined by earlier kin from elsewhere, the race-characteristics
-were obviously modified a little&mdash;just<span class="pagenum" id="Page_11">[Pg 11]</span>
-as they have been as obviously modified a
-little more when some of those who spoke English
-went out again from the island to a boundless
-continent across the Atlantic, and were joined
-here by many others, most of whom were also
-derived from one or another of the varied Teutonic
-stocks.</p>
-
-<p>It is nearly two thousand years since Tacitus
-studied the Teutonic race-characteristics, and yet
-most of the peculiarities he noted then are evident
-now. Tacitus tells us that the Teutons were
-tall, fair-haired, and flegmatic. They were great
-eaters, not to say gross feeders; and they were
-given to strong drink. They were fond of games,
-and were ready to pay their losses with their
-persons, if need be. They were individual and
-independent. Their manners were rude, not to
-call them violent. They were possessed of the
-domestic virtues, the women being chaste and
-the husbands faithful. They loved war as they
-loved liberty. They had a passionate fidelity to
-their leaders. They decided important questions
-of policy in public assembly.</p>
-
-<p>The several peoples of our own time who are
-descended from the Teutons thus described by
-Tacitus with so sympathetic an insight have
-been developing for twenty centuries, more or
-less, each in its own way, under influences
-wholly unlike, influences both geographical and<span class="pagenum" id="Page_12">[Pg 12]</span>
-historical; and it is small wonder that they have
-diverged as they have, and that no one of them
-nowadays completely represents the original
-stock. Some of the points Tacitus made are true
-to-day in Prussia and are not true in Great Britain;
-and some hit home here in the United States,
-altho they miss the mark in Germany. The
-modern Germans still retain a few of these Tacitean
-characteristics which the peoples that speak
-English have lost in their adventurous career overseas.
-And on the other hand, certain of the
-remarks of Tacitus might be made to-day in the
-United States; for example, the willingness to
-run risks for the fun of the game&mdash;is not this a
-present characteristic of the American as we
-know him? And here we have always been
-governed by town-meeting, as the old Teutons
-were, whereas the modern German is only now
-getting this back by borrowing it from the
-English precedent. In our private litigations
-we continue to abide by the customs of our
-remote Teutonic ancestors, while the German
-has accepted as a legal guide the Roman law,
-wrought out by the countrymen of Tacitus.</p>
-
-<p>Second only to a community of language, no
-unifying force is more potent than a community
-of law. In the depths of their dark forests the
-Teutons had already evolved their own rudimentary
-code by which they did justice between<span class="pagenum" id="Page_13">[Pg 13]</span>
-man and man; and these customary sanctions
-were taken over to Britain by the Angles and
-the Saxons and the Jutes; and they served as
-the foundation of the common law by means of
-which the peoples that speak English still administer
-justice in their courts. And here again
-we find the handiwork of the great King Alfred,
-from whom we may date the codification of an
-English law as we may also reckon the establishing
-of an English literature. With the opportunism
-of our race, he had no thought of a new
-legislation, but merely merged the best of the
-tribal customs into a law for the whole kingdom.
-The king sought to bring to light and to leave on
-record the righteous rulings of the wise men who
-had gone before. “Those things which I met
-with,” so the historian transmits his words,
-“either of the days of Ine, my kinsman, or of
-Offa, King of the Mercians, or of Æthelberht,
-who first among the English race received baptism,
-those which seemed to me rightest, those
-I have gathered, and rejected the rest.”</p>
-
-<p>Law and language&mdash;these are the unrelaxing
-bands that hold a race firmly together. There
-are now two main divisions of the Teutonic
-stock, separated to-day by language and by law&mdash;the
-people who speak German and are ruled
-by Roman law, and the peoples who speak English
-and are governed by the common law; and<span class="pagenum" id="Page_14">[Pg 14]</span>
-the separation is as wide and as deep legally as
-it is linguistically. “By the forms of its language
-a nation expresses its very self,” said one of the
-acutest of British critics; and we have the proof
-of this at hand in the characteristic differences
-between the English language and the German.
-By the forms of its law a people expresses its political
-beliefs; and we have the evidence of this in
-the fact that we Americans regard our rulers
-merely as agents of the town-meeting of the old
-Teutons, while the modern Germans are submitting
-to a series of trials for lese-majesty.</p>
-
-<p>Laws have most weight when they are seen to
-be the expression of the common conscience;
-and they are most respected when they best
-reflect the ideals that are “the souls of the nations
-which cherish them,” as a historian of American
-literature has finely phrased it&mdash;“the living spirits
-which waken nationality into being, and which
-often preserve its memory long after its life has
-ebbed away.” The marked difference now obvious
-between the two great divisions of the
-Teutonic stock&mdash;that which speaks English and
-that which speaks German&mdash;is due in part to their
-not having each conserved exactly the same portion
-of the ideals inherited from their common
-ancestors, and in part to their having each acquired
-other ideals in the course of the many
-centuries of their separate existence. And the<span class="pagenum" id="Page_15">[Pg 15]</span>
-minor differences to be detected between the
-two great divisions of the stock that speaks English,
-that dwelling in Great Britain and that
-dwelling in the United States, are due to similar
-causes.</p>
-
-<p>While the ancestors of the people who speak
-German were abiding at home, where Tacitus had
-seen them, the ancestors of the peoples who
-speak English went forth across the North Sea
-and possessed themselves of the better part of
-Great Britain and gave it a new name. They
-were not content to defeat the earlier inhabitants
-in fair fight, and then to leave them in peace, as
-the Romans did, ruling them and intermarrying
-with them; the English thrust the natives out
-violently and harried them away. As Green
-puts it tersely, “The English conquest for a hundred
-and fifty years was a sheer dispossession
-and driving back of the people whom the English
-conquered.” No doubt this dispossession
-was ruthless; but was it complete? The newcomers
-took the land for their own, and they
-meant to kill out all the original owners; but
-was this possible? The country was rough and
-thickly wooded, and it abounded in nooks and
-corners where a family might hide itself. Moreover,
-what is more likely than that the invader
-should often spare a woman and take her to
-wife? For centuries the English kept spreading<span class="pagenum" id="Page_16">[Pg 16]</span>
-themselves and pushing back the Britons; but
-in the long war there were truces now and
-again, and what is more likely than an incessant
-intermingling of the blood all along the border
-as it was slowly driven forward?</p>
-
-<p>Certain it is that one of the influences which
-have modified the modern English stock is a
-Celtic strain. If the peoples that speak English
-are now not quite like the people that speak German,
-plainly this is one reason: they have had a
-Celtic admixture, which has lightened them and
-contributed elements lacking in the original
-Teuton. To declare just what these elements
-are is not easy; but to deny their presence is
-impossible. The Celt has an impetuosity and a
-swiftness of perception which we do not find in
-the original Teuton, and which the man who
-speaks English is now more likely to possess
-than the man who speaks German. The Celt
-has a certain shy delicacy; he has a happy sensibility
-and a turn for charming sentiment; he has
-a delightful lyric note; and he has at times a sincere
-and puissant melancholy. These are all
-qualities which we find in our English literature,
-and especially in its greatest figure. “The Celts
-do not form an utterly distinct part of our mixed
-population,” said Henry Morley in a striking passage.
-“But for early, frequent, and various contact
-with the race that in its half-barbarous days<span class="pagenum" id="Page_17">[Pg 17]</span>
-invented Ossian’s dialogues with <abbr title="saint">St.</abbr> Patrick, and
-that quickened afterward the Northmen’s blood
-in France, Germanic England would not have
-produced a Shakspere.”</p>
-
-<p>Here we see Morley declaring that the Celt had
-“quickened the Northmen’s blood in France”;
-and perhaps by his choice of a word he meant to
-remind us that whereas the Northmen who sailed
-down the mouth of the Seine were Teutons, the
-Normans who were to sail up to Hastings had
-been materially modified during their sojourn in
-France, which had once been Celtic Gaul. Two
-series of occasions there were when the English
-received an accession of Celtic blood: first,
-when they conquered England; and second,
-when they in turn were conquered by the Normans,
-who ruled them for centuries, and were
-finally merged in them, just as earlier the Romans
-had been merged in the Gauls. And this recalls
-to us the fact that there was more in the Norman
-than the intermingling of the Teuton and the
-Celt; there was in the Norman also not a little
-of the Roman who had so long ruled Gaul, and
-who had so deeply marked it with certain of his
-own characteristics. Thus it was that the Norman
-brought into England a Latin tradition; he
-had acquired something of the Roman administrative
-skill, something of the Roman’s genius
-for affairs. After the Renascence, Latin influences<span class="pagenum" id="Page_18">[Pg 18]</span>
-were to affect the English language and
-English literature; but it was after the conquest
-that the English people itself came first in contact
-with certain of the Roman ideals.</p>
-
-<p>Matthew Arnold thought that we owed “to
-the Latin element in our language the most of
-that very rapidity and clear decisiveness by which
-it is contradistinguished from the modern German”;
-and he found in the Latinized Normans
-in England “the sense for fact, which the Celts
-had not, and the love of strenuousness, clearness,
-and rapidity, the high Latin spirit, which the
-Saxons had not.” Perhaps the English feeling for
-style, our command of the larger rhetoric, may be
-due to this blend of the Norman; and it cannot be
-denied that this gift has not been granted to the
-modern German. The fantastic brilliancy of
-De Quincey and the sonorous picturesqueness of
-Ruskin are alike inconceivable in the language
-of Klopstock; and altho there is a pregnant
-concision in the speeches of Bismarck at his best,
-there is no German orator who ever attained the
-unfailing dignity and the lofty affluence of Webster
-at his best.</p>
-
-<p>Less than two centuries after the good King
-Alfred had declared English law and established
-English literature, the Normans came and saw
-and conquered. Less than three centuries after
-King William took the land there was born the<span class="pagenum" id="Page_19">[Pg 19]</span>
-first great English poet. If the language is to-day
-what it is, it is because of Chaucer, who chose
-the court dialect of London to write in, and who
-made it supple for his own use and the use of
-the poets that were to come after. The Norman
-conquest had brought a new and needed contribution
-to the English character; it had resulted in
-an immense enrichment of the English language;
-and it had related English literature again to the
-broad current of European life. To the original
-Teutonic basis had been added Celtic and Norman
-and Latin strains; and still the English nature
-wrought its steady will, still it expressed itself
-most freely and most fully in poetry. And in no
-other poet are certain aspects of this English nature
-more boldly displayed than in Chaucer, in
-whom we find a fresh feeling for the visible
-world, a true tenderness of sentiment, a joyous
-breadth of humor, and a resolute yet delicate handling
-of human character.</p>
-
-<p>Two centuries after Chaucer came Shakspere,
-in whom the English nature finds its fullest expression.
-The making of England was then
-complete; all the varied elements had been fused
-in the fire of a struggle for existence and welded
-by war with the most powerful of foes. The
-race-characteristics were then finally determined;
-and in Elizabethan literature they are splendidly
-exhibited. Something was contributed by the<span class="pagenum" id="Page_20">[Pg 20]</span>
-literature of the Spain that the Elizabethans had
-stoutly withstood, and something more by the
-literature of the Italy so many of them knew by
-travel; but all was absorbed, combined, and assimilated
-by the English nature, like the contributions
-that came from the classics of Rome and
-Greece. Bacon and Cecil, Drake and Ralegh,
-are not more typical of that sudden and glorious
-outpouring of English individuality than are Marlowe,
-Shakspere, and Jonson, Spenser, Chapman,
-and Massinger. In that greatest period of the
-race we do not know which is the greater,
-the daring energy, the enthusiastic impetuosity,
-the ability to govern, that the English then displayed,
-or the mighty sweep and range of the
-imagination as nobly revealed in their poetry.
-The works of the Elizabethan writers are with
-us, like the memory of the deeds of the Elizabethan
-adventurers, as evidence, if any was needful,
-that the peoples that speak English are of a
-truth poetic, that they are not prosaic.</p>
-
-<p>In the days of Elizabeth the English began to
-go abroad and to settle here and there. To those
-who came to America there were added in due
-season many vigorous folk from other Teutonic
-sources; and here in the centuries that have
-followed was to be seen a fusion of races and a
-welding into one nation such as had been seen
-in England itself several centuries earlier. To<span class="pagenum" id="Page_21">[Pg 21]</span>
-those who remained in England there came few
-accretions from the outside, altho when the
-edict of Nantes was revoked the English gained
-much that the French lost. The Huguenots were
-stanch men and sturdy, of great ability often,
-and of a high seriousness. Some crossed the
-Channel and some crossed the ocean; and no one
-of the strands which have been twisted to make
-the modern American is more worthy than this.</p>
-
-<p>More important than this French contribution,
-perhaps, was another infusion of the Celtic influence.
-When the King of Scotland became
-King of England, his former subjects swarmed
-to London&mdash;preceding by a century the Irishmen
-who made themselves more welcome in the
-English capital, with their airy wit and their
-touch of Celtic sentiment. Far heavier than the
-Scotch raid into England, and the Irish invasion,
-was the influx of Scotch, of Irish, and of Scotch-Irish
-into America. At the very time when Lord
-Lyndhurst was expressing the opinion that the
-English held the Irish to be “aliens in blood,
-aliens in speech, aliens in religion,” the Irish
-were withdrawing in their thousands from the
-rule of a people that felt thus toward them; and
-they were making homes for themselves where
-prejudice against them was not potent. Yet
-in England itself the Irish left their mark on literature,
-especially upon comedy, for which they<span class="pagenum" id="Page_22">[Pg 22]</span>
-have ever revealed a delightful aptitude; and in
-the eighteenth century alone the stage is lightened
-and brightened by the plays of Steele, of Sheridan,
-and of Goldsmith. About the end of the same
-century also the Scotch began to make their
-significant and stimulating contribution to English
-literature, which was refreshed again by Burns
-with his breath of sympathy, by Scott with his
-many-sided charm, and by Byron with his resonant
-note of revolt.</p>
-
-<p>Just as the Angles and the Saxons and the Jutes
-had mingled in Great Britain to make the Englishman,
-and had been modified by Celtic and Norman
-and Latin influences, so here in the United
-States the Puritan and the Cavalier, the Dutchman
-and the Huguenot and the German, the Irish and
-the Scotch and the Scotch-Irish, have all blended
-to make the American. Not a few of the original
-Teutonic race-characteristics recorded by Tacitus
-are here now, as active as ever; and not a few of
-the English race-characteristics as revealed by the
-Elizabethan dramatists survive in America, keeping
-company with many a locution which has
-dropped out of use in England itself. There is
-to-day in the spoken speech of the United States
-a larger freedom than in the spoken speech of
-Great Britain, a figurative vigor that the Elizabethans
-would have relished and understood. It
-is not without significance that the game of cards<span class="pagenum" id="Page_23">[Pg 23]</span>
-best liked by the adventurers who worried the
-Armada should have been born again to delight
-the Argonauts of ’49. The characteristic energy
-of the English stock, never more exuberantly
-displayed than under Elizabeth, suffered no diminution
-in crossing the Atlantic; rather has it been
-strengthened on this side, since every native
-American must be the descendant of some man
-more venturesome than his kin who thought best
-to stay at home. Nor is the energy less imaginative,
-altho it has not taken mainly a literary
-expression. “There was no chance for poetry
-among the Puritans,” so Lowell reminded us,
-“and yet if any people have a right to imagination,
-it should be the descendants of those very Puritans.”
-And he added tersely: “They had enough
-of it, or they could never have conceived the
-great epic they did, whose books are States, and
-which is written on this continent from Maine to
-California.”</p>
-
-<p>More than half those who speak English now
-dwell in the United States, and less than a third
-dwell within the British Isles. To some it may
-seem merely fanciful, no doubt, but still the question
-may be put, whether the British or the
-American is to-day really closer to the Elizabethan?
-It has recently been remarked that the
-typical John Bull was invisible in England while
-Shakspere was alive, and that he has become<span class="pagenum" id="Page_24">[Pg 24]</span>
-possible in Great Britain only since the day when
-these United States declared their independence.
-Walter Bagehot, the shrewdest of critics of his
-fellow-countrymen, maintained that the saving
-virtue of the British people of the middle of
-the nineteenth century was a stolidity closely
-akin to stupidity. But surely the Elizabethans
-were not stolid; and the Americans (who have
-been accused of many things) have never been
-accused of stupidity. <abbr title="mister">Mr.</abbr> Bernard Bosanquet
-has just been insisting that the two dominant
-notes of the British character at the beginning of
-the twentieth century are insularity and inarticulateness.
-The Elizabethan was braggart and self-pleased
-and arrogant, but he was not fairly open
-to the reproach of insularity, nor was he in the
-least inarticulate. Perhaps insularity and inarticulateness
-are inseparable; and it may be that it is
-the immense variety of the United States that has
-preserved the American from the one, as the practice
-of the town-meeting has preserved him from
-the other.</p>
-
-<p>No longer do we believe that there is any special
-virtue in the purity of race, even if we could
-discover nowadays any people who had a just
-right to pride themselves on this. The French
-are descended from the Gauls, but to the Gauls
-have been added Romans and Franks; the English
-are descended from the Teutons, but they<span class="pagenum" id="Page_25">[Pg 25]</span>
-have received many accretions from other
-sources; and the Americans are descended from
-the British, but it is undeniable that they have
-differentiated themselves somehow. The admixture
-of varied stocks is held to be a source
-of freshness and of renewed vitality; and it may
-be that this is the cause of the American alertness
-and venturesomeness. And as yet these foreign
-elements have but little modified the essential
-type; for just as the English nature wrought its
-steady will through the centuries, so the American
-characteristics have been imposed on all the
-welter of nationalities that swirl together in the
-United States.</p>
-
-<p>Throughout the land there is one language, a
-development of the language of King Alfred, and
-one law, a development of the law of King Alfred;
-and throughout the land there are schools such
-as the good king wished for. American ideals
-are not quite the same as British ideals, but
-they differ only a little, and they have both flowered
-from the English root, as the earlier English
-ideals had flowered from a Teutonic root. The
-English stock has displayed in the United States
-the same marvelous assimilating faculty that it
-displayed centuries ago in Great Britain, the same
-extraordinary power of getting the sojourners
-within its borders to accept its ideals. The law
-of imitation is irresistible, as M. Tarde has<span class="pagenum" id="Page_26">[Pg 26]</span>
-shown; and as M. Fouillée asserts, a nation is
-really united and unified only when its whole
-population thrills at the same appeal and vibrates
-when the same chord is struck. Then there is
-a consciousness of nationality and of true national
-solidarity. Throughout the United States
-there is a unanimous acceptance of the old English
-ideals&mdash;a liking for energy, a respect for
-character, a belief in equality before the law, and
-an acceptance of individual responsibility. These
-are the ideals which will echo again and again in
-English literature on both shores of the Atlantic,
-as they have echoed so often since King Alfred
-died. “A thousand years are but as yesterday
-when it is past, and as a watch in the night.”</p>
-<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_27">[Pg 27]</span></p>
-<div class="blockquot">
-
-<p>(1901)</p>
-</div>
-
-
-
-
-<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop" />
-
-<div class="chapter">
-<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_29">[Pg 29]</span></p>
-
-<h2 class="nobreak" id="Chapter_II">II<br />
-THE FUTURE OF THE LANGUAGE</h2>
-</div>
-
-
-<p>Two apparently contradictory tendencies are
-to-day visible. One of them is revealed by
-our increasing interest in the less important
-languages and in the more important dialects.
-The other is to be seen in the immense
-expansion of the several peoples using the three
-or four most widely spoken European tongues,
-an expansion rapidly giving them a supremacy
-which renders hopeless any attempt of the less
-important European languages ever to equal them.
-(It may be noted now once for all that in this
-paper only the Indo-European languages are taken
-into account, altho Arabic did succeed for a while
-in making itself the chief tongue of the Mediterranean
-basin, overrunning Sicily and even thrusting
-itself up into Spain, and altho Chinese may
-have a fateful expansion in the dark future.)</p>
-
-<p>As an instance of the first of the two conflicting
-tendencies, we have in France the movement
-of the <i xml:lang="fr" lang="fr">félibres</i> to revive Provençal, and to make
-it again a fit vehicle for poetry. We have in<span class="pagenum" id="Page_30">[Pg 30]</span>
-Norway an effort to differentiate written Norwegian
-from the Danish, which has hitherto been
-accepted as the standard speech of all Scandinavian
-authors. We have in Belgium an increasing
-resistance to French, which is the official
-tongue, and an attempt arbitrarily to resuscitate
-the Flemish dialect. We have in Switzerland a
-desire to keep alive the primitive and moribund
-Romansh. We have in North Britain a demand
-for at least a professorship of broad Scots. We
-see also that, among the languages of the smaller
-nations, neither Dutch nor Portuguese shows any
-symptoms of diminishing vitality, while Rumanian
-has been suddenly encouraged by the political
-independence of the people speaking it.</p>
-
-<p>All this is curious and interesting; and yet at
-the very period when these developments are in
-progress, other influences are at work on behalf
-of the languages of the greater races. The developments
-noted above are largely the work
-of scholars and of students; they are the artificial
-products of provincial pride; and they
-are destined to defeat by forces as invincible as
-those of nature itself. In their different degrees
-Provençal and Flemish are struggling for existence
-against French; but French itself is not
-gaining in its old rivalry with English and with
-German.</p>
-
-<p>At the end of the seventeenth century French<span class="pagenum" id="Page_31">[Pg 31]</span>
-was the language of diplomacy; it was the speech
-of the courts of Europe; it was the one modern
-tongue an educated man in England or in Germany,
-in Spain or in Italy, needed to acquire.
-As Latin had been the world-language in the
-days of the Empire, so French bade fair to be the
-world-language in the days when all the parts
-of the earth should be bound together by the
-bands of commerce and finance. In the eighteenth
-century the supremacy of French was still
-indisputable; but in the nineteenth century it
-disappeared. And, unless all calculations of
-probability fail us, somewhere in the twentieth
-century French will have fallen from the first
-place to the fifth, just below Spanish, just above
-Italian, and far, far beneath English and Russian
-and German.</p>
-
-<p>It was the social instinct of the French which
-made their language so neat, so apt for epigram
-and compliment, so admirable and so adequate for
-criticism; and it was the energy of the English-speaking
-peoples, their individuality, their independence,
-which made our language so sturdy,
-so vigorous, so powerful.</p>
-
-<p>An excess of the social instinct it is which has
-kept the French at home, close to the borders of
-France, and which has thus restricted the expansion
-of their language, while it is also an excess
-of the energy of our stock that has scattered English<span class="pagenum" id="Page_32">[Pg 32]</span>
-all over the world, on every shore of all the
-seven seas. And now that the nineteenth century
-has drawn to an end, if we can guess at the
-future from our acquaintance with the past, we
-are justified in believing that the world-language
-at the end of the twentieth century&mdash;should any
-one tongue succeed in winning universal acceptance&mdash;will
-be English. If it is not English, then
-it will not be German or Spanish or French; it
-will be Russian.</p>
-
-<p>This attempt to foretell the future is not a random
-venture or a reckless brag; it is based on a
-comparison of the number of people speaking the
-different European languages at different periods.
-At my request <abbr title="mister">Mr.</abbr> N. I. Stone, of the School of
-Political Science of Columbia University, made an
-examination of the statistics, in so far as they
-are obtainable. The figures are rarely absolutely
-trustworthy before the nineteenth century&mdash;indeed,
-they are sometimes little better than guesswork.
-Yet they are approximately accurate, and
-they will serve fairly well for purposes of comparison.
-They make plain the way in which one
-language has gained on another in the past; and
-they afford material for us to hazard a prediction
-as to the languages likely to gain most in the
-immediate future.</p>
-
-<p>In the fourteenth century the population of
-France was about ten millions, and that of the<span class="pagenum" id="Page_33">[Pg 33]</span>
-British Isles probably less than four millions. In
-both territories there were certainly many who
-did not speak the chief language; yet the proportion
-of those who spoke French to those who
-spoke English was at least ten to four.</p>
-
-<p>Toward the end of the fifteenth century the
-British Isles still had less than four millions, while
-France had more than twelve millions. At this
-same period Italy had a few more than nine millions,
-and Spain a few less, while the Germans
-(including always the Austrians who spoke German)
-were about ten millions.</p>
-
-<p>Coming toward the end of the sixteenth century,
-we find six millions in the British Isles,
-more than fourteen millions in France and in the
-French-speaking portions of the adjacent countries,
-and more than ten millions in Italy. The
-Russians then numbered nearly four millions and
-a half&mdash;only a million and a half less than the
-British.</p>
-
-<p>At the very end of the seventeenth century the
-number of those speaking English was nearly
-eight millions and a half&mdash;most of them still in
-the British Isles, but some of them already departed
-into the colonies in America and elsewhere.
-The number of those speaking French
-was twenty millions, of those speaking Italian
-a few less than twelve millions, and of those
-speaking Russian about fifteen millions. Those<span class="pagenum" id="Page_34">[Pg 34]</span>
-speaking Spanish were chiefly at home in the
-Iberian peninsula, but not a few were in the colonies
-in America: they amounted to about eight
-millions in all, the mother-country having wasted
-her people in ruinous wars.</p>
-
-<p>At the very end of the eighteenth century
-we find the English-speaking peoples on both
-shores of the Atlantic swollen to twenty-two
-millions, having nearly trebled in a hundred
-years, while the French had added only a third
-to their population, amounting in all to a few
-more than twenty-seven millions. The Germans
-were about thirty-three millions, having passed
-the French; and the Italians were a few more
-than thirteen millions, having increased very
-slowly. Neither Germans nor Italians had as
-yet been able either to achieve unity for themselves
-or to found colonies elsewhere. The
-Spanish, including their pure-blooded colonists,
-numbered perhaps ten millions. The Russians
-had increased to twenty-five millions, the
-boundaries of their empire having been widely
-extended.</p>
-
-<p>The nineteenth century was a period of unexampled
-expansion for the English-speaking race,
-who have spread to India, to Australia, and to
-Africa, besides filling up the western parts of the
-United States; they now number probably between
-a hundred and twenty-five and a hundred<span class="pagenum" id="Page_35">[Pg 35]</span>
-and thirty millions. The Russians have also
-pushed their borders across Asia, and they also
-show an immense increase, now numbering about
-a hundred and thirty millions, altho probably a
-very large proportion of their conglomerate
-population does not yet speak Russian. The
-Germans have supplied millions of immigrants to
-the United States, and thousands of expatriated
-traders to all the great cities of the world; and in
-spite of this loss they now number about seventy
-millions (including, as before, the German portions
-of the Austro-Hungarian monarchy). The
-Spanish-speaking peoples in the old world and
-the new are about forty-two millions, not half
-of them being in Spain itself.</p>
-
-<p>The French lag far behind in this multiplication;
-they number now a few more than forty
-millions, including those Belgians and Swiss who
-have French for their mother-tongue. The relative
-loss of the French can best be shown by a
-comparison with the English after an interval of
-five hundred years. In the fourteenth century, as
-we have seen, those who spoke French were to
-those who spoke English as ten to four; in the
-nineteenth century those who speak English are
-to those who speak French as one hundred and
-thirty to forty. In other words, the French during
-five centuries have increased fourfold, while
-the English have multiplied more than thirtyfold.</p>
-
-<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_36">[Pg 36]</span></p>
-
-<p>French is still the language most frequently
-employed by diplomatists; it is still the tongue in
-which educated men of differing nationalities
-are most likely to be able to converse with each
-other. But its supremacy has departed forever.
-It has long been fighting a losing battle. Its
-hope of becoming the world-language of the
-future vanished, never to reappear, when Clive
-grasped India and when Wolfe defeated Montcalm.
-At a brief interval the French let slip
-their final chances of holding either the east or
-the west.</p>
-
-<p>The English-speaking peoples and the Russians
-have entered into the inheritance which the
-French have renounced. The future is theirs,
-for they are ready to go forth and subdue the
-waste places of the earth. They are the great
-civilizing forces of the twentieth century, each
-in its own way and each in its own degree.
-The Russians have revealed a remarkable
-faculty of assimilation, and have taken over the
-wild tribes of the east, which they are slowly
-starting along the path of progress. The English&mdash;by
-which I mean always the peoples who
-speak the English language&mdash;have possessed
-themselves of North America and of South Africa
-and of Australia; and there is no sign yet visible
-of any lack of energy or of any decrease of vigor
-in the branches of this hardy and prolific stock.</p>
-
-<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_37">[Pg 37]</span></p>
-
-<p>At the rate of increase of the nineteenth century,
-the end of the twentieth century will find
-eight hundred and forty millions speaking English
-and five hundred millions speaking Russian,
-while those who speak German will be one hundred
-and thirty millions and those who speak
-French perhaps sixty millions. But it is very
-unlikely that the rate of increase in the twentieth
-century will be what it was in the nineteenth.
-The extraordinary expansion of the United States
-is the salient phenomenon of the nineteenth century;
-and it is doubtfully possible and certainly
-improbable that any such expansion can take
-place in the twentieth century, even in South
-Africa. On the other hand, the building of the
-Siberian railroad may open to the Russians an
-outlet for the overflow of their population not
-unlike that offered to the English by the opening
-of the middle west of the United States. The
-outpouring of Germans, hitherto directed chiefly
-to the United States (where they have been taught
-to speak English), may perhaps hereafter be
-diverted to German colonies, where the native
-tongue will be cherished.</p>
-
-<p>Thus it seems likely that, while the estimate
-for the year 2000 of one hundred and thirty million
-Germans is none too large, that of five hundred
-million Russians is perhaps too small, and
-that of eight hundred and fifty millions for the<span class="pagenum" id="Page_38">[Pg 38]</span>
-English-speaking peoples is probably highly inflated.
-What, however, we have no reasonable
-right to doubt is that German will be a bad third,
-as French will be a bad fourth; and that the English
-language and the Russian will stand far at
-the head of the list, one all-powerful in the west
-and the other all-powerful in the east. Which
-of them will prevail against the other in the
-twenty-first century no man can now foretell,
-nor can he get any help from statistics.</p>
-
-<p>The issue of that conflict cannot be foreseen by
-any inspection of figures, for it will turn not so
-much on mere numbers&mdash;altho the possession
-of these will be an immense advantage: it will
-be decided rather by the race-characteristics of
-the two stocks when thrust into irresistible
-opposition. The manners and customs of the
-people who speak Russian and of the peoples
-who speak English, their physical strength and
-their vitality, their ideals, social and political&mdash;all
-these things will be the decisive factors in the
-final combat. Whether Russian or English shall
-be the world-language of the future depends not
-on the language itself and its merits and demerits,
-but on the sturdiness of those who shall then
-speak it, on their strength of will, on their power
-of organization, on their readiness to sacrifice
-themselves for the common cause, and on their
-fidelity to their ideals.</p>
-
-<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_39">[Pg 39]</span></p>
-
-<p>Russian is a beautiful language, so those say
-who know it best: it is fresh and vigorous, as
-might be expected in a speech the literature of
-which is not yet old; it is also as clear and as
-direct as French. But it has one insuperable
-disadvantage: its grammar is as primitive and
-as complex as the grammar of German or the
-grammar of Greek. The verb has an elaborate
-conjugation, the noun an elaborate declension,
-the adjective an elaborate method of agreement
-in gender, number, and case.</p>
-
-<p>Now English is fortunate in having discarded
-nearly all this primitive machinery, which is
-always a sign of linguistic immaturity. The
-English language has shed almost all its unnecessary
-complications; it has advanced from
-complexity toward simplicity, while Russian
-still lingers in its unreformed condition of arbitrary
-elaboration. One objection, it may be
-noted, to Volapük, which a German scholar
-kindly invented as the world-language of the
-future, was that its grammar was of this primitive
-and complicated type.</p>
-
-<p>In these days of the printing-press and of the
-schoolmaster any radical modification of the
-mother-tongue is increasingly difficult, so that it
-is highly improbable that Russian can now ever
-shake off these grammatical encumbrances that
-really unfit it for use as a world-language to be<span class="pagenum" id="Page_40">[Pg 40]</span>
-acquired by all men. Russian is one of the most
-backward of modern languages in its progress
-toward grammatical simplicity; and English is
-one of the most forward. Italian is also a language
-which had the good fortune partly to reform
-its grammar before the invention of printing
-made the operation almost impossible; and Italian
-is like English in that it is a very easy language
-to learn by word of mouth, as the rules of
-grammar we must needs obey are very few,&mdash;tho
-in this respect English is superior even to
-Italian. If English is hard to learn when it is
-taught by the eye instead of the ear, this is because
-of our cumbersome and antiquated spelling;
-here the Italian is far better off than the English.</p>
-
-<p>Indeed, it is not a little strange that the English
-language, which is one of the most advanced in
-grammatical simplicity, is one of the most belated
-in orthographic simplicity. In no other modern
-language is the system of spelling&mdash;if system
-that can be called which has no rule or reason&mdash;more
-arbitrary and more chaotic than in English;
-and no other peculiarity of our language does
-more to retard its diffusion than its wantonly
-foolish orthography.</p>
-
-<p>Probably much of the violent opposition to the
-simplification of our spelling is due to the fanatic
-zeal of the phonetic reformers, who have frightened
-away all the timid respecters of tradition by<span class="pagenum" id="Page_41">[Pg 41]</span>
-their rash insistence upon the immediate adoption
-of some brand-new and comprehensive scheme.
-The English-speaking peoples are essentially conservative
-and unfailingly opportunist; they abhor
-all radical remedies. They are wont to remove
-ancient abuses piecemeal, and not root and
-branch. The most they can be got to do in the
-immediate future is to follow the example of
-the Italians, and to lop off gradually the most
-flagrant inconsistencies and absurdities of our
-present spelling, here a little and there a little,
-going forward hesitatingly, but never stopping.</p>
-
-<p>In this good work of injecting a little more
-sense into our orthography, as in the other good
-work of still further simplifying our grammar as
-occasion serves and opportunity offers, we Americans
-may have to take the lead. The English
-language is ours by inheritance, and our interest
-in it is as deep and as wide as that of our British
-cousins. As Mark Twain has put it, with his
-customary shrewdness, it is “the King’s English”
-no longer, for it has gone into the hands
-of a company, and a majority of the stock is held
-on our side of the Atlantic.</p>
-
-<p>We Americans must awake to a sense of our
-responsibility as the chief of the English-speaking
-peoples. The tie that binds the British colonies
-to the British crown is strong only because it is
-loose; and in Australia and in Canada the conditions<span class="pagenum" id="Page_42">[Pg 42]</span>
-of life resemble those of the United States
-rather than those of Great Britain. The British
-Isles are the birthplace of our race, but they
-no longer contain the most important branch
-of the English-speaking peoples. On both
-sides of the Atlantic, and afar in the Pacific also,
-and along the shores of the Indian Ocean, are
-“the subjects of King Shakspere,” the students
-of Chaucer and Dryden, the readers of Scott and
-Thackeray and Hawthorne; but most of them,
-or at least the largest single group, will be in the
-United States at the end of the twentieth century,
-as they are at the end of the nineteenth.</p>
-
-<p>No one has more clearly seen the essential
-unity of the English-speaking race, and no one
-has more accurately stated the relation of the
-American branch of this race to the British branch,
-than the late John Richard Green. In his chapter
-on the independence of America, he recorded
-the fact that since 1776 “the life of the English
-people has flowed not in one current, but in
-two; and while the older has shown little sign
-of lessening, the younger has fast risen to a
-greatness which has changed the face of the
-world. In wealth and material energy, as in
-numbers, it far surpasses the mother-country
-from which it sprang. It is already the main
-branch of the English people; and in the days
-that are at hand the main current of that people’s<span class="pagenum" id="Page_43">[Pg 43]</span>
-history must run along the channel, not of the
-Thames or the Mersey, but of the Hudson and
-the Mississippi.”</p>
-
-<p>When English becomes the world-language,&mdash;if
-our speech ever is raised to fill that position of
-honor and usefulness,&mdash;it will be the English language
-as it is spoken by all the branches of the
-English race, no doubt; but the dominant influence
-in deciding what the future of that language
-shall be must come from the United States. The
-English of the future will be the English that we
-shall use here in the United States; and it is for
-us to hand it down to our children fitted for the
-service it is to render.</p>
-
-<p>This task is ours, not to be undertaken boastfully
-or vaingloriously or in any spirit of provincial
-self-assertion, on the one hand, or of colonial
-self-depreciation on the other, but with a full
-sense of the burden imposed upon us and of the
-privilege that accompanies it. It is our duty to
-do what we can to keep our English speech fresh
-and vigorous, to help it draw new life and power
-from every proper source, to resist all the attempts
-of pedants to cramp it and restrain its healthy
-growth, and to urge along the simplification of its
-grammar and its orthography, so that it shall be
-ready against the day when it is really a world-language.</p>
-<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_45">[Pg 45]</span></p>
-<div class="blockquot">
-
-<p>(1898)</p>
-</div>
-
-<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop" />
-
-<div class="chapter">
-<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_47">[Pg 47]</span></p>
-
-<h2 class="nobreak" id="Chapter_III">III<br/>THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE IN
-THE UNITED STATES</h2>
-</div>
-
-
-<p>When Benjamin Franklin was in England
-in 1760, he received a letter from David
-Hume commenting on the style of an essay of
-his writing and on his choice of words; and in
-his reply Franklin modestly thanked his friend
-for the criticism, and took occasion to declare his
-hope that we Americans would always “make
-the best English of this island our standard.”
-And yet when France acknowledged the independence
-of the United States in 1778 and Franklin
-was sent to Paris as our minister, Congress
-duly considered the proper forms and ceremonies
-to be observed in doing business with foreign
-countries, and finally resolved that “all speeches
-or communications may, if the public ministers
-choose it, be in the language of their respective
-countries; and all replies or answers shall be in
-the language of the United States.”</p>
-
-<p>What is “the language of the United States”?
-Is it “the best English” of Great Britain, as<span class="pagenum" id="Page_48">[Pg 48]</span>
-Franklin hoped it would always be? Franklin
-was unusually far-sighted, but even he could
-not foresee what is perhaps the most extraordinary
-event of the nineteenth century,&mdash;an era
-abounding in the extraordinary,&mdash;the marvelous
-spread and immense expansion of the English
-language. It is not only along the banks of the
-Thames and the Tweed and the Shannon that
-children are now losing irrecoverable hours on the
-many absurdities of English orthography: a like
-wanton wastefulness there is also on the shores
-of the Hudson, of the Mississippi, and of the
-Columbia, while the same A B C’s are parroted
-by the little ones of those who live where the
-Ganges rolls down its yellow sand and of those
-who dwell in the great island which is almost
-riverless. No parallel can be found in history
-for this sudden spreading out of the English
-language in the past hundred years&mdash;not even the
-diffusion of Latin during the century when the
-rule of Rome was most widely extended.</p>
-
-<p>Among the scattered millions who now employ
-our common speech, in England itself, in Scotland,
-Wales, and Ireland, in the United States and
-Canada, in India and in Australia, in Egypt and
-in South Africa, there is no stronger bond of
-union than the language itself. There is no likelihood
-that any political association will ever be
-sought or achieved. The tie that fastens the<span class="pagenum" id="Page_49">[Pg 49]</span>
-more independent colonies to the mother-country
-is loose enough now, even if it is never
-further relaxed; and less than half of those
-who have English for their mother-tongue owe
-any allegiance whatever to England. The English-speaking
-inhabitants of the British Empire
-are apparently fewer than the inhabitants of
-the American republic; and the population of the
-United Kingdom itself is only a little more than
-half the population of the United States.</p>
-
-<p>To set down these facts is to point out that
-the English language is no longer a personal
-possession of the people of England. The
-power of the head of the British Empire over
-what used to be called the “King’s English” is
-now as little recognized as his power over what
-used to be called the “king’s evil.” We may
-regret that this is the case, or we may rejoice at
-it; but we cannot well deny the fact itself. And
-thus we are face to face with more than one very
-interesting question. What is going to become
-of the language now it is thus dispersed abroad
-and freed from all control by a central authority
-and exposed to all sorts of alien influences? Is
-it bound to become corrupted and to sink from its
-high estate into a mire of slang and into a welter
-of barbarously fashioned verbal novelties? What,
-more especially, is going to be the future of the
-English language here in America? Must we fear<span class="pagenum" id="Page_50">[Pg 50]</span>
-the dread possibility that the speech of the peoples
-on the opposite sides of the Western Ocean
-will diverge at last until the English language
-will divide into two branches, those who speak
-British being hardly able to understand those
-who speak American, and those who speak
-American being hardly able to understand those
-who speak British? Mark Twain is a humorist,
-it is true, but he is very shrewd and he has
-abundant common sense; and it was Mark
-Twain who declared a score of years ago that he
-spoke the “American language.”</p>
-
-<p>The science of linguistics is among the youngest,
-and yet it has already established itself so
-firmly on the solid ground of ascertained truth
-that it has been able to overthrow with ease one
-and another of the many theories which were accepted
-without question before it came into being.
-For example, time was&mdash;and the time is not
-so very remote, it may be remarked&mdash;time was
-when the little group of more or less highly educated
-men who were at the center of authority
-in the capital of any nation had no doubt whatsoever
-as to the superiority of their way of speaking
-their own language over the manner in
-which it might be spoken by the vast majority
-of their fellow-citizens deprived of the advantages
-of a court training. This little group set
-the standard of speech; and the standard they<span class="pagenum" id="Page_51">[Pg 51]</span>
-set was accepted as final and not to be tampered
-with under penalty of punishment for the crime
-of lese-majesty. They held that any divergence
-from the customs of speaking and writing they
-themselves cherished was due to ignorance and
-probably to obstinacy. They believed that the
-court dialect which they had been brought up to
-use was the only true and original form of the
-language; and they swiftly stigmatized as a gross
-impropriety every usage and every phrase with
-which they themselves did not happen to be
-familiar. And in thus maintaining the sole
-validity of their personal habits of speech they
-had no need for self-assertion, since it never entered
-into the head of any one not belonging to
-the court circle to question for a second the
-position thus tacitly declared.</p>
-
-<p>Yet if modern methods of research have made
-anything whatever indisputable in the history of
-human speech, they have completely disproved
-the assumption which underlies this implicit
-claim of the courtiers. We know now that the
-urban dialect is not the original language of which
-the rural dialects are but so many corruptions.
-We know, indeed, that the rural dialects are
-often really closer to the original tongue than the
-urban dialect; and that the urban dialect itself
-was once as rude as its fellows, and that it owes
-its preëminence rarely to any superiority of its<span class="pagenum" id="Page_52">[Pg 52]</span>
-own over its rivals, but rather to the fact that it
-chanced to be the speech of a knot of men more
-masterful than the inhabitants of any other village,
-and able therefore to expand their village to
-a town and at last to a city, which imposed its
-rule on the neighboring villages, the inhabitants
-of these being by that time forgetful that they
-had once striven with it on almost equal terms.
-Generally it is the stability given by political pre-eminence
-which leads to the development of a
-literature, without which no dialect can retain its
-linguistic supremacy.</p>
-
-<p>When the sturdy warriors whose homes were
-clustered on one or another of the seven hills of
-Rome began to make alliances and conquests, they
-rendered possible the future development of their
-rough Italic into the Latin language which has
-left its mark on almost every modern European
-tongue. The humble allies of the early Romans,
-who possessed dialects of an equal antiquity and
-of an equal possibility of improvement, could not
-but obey the laws of imitation; and they sought,
-perforce, to bring their vocabulary and their syntax
-into conformity with that of the men who
-had shown themselves more powerful. Thus
-one of the Italic dialects was singled out by fortune
-for an extraordinary future, and the other
-Italic dialects were left in obscurity, altho
-they were each of them as old as the Roman and<span class="pagenum" id="Page_53">[Pg 53]</span>
-as available for development. These other dialects
-have even suffered the ignominy of being
-supposed to be corruptions of their triumphant
-brother.</p>
-
-<p>The French philologist Darmesteter concisely
-explained the stages of this development of one
-local speech at the expense of its neighbors. As
-it gains in dignity its fellows fall into the shadow.
-A local speech thus neglected is a patois; and a
-local speech which achieves the dignity of literature
-is a dialect. These written tongues spread
-on all sides and impose themselves on the surrounding
-population as more noble than the patois.
-Thus a linguistic province is created, and its dialect
-tends constantly to crush out the various
-patois once freely used within its boundaries.</p>
-
-<p>In time one of these provinces becomes politically
-more powerful than the others and extends
-its rule over one after another of them. As it
-does this, its dialect replaces the dialects of the
-provinces as the official tongue, and it tends constantly
-to crush out these other dialects, as they
-had tended constantly to crush out the various
-patois. Thus the local speech of the population
-of the tiny island in the Seine, which is the
-nucleus of the city of Paris, rose slowly to the
-dignity of a written dialect, and the local speech
-of each of the neighboring villages sank into a
-patois&mdash;altho originally it was in no wise inferior.<span class="pagenum" id="Page_54">[Pg 54]</span>
-In the course of centuries Paris became
-the capital of France, and its provincial dialect
-became the official language of the kingdom.
-When the kings of France extended their rule
-over Normandy and over Burgundy and over
-Provence, the Parisian dialect succeeded in imposing
-itself upon the inhabitants of those provinces
-as superior; and in time the Norman dialect and
-the Burgundian and the Provençal were ousted.</p>
-
-<p>The dialect of the province in which the king
-dwelt and in which the business of governing
-was carried on, could not but dispossess the dialects
-of all the other provinces; and thus the
-French language, as we know it now, was once
-only the Parisian dialect. Yet there was apparently
-no linguistic inferiority of the <i xml:lang="fr" lang="fr">langue
-d’oc</i> to the <i xml:lang="fr" lang="fr">langue d’oil</i>; and the reasons for the
-dominion of the one and the decadence of the
-other are purely political. Of course, as the
-Parisian dialect grew and spread itself, it was
-enriched by locutions from the other provincial
-dialects, and it was simplified by the dropping of
-many of its grammatical complexities not common
-to the most of the others.</p>
-
-<p>The French language was developed from one
-particular provincial dialect probably no better
-adapted for improvement than any one of half a
-dozen others; but it is to-day an instrument of
-precision infinitely finer than any of its pristine<span class="pagenum" id="Page_55">[Pg 55]</span>
-rivals, since they had none of them the good fortune
-to be chosen for development. But the
-patois of the peasant of Normandy or of Brittany,
-however inadequate it may be as a means of
-expression for a modern man, is not a corruption
-of French, any more than Doric is a corruption
-of Attic Greek. It is rather in the position of a
-twin brother disinherited by the guile of his fellow,
-more adroit in getting the good will of their
-parents. It was the literary skill of the Athenians
-themselves, and not the superiority of the
-original dialect, that makes us think of Attic
-as the only genuine Greek, just as it was the
-prowess of the Romans in war and their power
-of governing which raised their provincial dialect
-into the language of Italy, and then carried it
-triumphant to every shore of the Mediterranean.</p>
-
-<p>The history of the development of the English
-language is like the history of the development
-of Greek and Latin and French; and the English
-language as we speak it to-day is a growth from
-the Midland dialect, itself the victor of a struggle
-for survivorship with the Southern and Northern
-dialects. “With the accession of the royal house
-of Wessex to the rule of Teutonic England,” so
-Professor Lounsbury tells us, “the dialect of
-Wessex had become the cultivated language of
-the whole people&mdash;the language in which books
-were written and laws were published.” But<span class="pagenum" id="Page_56">[Pg 56]</span>
-when the Norman conquest came, altho, to
-quote from Professor Lounsbury again, “the
-native tongue continued to be spoken by the
-great majority of the population, it went out of
-use as the language of high culture,” and “the educated
-classes, whether lay or ecclesiastical, preferred
-to write either in Latin or in French&mdash;the
-latter steadily tending more and more to become
-the language of literature as well as of polite
-society.” And as a result of this the West-Saxon
-had to drop to the low level of the other dialects;
-“it had no longer any preëminence of its own.”
-There was in England from the twelfth to the
-fourteenth centuries no national language, but
-every one was free to use with tongue and pen
-his own local speech, altho three provincial
-dialects existed, “each possessing a literature of
-its own and each seemingly having about the
-same chance to be adopted as the representative
-national speech.”</p>
-
-<p>These three dialects were the Southern (which
-was the descendant of Wessex, once on the way
-to supremacy), the Northern, and the Midland
-(which had the sole advantage that it was a compromise
-between its neighbors to the north and
-the south). London was situated in the region
-of the Midland dialect, and it was therefore “the
-tongue mainly employed at the court” when
-French slowly ceased to be the language of the<span class="pagenum" id="Page_57">[Pg 57]</span>
-upper classes. As might be expected in those
-days before the printing-press and the spelling-book
-imposed uniformity, the Midland dialect
-was spoken somewhat differently in the Eastern
-counties from the way it was spoken in the
-Western counties of the region. London was in
-the Eastern division of the Midland dialect, and
-London was the capital. Probably because the
-speech of the Eastern division of the Midland dialect
-was the speech of the capital, it was used as
-the vehicle of his verse by an officer of the court&mdash;who
-happened also to be a great poet and a
-great literary artist. Just as Dante’s choice of his
-native Tuscan dialect controlled the future development
-of Italian, so Chaucer’s choice controlled
-the future development of English. It
-was Chaucer, so Professor Lounsbury declares,
-“who first showed to all men the resources of
-the language, its capacity of representing with
-discrimination all shades of human thought and
-of conveying with power all manifestations of
-human feeling.”</p>
-
-<p>The same writer tells us that “the cultivated
-English language, in which nearly all English
-literature of value has been written, sprang
-directly from the East-Midland division of the
-Midland dialect, and especially from the variety
-of the East-Midland which was spoken at London
-and the region immediately to the north of<span class="pagenum" id="Page_58">[Pg 58]</span>
-it.” That this magnificent opportunity came to
-the London dialect was not due to any superiority
-it had over any other variety of the Midland dialect:
-it was due to the single fact that it was the
-speech of the capital&mdash;just as the dialect of the
-Île-de-France in like manner served as the stem
-from which the cultivated French language
-sprang. The Parisian dialect flourished and imposed
-itself on all sides; within the present limits
-of France it choked out the other local dialects,
-even the soft and lovely Provençal; and beyond
-the boundaries of the country it was accepted
-in Belgium and in Switzerland.</p>
-
-<p>So the dialect of London has gone on growing
-and refining and enriching itself as the people
-who spoke it extended their borders and passed
-over the wide waters and won their way to far
-countries, until to-day it serves not merely for the
-cockney Tommy Atkins, the cow-boy of Montana,
-and the larrikin of Melbourne: it is adequate
-for the various needs of the Scotch philosopher
-and of the American humorist; it is employed
-by the Viceroy of India, the Sirdar of Egypt, the
-governor of Alaska, and the general in command
-over the Philippines. In the course of some six
-centuries the dialect of a little town on the
-Thames has become the mother-tongue of millions
-and millions of people scattered broadcast
-over the face of the earth.</p>
-
-<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_59">[Pg 59]</span></p>
-
-<p>If the Norman conquest had not taken place
-the history of the English race would be very
-different, and the English language would not be
-what it is, since it would have had for its root
-the Wessex variety of the Southern dialect. But
-the Norman conquest did take place, and the
-English language has for its root the Eastern
-division of the Midland dialect. The Norman
-conquest it was which brought the modest but
-vigorous young English tongue into close contact
-with the more highly cultivated French. The
-French spoken in England was rather the Norman
-dialect than the Parisian (which is the true
-root of modern French), and whatever slight influence
-English may have had upon it does not
-matter now, for it was destined to a certain
-death. But this Norman-French enlarged the
-plastic English speech against which it was pressing;
-and English adopted many French words,
-not borrowing them, but making them our own,
-once for all, and not dropping the original English
-word, but keeping both with slight divergence of
-meaning.</p>
-
-<p>Thus it is in part to the Norman conquest that
-we owe the double vocabulary wherein our language
-surpasses all others. While the framework
-of English is Teutonic, we have for many
-things two names, one of Germanic origin and
-one of Romance. Our direct, homely words,<span class="pagenum" id="Page_60">[Pg 60]</span>
-that go straight to our hearts and nestle there&mdash;these
-are most of them Teutonic. Our more
-delicate words, subtle in finer shades of meaning&mdash;these
-often come to us from the Latin
-through the French. The secondary words are
-of Romance origin, and the primary words of
-Germanic. And this&mdash;if the digression may here
-be hazarded&mdash;is one reason why French poetry
-touches us less than German, the words of the
-former seeming to us remote, not to say sophisticated,
-while the words of the latter are akin to
-our own simpler and swifter words.</p>
-
-<p>One other advantage of the pressure of French
-upon English in the earlier stages of its development,
-when it was still ductile, was that this
-pressure helped us to our present grammatical
-simplicity. Whenever the political intelligence
-of the inhabitants of the capital of a district
-raises the local dialect to a position of supremacy,
-so that it spreads over the surrounding districts
-and casts their dialects into the shadow, the
-dominant dialect is likely to lose those of its
-grammatical peculiarities not to be found also in
-the other dialects. Whatever is common to
-them all is pretty sure to survive, and what is
-not common may or may not be given up. The
-London dialect, in its development, felt the influence,
-not only of the other division of the
-Midland dialect, and of the two rival dialects,<span class="pagenum" id="Page_61">[Pg 61]</span>
-one to the north of it and the other to the south,
-but also of a foreign tongue spoken by all who
-pretended to any degree of culture. This attrition
-helped English to shed many minor grammatical
-complexities still retained by languages
-which had not this fortunate experience in their
-youth.</p>
-
-<p>Perhaps the late Richard Grant White was
-going a little too far when he asserted that English
-was a grammarless tongue; but it cannot be
-denied that English is less infested with grammar
-than any other of the great modern languages.
-German, for example, is a most grammarful
-tongue; and Mark Twain has explained to us
-(in ‘A Tramp Abroad’) just how elaborate and
-intricate its verbal machinery is; and the Volapük,
-which was made in Germany, had the
-syntactical convolutions of its inventor’s native
-tongue.</p>
-
-<p>By its possession of this grammatical complexity,
-Volapük was unfitted for service as a
-world-language. A fortunate coincidence it is
-that English, which is becoming a world-language
-by sheer force of the energy and determination
-of those whose mother-speech it is, should early
-have shed most of these cumbersome and retarding
-grammatical devices. The earlier philologists
-were wont to consider this throwing off
-of needless inflections as a symptom of decay.<span class="pagenum" id="Page_62">[Pg 62]</span>
-The later philologists are coming to recognize it
-as a sign of progress. They are getting to regard
-the unconscious struggle for short-cuts in speech,
-not as degeneration, but rather as regeneration.
-As Krauter asserts, “The dying out of forms and
-sounds is looked upon by the etymologists with
-painful feelings; but no unprejudiced judge will
-be able to see in it anything but a progressive
-victory over lifeless material.” And he adds,
-with terse common sense: “Among several
-tools performing equal work, that is the best
-which is the simplest and most handy.” This
-brief excerpt from the German scholar is borrowed
-here from a paper prepared for the Modern
-Language Association by Professor C. A. Smith,
-in which may be found also a dictum of the Danish
-philologist Jespersen: “The fewer and
-shorter the forms, the better; the analytic structure
-of modern European languages is so far from
-being a drawback to them that it gives them an
-unimpeachable superiority over the earlier stages
-of the same languages.” And it is Jespersen
-who boldly declares that “the so-called full and
-rich forms of the ancient languages are not a
-beauty, but a deformity.”</p>
-
-<p>In other words, language is merely an instrument
-for the use of man; and like all other instruments,
-it had to begin by being far more
-complicated than is needful. The watch used to<span class="pagenum" id="Page_63">[Pg 63]</span>
-have more than a hundred separate parts, and
-now it is made with less than twoscore, losing
-nothing in its efficiency and in precision. Greek
-and German are old-fashioned watches; Italian
-and Danish and English are watches of a later
-style. Of the more prominent modern languages,
-German and Russian are the most backward,
-while English is the most advanced. And the
-end is not yet, for the eternal forces are ever
-working to make our tongue still easier. The
-printing-press is a most powerful agent on the
-side of the past, making progress far more sluggish
-than it was before books were broadcast; yet
-the English language is still engaged in sloughing
-off its outworn grammatical skin. Altho in the
-nineteenth century the changes in the structure
-of English have probably been less than in any
-other century of its history, yet there have been
-changes not a few.</p>
-
-<p>For example, the subjunctive mood is going
-slowly into innocuous desuetude; the stickler for
-grammar, so-called, may protest in vain against
-its disappearance: its days are numbered. It
-serves no useful purpose; it has to be laboriously
-acquired; it is now a matter of rule and not of
-instinct; it is no longer natural: and therefore it
-will inevitably disappear, sooner or later. Careful
-investigation has shown that it has already
-been discarded by many even among those who<span class="pagenum" id="Page_64">[Pg 64]</span>
-are very careful of their style&mdash;some of whom,
-no doubt, would rise promptly to the defense of
-the form they have been discarding unconsciously.
-One authority declares that altho the
-form has seemed to survive, it has been empty
-of any distinct meaning since the sixteenth century.</p>
-
-<p>This is only one of the tendencies observable
-in the nineteenth century; and we may rest assured
-that others will become visible in the
-twentieth. But when English is compared with
-German, we cannot help seeing that most of
-this work is done already. Grammar has been
-stripped to the bone in English; and for us who
-have to use the language to-day it is fortunate
-that our remote ancestors, who fashioned it for
-their own use without thought of our needs,
-should have had the same liking we have for the
-simplest possible tool, and that they should have
-cast off, as soon as they could, one and another
-of the grammatical complexities which always
-cumber every language in its earlier stages, and
-most of which still cumber German. In nothing
-is the practical directness of our stock more
-clearly revealed than in this immediate beginning
-upon the arduous task of making the means of
-communication between man and man as easy
-and as direct as possible. Doubly fortunate are
-we that this job was taken up and put through<span class="pagenum" id="Page_65">[Pg 65]</span>
-before the invention of printing multiplied the
-inertia of conservatism.</p>
-
-<p>It was the political supremacy of Paris which
-made the Parisian dialect the standard of French;
-and it was the genius of Dante which made the
-Tuscan dialect the standard of Italian. That the
-London dialect is the standard of English is due
-partly to the political supremacy of the capital
-and partly to the genius of Chaucer. As the
-French are a home-keeping people, Paris has retained
-its political supremacy; while the English
-are a venturesome race and have spread abroad
-and split into two great divisions, so that London
-has lost its political supremacy, being the capital
-now only of the less numerous portion of those
-who have English as their mother-tongue.</p>
-
-<p>It is true, of course, that a very large proportion
-of the inhabitants of the United States, however
-independent politically of the great empire
-of which London is the capital, look with affection
-upon the city by the Thames. Their feeling
-toward England is akin to that which led Hawthorne
-to entitle his record of a sojourn in England
-‘Our Old Home.’ The American liking for
-London itself seems to be increasing; and, as
-Lowell once remarked, “We Americans are beginning
-to feel that London is the center of the
-races that speak English, very much in the sense
-that Rome was the center of the ancient world.”<span class="pagenum" id="Page_66">[Pg 66]</span>
-It was at a dinner of the Society of Authors
-that he said this, and he then added: “I confess
-that I never think of London, which I also confess
-I love, without thinking of the palace David
-built, ‘sitting in the hearing of a hundred streams’&mdash;streams
-of thought, of intelligence, of activity.”</p>
-
-<p>While the London dialect is the stem from
-which the English language has grown, the vocabulary
-of the language has never been limited
-by the dialect. It has been enriched by countless
-words and phrases and locutions of one kind or
-another from the other division of the Midland
-dialect and from both the Northern and the
-Southern dialects&mdash;just as modern Italian has not
-limited itself to the narrow vocabulary of Florence.
-Yet in the earlier stages of the development
-of English the language benefited by
-the fact that there was a local standard. The
-attempt of all to assimilate their speech to that
-of the inhabitants of London tended to give uniformity
-without rigidity. As men came up to
-court they brought with them the best of the
-words and turns of speech peculiar to their own
-dialect; and the language gained by all these
-accretions.</p>
-
-<p>Shakspere contributed Warwickshire localisms
-not a few, just as Scott procured the acceptance
-of Scotticisms hitherto under a ban. As Spenser
-had gone back to Chaucer, so Keats went to the<span class="pagenum" id="Page_67">[Pg 67]</span>
-Elizabethans and dug out old words for his own
-use; and William Morris pushed his researches
-farther and brought up words almost pre-Chaucerian.
-Every language in Europe has been
-put under contribution at one time or another for
-one purpose or another. The military vocabulary,
-for instance, reveals the former superiority
-of the French, just as the naval vocabulary reveals
-the former superiority of the Dutch. And as
-modern science has extended its conquests, it has
-drawn on Greek for its terms of precision.</p>
-
-<p>Under this influx of foreign words, old and
-new, the framework of the original London dialect
-stands solidly enough, but it is visible only
-to the scholarly specialist in linguistic research.
-But the latest London dialect, the speech of the
-inhabitants of the British capital at the end of
-the nineteenth century, has ceased absolutely to
-serve as a standard. Whatever utility there was
-in the past in accepting as normal English the
-actual living dialect of London has long since
-departed without a protest. No educated Englishman
-any longer thinks of conforming his
-syntax or his vocabulary to the actual living dialect
-of London, whether of the court or of the
-slums. Indeed, so far is he from accepting the
-verbal habits of the man in the street as suggesting
-a standard for him that he is wont to hold
-them up to ridicule as cockney corruptions. He<span class="pagenum" id="Page_68">[Pg 68]</span>
-likes to laugh at the tricks of speech that he
-discovers on the lips of the Londoners, at their
-dropping of their initial <em>h</em>’s more often than he
-deems proper, and at their more recent substitution
-of <em>y</em> for <em>a</em>&mdash;as in “tyke the cyke, lydy.”</p>
-
-<p>The local standard of London has thus been
-disestablished in the course of the centuries simply
-because there was no longer a necessity for
-any local standard. The speech of the capital
-served as the starting-point of the language; and
-in the early days a local standard of usage was
-useful. But now, after English has enjoyed
-a thousand years of growth, a standard so primitive
-is not only useless, but it would be very
-injurious. Nor could any other local standard be
-substituted for that of London without manifest
-danger&mdash;even if the acceptance of such a standard
-was possible. The peoples that speak English
-are now too widely scattered and their needs are
-too many and too diverse for any local standard
-not to be retarding in its limitations.</p>
-
-<p>To-day the standard of English is to be sought
-not in the actual living dialect of the inhabitants
-of any district or of any country, but in the language
-itself, in its splendid past and in its mighty
-present. Five hundred years ago, more or less,
-Chaucer sent forth the first masterpieces of English
-literature; and in all those five centuries the
-language has never lacked poets and prose-writers<span class="pagenum" id="Page_69">[Pg 69]</span>
-who knew its secrets and could bring
-forth its beauties. Each of them has helped to
-make English what it is now; and a study of
-what English has been is all that we need to enable
-us to see what it will be&mdash;and what it should
-be. Any attempt to trammel it by a local standard,
-or by academic restrictions, or by school-masters’
-grammar-rules, is certain to fail. In the
-past, English has shaken itself free of many a
-limitation; and in the present it is insisting on its
-own liberty to take the short-cut whenever that
-enables it to do its work with less waste of time.
-We cannot doubt that in the future it will go on
-in its own way, making itself fitter for the manifold
-needs of an expanding race which has the
-unusual characteristic of having lofty ideals while
-being intensely practical. A British poet it was,
-Lord Houghton, who once sent these prophetic
-lines to an American lady:</p>
-
-<p class="poetry p0">
-That ample speech! That subtle speech!<br />
-Apt for the need of all and each;<br />
-Strong to endure, yet prompt to bend<br />
-Wherever human feelings tend.<br />
-Preserve its force; <em>expand its powers</em>;<br />
-And through the maze of civic life,<br />
-In Letters, Commerce, even in Strife,<br />
-Forget not it is yours and ours.<br />
-</p>
-
-<p>The English language is the most valuable
-possession of the peoples that speak it, and that<span class="pagenum" id="Page_70">[Pg 70]</span>
-have for their chief cities, not London alone, or
-Edinburgh or Dublin, but also New York and
-Chicago, Calcutta and Bombay, Melbourne and
-Montreal. The English language is one and indivisible,
-and we need not fear that the lack of a
-local standard may lead it ever to break up into
-fragmentary dialects. There is really no danger
-now that English will not be uniform in all the
-four quarters of the world, and that it will not
-modify itself as occasion serves. We can already
-detect divergencies of usage and of vocabulary;
-but these are only trifles. The steamship and
-the railroad and the telegraph bring the American
-and the Briton and the Australian closer together
-nowadays than were the users of the Midland
-dialect when Chaucer set forth on his pilgrimage
-to Canterbury; and then there is the printing-press,
-whereby the newspaper and the school-book
-and the works of the dead-and-gone
-masters of our literature bind us together with
-unbreakable links.</p>
-
-<p>These divergencies of usage and of vocabulary&mdash;London
-from Edinburgh, and New York from
-Bombay&mdash;are but evidences of the healthy activity
-of our tongue. It is only when it is dead that
-a language ceases to grow. It needs to be constantly
-refreshed by new words and phrases as
-the elder terms are exhausted. Lowell held it to
-be part of Shakspere’s good fortune that he came<span class="pagenum" id="Page_71">[Pg 71]</span>
-when English was ripe and yet fresh, when there
-was an abundance of words ready to his hand,
-but none of them yet exhausted by hard work.
-So <abbr title="mister">Mr.</abbr> Howells has recently recorded his feeling
-that any one who now employs English “to depict
-or to characterize finds the phrases thumbed over
-and worn and blunted with incessant use,” and
-experiences a joy in the bold locutions which are
-now and again “reported from the lips of the
-people.”</p>
-
-<p>“From the lips of the people”;&mdash;here is a phrase
-that would have sadly shocked a narrow-minded
-scholar like <abbr title="doctor">Dr.</abbr> Johnson. But what the learned
-of yesterday denied&mdash;and, indeed, have denounced
-as rank heresy&mdash;the more learned of
-to-day acknowledge as a fact. The real language
-of a people is the spoken word, not the written.
-Language lives on the tongue and in the ear;
-there it was born, and there it grows. Man
-wooed his wife and taught his children and discussed
-with his neighbors for centuries before he
-perfected the art of writing. Even to-day the
-work of the world is done rather by the spoken
-word than by the written. And those who are
-doing the work of the world are following the
-example of our remote ancestors who did not
-know how to write; when they feel new needs
-they will make violent efforts to supply those
-needs, devising fresh words put together in<span class="pagenum" id="Page_72">[Pg 72]</span>
-rough-and-ready fashion, often ignorantly. The
-mouth is ever willing to try verbal experiments,
-to risk a new locution, to hazard a wrenching of
-an old term to a novel use. The hand that
-writes is always slow to accept the result of these
-attempts to meet a demand in an unauthorized
-way. The spoken language bristles with innovations,
-while the written language remains properly
-conservative. Few of these oral babes are viable,
-and fewer still survive; while only now and
-again does one of these verbal foundlings come
-of age and claim citizenship in literature.</p>
-
-<p>In the antiquated books of rhetoric which our
-grandfathers handed down to us there are solemn
-warnings against neologisms&mdash;and neologism
-was a term of reproach designed to stigmatize a
-new word as such. But in the stimulating study
-of certain of the laws of linguistics, which M.
-Bréal, one of the foremost of French philologists,
-has called ‘Semantics,’ we are told that to condemn
-neologisms absolutely would be most unfortunate
-and most useless. “Every progress in
-a language is, first of all, the act of an individual,
-and then of a minority, large or small. A land
-where all innovation should be forbidden would
-take from its language all chance of development.”
-And M. Bréal points out that language
-must keep on transforming itself with every new
-discovery and invention, with the incessant<span class="pagenum" id="Page_73">[Pg 73]</span>
-modification of our manners, of our customs,
-and even of our ideas. We are all of us at work
-on the vocabulary of the future, ignorant and
-learned, authors and artists, the man of the
-world and the man in the street; and even our
-children have a share in this labor, and by no
-means the least.</p>
-
-<p>Among all these countless candidates for literary
-acceptance, the struggle for existence is very
-fierce, and only the fittest of the new words survive.
-Or, to change the figure, conversation
-might be called the Lower House, where all the
-verbal coinages must have their origin, while
-literature is the Upper House, without whose
-concurrence nothing can be established. And
-the watch-dogs of the treasury are trustworthy;
-they resist all attempts of which they do not
-approve. In language, as in politics, the power
-of the democratic principle is getting itself more
-widely acknowledged. The people blunders
-more often than not, but it knows its own mind;
-and in the end it has its own way. In language,
-as in politics, we Americans are really conservative.
-We are well aware that we have the right
-to make what change we please, and we know
-better than to exercise this right. Indeed, we
-do not desire to do so. We want no more
-change in our laws or in our language than is
-absolutely necessary.</p>
-
-<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_74">[Pg 74]</span></p>
-
-<p>We have modified the common language far
-less than we have modified the common law.
-We have kept alive here many a word and many
-a meaning which was well worthy of preservation,
-and which our kin across the seas had
-permitted to perish. Professor Earle of Oxford,
-in his comprehensive volume on ‘English Prose,’
-praises American authors for refreshing old
-words by novel combinations. When <abbr title="mister">Mr.</abbr> W.
-Aldis Wright drew up a glossary of the words,
-phrases, and constructions in the King James
-translation of the Bible and in the Book of Common
-Prayer, which were obsolete in Great Britain
-in the sense that they would no longer naturally
-find a place in ordinary prose-writing, Professor
-Lounsbury pointed out that at least a sixth of
-these words, phrases, and constructions are not
-now obsolete in the United States, and would
-be used by any American writer without fear
-that he might not be understood. As Lowell
-said, our ancestors “unhappily could bring over
-no English better than Shakspere’s,” and by
-good fortune we have kept alive some of the
-Elizabethan boldness of imagery. Even our
-trivial colloquialisms have often a metaphoric
-vigor now rarely to be matched in the street-phrases
-of the city where Shakspere earned his
-living. Ben Jonson would have relished one
-New York phrase that an office-holder gives an<span class="pagenum" id="Page_75">[Pg 75]</span>
-office-seeker, “the glad hand and the marble
-heart,” and that other which described a former
-favorite comedian as now having “a fur-lined
-voice.”</p>
-
-<p>When Tocqueville came over here in 1831, he
-thought that we Americans had already modified
-the English language. British critics, like Dean
-Alford, have often animadverted upon the deterioration
-of the language on this side of the Atlantic.
-American humorists, like Mark Twain, have
-calmly claimed that the tongue they used was
-not English, but American. It is English as
-Mark Twain uses it, and English of a force and
-a clarity not surpassed by any living writer of
-the language; but in so far as American usage
-differs from British, it was according to the
-former and not according to the latter. But they
-differ in reality very slightly indeed; and whatever
-divergence there may be is rather in the
-spoken language than in the written. That the
-spoken language should vary is inevitable and
-advantageous, since the more variation is attempted,
-the better opportunity the language has
-to freshen up its languishing vocabulary and to
-reinvigorate itself. That the written language
-should widely vary would be the greatest of
-misfortunes.</p>
-
-<p>Of this there is now no danger whatever, and
-never has been. The settlement of the United<span class="pagenum" id="Page_76">[Pg 76]</span>
-States took place after the invention of printing;
-and the printing-press is a sure preventive of a
-new dialect nowadays. The disestablishment
-of the local standard of London leaves English
-free to develop according to its own laws and its
-own logic. There is no longer any weight of
-authority to be given to contemporary British
-usage over contemporary American usage&mdash;except
-in so far as the British branch of English
-literature is more resplendent with names of high
-renown than the American branch. That this was
-the case in the nineteenth century&mdash;that the
-British poets and prose-writers outnumber and
-outvalue the American&mdash;must be admitted at
-once; that it will be the case throughout the
-twentieth century may be doubted. And whenever
-the poets and prose-writers of the American
-branch of English literature are superior in number
-and in power to those of the British branch,
-then there can be no doubt as to where the
-weight of authority will lie. The shifting of the
-center of power will take place unconsciously;
-and the development of English will go on just
-the same after it takes place as it is going on
-now. The conservative forces are in no danger
-of overthrow at the hands of the radicals, whether
-in the United States or in Great Britain or in any
-of her colonial dependencies.</p>
-
-<p>Perhaps the principle which will govern can<span class="pagenum" id="Page_77">[Pg 77]</span>
-best be stated in another quotation from M.
-Bréal: “The limit within which the right to innovate
-stops is not fixed by any idea of ‘purity’
-(which can always be contested); it is fixed by
-the need we have to keep in contact with the
-thought of those who have preceded us. The
-more considerable the literary past of a people,
-the more this need makes itself felt as a duty, as
-a condition of dignity and force.” And there is
-no sign that either the American or the British
-half of those who have our language for a mother-tongue
-is in danger of becoming disloyal to
-the literary past of English literature, that most
-magnificent heritage&mdash;the birthright of both
-of us.</p>
-<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_79">[Pg 79]</span></p>
-<div class="blockquot">
-
-<p>(1899)</p>
-</div>
-
-
-<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop" />
-
-<div class="chapter">
-<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_81">[Pg 81]</span></p>
-
-<h2 class="nobreak" id="Chapter_IV">IV<br />
-THE LANGUAGE IN GREAT BRITAIN</h2>
-</div>
-
-
-<p>There is a wide gap between the proverb
-asserting that “figures never lie” and the
-opinion expressed now and again by experts that
-nothing can be more mendacious than statistics
-misapplied; and the truth seems to lie between
-these extreme sayings. Just as chronology is
-the backbone of history, so a statement of fact
-can be made terser and more convincing if the
-figures are set forth that illuminate it. If we
-wish to perceive the change of the relative position
-of Great Britain and the United States in the
-course of the centuries, nothing can help us better
-to a firm grasp of the exact facts of the case
-than a comparison of the population of the two
-countries at various periods.</p>
-
-<p>In 1700 the inhabitants of Great Britain and
-Ireland numbered between eight and nine millions,
-while the inhabitants of what is now the
-United States were, perhaps, a scant three hundred
-thousand. In 1900, the people of the British
-Isles are reckoned at some thirty-seven<span class="pagenum" id="Page_82">[Pg 82]</span>
-millions more or less, and the people of the
-United States are almost exactly twice as many,
-being about seventy-five millions. To project a
-statistical curve into the future is an extra-hazardous
-proceeding; and no man can now guess at
-the probable population either of the United
-Kingdom or of the United States in the year
-2000; but as the rate of increase is far larger in
-America than in England, there is little risk in
-suggesting that a hundred years from now the
-population of the American republic will be at
-least four or five times as large as that of the
-British monarchy.</p>
-
-<p>Just as the center of population of the United
-States has been steadily working its way westward,
-having been in 1800 in Maryland and
-being in 1900 in Indiana, so also the center of
-population of the English-speaking race has been
-steadily moving toward the Occident. Just as
-the first of these has had to cross the Alleghanies
-during the nineteenth century, so will the second
-of them have to cross the Atlantic during the
-twentieth century. Whether this latter change
-shall take place early in the century or late, is
-not important; one day or another it will take
-place, assuredly.</p>
-
-<p>Inevitably it will be accompanied or speedily
-followed by another change of almost equal significance.
-London sooner or later will cease to<span class="pagenum" id="Page_83">[Pg 83]</span>
-be the literary center of the English-speaking
-race. For many centuries the town by the
-Thames has been the heart of English literature;
-and there are now visible very few signs that the
-days of its supremacy are numbered. Even in
-the United States to-day the old colonial attitude,
-not yet abandoned, causes us Americans often to
-be as well acquainted with second-rate British
-authors as the British are with American authors
-of the first rank. Yet it is not without significance
-that at the close of the nineteenth century
-the two most widely known writers of the language
-should be one of them an American citizen
-and the other a British colonial, owing no local
-allegiance to London&mdash;Mark Twain and Rudyard
-Kipling.</p>
-
-<p>The disestablishment of London as the literary
-center of English will be retarded by various circumstances.
-Only very reluctantly is a tradition
-of preëminence overthrown when consecrated
-by the centuries. The conditions of existence in
-England are likely long to continue to be more
-favorable to literary productivity than are the
-conditions in America. In a new country literature
-finds an eager rival in life itself, with all its
-myriad opportunities for self-expression. No
-paradox is it to say that more than one American
-bard may have preferred to build his epic in steel
-or in stone rather than in words. The creative<span class="pagenum" id="Page_84">[Pg 84]</span>
-imagination has outlets here denied it in a long-settled
-community, residing tranquilly in a little
-island, where even the decorous landscape seems
-to belong to the Established Church. But the
-Eastern States are already, many of them, as orderly
-and as placid as Great Britain has been for a
-century. The conditions in England and in America
-are constantly tending toward equalization.</p>
-
-<p>A time will come, and probably long before
-the close of the twentieth century, when there
-will be in the United States not only several
-times as many people as there are in the British
-Isles, but also far more literary activity. Sooner
-or later most of the leading authors of English
-literature will be American and not British in
-their training, in their thought, in their ideals.
-That is to say, the British in the middle of the
-twentieth century will hold to the Americans
-about the same position that the Americans
-held toward the British in the middle of the
-nineteenth century. The group of American
-authors between 1840 and 1860 contained Irving
-and Cooper, Emerson and Hawthorne, Longfellow
-and Lowell, Poe and Whitman and Thoreau.
-These are names endeared to us and highly important
-to us, and not to be neglected in any
-consideration of English literature; but it is foolish
-for an American to seek to set them up as
-the equal of the British group flourishing during<span class="pagenum" id="Page_85">[Pg 85]</span>
-the same score of years. So in the middle of the
-twentieth century the British group will probably
-not lack striking individualities; but, as a whole,
-it will probably be surpassed by the American
-group. The largest portion of the men of letters
-who use English to express themselves, as well
-as the largest body of the English-speaking race,
-will have its residence on the western shore of
-the Western Ocean.</p>
-
-<p>What will then happen to the English language
-in England when England awakens to the
-fact that the center of the English-speaking race
-is no longer within the borders of the little
-island? Will the speech of the British sink into
-dialectic corruption, or will the British resolutely
-stamp out their undue local divergences from the
-normal English of the main body of the users of
-the language in the United States? Will they
-frankly accept the inevitable? Will they face
-the facts as they are? Will they follow the lead
-of the Americans when we shall have the leadership
-of the language, as the Americans followed
-their lead when they had it? Or will they insist
-on an arbitrary independence, which can have
-only one result&mdash;the splitting off of the British
-branch of our speech from the main stem of the
-language? To ask these questions is to project
-an inquiry far into the future, but the speculation
-is not without an interest of its own. And<span class="pagenum" id="Page_86">[Pg 86]</span>
-altho it is difficult to decide so far in advance
-of the event, yet we have now some of the
-material on which to base a judgment as to what
-is likely to happen.</p>
-
-<p>Of course, the question is not one to be
-answered offhand; and not a few arguments
-could be brought forward in support of the
-opinion that the British speech of the future is
-likely to separate itself from the main body of
-English as then spoken in this country. In the
-first place, England, altho it has already ceased
-to be the most populous of the countries using
-English, will still be the senior partner of the
-great trading-company known as the British
-Empire. That the British Empire may be dissolved
-is possible, no doubt. The Australian
-colonies have federated; and having formed a
-strong union of their own, they may prefer to
-stand alone. South Africa may follow the example
-of Australia. India may arise in the might
-of her millions and cast out its English rulers.
-Canada may decide to throw in its lot with the
-greater American republic. But each of these
-things is improbable; and that they should all
-come to pass is practically inconceivable. All
-signs now seem to point not only to a continuance
-of the British Empire, but also to its steady
-expansion. London is likely long to be the capital
-of an empire upon which the sun never sets,<span class="pagenum" id="Page_87">[Pg 87]</span>
-an empire inhabited by men of every color and
-every creed and every language. For these men
-English must serve as the means of communication
-one with another, Hindu with Parsee, Boer
-with Zulu, Chinook with Canuck.</p>
-
-<p>That this will put a strain on the language is
-indisputable. Wherever any tongue serves as a
-<i xml:lang="it" lang="it">lingua franca</i> for men of various stocks, there
-is an immediate tendency toward corruption.
-There is a constant pressure to simplify and to
-lop off and to reduce to the bare elements. The
-Pidgin-English of the Chinese coast is an example
-of what may befall a noble language when it is
-enslaved to serve many masters, ignorant of its
-history and careless of its idioms. <abbr title="mister">Mr.</abbr> Kipling’s
-earliest tales are some of them almost incomprehensible
-to readers unacquainted with the vocabulary
-of the competition-walla; and the reports
-of the British generals during the war with the
-Boers were besprinkled with words not hitherto
-supposed to be English.</p>
-
-<p>Some observers see in this a menace to the
-integrity of the language, a menace likely to become
-more threatening as the British Empire
-spreads itself still farther over the waste places
-of the earth. But is there not also a danger in
-the integrity of English close at home&mdash;in England
-itself, even in London, and not afar in the
-remote borders of the Empire&mdash;the danger due<span class="pagenum" id="Page_88">[Pg 88]</span>
-to the prevalence of local dialects? To the student
-of language one of the most obvious differences
-between Great Britain and the United States
-lies in the fact that we in America have really no
-local dialects such as are common in England.
-Every county of England has an indigenous population,
-whose ancestors dwelt in the same place
-since a time whereof the memory of man runneth
-not to the contrary; and this indigenous
-population has its own peculiarities of pronunciation,
-of vocabulary, and of idiom, handed down
-from father to son, generation after generation.
-But no one of the United States was settled
-exclusively by immigrants from a single English
-county; and, therefore, no one of these local
-dialects was ever transplanted bodily to America.
-And no considerable part of the United States
-has a stationary population, inbreeding and stagnant
-and impervious to outside influences;
-indeed, to be nomadic, to be here to-day and
-there to-morrow, to be born in New England, to
-grow up in the middle west, to be married in
-New York, and to die in Colorado&mdash;is not this a
-characteristic of us Americans? And it is a
-characteristic fatal to the development of real
-dialects in this country such as are abundant in
-England. Of course we have our local peculiarities
-of idiom and of pronunciation, but these
-are very superficial indeed. Probably there has<span class="pagenum" id="Page_89">[Pg 89]</span>
-been a closer uniformity of speech throughout
-the United States for fifty years past than there
-is even to-day in Great Britain, where the Yorkshireman
-cannot understand the cockney, and
-where the Scot sits silent in the house of the
-Cornishman.</p>
-
-<p>This uniformity of speech throughout the
-United States is, perhaps, partly the result of
-Noah Webster’s ‘Spelling-Book.’ It has certainly
-been aided greatly by the public-school system,
-firmly established throughout the country, and
-steadily strengthening itself. The school system
-of the United Kingdom is younger by far; it is
-not yet adequately organized; it has still to be
-adjusted to its place in a proper scheme of
-national education. In the higher institutions of
-learning in England, at Oxford and at Cambridge,
-there is no postgraduate work in English; and
-whatever instruction an undergraduate may get
-there in English literature is incidental, not to
-say accidental.</p>
-
-<p>Probably there is no connection between this
-lack of university instruction in English and a
-carelessness in the use of the language which
-strikes us unpleasantly, not merely in the unpremeditated
-letters of scholarly Englishmen, but
-sometimes even in their more academic efforts.
-Jowett’s correspondence, for example, and Matthew
-Arnold’s, offer examples of a slovenliness<span class="pagenum" id="Page_90">[Pg 90]</span>
-of phrase not to be found in Lowell’s letters or
-in Emerson’s.</p>
-
-<p>Certain Briticisms are very prevalent, not
-merely among the uneducated, but among the
-more highly cultivated. <em>Directly</em> is used for <em>as
-soon as</em> by Archbishop Trench (the author of a
-lively little book on words) and by <abbr title="mister">Mr.</abbr> Courthope
-(the Oxford professor of poetry). <em>Like</em> is
-used for <em>as</em>&mdash;that is, “like we do”&mdash;by Charles
-Darwin, and in more than one volume of the
-English Men of Letters series, edited by <abbr title="mister">Mr.</abbr> John
-Morley. The elision of the initial <em>h</em>, which the
-British themselves like to think a test of breeding,
-is discoverable far more often than they imagine
-on the lips of those who ought to know better.
-It is said that Lord Beaconsfield, for example,
-sometimes dropped his <em>h</em>’s, and that he once
-spoke of “the ’urried ’Udson.” And if we may
-rely on the evidence of spelling, the British often
-leave the <em>h</em> silent where we Americans sound it.
-They write <em>an historical essay</em> from which it is
-a fair inference that they pronounce the adjective
-<em>’istorical</em>. In <abbr title="mister">Mr.</abbr> Kipling’s ‘From Sea to Sea’ he
-writes not only <em>an hotel</em> and <em>an hospital</em>, but also
-<em>an hydraulic</em>.</p>
-
-<p>Thus we see that the immense size and variegated
-population of the British Empire may be
-considered as a menace to the integrity of the
-English language in the British Isles; and that a<span class="pagenum" id="Page_91">[Pg 91]</span>
-second source of danger is to be discovered in
-the local dialects of Great Britain; and, finally,
-that there is observable in England even now a
-carelessness in the use of the language and a
-willingness to innovate both in vocabulary and
-in idiom.</p>
-
-<p>But however formidable these three tendencies
-may look when massed together, there is really
-no weight to be attached to any of them singly
-or to all of them combined. The language has
-already for two centuries been exposed to contact
-with countless other tongues in America and
-Asia and Africa without appreciable deterioration
-up to the present time; and there is no reason to
-fear that this contact will be more corrupting in
-the twentieth century than it has been in the
-nineteenth. On the contrary, it will result rather
-in an enrichment and refreshment of the vocabulary.
-The danger from the local dialects of Great
-Britain, instead of increasing, is decreasing day by
-day as the facilities for travel improve and as the
-schoolmaster is able to impose his uniform English
-upon the young. Lastly, the willingness to
-use new words not authorized by the past of the
-language is in itself not blameworthy; it may be
-indeed commendable when it is restrained by a
-conservative instinct and controlled by reason.</p>
-
-<p>The Briticisms that besprinkle the columns of
-London newspapers are like the Americanisms to<span class="pagenum" id="Page_92">[Pg 92]</span>
-be seen in the pages of the New York newspapers
-in that they are evidences of vitality, of the
-healthiness of the language itself. In Latin it may
-be proper enough for us to set up a Ciceronian
-standard and to reject any usage not warranted
-by the masterly orator; but in English it is absurd
-to declare any merely personal standard and to
-reject any term or any idiom because it was unknown
-to Chaucer or to Shakspere, to Addison
-or to Franklin, to Thackeray or to Hawthorne.
-Latin is dead, and the Ciceronian decision as regards
-the propriety of any usage may be accepted
-as final. English is a living tongue, and the
-great writers of every generation make unhesitating
-use of words and of constructions which
-the great writers of earlier generations were
-ignorant of or chose to ignore.</p>
-
-<p>The most of these British innovations, both of
-to-day and of to-morrow, will be individual and
-freakish; and, therefore, they will win no foothold
-even in the British vocabulary. But a few
-of them will prove their own excuse for being,
-and these will establish themselves in Great
-Britain. The best of them, those of which the
-necessity is indisputable, will spread across the
-Atlantic and will be welcomed by the main body
-of users of English over here&mdash;just as certain
-American innovations and revivals were hospitably
-received in England when only the smaller<span class="pagenum" id="Page_93">[Pg 93]</span>
-branch of the English-speaking race was on the
-American side of the ocean. And, of course,
-the new terms which spring into existence in the
-United States after the literary center of the language
-has crossed the Atlantic will be carried
-over to England in books and in periodicals.</p>
-
-<p>When the bulk of contemporary English literature
-is produced by American authors, and
-when the British themselves have accepted the
-situation and resigned themselves at last to the
-departure of the literary supremacy of London,
-then the weight of American precedent will be
-overwhelming. Without knowing it, British
-readers of American books will be led to conform
-to American usage; and American terms will not
-seem outlandish to them, as these words and
-phrases do even now, when comparatively few
-American authors are read in Great Britain. And
-these American innovations will be very few, for
-the conservative instinct is in some ways stronger
-in the United States than it is in Great Britain,
-due perhaps partly to the more wide-spread popular
-education here, which gives to every child a
-certain solidarity with the past.</p>
-
-<p>It is education and the school-book; it is the
-printing-press and the newspaper and the magazine;
-it is the ease of travel across the Atlantic
-and the swiftness of the voyage;&mdash;it is a combination
-of all these things which will prevent<span class="pagenum" id="Page_94">[Pg 94]</span>
-any development of a British branch of the language
-after the numerical preponderance of the
-American people becomes overwhelming. And
-working toward the same union is a loyal conservatism,
-due in a measure to a proud enjoyment
-of the great literature of the language, the
-common possession of both British and Americans,
-having its past in the keeping of the elder
-division of the stock, and certain to transfer its
-future to the care of the younger division.</p>
-
-<p>To declare that the literary center of English is
-to be transferred sooner or later from the British
-Isles to the United States may seem to some a
-hazardous prediction; and yet it is as safe as
-any prophecy before the event can hope to be.
-Such a transfer, it is true, is perhaps unprecedented
-in literary history,&mdash;altho the scholar
-may see a close parallel in the preëminence once
-attained by Alexandria as the capital of Greek
-culture. Unprecedented or not, phenomenal or
-not, the transfer is inevitable sooner or later.</p>
-<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_95">[Pg 95]</span></p>
-<div class="blockquot">
-
-<p>(1899)</p>
-</div>
-
-<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop" />
-
-<div class="chapter">
-<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_97">[Pg 97]</span></p>
-
-<h2 class="nobreak" id="Chapter_V">V<br />
-AMERICANISMS ONCE MORE</h2>
-</div>
-
-
-<p>It is a reflection upon what we are wont to term
-a liberal education that the result of college
-training sometimes appears to be rather a narrowing
-of the mental outlook than the broadening
-we have a right to anticipate. What a student
-ought to have got from his four years of labor is
-a conviction of the vastness of human knowledge
-and a proper humility, due to his discovery
-that he himself possesses only an infinitesimal
-fraction of the total sum. Many graduates&mdash;indeed,
-most of them nowadays, we may
-hope&mdash;have attained to this much of wisdom:
-that they are not puffed up by the few things
-they do know, so much as made modest by the
-many things they cannot but admit themselves to
-be ignorant of. With the increasing specialization
-of the higher education, the attitude of the
-graduate is likely to be increasingly humble; and
-a college man will not be led to feel that he is
-expected to know everything about everything.</p>
-
-<p>Perhaps the disputatious arrogance of a few of<span class="pagenum" id="Page_98">[Pg 98]</span>
-the younger graduates of an earlier generation
-was due to the dogmatism of the teaching they
-sat under. In nothing is our later instruction
-more improved than in the disappearance of this
-authoritative tone&mdash;due in great measure, it
-may be, to the unsettling of old theories by new
-facts. In no department of learning was the
-manner more dogmatic than in the teaching of
-the English language. The older rhetoricians
-had no doubts at all on the subject. They never
-hesitated as to the finality of their own judgment
-on all disputed points. They were sure that they
-knew just what the English language ought to
-be; and it never entered into their heads to question
-their own competence to declare the standard
-of speech. Yet, as a matter of fact, they
-knew little of the long history of the language,
-and they had no insight into the principles that
-were governing its development. At most, their
-information was limited to the works of their
-immediate predecessors; and for a more remote
-past they had the same supreme contempt they
-were ever displaying toward the actual present.
-Thus they were ever ready to lay down rules
-made up out of their own heads; and their acts
-were as arbitrary as their attitude was intolerant.</p>
-
-<p>In his ‘Philosophy of Rhetoric,’ which he tells
-us was planned in 1750, <abbr title="doctor">Dr.</abbr> George Campbell
-quotes with approval <abbr title="doctor">Dr.</abbr> Johnson’s assertion that<span class="pagenum" id="Page_99">[Pg 99]</span>
-the “terms of the laboring and mercantile part of
-the people” are mere “fugitive cant,” not to be
-“regarded as part of the durable matter of a
-language.” <abbr title="doctor">Dr.</abbr> Campbell himself refuses to
-consider it as an evidence of reputable and present
-use that a word or a phrase has been employed
-by writers of political pamphlets or by
-speakers in the House of Commons, and he declares
-that he has selected his prose examples
-“neither from living authors, nor from those who
-wrote before the Revolution: not from the first,
-because an author’s fame is not so firmly established
-in his lifetime; nor from the last, that
-there may be no suspicion that his style is superannuated.”
-Now contrast this narrow-mindedness
-with the liberality discoverable in our more
-recent text-books&mdash;in the ‘Elements of Rhetoric,’
-for example, of Professor George R. Carpenter,
-who tells us frankly that “whenever usage
-seems to differ, one’s own taste and sense must
-be called into play.” Professor Carpenter then
-pleads “for a considerable degree of tolerance in
-such matters. If we know what a man means,
-and if his usage is in accordance with that of a
-large number of intelligent and educated people,
-it cannot justly be called incorrect. For language
-rests, at bottom, on convention or agreement,
-and what a large body of reputable people
-recognize as a proper word or a proper meaning<span class="pagenum" id="Page_100">[Pg 100]</span>
-of a word cannot be denied its right to a place in
-the English vocabulary.”</p>
-
-<p>For an Englishman to object to an Americanism
-as such, regardless of its possible propriety
-or of its probable pertinence, and for an
-American to object to a Briticism as such&mdash;either
-of these things is equivalent to a refusal to allow
-the English language to grow. It is to insist
-that it is good enough now and that it shall not
-expand in response to future needs. It is to impose
-on our written speech a fatal rigidity. It is
-an attempt on the part of pedants so to bind the
-limbs of the language that a vigorous life will
-soon be impossible. With all such efforts those
-who have at heart the real welfare of our tongue
-will have no sympathy&mdash;least of all the strong
-men of literature who are forever ravenous after
-new words and old. Victor Hugo, for example,
-so far back as 1827, when the modern science of
-linguistics was still in its swaddling-clothes, had
-no difficulty in declaring the truth. “The French
-language,” he wrote in the preface to ‘Cromwell,’
-“is not fixed, and it never will be. A living language
-does not fix itself. Mind is always on the
-march, or, if you will, in movement, and languages
-move with it.... In vain do our literary
-Joshuas command the language to stand still;
-neither the language nor the sun stands still any
-more. The day they do they fix themselves; it<span class="pagenum" id="Page_101">[Pg 101]</span>
-will be because they are dying. That is why
-the French of a certain contemporary school is a
-dead language.”</p>
-
-<p>In the ‘Art of French Poetry,’ first printed in
-1565, Ronsard, one of the most adroit of Victor
-Hugo’s predecessors in the mastery of verse,
-proffers this significant advice to his fellow-craftsmen
-(I am availing myself of the satisfactory
-translation of Professor B. W. Wells):
-“You must choose and appropriate dexterously
-to your work the most significant words of the
-dialects of our France, especially if you have not
-such good or suitable words in your own dialect;
-and you must not mind whether the words are
-of Gascony, of Poitiers, of Normandy, Manche,
-or Lyonnais, as long as they are good and signify
-exactly what you want to say.... And observe
-that the Greek language would never have
-been so rich in dialects or in words had it not
-been for the great number of republics that flourished
-at that time, ... whence came many dialects,
-all held without distinction as good by the
-learned writers of those times. For a country
-can never be so perfect in all things that it cannot
-borrow sometimes from its neighbors.”</p>
-
-<p>Here we have Ronsard declaring clearly that
-local varieties of speech are most useful to the
-common tongue. Indeed, we may regard the
-dialect of any district as a cache&mdash;a hidden storehouse&mdash;at<span class="pagenum" id="Page_102">[Pg 102]</span>
-which the language may replenish
-itself whenever its own supplies are exhausted.
-Whoever has had occasion to study any of these
-dialects, whether in Greek or in French or in
-English, must have been delighted often at the
-freshness and the force of words and phrases
-unexpectedly discovered. Edward Fitzgerald,
-the translator of Omar Khayyam, made an affectionate
-collection of Suffolk sea-phrases, and
-from these a dozen might be culled, or a score or
-more, by the use of which the English language
-would be the gainer. Lowell’s loving and
-learned analysis of the speech of his fellow New-Englanders
-is familiar to all readers of the ‘Biglow
-Papers.’ It was Lowell also who has left us
-this brilliant definition: “True Americanisms are
-self-cocking phrases or words that are wholly of
-our own make, and do their work shortly and
-sharply at a pinch.”</p>
-
-<p>Characteristically witty this definition is, no
-doubt, but not wholly adequate. What is an
-Americanism? And what is a Briticism? Not
-long ago a friendly British writer rebuked his
-fellow-countrymen for a double failing of theirs&mdash;for
-their twin tricks of assuming, first, that
-every vulgarism unfamiliar to them is an Americanism,
-and that therefore, and secondly, every
-Americanism is a vulgarism. In the mouths of
-many British speakers “Americanism” serves as a<span class="pagenum" id="Page_103">[Pg 103]</span>
-term of reproach; and so does “Briticism” in the
-mouths of some American speakers. But this
-should not be; the words ought to be used with
-scientific precision and with no flush of feeling.
-Before using them, we must ascertain with what
-exact meaning it is best to employ them.</p>
-
-<p>An American investigator gathered together a
-dozen or two queer words and phrases that he
-had noted in recent British books and journals,
-and as they were then wholly unknown to
-America, he branded them as Briticisms, only to
-evoke a prompt protest from <abbr title="mister">Mr.</abbr> Andrew Lang.
-For the stigmatized words and phrases <abbr title="mister">Mr.</abbr> Lang
-proffered no defense; but he boldly denied that
-it was fair to call them Briticisms. True, one or
-another of them had been detected in pages of
-this or that British author. Yet they were not
-common property: they were individualisms;
-they were to be charged against each separate
-perpetrator and not against the whole United
-Kingdom. <abbr title="mister">Mr.</abbr> Lang maintained that when
-Walter Pater used so odd a term as <em>evanescing</em>,
-this use “scarcely makes it a Briticism; it was a
-Paterism.”</p>
-
-<p>This is a plea in confession and avoidance,
-but its force is indisputable. To admit it, however,
-gives us a right to insist that the same justice
-shall be meted out to the so-called Americanisms
-which <abbr title="mister">Mr.</abbr> Lang has more than once held up<span class="pagenum" id="Page_104">[Pg 104]</span>
-to British execration. If the use of an ill-made
-word like <em>essayette</em> or <em>leaderette</em> or <em>sermonette</em> by
-one or more British writers does not make it a
-Briticism until it can be proved to have come
-into general use in Great Britain, then, of course,
-the verbal aberrations of careless Americans, or
-even the freakish dislocations of the vocabulary
-indulged in by some of our more acrobatic humorists,
-does not warrant a British writer in
-calling any chance phrase of theirs an Americanism.
-<abbr title="mister">Mr.</abbr> W. S. Gilbert once manufactured
-the verb “to burgle,” and <abbr title="mister">Mr.</abbr> Gilbert is a British
-writer of good repute; but <em>burgling</em> is not therefore
-a Briticism: it is a Gilbertism. <abbr title="mister">Mr.</abbr> Edison,
-an inventor of another sort, once affirmed that a
-certain article giving an account of his kineto-phonograph
-had his “entire indorsation.” According
-to <abbr title="mister">Mr.</abbr> Lang’s theory, <em>indorsation</em>, not
-being in use generally in the United States, is
-not an Americanism: it is an Edisonism.</p>
-
-<p>The more <abbr title="mister">Mr.</abbr> Lang’s theory is considered, the
-sounder it will appear. Individual word-coinages
-are not redeemable at the national treasury either
-in the United Kingdom or in the United States.
-Before a word or a phrase can properly be called
-a Briticism or an Americanism there must be
-proof that it has won its way into general use on
-its own side of the Atlantic. <em>Right away</em> for
-“at once” is an Americanism beyond all dispute,<span class="pagenum" id="Page_105">[Pg 105]</span>
-for it is wide-spread throughout the United
-States; and so is <em>back of</em> for “behind.” <i>Directly</i>
-for “as soon as” is a Briticism equally indisputable;
-and so is <em>different to</em> for “different from.”
-In each of these four cases there has been a local
-divergence from the traditional usage of the English
-language. All four of these divergences may
-be advantageous, and all four of them may even
-be accepted hereafter on both sides of the Atlantic;
-but just now there is no doubt that two of
-them are fairly to be called Americanisms and
-two of them are properly to be recorded as
-Briticisms.</p>
-
-<p>Every student of our speech knows that true
-Americanisms are abundant enough; but the
-omission of terms casually employed here and
-there, seed that fell by the wayside, springing up
-only to wilt away&mdash;the omission of all individualisms
-of this sort simplifies the list immensely,
-just as a like course of action in England cuts
-down the number of Briticisms fairly to be catalogued
-as such. It must be remarked, however,
-that the collecting of so-called Americanisms is a
-pastime that has been carried on since the early
-years of the nineteenth century, whereas it was
-only in the closing decades of that century that
-attention was called to the existence of Briticisms,
-and to the necessity of a careful collection of
-them. The bulky tomes which pretend to be<span class="pagenum" id="Page_106">[Pg 106]</span>
-‘Dictionaries of Americanisms’ are stuffed with
-words and phrases having no right there.</p>
-
-<p>These dictionaries would be very slim if they
-contained only true Americanisms, that is to say,
-words and phrases in common use in the United
-States and not in common use in the United
-Kingdom. Yet they would be slimmer still if
-another limitation is imposed on the use of the
-word. Is a term fairly to be called an Americanism
-if it can be shown to have been formerly in
-use in England, even though it may there have
-dropped out of sight in the past century or two?
-Now, everybody knows that dozens of so-called
-Americanisms are good old English, neglected by
-the British and allowed to die out over there, but
-cherished and kept alive over here. Such is
-<em>guess</em>=“incline to think”; such is <em>realise</em>=“to
-make certain or substantial”; such is <em>reckon</em>=“consider”
-or “deem”; such is <em>a few</em>=“a little”;
-such is <em>nights</em>=“at night”; and such are
-dozens of other words often foolishly animadverted
-upon as indefensible Americanisms, and
-all of them solidly established in honorable ancestry.
-An instructive collection of these survivals
-can be seen in <abbr title="mister">Mr.</abbr> H. C. Lodge’s aptly entitled
-and highly interesting essay on ‘Shakspere’s
-Americanisms.’</p>
-
-<p>It is with an amused surprise that an American
-in his occasional reading keeps coming across in<span class="pagenum" id="Page_107">[Pg 107]</span>
-the pages of British authors of one century or another
-what he had supposed to be Americanisms,
-and even what he had taken sometimes for mere
-slang. The <em>cert</em> of the New York street-boy,
-apparently a contraction of <i>certainly</i>, is it not
-rather the <em>certes</em> of the Elizabethans? And
-the interrogative <em>how?</em>=“what is it?”&mdash;a usage
-abhorred by <abbr title="doctor">Dr.</abbr> Holmes,&mdash;this can be discovered
-in Massinger’s plays more than once (‘Duke of
-Milan,’ iii. 3, and ‘Believe as You List,’ ii. 2).
-“I’m <em>pretty considerably</em> glad to see you,” says
-Manuel, in Colley Cibber’s ‘She Would and She
-Would Not.’ <em>To fire out</em>=“expel forcibly,” is
-in Shakspere’s Sonnets and also in ‘Ralph Roister
-Doister’&mdash;altho, perhaps, with a slightly different
-connotation from that now obtaining in
-America. A theatrical manager nowadays likes
-to have the first performance of a new play out
-of town so that he can come to the metropolis
-with a perfected work, and he calls this <em>trying it
-on the dog</em>; the same expression, almost, is to be
-found in Pope. In ‘Pickwick,’ Sam Weller proposes
-to <em>settle the hash</em> of an opponent; and in
-‘Tess of the d’Urbervilles’ we find <em>down to the
-ground</em> used as a superlative, and quite in our
-own later sense. The Southern <em>peart</em> is in ‘Lorna
-Doone,’ and the Southwestern <em>dog-gone it</em> is in
-the ‘Little Minister.’ In <abbr title="mister">Mr.</abbr> Barrie’s story also
-do we find <em>to go back on your word</em>; just as in<span class="pagenum" id="Page_108">[Pg 108]</span>
-<abbr title="mister">Mr.</abbr> William Watson’s ‘Excursions in Criticism’
-we discover <em>grit</em>=“staying power” or “doggedness.”</p>
-
-<p>Very amusing indeed is the attitude of the
-ordinary British newspaper reviewer toward
-words and phrases in this category. Not being
-a scholar in English, he is unaware that scholarship
-is a condition precedent to judgment; and
-he is swift to denounce as American innovations
-terms firmly rooted in the earlier masters of the
-language, while he passes the frequent Briticisms
-in the pages of contemporary London writers
-without a hint of reproof. From a British author
-like Rossetti he accepts “the <em>gracile</em> spring,”
-while he rejects “<em>gracile</em> ease” in an American
-author like <abbr title="mister">Mr.</abbr> Howells. Behind this arrogant
-ignorance is to be perceived the assumption that
-the English language is in immediate peril of disease
-and death from American license if British
-newspapers fail to do their duty. The shriller
-the shriek of protest is, the slighter the protester’s
-competence upon the question at issue. No outcry
-against the deterioration of English in America
-has come from any of the British scholars who
-can speak with authority about the language.</p>
-
-<p>What we Americans have done is to keep alive
-or to revive many a good old English term; and
-for this service to our common speech our British
-cousins ought to be properly grateful. We must<span class="pagenum" id="Page_109">[Pg 109]</span>
-admit that words and phrases and usages thus
-reinstated are not true Americanisms&mdash;however
-much we might like to claim them for our very
-own. We have already seen that most of the
-individualisms of eccentric or careless writers are
-also not to be received as true Americanisms.
-And there is yet a third group of so-called Americanisms
-not fairly entitled to the name. These
-are the terms devised in the United States to
-meet conditions unknown in England. Here is
-no divergence from the accepted usage of the
-language, but a development of the common
-tongue to satisfy a new necessity. The need for
-the new word or phrase was first felt in America,
-and here the new term had to be found to supply
-the immediate want. But the word itself,
-altho frankly of American origin, is not to be
-styled an Americanism. It is a new English
-word, that is all&mdash;a word to be used hereafter in
-the United Kingdom as in the United States. It
-is an American contribution to the English language;
-but it is not an Americanism&mdash;if we limit
-Americanism to mean a term having currency
-only in North America, just as Briticism means a
-term having currency only in the British Islands.
-The new thing exists now, and as it came into
-existence in America, we stood sponsors for it;
-but the name we gave it is its name once for all,
-to be used by the British and the Australians<span class="pagenum" id="Page_110">[Pg 110]</span>
-and the Canadians as well as by ourselves.
-<em>Telephone</em>, for example,&mdash;both the thing and the
-word are of American invention,&mdash;is there any
-one so foolish as to call <em>telephone</em> an Americanism?</p>
-
-<p>These American contributions to the English
-language are not a few. Some of them are brand-new
-words, minted at the minute of sudden demand,
-and well made or ill made, as chance would
-have it; <em>phonograph</em> is one of these; <em>dime</em> is
-another; and <em>typewriter</em> is a third. Some of
-them are old words wrenched to a new use,
-like <em>elevator</em>=“storehouse for grain,” and like
-<em>ticker</em>=“telegraphic printing-machine.” Some
-of them are taken from foreign tongues, either
-translated, like <em>statehouse</em> (from the Dutch), or
-unchanged, like <em>prairie</em> (from the French), <em>adobe</em>
-(from the Spanish), and <em>stoop</em> (from the Dutch).
-Some of them are borrowed from the rude
-tongues of our predecessors on this continent,
-like <em>moccasin</em> and <em>tomahawk</em> and <em>wigwam</em>. To
-be compared with this last group are the words
-adopted into English from the native languages
-of India&mdash;<em>punka</em>, for example. And I make no
-doubt that the Australians have taken over from
-the aborigines round about them more than one
-word needed in a hurry as a name for something
-until then nameless in our common language
-because the something itself was until then unknown
-or unnoticed. But these Australian contributions<span class="pagenum" id="Page_111">[Pg 111]</span>
-to English cannot be called Australianisms
-any more than <em>telephone</em> and <em>prairie</em> and
-<em>wigwam</em> can be called Americanisms.</p>
-
-<p>So far the attempt has been here made to subtract
-from the immense and heterogeneous mass
-of so-called Americanisms three classes of terms
-falsely so called: first, the mere individualisms,
-for which America as a whole has a right to shirk
-the responsibility; second, the survivals in the
-United States of words and usages that happen
-to have fallen into abeyance in Great Britain; and,
-third, the American contributions to the English
-language. As to each of these three groups the
-case is clear enough; but as to a fourth group,
-which ought also to be deducted, one cannot
-speak with quite so much confidence.</p>
-
-<p>This group would include the peculiarities of
-speech existing sporadically in this or that special
-locality and contributing what are often called
-the American dialects&mdash;the Yankee dialect first
-of all, then the dialect of the Appalachian mountaineers,
-the dialect of the Western cow-boys, etc.
-Are these localisms fairly to be classed as Americanisms?
-The question, so far as I know, has
-never been raised before, for it has been taken
-for granted that if any such things as Americanisms
-existed at all, they could surely be collected
-from the mouth of Hosea Biglow. And yet if
-we pause to think, we cannot but admit that the<span class="pagenum" id="Page_112">[Pg 112]</span>
-so-called Yankee dialect is local, that it is unknown
-outside of New England, and that a majority
-of the inhabitants of the United States find
-it almost as strange in their ears as the broad
-Scotch of Burns. As for the so-called dialect of
-the cow-boy, it is not a true dialect at all; it is
-simply carelessly colloquial English with a heavy
-infusion of fugitive slang; and whatever it may
-be in itself, it is local to the cow-country. The
-Appalachian dialect is perhaps more like a true
-dialect; but it is even less wide-spread than either
-of the others here picked out for consideration.
-No one of these three alleged dialects is in
-any sense national; all three of them are narrowly
-local&mdash;altho the New England speech has
-spread more or less into the middle west.</p>
-
-<p>Perhaps some light on this puzzle may be had
-by considering how they regard a similar problem
-in England itself. The local dialects which still
-abound throughout the British Isles are under
-investigation, each by itself. No one has ever
-suggested the lumping of them all together as
-Briticisms. Indeed, the very definition of Briticism
-would debar this. What is a Briticism but a term
-frequently used throughout Great Britain and not
-accepted in the United States? And if this definition
-is acceptable, we are forced to declare
-that an Americanism is a term frequently used
-throughout the United States and not accepted in<span class="pagenum" id="Page_113">[Pg 113]</span>
-Great Britain. The terms of the Yankee dialect,
-of the Appalachian, and of the cow-boy, are localisms;
-they are not frequently used throughout
-the United States; they are not to be classed as
-Americanisms any more than the cockney idioms,
-the Wessex words, and the Yorkshire phrases
-are to be classed as Briticisms.</p>
-
-<p>It is greatly to be regretted that <abbr title="doctor">Dr.</abbr> Murray
-and <abbr title="mister">Mr.</abbr> Bradley and the other editors of the comprehensive
-Oxford Dictionary have not been so
-careful as they might be in identifying the locality
-of American dialectic peculiarities. They
-have taken great pains to record and circumscribe
-British dialectic peculiarities; but they are in the
-habit of appending a vague and misleading (<abbr title="United States">U. S.</abbr>)
-to such American words and usages as they may
-set down. It is to be hoped that they may hereafter
-aim at a greater exactness in their attributions,
-since their present practice is quite misleading,
-as it often suggests that a term is a true
-Americanism, used freely throughout the United
-States, when it is perhaps merely an individualism
-or at best a localism.</p>
-
-<p>Of true Americanisms there are not so very
-many left, when we have ousted from their
-usurped places these four groups of terms having
-no real title to the honorable name. And true
-Americanisms might be subdivided again into
-two groups, the one containing the American<span class="pagenum" id="Page_114">[Pg 114]</span>
-terms for which there are equivalent Briticisms,
-thus indicating a divergence of usage, and the
-other including only the words and phrases which
-have sprung up here without correlative activity
-on the other side of the Atlantic.</p>
-
-<p>When the attempt is made to set up parallel
-columns of Briticisms and Americanisms, each
-more or less equal to the other, it is with surprise
-that we discover how few of these equivalencies
-there are. In other words, the variations
-of usage between Great Britain and the United
-States are infrequent. In England the railway
-was preceded by the stage-coach, and in America
-the railroad was preceded rather by the river
-steamboat; and probably this accounts for the
-slight differentiation observable in the vocabulary
-of the traveler. But this is not the reason why
-we in America make misuse of a French word,
-<i xml:lang="fr" lang="fr">dépôt</i>, while the British prefer the Latin word
-<i xml:lang="la" lang="la">terminus</i>,&mdash;restricting its application accurately to
-the terminal station of a line. In England they
-name him a <em>guard</em> whom we in America name
-<em>brakeman</em> or <em>trainman</em>; and it is to be noted that
-when Stevenson was an Amateur Emigrant he
-sought to use the word of the country and so
-mentions the <em>brakesman</em>&mdash;thus proving again the
-difficulty of attaining exactness in local usage.
-The British call that a <em>goods-train</em> which we call
-a <em>freight-train</em>; and they speak of a <em>crossing-plate</em><span class="pagenum" id="Page_115">[Pg 115]</span>
-when they mean what we know as a <em>frog</em>. In
-the United States a <em>sleeping-car</em> is often termed
-a <em>sleeper</em>, whereas in Great Britain what they call
-a <em>sleeper</em> is what we here call a <em>tie</em>. They say a <em>keyless
-watch</em> where we say a <em>stem-winder</em>. They
-say <em>leader</em> where we say <em>editorial</em>. They call that
-a <em>lift</em> which we call an <em>elevator</em>; and we call him
-a <em>farm-hand</em> whom they call an <em>agricultural
-laborer</em>. They have even borrowed one Americanism,
-<em>caucus</em>, and made it a Briticism by
-changing its meaning to signify what we are
-wont to describe as the <em>machine</em> or the <em>organisation</em>.
-It is to be noted also that <em>corn</em> in England
-refers to <em>wheat</em> and in America to <em>maize</em>;
-and that in Great Britain <em>calico</em> is a plain cotton
-cloth and in the United States a printed cotton
-cloth.</p>
-
-<p>This list of correlative Americanisms and Briticisms
-might be extended, of course; but however
-sweeping our investigations may be we
-cannot make it very long. Far longer is the list
-of American words and phrases and usages for
-which there is no British equivalent&mdash;far too long,
-indeed, for inclusion in this essay. All that can
-be done here and now is to pick up a surface
-specimen or two from the outcroppings to show
-the quality of the vein. For instance, the vocabulary
-of the university is largely indigenous&mdash;altho
-we have recently borrowed a British vulgarism,<span class="pagenum" id="Page_116">[Pg 116]</span>
-speaking now of the <em>varsity team</em> and the <em>varsity
-crew</em>. <em>Campus</em> seems to be unknown to the
-British, and so does <em>sophomoric</em>, a most useful
-epithet understood at once all over the United
-States. Its absence from the British vocabulary
-is probably due to the fact that the four-year
-course of the old-fashioned American college is
-unknown in England, where there are <em>freshmen</em>
-indeed, but no <em>sophomores</em>.</p>
-
-<p>Going out from the academic groves to the
-open air of the wider West, as so many of our
-college graduates do every year, we meet with a
-host of Americanisms vigorous with the free life
-of the great river and of the grand mountains.
-But is <em>blaze</em>=“to mark a trail through the
-woods by chipping off bits of bark”&mdash;is this a
-true Americanism? Is it not rather an American
-contribution to the English language? Surely
-every man in Africa or in Asia who wishes to
-retrace his path through a virgin forest must
-needs <em>blaze</em> his way as he goes. But <em>shack</em>=“a
-cabin of logs driven perpendicularly into the
-ground”&mdash;this is a true Americanism undoubtedly.
-And its compound <em>claim-shack</em>=“a shack
-built to hold a claim on a preëmption”&mdash;this
-is another true Americanism likely to puzzle
-a British reader. Even <em>preëmpt</em> and <em>preëmption</em>
-are probably Americanisms in that they
-have with us a meaning somewhat different from<span class="pagenum" id="Page_117">[Pg 117]</span>
-that they may have on the other side of the Atlantic.
-Another true Americanism, which comes
-to us from the plains, is <em>mavericks</em>=“the unbranded
-cattle at large to become the property
-of the first ranch-owner whose men may chance
-upon them.” And <em>ranch</em>, while it is itself a contribution
-to the language, has usages in which it
-is an Americanism merely&mdash;as in the Californian
-<em>hen-ranch</em>, for example.</p>
-
-<p>There is a large freedom about the Western
-vernacular and a swift directness not elsewhere
-observable in the English language, whether in
-the United States or in the British Empire. These
-are most valuable qualities, and they are likely to
-be of real service to English in helping to refresh
-the jaded vocabulary of more scholarly communities.
-The function of slang as a true feeder of
-language is certain to get itself more widely recognized
-as time goes on; and there is no better
-nursery for these seedlings of speech than the
-territory west of the Mississippi and east of the
-Rockies. To say this is not to say that there are
-not to be found east of the Mississippi many interesting
-locutions still inadequately established
-in the language. For example, there are three
-words applied to the same thing in different parts
-of the East; perhaps they ought to be styled localisms,
-but as they would be comprehended all
-over the United States, they are probably entitled<span class="pagenum" id="Page_118">[Pg 118]</span>
-to be received as true Americanisms&mdash;if, on the
-other hand, they are not in fact good old English
-words. A pass through the hills is often called
-a <em>notch</em> in the White Mountains, a <em>clove</em> in the
-Catskills, and a <em>gap</em> in the Blue Ridge. Yet
-even as I write this I have my doubts as to
-there being any narrow geographical delimitation
-of usage, since I can recall a Parker Notch in the
-Catskills, not far from Stony Clove and Kaaterskill
-Clove.</p>
-
-<p>One of the best known of true Americanisms
-is <em>lumber</em>=“timber.” When we speak of
-the <em>lumbering</em> industry we mean not only the
-cutting down of trees and their sawing up into
-planks, but also their marketing. From the apparent
-participle <em>lumbering</em> a verb has been
-made <em>to lumber</em>&mdash;a not uncommon process in
-the history of the language, one British analog
-being the making of the verb <em>to bant</em> from the
-innocent name of <abbr title="mister">Mr.</abbr> Banting. <em>To lumber</em> is
-apparently now used in the sense of <em>to deforest</em>,
-if we may rely on a newspaper paragraph which
-informed us that a certain tract of twenty-five
-thousand acres in the Adirondacks had “been
-lumbered, but not in such a way as to injure it
-for a park.” The verb <em>to launder</em>=“to wash,”
-has been revived of late in America, if indeed it
-has not been made anew from the noun <em>laundry</em>;
-and shirt-makers in their price-lists specify whether<span class="pagenum" id="Page_119">[Pg 119]</span>
-the shirts are to be sold <em>laundered</em> or <em>unlaundered</em>.
-And to the word <em>laundry</em> itself has
-been given a further extension of meaning. In
-New York, at least,&mdash;and the verbal fashions of
-the metropolis spread swiftly throughout the
-Union,&mdash;it signifies not only the place where
-personal linen is washed but the personal linen
-itself. An advertisement in a college magazine
-informed the lone student that “gentlemen’s
-<em>laundry</em>” was “mended free.”</p>
-
-<p>When an American student of English printed
-a collection of Briticisms in which more than one
-strange wild fowl of speech had been snared on
-the wing in newspapers and advertisements, <abbr title="mister">Mr.</abbr>
-Andrew Lang protested against the acceptance of
-phrases so gathered as representative Briticisms;
-and it is only fair to admit that they represented
-colloquial or industrial rather than literary usage.
-Yet they were interesting in that they gave us a
-glimpse of the actual speech of the common people&mdash;just
-such a glimpse, in fact, as we get from
-the Roman inscriptions. This actual speech of
-the people, whether in Rome or in London or in
-New York, is the real language, of which the
-literary dialect is but a sublimation. Language
-is born in the mouth, altho it dies young unless
-it is brought up by hand. Language is made
-sometimes in the library, it is true, and in the
-parlor also, but far more often in the workshop<span class="pagenum" id="Page_120">[Pg 120]</span>
-and on the sidewalk; and nowadays the newspaper
-and the advertisement record for us the
-simple and unstilted phrases of the workshop
-and the sidewalk.</p>
-
-<p>The most of these will fade out of sight unregretted;
-but a few will prove themselves possessed
-of sturdy vitality. Briticisms, it may be,
-or Americanisms, as it happens, they will fight
-their way up from the workshop to the library,
-from the sidewalk to the study. Born in a single
-city, they will serve usefully throughout a great
-nation, and perhaps in the end all over the world,
-wherever our language is spoken.</p>
-
-<p>The ideal of style, so it has been tersely put,
-is the speech of the people in the mouth of the
-scholar. One reason why so much of the academic
-writing of educated men is arid is because
-it is as remote as may be from the speech of the
-people. One reason why Mark Twain and Rudyard
-Kipling are now the best-beloved authors of
-the English language is because they have each
-of them a welcome ear for the speech of the
-people. Mark Twain abounds in true Americanisms;
-on the other hand, Rudyard Kipling is sparing
-of real Briticisms&mdash;having, indeed, a certain
-hankering after Americanisms. Kipling’s case is
-not unlike that of Æschylus, who was a native
-of Greece but a frequent resident in Sicily, and in
-whose vocabulary occasional Sicilianisms have<span class="pagenum" id="Page_121">[Pg 121]</span>
-been found by the keen-eyed German critics.
-So Plautus greedily availed himself of the vigorous
-fertility he discovered in the vocabulary of
-the Roman populace; and when Cicero went to
-the works of Plautus for the words he needed,
-we had once more the speech of the people in
-the mouth of the scholar.</p>
-
-<p>Something of the toploftiness of the elder rhetoricians
-yet lingers in the tone many British writers
-of to-day see fit to adopt whenever they take occasion
-to discuss the use of the English language
-here in America. A trenchant critic like <abbr title="mister">Mr.</abbr>
-Frederic Harrison, in a lecture on the masters of
-style, went out of his way to warn his hearers
-that though they might be familiar in their writing
-they were by no means to be vulgar. “At
-any rate, be easy, colloquial if you like, but shun
-those vocables which come to us across the Atlantic,
-or from Newmarket and Whitechapel.”
-This linking of America and Whitechapel may
-seem to us to be rather vulgar than familiar; and
-it was Goethe&mdash;a master of style well known to
-<abbr title="mister">Mr.</abbr> Harrison&mdash;who reminded us that “when
-self-esteem expresses itself in contempt of another,
-be he the meanest, it must be repellant.”
-It is only fair to say that fewer British writers
-than ever before sink to so low a level as this;
-and it is right to admit that a definite recognition
-of the American joint-ownership of the English<span class="pagenum" id="Page_122">[Pg 122]</span>
-language is not now so rare as once it was
-in England.</p>
-
-<p>Not often, however, do we find so frank and
-ungrudging acknowledgment of the exact truth
-as is to be found in <abbr title="mister">Mr.</abbr> William Archer’s ‘America
-To-day.’ Part of one of the Scotch critic’s
-paragraphs calls for quotation here because it
-sets forth, perhaps more clearly and concisely
-than any American has yet dared to do, what the
-facts of the case really are:</p>
-
-<p>“There can be no rational doubt, I think, that
-the English language has gained, and is gaining,
-enormously by its expansion over the American
-continent. The prime function of a language,
-after all, is to interpret the ‘form and pressure’
-of life&mdash;the experience, knowledge, thought,
-emotion, and aspiration of the race which employs
-it. This being so, the more tap-roots a
-language sends down into the soil of life, and
-the more varied the strata of human experience
-from which it draws its nourishment, whether of
-vocabulary or idiom, the more perfect will be its
-potentialities as a medium of expression. We
-must be careful, it is true, to keep the organism
-healthy, to guard against disintegration of tissue;
-but to that duty American writers are quite as
-keenly alive as we. It is not a source of weakness
-but of power and vitality to the English language
-that it should embrace a greater variety of<span class="pagenum" id="Page_123">[Pg 123]</span>
-dialects than any other civilized tongue. A new
-language, says the proverb, is a new sense; but
-a multiplicity of dialects means, for the possessors
-of the main language, an enlargement of the
-pleasures of the linguistic sense without the fatigue
-of learning a totally new grammar and
-vocabulary. So long as there is a potent literary
-tradition keeping the core of the language one
-and indivisible, vernacular variations can only
-tend, in virtue of the survival of the fittest, to
-promote the abundance, suppleness, and nicety
-of adaptation of the language as a literary instrument.
-The English language is no mere historic
-monument, like Westminster Abbey, to be religiously
-preserved as a relic of the past, and reverenced
-as the burial-place of a bygone breed of
-giants. It is a living organism, ceaselessly busied,
-like any other organism, in the processes of assimilation
-and excretion.”</p>
-<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_125">[Pg 125]</span></p>
-<div class="blockquot">
-
-<p>(1899)</p>
-</div>
-
-<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop" />
-
-<div class="chapter">
-<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_127">[Pg 127]</span></p>
-
-<h2 class="nobreak" id="Chapter_VI">VI<br />
-NEW WORDS AND OLD</h2>
-</div>
-
-
-<p>Not long before the opening of the splendid
-exhibition which, for the short space of six
-months, made Chicago the most interesting city
-in the world, its leading literary journal editorially
-rejoiced that English was becoming a world-language,
-but sorrowed also that it was sadly in
-danger of corruption, especially from the piebald
-jargon of our so-called dialect stories. Not long
-before the celebration of the Diamond Jubilee of
-Queen Victoria a notorious sensation-monger of
-London, having founded a review in which to
-exploit himself, proclaimed that English was in
-a parlous state, and that something ought to be
-done at once or the language would surely die.
-The Chicago editor was grieved at the sorry condition
-of our language in the United States, while
-the London editor wept over its wretched plight
-in Great Britain. The American journalist called
-upon us to take pattern by the British; and the
-British journalist cried out for an Academy like
-that of the French to lay down laws for the<span class="pagenum" id="Page_128">[Pg 128]</span>
-speaking of our mother-tongue&mdash;intending perhaps
-to propose later the revival of the pillory or
-of the ducking-stool for those who shall infringe
-the stringent provisions of the new code.</p>
-
-<p>There is nothing novel in these shrill outbreaks,
-which serve only to alarm the timid and to reveal
-an unhesitating ignorance of the history of our
-language. The same kind of protest has been
-made constantly ever since English has been recognized
-as a tongue worthy of preservation and
-protection; and it would be easy to supply parallels
-without number, some of them five hundred
-years old. A single example will probably suffice.
-In Steele’s ‘Tatler’ Swift wrote a letter denouncing
-“the deplorable ignorance that for some
-years hath reigned among our English writers,
-the great depravity of our taste, and the continual
-corruption of our style.” Here we find the ‘Tatler’
-(of London) in the first decade of the eighteenth
-century saying exactly what the ‘Dial’ (of
-Chicago) echoed in the last decade of the nineteenth.
-But the earlier writer had an excuse the
-later writer was without; Swift wrote before the
-history of our language was understood.</p>
-
-<p>We know now that growth is a condition of
-life; and that only a dead language is rigid. We
-know now that it is dangerous to elevate the
-literary diction too far above the speech of the
-plain people. We have found out that nobody<span class="pagenum" id="Page_129">[Pg 129]</span>
-in Rome ever spoke Ciceronian Latin; Cicero did
-not speak it himself; he did not even write it
-naturally; he wrote it with an effort and not
-always to his own satisfaction at the first attempt.
-We have discovered that there was a wide gap
-between the elegance of the orator’s polished
-periods and the uncouth bluntness of the vulgar
-tongue of the Roman people; and we believe that
-this divergence was broader than that between
-the perfect style of Hawthorne, for example,
-and the every-day dialect of Salem or of Concord.</p>
-
-<p>By experts like Whitney we are told that there
-has been less structural modification of our language
-in the second half of the nineteenth century
-than in any other fifty-year period of its
-existence. Our vocabulary has been enormously
-enriched, but the skeleton of our speech has been
-only a little developed. With the decrease in
-illiteracy the conserving force of the printing-press
-must always hereafter make change increasingly
-difficult&mdash;even in the obvious cases
-where improvement is possible. The indirect
-influence of the novelist and the direct influence
-of the schoolmaster&mdash;very powerful each of them
-and almost irresistible when united&mdash;will always
-be exerted on the side of the conservatives. To
-seize these facts firmly and to understand their
-applications is to have ready always an ample<span class="pagenum" id="Page_130">[Pg 130]</span>
-answer for all those who chatter about the impending
-corruption of our noble tongue.</p>
-
-<p>But we may go further. The study of history
-shows us that the future of English is dependent
-not on the watchfulness of its guardians, not
-upon the increasing richness and flexibility of its
-vocabulary, not upon the modification of its syntax,
-not upon the needed reform of its orthography;
-it is not dependent upon any purity or
-any corruption of the language itself. The future
-of the English language is dependent upon the
-future of the two great peoples that speak it; it
-is dependent upon the strength, the energy, the
-vigor, and the virtue of the British and the Americans.
-A language is but the instrument of those
-who use it; and English has flourished and spread
-not because of its own merits, many as they are,
-but because of the forthputting qualities of the
-masterful English stock. It must rise and fall
-with us who speak it. “No speech can do more
-than express the ideas of those who employ it at
-the time,” so a recent historian of our language
-has reminded us. “It cannot live upon its past
-meanings, or upon the past conceptions of great
-men that have been recorded in it, any more than
-the race which uses it can live upon its past glory
-or its past achievements.”</p>
-
-<p>When we have once possessed ourselves of
-the inexorable fact that it is not in our power<span class="pagenum" id="Page_131">[Pg 131]</span>
-to warp the development of our language by any
-conscious effort, we can listen with amused toleration
-to the excited outcries of those who are
-constantly protesting against this or that word or
-phrase or usage which may seem to them new
-and therefore unjustifiable. We discover also
-that the self-appointed legislators who lay down
-the law thus peremptorily are often emphatic in
-exact proportion to their ignorance of the history
-of the language.</p>
-
-<p>“Every word we speak,” so <abbr title="doctor">Dr.</abbr> Holmes told
-us, “is the medal of a dead thought or feeling,
-struck in the die of some human experience,
-worn smooth by innumerable contacts, and always
-transferred warm from one to another.”
-We must admit that these chance medalists of
-language have not always been gifted artists or
-skilled craftsmen, so the words of their striking
-are sometimes misshapen; nor have they always
-respected the standard, so there is counterfeit
-coin in circulation sometimes. Even when the
-word is sterling and well minted, be it new or
-old,</p>
-
-<p class="poetry p0">
-Now stamped with the image of Good Queen Bess,<br />
-<span style="margin-left: 2em;">And now of a Bloody Mary,</span><br />
-</p>
-
-<p>the coin itself is sometimes locked up in the
-reserve, to be misrepresented by a shabby paper
-promise to pay. So fierce is the popular demand<span class="pagenum" id="Page_132">[Pg 132]</span>
-for an increased <em>per capita</em> that the verbal currency
-is ever in danger of debasement. This is
-the apparent justification of the self-appointed
-tellers who busy themselves with touchstones of
-their own and who venture to throw out much
-false coin. Their tests are trustworthy now and
-again; but more often than not the pieces they
-have nailed to the counter are of full weight and
-ought to pass current.</p>
-
-<p>“There is a purism,” Whitney said, “which,
-while it seeks to maintain the integrity of the
-language, in effect stifles its growth; to be too
-fearful of new words and phrases, new meanings,
-familiar and colloquial expressions, is little less
-fatal to the well-being of a spoken tongue than
-to rush into the opposite extreme.” And Professor
-Lounsbury goes further and asserts that
-our language is not to-day in danger from the
-agencies commonly supposed to be corrupting it,
-but rather “from ignorant efforts made to preserve
-what is called its purity.” And elsewhere
-the same inexpugnable authority reminds us that
-“the history of language is the history of corruptions,”
-and that “the purest of speakers uses
-every day, with perfect propriety, words and
-forms which, looked at from the point of view
-of the past, are improper, if not scandalous.”</p>
-
-<p>There would be both interest and instruction in
-a list of the many words securely intrenched in<span class="pagenum" id="Page_133">[Pg 133]</span>
-our own vocabulary to-day which were bitterly
-assaulted on their first appearance. Swift praises
-himself for his valiant effort against certain of
-these intruders: “I have done my utmost for
-some years past to stop the progress of <em>mob</em> and
-<em>banter</em>, but have been plainly borne down by
-numbers and betrayed by those who promised to
-assist me.” Puttenham (or whoever it was that
-wrote the anonymous ‘Arte of English Poesie,’
-published in 1589) admitted the need of certain
-words to which the purists might justly object,
-and then adds that “many other like words borrowed
-out of the Latin and French were not so
-well to be allowed by us,” citing then, among
-those of which he disapproved, <em>audacious</em>,
-<em>egregious</em>, and <em>compatible</em>. In the ‘Poetaster,’
-acted in 1601, Ben Jonson satirized Marston’s
-verbal innovations, and among the words he
-reviled are <em>clumsy</em>, <em>inflate</em>, <em>spurious</em>, <em>conscious</em>,
-<em>strenuous</em>, <em>defunct</em>, <em>retrograde</em>, and <em>reciprocal</em>;
-and in his ‘Discoveries’ Jonson shrewdly remarked
-that “a man coins not a new word without
-some peril and less fruit; for if it happen to
-be received, the praise is but moderate; if refused,
-the scorn is assured.”</p>
-
-<p>Puttenham wrote at the end of the sixteenth
-century, Jonson at the beginning of the seventeenth,
-Swift at the beginning of the eighteenth;
-and at the beginning of the nineteenth we find<span class="pagenum" id="Page_134">[Pg 134]</span>
-Lady Holland declaring <em>influential</em> to be a detestable
-word and asserting that she had tried in vain
-to get Sheridan to forego it.</p>
-
-<p>At the end of the nineteenth century the battle
-was still raging over <em>standpoint</em>, for example, and
-over <em>reliable</em> and over <em>lengthy</em>, and over a score
-of others, all of which bid fair to establish themselves
-ultimately because they supply a demand
-more or less insistent. The fate is more doubtful
-of <em>photo</em> for <em>photograph</em> and of <em>phone</em> for <em>telephone</em>;
-they both strike us now as vulgarisms,
-just as <em>mob</em> (and for the same reason) struck
-Swift as vulgar; and it may be that in time they
-will live down this stigma of illegitimacy just as
-<em>mob</em> has survived it. Then there is the misbegotten
-verb, <em>to enthuse</em>, in my sight the most
-hideous of vocables. What is to be its fate?
-Altho I have detected it in the careful columns
-of the ‘Nation,’ it has not as yet been
-adopted by any acknowledged master of English;
-none the less, I fear me greatly, it has all
-the vitality of other ill weeds. And is <em>bike</em> going
-to get itself recognized as a substitute for <em>bicycle</em>,
-both as verb and as noun? It seems to be possible,
-since a monosyllable has always an advantage
-over a trisyllable in our impatient mouths.</p>
-
-<p>Swift objected sharply to the curtailing of
-words “when we are already overloaded with
-monosyllables, which are the disgrace of our language.”<span class="pagenum" id="Page_135">[Pg 135]</span>
-Then he wittily characterizes the process
-by which <em>mob</em> had been made, <em>cab</em> was to
-be made, and <em>photo</em> is now in the making: “Thus
-we cram one syllable and cut off the rest, as the
-owl fattened her mice after she had bit off their
-legs to prevent them from running away; and if
-ours be the same reason for maiming our words,
-it will certainly answer the end: for I am sure
-no other nation will desire to borrow them.”
-Swift was rash enough to assert that <em>speculation</em>,
-<em>operation</em>, <em>preliminaries</em>, <em>ambassador</em>, <em>communication</em>,
-and <em>battalion</em> were words newly introduced,
-and also to prophesy that they were too poly-syllabic
-to be able to endure many more campaigns.
-As it happens no attempt has been made
-to shorten any one of them except <em>speculation</em>,
-and it can hardly be maintained that <em>spec</em> has
-established itself. Certainly it has not disestablished
-<em>speculation</em>, as <em>mob</em> has driven out <em>mobile
-vulgus</em>.</p>
-
-<p>Dryden declared that he traded “both with the
-living and the dead for the enrichment of our
-native language”; but he denied that he Latinized
-too much; and most of the Gallicisms he
-attempted have not won acceptance. Lowell
-thought that Dryden did not add a single word
-to the language, unless “he first used <em>magnetism</em>
-in its present sense of moral attraction.” <abbr title="doctor">Dr.</abbr>
-Holmes also discovered that it is not enough to<span class="pagenum" id="Page_136">[Pg 136]</span>
-make a new word when it is needed and to fashion
-it fitly; its fortune still depends on public
-caprice or popular instinct. “I’ve sometimes
-made new words,” he told a friend; “I made
-<em>chrysocracy</em>, thinking it would take its place, but
-it didn’t; <em>plutocracy</em>, meaning the same thing,
-was adopted instead.” But <em>anesthesia</em> is a word
-of <abbr title="doctor">Dr.</abbr> Holmes’s making which has won its way
-not only in English but in most of the other
-modern languages. It may be doubted whether
-a like fortune will follow another word to be
-found quoted in one of his letters, <em>aproposity</em>, a
-bilingual hybrid not without analogues in our
-language.</p>
-
-<p>It is with surprise that in Stevenson’s very
-Scotch romance ‘David Balfour’ we happen upon
-another malformation&mdash;<em>come-at-able</em>, hitherto supposed
-to be Yankee in its origin and in its aroma.
-Elsewhere in the same story we read “you <em>claim</em>
-to be innocent,” a form which the cockney critics
-are wont to call American. Stevenson in this
-novel uses both the modern <em>jeopardize</em> and the
-ancient <em>enjeopardy</em>. Just why <em>to jeopardize</em>
-should have driven <em>to jeopard</em> out of use, it is not
-easy to declare, nor why <em>leniency</em> is supplanting
-<em>lenity</em>. As <em>drunk</em> seems to suggest total intoxication,
-it is possible to discover the cause of the
-increasing tendency to say “I have <em>drank</em>.” No
-defense is easy of <em>in our midst</em> for <em>in the midst<span class="pagenum" id="Page_137">[Pg 137]</span>
-of us</em>, and yet it will prevail inevitably, for it is
-a convenient short-cut. <abbr title="doctor">Dr.</abbr> Holmes confessed
-to Richard Grant White that he had used it once,
-and that Edward Everett (who had also once
-fallen from grace) made him see the error of his
-ways. It is to be found twice in Stevenson’s
-‘Amateur Emigrant,’ and again in the ‘Res Judicatæ’
-of <abbr title="mister">Mr.</abbr> Augustine Birrell, a brisk essayist,
-altho not an impeccable stylist.</p>
-
-<p>It is nothing against a noun that it is new. To
-call it a neologism is but begging the question.
-Of necessity every word was new once. It was
-“struck in the die of human experience,” to come
-back to <abbr title="doctor">Dr.</abbr> Holmes’s figure; and it is at its best
-before it is “worn smooth by innumerable contacts.”
-Lowell thought it was a chief element
-of Shakspere’s greatness that “he found words
-ready to his use, original and untarnished&mdash;types
-of thought whose sharp edges were unworn by
-repeated impressions.” He “found a language
-already established but not yet fetlocked by dictionary
-and grammar mongers.” For the same
-reason Mérimée delighted in Russian, because it
-was “young, the pedants not having had time
-to spoil it; it is admirably fit for poetry.”</p>
-
-<p>This native relish for the uncontaminated word
-it was that led Hugo and Gautier to ransack all
-sorts of special vocabularies. This thirst for the
-unhackneyed epithet it is that urges <abbr title="mister">Mr.</abbr> Rudyard<span class="pagenum" id="Page_138">[Pg 138]</span>
-Kipling to avail himself of the technical
-terms of trade, which serve his purpose, not
-merely because they are exact, but also because
-they are unexpected. The device is dangerous,
-no doubt, but a writer of delicate perceptions can
-find his advantage in it. Perhaps George Eliot
-was a little too fond of injecting into fiction the
-terminology of science, but there was nothing
-blameworthy in the desire to enlarge the vocabulary
-which should be at the command of the
-novelist. Professor Dowden records that when
-she used in a story words and phrases like <em>dynamic</em>
-and <em>natural selection</em>, the reviewer pricked
-up his delicate ears and shied; and he makes bold
-to suggest that “if the thoroughbred critic could
-only be led close up to <em>dynamic</em>, he would find
-that <em>dynamic</em> would not bite.” Every lover of
-our language will sympathize with Professor
-Dowden’s assertion that “a protest of common
-sense is really called for against the affectation
-which professes to find obscurity in words because
-they are trisyllabic or because they carry
-with them scientific associations. Language, the
-instrument of literary art, is an instrument of
-ever-extending range, and the truest pedantry, in
-an age when the air is saturated with scientific
-thought, would be to reject those accessions to
-the language which are the special gain of the
-time.”</p>
-
-<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_139">[Pg 139]</span></p>
-
-<p>Where George Eliot erred&mdash;if err she did at all
-in this matter&mdash;was in the use of scientific terms
-inappropriately, or, so to say, boastfully, whereby
-she aroused an association of ideas foreign to the
-purpose in hand. Every writer needs to consider
-most carefully both the obvious and the remote
-associations of the phrases he employs, that these
-may intensify the thought he wishes to convey.
-A word is known by the company it has kept.
-Especially must a poet have a keen nose for the
-fragrant word, or else his stanzas will lack savor.
-The magic of his art lies largely in the syllables
-he selects, in their sound and in their color. Not
-their meanings merely are important to him, but
-their suggestions also&mdash;not what they denote
-more than what they connote. An American
-psychologist has recently told us that every word
-has not only its own note but also its overtones.
-With unconscious foresight, the great poets have
-always acted on this theory.</p>
-
-<p>Perhaps this is a reason why the poets have
-ever been ready to rescue a cast-off word from
-the rubbish-heap of the past. Professor Earle
-(of Oxford) declares that “it has been one of the
-most interesting features of the new vigor and
-independence of American literature, that it has
-often displayed in a surprising manner what
-springs of novelty there are in reserve and to be
-elicited by novel combinations”&mdash;a statement<span class="pagenum" id="Page_140">[Pg 140]</span>
-more complimentary in its intent than felicitous
-in its phrasing. And Professor Earle praises
-Emerson and Lowell and Holmes for their skill
-in enriching our modern English with the old
-words locked up out of sight in the treasuries of
-the past. Lowell said of Emerson that “his eye
-for a fine, telling phrase that will carry true is
-like that of a backwoodsman for a rifle; and he
-will dredge you up a choice word from the mud
-of Cotton Mather himself.”</p>
-
-<p>Of course this effort to recover the scattered
-pearls of speech, dropped by the wayside in the
-course of the centuries, is peculiar neither to the
-United States nor to the nineteenth century&mdash;altho
-perhaps it has been carried further in our
-country and in our time than anywhere else.
-Modern Greek has recalled to its aid as much old
-Greek as it can assimilate. Sallust was accused
-by an acrid critic of having made a list of obsolete
-words, which he strove deliberately to reintroduce
-into Latin. This is, in effect, what Spenser sought
-to do with Chaucer’s vocabulary; and it is curious
-to reflect that, owing, it may be, in part, to the
-example set by the author of the ‘Faerie Queene,’
-the language of the ‘Canterbury Tales’ is far
-less strange, less remote, less archaic to us to-day
-than it was to the Elizabethans.</p>
-
-<p>A rapid consumption of the vocabulary is going
-on constantly. Words are swiftly worn out and<span class="pagenum" id="Page_141">[Pg 141]</span>
-used up and thrown aside. New words are
-made or borrowed to fill the vacancies; and old
-words are impressed into service and forced to
-do double duty. No sooner is a new dictionary
-completed than the editor sets about his inevitable
-supplement. And the dictionary is not only
-of necessity incomplete: it is also inadequate in
-its definitions, for it may happen that a word will
-take on an added meaning while the big book
-is at the bindery. Our language is fluctuating
-always; and now one word and now another has
-expanded its content or has shrunk away into
-insignificance. No definition is surely stable for
-long. When Cotton Mather wrote in defense of
-his own style <em>disgust</em> was fairly equivalent to
-<em>dislike</em>; “and if a more massy way of writing be
-never so much disgusted at this day, a better
-gust will come on.”</p>
-
-<p>Once upon a time <em>to aggravate</em> meant to increase
-an offense; now it is often used as tho
-it meant to irritate. Formerly <em>calculated</em>&mdash;as in
-the sentence “it was <em>calculated</em> to do harm”&mdash;implied
-a deliberate intention to injure; now the
-idea of intention has been eliminated and the
-sentence is held to be roughly equivalent to “it
-was likely to do harm.” <em>Verbal</em> is slowly getting
-itself accepted as synonymous with <em>oral</em>, in
-antithesis to <em>written</em>. <em>Lurid</em> was really <em>pale</em>, <em>wan</em>,
-<em>ghastly</em>; but how often of late has it been employed<span class="pagenum" id="Page_142">[Pg 142]</span>
-as tho it signified <em>red</em> or <em>ruddy</em> or
-<em>bloody</em>?</p>
-
-<p>At first these new uses of these old words
-were slovenly and inadmissible inaccuracies, but
-by sheer insistence they are winning their pardon,
-until at last they will gain authority as they
-broaden down from precedent to precedent. It
-is well to be off with the old word before you
-are on with the new; and no writer who respects
-his mother-tongue is ever in haste to take
-up with words thus wrested from the primitive
-propriety.</p>
-
-<p>But, as Dryden declared when justifying his
-modernizing of Chaucer’s vocabulary, “Words
-are not like landmarks, so sacred as never to be
-removed; customs are changed, and even statutes
-are silently repealed when the reason ceases for
-which they were enacted.” It was Dryden’s
-“Cousin Swift” who once declared that “a nice
-man is a man of nasty ideas”&mdash;an assertion
-which I venture to believe to be wholly incomprehensible
-to-day to the young ladies of England
-in whose mouths <em>nice</em> means <em>agreeable</em> and
-<em>nasty</em> means <em>disagreeable</em>. <em>Nice</em> has suffered this
-inexplicable metamorphosis in the United States
-as well as in Great Britain, but <em>nasty</em> has not yet
-been emptied of its original offensiveness here as
-it has over there. And even in British speech the
-transformation is relatively recent; I think Stevenson<span class="pagenum" id="Page_143">[Pg 143]</span>
-was guilty of an anachronism in ‘Weir of
-Hermiston’ when he put it in the mouth of a
-young Scot.</p>
-
-<p>If the Scotch have followed the evil example
-of the English in misusing <em>nasty</em>, the English in
-turn have twisted the <em>ilk</em> of North Britain to
-serve their own ends. <em>Of that ilk</em> is a phrase
-added to a man’s surname to show that this
-name and the name of his estate are the same;
-thus Bradwardine of Bradwardine would be
-called “Bradwardine <em>of that ilk</em>.” But it is not
-uncommon now to see a phrase like “people of
-that ilk,” meaning obviously “people of that
-sort.”</p>
-
-<p>In like manner <em>awful</em> and <em>terrible</em> and <em>elegant</em>
-have been so misused as mere intensives that a
-careful writer now strikes them out when they
-come off the end of his pen in their original
-meaning. So <em>quite</em> no longer implies <em>completely</em>
-but is almost synonymous with <em>somewhat</em>&mdash;<em>quite
-poor</em> meaning <em>somewhat poor</em> and <em>quite
-good</em> meaning <em>pretty good</em>. <em>Unique</em> is getting to
-imply merely excellent or perhaps only unusual;
-its exact etymological value is departing forever.
-<em>Creole</em>, which should be applied only to Caucasian
-natives of tropical countries born of Latin
-parents, is beginning to carry with it in the vulgar
-tongue of to-day a vague suspicion of negro
-blood.</p>
-
-<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_144">[Pg 144]</span></p>
-
-<p>While the perversion of <em>nice</em> and <em>nasty</em> is British,
-there is an American perversion of <em>dirt</em> not unlike
-it. To most Americans, I think, <em>dirt</em> suggests
-<em>earth</em> or <em>soil</em> or <em>clay</em> or <em>dust</em>; to most Americans,
-I think, <em>dirt</em> no longer carries with it any suggestion
-of <em>dirtiness</em>. I have heard a mother
-send her little boy off to make mud-pies on condition
-that he used only “clean <em>dirt</em>”; and I
-know that a lawn-tennis ground of compacted
-earth is called a <em>dirt</em> court. Yet, tho the noun
-has thus been defecated, the adjective keeps
-its earlier force; and there even lingers something
-of the pristine value in the noun itself
-when it is employed in the picturesque idiom
-of the Rocky Mountains, where to be guilty of
-an underhand injury against any one is <em>to do
-him dirt</em>. Lovers of Western verse will recall
-how the frequenters of Casey’s table d’hôte
-went to see “Modjesky as Cameel,” and how
-they sat in silence until the break occurs between
-the lover and his mistress:</p>
-
-<p class="poetry p0">
-At that Three-fingered Hoover says: “I’ll chip into this game,<br />
-And see if Red Hoss Mountain cannot reconstruct the same.<br />
-I won’t set by and see the feelin’s of a lady hurt&mdash;<br />
-Gol durn a critter, anyhow, that does a woman dirt!”<br />
-</p>
-
-<p>Here no doubt, we have crossed the confines
-of slang; but having done so, I venture upon an
-anecdote which will serve to show how completely<span class="pagenum" id="Page_145">[Pg 145]</span>
-sometimes the newer meaning of a word
-substitutes itself for the older. Two friends of
-mine were in a train of the elevated railroad,
-passing through that formerly craggy part of
-upper New York which was once called Shantytown
-and which now prefers to be known as
-Harlem. One of them drew the attention of the
-other to the capering young capricorns that
-sported over the blasted rocks by the side of the
-lofty track. “Just look at those kids,” were the
-words he used. He was overheard by a boy of
-the streets sitting in the next seat, who glanced
-out of the window at once, but failed to discover
-the children he expected to behold. Whereupon
-he promptly looked up and corrected my friend.
-“Them’s not kids,” declared the urchin of Manhattan;
-“them’s little goats!” In the mind of
-this native youngster there was no doubt at all
-as to the meaning of the word <em>kid</em>; to him it
-meant <em>child</em>; and he would have scorned any
-explanation that it ever had meant <em>young goat</em>.</p>
-
-<p>In ignorance is certainty, and with increase of
-wisdom comes hesitancy. For example, what
-does the word <em>romantic</em> really mean? Few adjectives
-are harder worked in the history of
-modern literature; and no two of those who use
-it would agree upon its exact context. It suggests
-one set of circumstances to the student of
-English literature, a second set to a student of<span class="pagenum" id="Page_146">[Pg 146]</span>
-German literature, and a third to a student of
-French literature; while every student of comparative
-literature must echo Professor Kuno
-Francke’s longing for “the formation of an international
-league for the suppression of the
-terms both <em>romanticism</em> and <em>classicism</em>.”</p>
-
-<p>Other words there are almost as ambiguous&mdash;<em>philology</em>,
-for example, and <em>college</em> and <em>chapel</em>.
-By <em>classical philology</em> we understand the study
-of all that survives of the civilizations of Greece
-and Rome, their languages, their literature, their
-laws, their arts. But has <em>Romance philology</em> or
-<em>Germanic philology</em> so broad a basis? Has <em>English
-philology</em>? To nine out of ten of us, this use
-of the word now seems to put stress on the
-study of linguistics as against the study of literature;
-to ninety-nine out of a hundred, I think,
-<em>philologist</em> suggests the narrow student of linguistics;
-and therefore the wider meaning seems
-likely soon to fall into innocuous desuetude.</p>
-
-<p>The change in the application of <em>college</em> is still
-in process of accomplishment. In England a
-college was a place of instruction, sometimes
-independent (as Eton College, in which case it is
-really a high school) and sometimes a component
-part of a university (in which case the rest
-of the organization is not infrequently non-existent).
-An English university is not unlike a
-federation of colleges; and the relation of Merton<span class="pagenum" id="Page_147">[Pg 147]</span>
-and Magdalen to Oxford is not unlike that of
-Massachusetts and Virginia to the United States.
-In America <em>college</em> and <em>university</em> were long
-carelessly confused, as tho they were interconvertible
-terms; but of late a sharp distinction is
-being set up&mdash;a distinction quite different from
-that obtaining in England. In this new American
-usage, a <em>college</em> is a place where undergraduates
-are trained, and a <em>university</em> is a place where
-graduate-students are guided in research. Thus
-the college gives breadth, and the university adds
-depth. Thus the college provides general culture
-and the university provides the opportunity of
-specialization. If we accept this distinction,&mdash;and
-it has been accepted by all those who discuss
-the higher education in America,&mdash;we are forced
-to admit that the most of the self-styled universities
-of this country should be called colleges;
-and we are allowed to observe that the college
-and the university can exist side by side in the
-same institution, as at Harvard and at Columbia.
-We are forced also to admit that what is known
-in Great Britain as “University Extension” cannot
-fairly retain that title here in the United
-States, since its object is not the extension of
-university work, as we now understand the
-word <em>university</em> here; it is at most the extension
-of college work.</p>
-
-<p>While this modification of the meaning of <em>college</em><span class="pagenum" id="Page_148">[Pg 148]</span>
-is being made in America, a modification of
-<em>chapel</em> has been made in England. At first
-<em>chapel</em> described a subordinate part of a <em>church</em>,
-devoted to special services. By natural extension
-it came to denote a smaller edifice subsidiary to
-a large church, as Grace Church, in New York,
-was once a chapel of Trinity Church. But in the
-nineteenth century <em>chapel</em> came to be applied in
-England especially to the humbler meeting-houses
-of the various sects of dissenters, while <em>church</em> is
-reserved for the places of worship of the established
-religion. Thus Sir Walter Besant classifies
-the population of a riverside parish in London
-into those who go to <em>church</em> and those who go
-to <em>chapel</em>, having no doubt that all his British
-readers will understand the former to be Episcopalians
-and the latter Methodists or the like.</p>
-
-<p>This is a Briticism not likely ever to be adopted
-in America. But another Briticism bids fair to
-have a better fortune. Living as they do on a
-little group of islands, the British naturally are in
-the habit of referring to the rest of Europe as the
-<em>Continent</em>. They run across the Channel to take
-a little tour “on the Continent.” They speak of
-the pronunciation of Latin that obtains everywhere
-but in Great Britain and Ireland as the
-<em>continental</em> pronunciation. When they wish to
-differentiate their authors, for instance, from the
-French and the German and the Italians, they<span class="pagenum" id="Page_149">[Pg 149]</span>
-lump these last together as the <em>continental</em> authors.
-The division of Europe into <em>continental</em> and
-<em>British</em> is so convenient that it is certain to be
-adopted on this side of the Atlantic. Already has
-a New York literary review, after having had a
-series of papers on “Living Critics” (in which
-were included both British writers and American),
-followed it with a series of “Living Continental
-Critics” (in which the chief critics of France,
-Germany, Spain, and Scandinavia were considered).
-Yet there is no logic in this use of the
-word over here, since we Americans are not insular;
-and since North America is a continent just
-as Europe is. As it happens, the word <em>continental</em>
-in a wholly contradictory meaning is glorious
-in the history of the United States. Who does
-not know how,</p>
-
-<p class="poetry p0">
-In their ragged regimentals,<br />
-Stood the old Continentals,<br />
-<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Yielding not?</span><br />
-</p>
-
-<p>None the less will the convenience of this
-British use of the word outweigh its lack of logic
-in America&mdash;as convenience has so often overridden
-far more serious considerations. Language
-is only a tool, after all; and it must ever
-be shaped to fit the hand that uses it. This is
-why another illogical misuse of a word will get
-itself recognized as legitimate sooner or later&mdash;the<span class="pagenum" id="Page_150">[Pg 150]</span>
-limitations of <em>American</em> to mean only that
-which belongs to the United States. When we
-speak of American ideas we intend to exclude
-not only the ideas of South America but also
-those of Mexico and of Canada; we are really
-arrogating to ourselves a supremacy so overwhelming
-as to warrant our ignoring altogether
-all the other peoples having a right to share in
-the adjective. Our reason for this is that there
-is no national adjective available for us. We can
-speak of <em>Mexican</em> ideas and of <em>Canadian</em> ideas;
-but we cannot&mdash;or at least we do not and we
-will not&mdash;speak of <em>United Statesian</em> ideas. And
-this appropriation to ourselves of an adjective
-really the property of all the inhabitants of the
-continent seems to be perfectly acceptable to the
-only other group of those inhabitants speaking
-our language,&mdash;the English colonists to the north
-of us. On both sides of the Niagara River the
-smaller brother of the gigantic Horseshoe cataract
-is known as the “American fall.” Even in the
-last century the British employed <em>American</em> to
-indicate the inhabitants of the thirteen colonies;
-and <abbr title="doctor">Dr.</abbr> Johnson wrote in 1775: “That the <em>Americans</em>
-are able to bear taxation is indubitable.”
-But our ownership of <em>American</em> as a national
-adjective, if tolerated by the Canadians and the
-British, is not admitted by those who do not
-speak our language. Probably to both the Italians<span class="pagenum" id="Page_151">[Pg 151]</span>
-and the Spaniards South America rather than
-North is the part of the world that rises in the
-mental vision when the word <em>American</em> is suddenly
-pronounced.</p>
-
-<p>Another distinction not unlike this, but logical
-as well as convenient, is getting itself recognized.
-This distinction results from accepting the
-obvious fact that the literature of the English
-language has nowadays two independent divisions&mdash;that
-produced in the British Isles and that
-produced in the United States. The writers of
-both nations speak the English language, and
-therefore their works&mdash;whensoever these rise to
-the level of literature&mdash;belong to English literature.
-We are wont to call one division <em>American</em>
-literature, and we are beginning to see that
-logic will soon force us to call the other division
-<i>British</i> literature. <abbr title="mister">Mr.</abbr> Stedman has dealt with
-the poetry of the English language of the past
-sixty years in two volumes, one on the ‘Victorian
-Poets,’ and the other on the ‘Poets of
-America,’ and this serves to show how sharp is
-the line of separation. With his customary carefulness
-of epithet, <abbr title="mister">Mr.</abbr> Stedman in the preface to
-the earlier volume always uses <em>British</em> as the
-antithesis of <em>American</em>, reserving <em>English</em> as the
-broader adjective to cover both branches of our
-literature. Probably the many collections of the
-‘British Poets,’ the ‘British Novelists,’ the ‘British<span class="pagenum" id="Page_152">[Pg 152]</span>
-Theater,’ were so called to allow the inclusion of
-works produced in the sister kingdoms; it is well
-to remember that Scott and Moore were neither
-of them Englishmen. There is a certain piquancy
-in the fact that the adjective <em>British</em>, available in
-the beginning of the nineteenth century because
-it included the Scotch and the Irish, is even more
-useful at the end of the nineteenth century because
-it differentiates the English, Scotch, and
-Irish, taken all together, from the Americans.</p>
-
-<p><em>Telegram</em> was denounced as a mismade word,
-and <em>cablegram</em> was rejected with abhorrence by
-all defenders of purity. Yet the firm establishment
-of <em>telegraph</em> and <em>telephone</em> made certain the
-ultimate acceptance of <em>telegram</em>. But <em>cablegram</em>
-is still on probation, and may fail of admission in
-the end, perhaps, because a part of the word
-seems to be better fitted for its purpose than the
-whole. A message received by the telegraph
-under the ocean is often curtly called a <em>cable</em>, as
-when a man says, “I’ve just had a cable from
-my wife in Paris.” This, I think, is rather
-American than British; but it is akin to the
-British use of <em>wire</em> as synonymous with both
-<em>telegram</em> and <em>to telegraph</em>. An Englishman invites
-you to a house-party, and writes that he will meet
-you at the station “on a <em>wire</em>,” intending to convey
-to you his desire that you should telegraph
-him the hour of your arrival. In a short story by<span class="pagenum" id="Page_153">[Pg 153]</span>
-<abbr title="mister">Mr.</abbr> Henry James, that most conscientious of
-recorders of British speech, he tells us that after
-<em>wires</em> and <em>counterwires</em> one of the characters of
-his tale was at last able to arrive at the house
-where the action takes place. The locution is
-hot from the verbal foundry; and it seems to
-imply what an American writer would have expressed
-by saying that there had been “telegraphing
-to and fro.”</p>
-
-<p>American, probably, is the verb <em>to process</em>, and
-also its past participle <em>processed</em>. When new
-methods of photo-engraving were introduced
-here in the United States, a black-and-white
-artist would express a preference either to have
-his drawing engraved on wood or have it reproduced
-mechanically by a photo-engraving process;
-and as he needed a brief word to describe
-this latter act, one was promptly forthcoming,
-and he asked, “Is this thing of mine to be
-engraved or <em>processed</em>?” The word <em>half-tone</em>
-seems also to be of American manufacture; and
-it describes one of these methods of photo-engraving.
-It is not only a noun, but also, on occasions,
-a verb; and the artist will ask if his wash-drawing
-is to be <em>half-toned</em>. Of necessity the
-several improvements in the art of photo-engraving
-brought with them a variety of new terms
-absolutely essential in the terminology of the
-craft, most of them remaining hidden in the<span class="pagenum" id="Page_154">[Pg 154]</span>
-technical vocabulary, altho now and again one
-or another has thrust itself up into the general
-language.</p>
-
-<p>Any attempt to declare the British or the
-American origin of an idiom is most precarious;
-and he who ventures upon it has need of double
-caution. When a friend of mine asked the boy
-at the door of the club if it was still raining, and
-was answered, “No, sir; it’s <em>fairing up</em> now,”
-he was at first inclined to think that he had captured
-an Americanism hitherto unknown and
-delightfully fresh; but he consulted the Century
-Dictionary, only to find that it was a Scoticism,&mdash;there
-was even a quotation from Stevenson’s
-‘Inland Voyage,’&mdash;and that it was not uncommon
-in the southwestern states. And when Captain
-Mahan brought out the difference between <em>preparation</em>
-for war and <em>preparedness</em> for war, this
-friend was ready to credit the naval historian with
-the devising not only of a most valuable distinction
-but also of a most useful word; but a dip
-into the Century Dictionary again revealed that
-a Scotchman had not waited for an American to
-use the word, and that it had been employed by
-Bain, not even as tho it was a novelty.</p>
-
-<p>Once in the pages of Hawthorne, who was
-affluent in words and artistically adroit in his
-management of them, I met a phrase that pleased
-me mightily, “a <em>heterogeny</em> of things”; and I find<span class="pagenum" id="Page_155">[Pg 155]</span>
-<em>heterogeny</em> duly collected in the Century Dictionary
-but without any quotation from Hawthorne.
-Another word of Hawthorne’s in the
-‘Blithedale Romance’ is <em>improvability</em>: “In my
-own behalf, I rejoice that I could once think
-better of the world’s <em>improvability</em> than it deserved.”
-This I fancy may be Hawthorne’s very
-own; but it is in the Century Dictionary, all
-the same, and without any indication of its origin.
-Quite possibly the New England romancer disinterred
-it from some forgotten tome of the
-“somniferous school of literature,” as he had
-humorously entitled the writings of his theological
-ancestors.</p>
-
-<p>There is a word of Abraham Lincoln’s that I
-long for the right to use. <abbr title="mister">Mr.</abbr> Noah Brooks has
-recorded that he once heard the President speak
-of a certain man as <em>interruptious</em>. This adjective
-conveys a delicate shade of meaning not discoverable
-in any other; it may not be inscribed in
-the bead-roll of the King’s English, but it was
-a specimen of the President’s English; and has
-any Speech from the Throne in this century
-really rivaled the force and felicity of the Second
-Inaugural?</p>
-
-<p>It was not the liberator of the negro but one of
-the freedmen themselves who made offhand use
-of a delicious word, for which it is probably
-hopeless for us to expect acceptance, however<span class="pagenum" id="Page_156">[Pg 156]</span>
-useful the new term might prove. During a
-debate in the legislature of South Carolina in the
-Reconstruction days, a sable ally of the carpet-baggers
-rose to repel the taunts of his opponents,
-declaring energetically that he hurled back with
-scorn all their <em>insinuendos</em>. The word holds a
-middle ground between <em>insinuation</em> and <em>innuendo</em>;
-and between the two it has scant chance
-of survival. But it is an amusing attempt, for all
-its failure; and it would have given pleasure to
-the author of ‘Alice in Wonderland.’ And how
-many of Lewis Carroll’s own verbal innovations,
-wantonly manufactured for his sport, are likely
-to get themselves admitted into the language of
-literature? <em>Chortle</em> stands the best chance of
-them all, I think; and I believe that many a man
-has said that he <em>chortled</em>, with no thought of the
-British bard who ingeniously devised the quaint
-vocable.</p>
-
-<p>So <abbr title="mister">Mr.</abbr> W. S. Gilbert’s <em>burgle</em> seems to be winning
-its way into general use. At first those who
-employed it followed the example of the comic
-lyrist, and did so with humorous intent; but of
-late it is beginning to serve those who are wholly
-devoid of humor. Perhaps the verb <em>to burgle</em>
-(from the noun <em>burglar</em>) supplied the analogy on
-which was made the verb <em>to ush</em> (from the noun
-<em>usher</em>). With my own ears I once heard a well-known
-clergyman in New York express the<span class="pagenum" id="Page_157">[Pg 157]</span>
-thanks of the congregation to “the gentlemen
-who <em>ush</em> for us.”</p>
-
-<p>It is well that strange uses like these do not
-win early acceptance into our speech&mdash;that there
-should be alert challengers at the portal to cry
-“Halt!” and to examine a newcomer’s credentials.
-It is well also that the stranger should
-have leave to prove his usefulness and so in time
-gain admittance even to the inner sanctuary of
-the language. John Dryden discussed the reception
-into English of new words and phrases with
-the sturdy common sense which was one of the
-characteristics most endearing him to us as a true
-type of the man of letters who was also a man of
-the world. “It is obvious,” he wrote in his
-‘Defense of the Epilog,’ “that we have admitted
-many, some of which we wanted, and therefore
-our language is the richer for them, as it would
-be by importation of bullion; others are rather
-ornamental than necessary; yet by their admission
-the language is become more courtly and
-our thoughts are better dressed.”</p>
-
-<p>Historians of the language have had no difficulty
-in bringing together a mass of quotations
-from the British writers of the eighteenth century
-to show that they were then possessed of
-the belief that it was feasible and necessary to set
-bounds to the growth of English. They were
-afraid that the changes going on in the language<span class="pagenum" id="Page_158">[Pg 158]</span>
-would make it “impossible for succeeding ages
-to read or appreciate the literature produced.”
-In his interesting and instructive lecture on the
-‘Evolution of English Lexicography,’ <abbr title="doctor">Dr.</abbr> Murray
-remarks that “to us of a later age, with our fuller
-knowledge of the history of language, and our
-wider experience of its fortunes, when it has to
-be applied to entirely new fields of knowledge,
-such as have been opened to us since the birth
-of modern science, this notion seems childlike
-and pathetic. But it was eminently characteristic
-of the eighteenth century.”</p>
-
-<p>It is small wonder therefore that this absurd
-notion infected two of the most characteristic
-figures of the eighteenth century&mdash;Johnson and
-Franklin. <abbr title="doctor">Dr.</abbr> Johnson set forth in the plan of his
-dictionary that “one great end of this undertaking
-is to fix the English language.” Even so
-shrewd a student of all things as was Franklin
-seems to have accepted this current fallacy.
-When he acknowledged the dedication of Noah
-Webster’s ‘Dissertations on the English Language,’
-he declared that he could not “but applaud
-your zeal for preserving the purity of our
-language, both in its expressions and pronunciation.”
-Then, as tho to prove to us, once for all,
-the futility of all efforts to “fix the language”
-and to “preserve its purity,” Franklin picks out
-half a dozen novelties of phrase and begs that<span class="pagenum" id="Page_159">[Pg 159]</span>
-Webster will use his “authority in reprobating
-them.” Among these innovations that Franklin
-disapproved of are <em>improved</em>, <em>noticed</em>, <em>advocated</em>,
-<em>progressed</em>, and <em>opposed</em>.</p>
-
-<p>This letter to Webster was written in 1789; and
-already in 1760 Franklin had yielded to certain of
-David Hume’s criticisms upon his parts of
-speech: “I thank you for your friendly admonition
-relating to some unusual words in the pamphlet.
-It will be of service to me. The <em>pejorate</em>
-and the <em>colonize</em>, since they are not in common
-use here, I give up as bad; for certainly in writings
-intended for persuasion and for general information,
-one cannot be too clear; and every
-expression in the least obscure is a fault. The
-<em>unshakable</em>, too, tho clear, I give up as rather
-low. The introducing new words, where we
-are already possessed of old ones sufficiently
-expressive, I confess must be generally wrong,
-as it tends to change the language.”</p>
-
-<p>With all his intellect and all his insight and all
-his common sense&mdash;and with this most precious
-quality Franklin was better furnished than either
-Johnson or Dryden&mdash;he could not foresee that <em>to
-notice</em> and <em>to advocate</em> and <em>to colonize</em> were words
-without which the English language could not do
-its work in the world. And when he gives up
-<em>unshakable</em> “as rather low” he stands confessed
-as a contemporary of the men whom Fielding<span class="pagenum" id="Page_160">[Pg 160]</span>
-and Goldsmith girded at. In spite of the example
-of Steele and Addison, in spite of his own
-vigorous directness in ‘Poor Richard’ and in all
-his political pamphlets, Franklin feels that there
-is and that there ought to be a wide gap between
-the English that is spoken and the English that is
-written. He did not perceive that spoken English,
-with all its hazardous expressions, its
-clipped words, its violent metaphors, its picturesque
-slang, its slovenly clumsiness, is none the
-less the proving-ground of the literary vocabulary,
-which is forever tending to self-exhaustion.</p>
-
-<p>Nobody has better stated the wiser attitude of
-a writer toward the tools of his trade than Professor
-Harry Thurston Peck in his incisive discussion
-of ‘What is Good English?’ He begins
-by noting that “the English language, as a whole,
-is the richest of all modern tongues, and it is not
-to be bounded by the comparatively narrow
-limits of its literature. There exists, as well, the
-easy, fluent usage of conversation, and there is
-also the strong, simple, homely speech of the
-common people, rooted in plain Saxon, smacking
-of the soil, and having a sturdy power about it
-that is unsurpassable for downright force and
-blunt directness.” And Professor Peck, having
-pointed out how an artist in words is free to
-avail himself of the term he needs from books or
-from life, declares that “the writer of the best<span class="pagenum" id="Page_161">[Pg 161]</span>
-English is he whose language responds exactly to
-his mood and thought, now thundering and
-surging with the majestic words whose immediate
-ancestry is Roman, now rippling and singing
-with the smooth harmonies of later speech, now
-forging ahead with the irresistible energy of the
-Saxon, and now laughing and wantoning in the
-easy lightness of our modern phrase.”</p>
-
-<div class="blockquot">
-<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_163">[Pg 163]</span></p>
-<p>(1897-99)</p>
-</div>
-<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop" />
-
-
-<div class="chapter">
-<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_165">[Pg 165]</span></p>
-
-<h2 class="nobreak" id="Chapter_VII">VII<br />
-THE NATURALIZATION OF FOREIGN
-WORDS</h2>
-</div>
-
-
-<p>When Taine was praising that earliest of analytical
-novels, the ‘Princess of Cleves,’ he
-noted the simplicity of Madame de Lafayette’s
-style. “Half of the words we use are unknown
-to Madame de Lafayette,” he declared. “She
-is like the painters of old, who could make every
-shade with only five or six colors.” And he asserts
-that “there is no easier reading” than this
-story of Madame de Lafayette’s; “a child could
-understand without effort all her expressions and
-all her phrases.... Nowadays every writer is
-a pedant, and every style is obscure. All of us
-have read three or four centuries, and three or
-four literatures. Philosophy, science, art, criticism
-have weighted us with their discoveries
-and their jargons.”</p>
-
-<p>This is true enough, no doubt; and one of the
-strange phenomenons of the nineteenth century
-was the sudden and enormous swelling of our
-vocabularies. Perhaps the distention of the dictionary
-is even more obvious in English than in
-French, for there are now three times as many<span class="pagenum" id="Page_166">[Pg 166]</span>
-human beings using the language of Shakspere
-as there are now using the language of Molière;
-and while the speakers of French are compacted
-in one country and take their tone from its capital,
-the speakers of English are scattered in the
-four quarters of the earth, and they use each
-man his own speech in his own fashion. From
-the wider variety of interests among those who
-speak English, our language is perforce more
-hospitable to foreign words than French needs to
-be, since it is used rather by a conservative people
-who prefer to stay at home.</p>
-
-<p>Perhaps the French are at times even too inhospitable
-to the foreign phrase. A friend of
-mine who came to the reading of M. Paul Bourget’s
-‘Essais de Psychologie Contemporaine,’
-fresh from the perusal of the German philosophers,
-told me that he was pained by M. Bourget’s
-vain effort to express the thoughts the
-French author had absorbed from the Germans.
-It seemed as tho M. Bourget were struggling for
-speech, and could not say what was in his mind
-for lack of words in his native tongue capable of
-conveying his meaning. Of course it must be
-remembered that German philosophy is vague
-and fluctuating, and that the central thought is
-often obscured by a penumbra, while French is
-the most precise of languages. Those who are
-proud of it have declared that what is not clear<span class="pagenum" id="Page_167">[Pg 167]</span>
-is not French. When Hegel was asked by a
-traveler from Paris for a succinct statement of his
-system of philosophy, he smiled and answered
-that it could not be explained summarily&mdash;“especially
-in French!”</p>
-
-<p>The English language extends a warmer welcome
-to the foreign term, and also exercises more
-freely its right to make a word for itself whenever
-one is needed. The manufactured article is
-not always satisfactory, but if it gets into general
-use, no further evidence is required that it was
-made to supply a genuine want. <em>Scientist</em>, for
-example, is an ugly word (altho an invention of
-Whewell’s), and yet it was needed. How necessary
-it was can be seen by any reader of the late
-F. W. H. Myers’s essay on ‘Science and a Future
-Life,’ who notes that Myers refused resolutely
-to use it, altho it conveys exactly the meaning
-the author wanted, and that the British writer
-preferred to employ instead the French <i xml:lang="fr" lang="fr">savant</i>,
-which does not&mdash;etymologically at least&mdash;contain
-his full intention. Myers’s fastidiousness
-did not, however, prevent his using <em>creationist</em>
-as an adjective, and also <em>bonism</em> as a substitute
-for <em>optimism</em>, “with no greater barbarism in the
-form of the word and more accuracy in the
-meaning.”</p>
-
-<p>Just as Myers used <i xml:lang="fr" lang="fr">savant</i> so Ruskin was willing
-to arrest the rhythm of a fine passage by the<span class="pagenum" id="Page_168">[Pg 168]</span>
-obtrusion of two French words: “A well-educated
-gentleman may not know many languages;
-may not be able to speak any but his own; may
-have read very few books. But whatever language
-he knows, he knows precisely; whatever
-word he pronounces, he pronounces rightly;
-above all, he is learned in the peerage of words;
-knows the words of true descent and ancient
-blood at a glance from words of modern <i xml:lang="fr" lang="fr">canaille</i>;
-remembers all their ancestry, their intermarriages,
-distantest relationships, and the extent
-to which they were admitted, and offices
-they hold among the national <i xml:lang="fr" lang="fr">noblesse</i> of words,
-at any time and in any country.” There seems
-to be little or no excuse for the employment here
-of <i xml:lang="fr" lang="fr">noblesse</i>=nobility; and as for <i xml:lang="fr" lang="fr">canaille</i>, perhaps
-Ruskin held that to be a French word on
-the way to become an English word&mdash;a naturalization
-not likely to take place without a marked
-modification of the original pronunciation, which
-is difficult for the English mouth.</p>
-
-<p>Every one who loves good English cannot but
-have a healthy hatred for the style of a writer
-who insists on bespattering his pages with alien
-words and foreign phrases; and yet we are more
-tolerant, I think, toward a term taken from one of
-the dead languages than toward one derived from
-any of the living tongues. Probably the bishop
-who liked now and then to cite a Hebrew sentence<span class="pagenum" id="Page_169">[Pg 169]</span>
-was oversanguine in his explanation that
-“everybody knows a little Hebrew.” It is said
-that even a Latin quotation is now no longer
-certain to be recognized in the British House of
-Commons; and yet it was a British statesman
-who declared that, altho there was no necessity
-for a gentleman to know Latin, he ought at least
-to have forgotten it.</p>
-
-<p>For a bishop to quote Hebrew is now pedantic,
-no doubt, and even for the inferior clergy to
-quote Latin. It is pedantic, but it is not indecorous;
-whereas a French quotation in the pulpit,
-or even the use of a single French word, like
-<i xml:lang="fr" lang="fr">savant</i>, for example, would seem to most of us
-almost a breach of the proprieties. It would
-strike us, perhaps, not merely as a social solecism,
-but somehow as morally reprehensible. A
-preacher who habitually cited French phrases
-would be in danger of the council. To picture
-Jonathan Edwards as using the language of Voltaire
-is impossible. That a French quotation
-should seem more incongruous in the course of
-a religious argument than a Latin, a Greek, or a
-Hebrew quotation, is perhaps to be ascribed to the
-fact that many of us hold the Parisians to be a more
-frivolous people than the Romans, the Athenians,
-or the Israelites; and as the essay of <abbr title="mister">Mr.</abbr> Myers
-was a religious argument, this may be one reason
-why his employment of <i xml:lang="fr" lang="fr">savant</i> was unfortunate.</p>
-
-<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_170">[Pg 170]</span></p>
-
-<p>Another reason is suggested by Professor
-Dowden’s shrewd remark that “a word, like a
-comet, has a tail as well as a head.” An adroit
-craftsman in letters is careful always that the
-connotations of the terms he chooses shall be in
-accord with the tone of his thesis. It may be
-disputed whether <i xml:lang="fr" lang="fr">savant</i> denotes the same thing
-as <em>scientist</em>, but it can hardly be denied that
-the connotations of the two words are wholly
-different. For my own part, some lingering
-memory of Abbott’s ‘Napoleon,’ absorbed in
-boyhood, links the wise men of France with
-the donkeys of Egypt, because whenever the
-Mameluke cavalry threatened the French squares
-the cry went up, “Asses and <i xml:lang="fr" lang="fr">savants</i> to the
-center!”</p>
-
-<p>After all, it is perhaps rather a question whether
-or not <i xml:lang="fr" lang="fr">savant</i> is now an English noun. There
-are many French words knocking at the door of
-the English language and asking for admission.
-Is <i xml:lang="fr" lang="fr">littoral</i> for <em>shore</em> now an English noun? Is
-<em>blond</em> an English adjective meaning <em>light-haired</em>
-and opposed to <em>brunette</em>? Is <em>brunette</em> itself really
-Anglicized? (I ask this in spite of the fact that a
-friend of mine once read in a country newspaper
-a description of a <em>brunette</em> horse.) Has <em>inedited</em>
-for <em>unpublished</em> won its way into our language
-finally? Lowell gave it his warrant, at least by
-using it in his ‘Letters’; but I confess that it has<span class="pagenum" id="Page_171">[Pg 171]</span>
-always struck me as liable to confusion with
-<em>unedited</em>.</p>
-
-<p>Foreign words must always be allowed to
-land on our coasts without a passport; yet if any
-of them linger long enough to warrant a belief
-that they may take out their papers sooner or
-later, we must decide at last whether or not they
-are likely to be desirable residents of our dictionary;
-and if we determine to naturalize them, we
-may fairly enough insist on their renouncing their
-foreign allegiance. They must cast in their lot
-with us absolutely, and be bound by our laws
-only. The French <i xml:lang="fr" lang="fr">chaperon</i>, for example, has
-asked for admission to our vocabulary, and the
-application has been granted, so that we have
-now no hesitation in recording that Daisy Miller
-was <em>chaperoned</em> by Becky Sharp at the last ball
-given by the Marquis of Steyne; and we have
-even changed the spelling of the noun to correspond
-better with our Anglicized pronunciation,
-thus <em>chaperone</em>. Thus <i xml:lang="fr" lang="fr">technique</i> has changed its
-name to <em>technic</em>, and is made welcome; so early
-as 1867 Matthew Arnold used <em>technic</em> in his
-‘Study of Celtic Literature,’ but even now his fellow-islanders
-are slow in following his example.
-Thus <i xml:lang="fr" lang="fr">employé</i> is accepted in the properly Anglicized
-form of <em>employee</em>. Thus the useful <i xml:lang="fr" lang="fr">clôture</i>
-undergoes a sea-change and becomes the English
-<em>closure</em>. And why not <em>cotery</em> also? I note that<span class="pagenum" id="Page_172">[Pg 172]</span>
-in his ‘Studies in Literature,’ published in 1877,
-Professor Dowden put <i xml:lang="fr" lang="fr">technique</i> into italics as
-tho it was still a foreign word, while he left
-<em>coterie</em> in ordinary type as tho it had been adopted
-into English.</p>
-
-<p>So <i xml:lang="fr" lang="fr">toilette</i> has been abbreviated to <em>toilet</em>; at
-least, I should have said so without any hesitation
-if I had not recently seen the foreign spelling
-reappearing repeatedly in the pages of Robert
-Louis Stevenson’s ‘Amateur Emigrant’&mdash;and
-this in the complete Edinburgh edition prepared
-by <abbr title="mister">Mr.</abbr> Sidney Colvin. To find a Gallic spelling
-in the British prose of Stevenson is a surprise,
-especially since the author of the ‘Dynamiter’ is
-on record as a contemner of another orthographic
-Gallicism. In a foot-note to ‘More New Arabian
-Nights’ Stevenson declares that “any writard
-who writes <em>dynamitard</em> shall find in me a never-resting
-fightard.”</p>
-
-<p>I should like to think that the naturalized <em>literator</em>
-was supplanting the alien <i xml:lang="fr" lang="fr">littérateur</i>, but I
-cannot claim confidence as to the result. <em>Literator</em>
-is a good English word: I have found it in
-the careful pages of Lockhart’s ‘Life of Scott’;
-and I make no doubt that it can prove a much
-older pedigree than that. It seems to me a better
-word by far than <em>literarian</em>, which the late
-Fitzedward Hall manufactured for his own use
-“some time in the fifties,” and which he defended<span class="pagenum" id="Page_173">[Pg 173]</span>
-against a British critic who denounced
-it as “atrocious.” Hall, praising the word of
-his own making, declared that “to <i xml:lang="la" lang="la">literatus</i> or
-<em>literator</em>, for <em>literary person</em> or a longer phrase
-of equivalent import, there are obvious objections.”
-Nobody, to the best of my belief, ever
-attempted to use in English the Latin <i xml:lang="la" lang="la">literatus</i>,
-altho its plural Poe made us familiar with by
-his series of papers on the ‘Literati of America.’
-Since Poe’s death the word has ceased to be current,
-altho it was not uncommon in his day.</p>
-
-<p>Perhaps one of the obvious objections to <i xml:lang="la" lang="la">literatus</i>
-is that if it be treated as an English word the
-plural it forms is not pleasant to the ear&mdash;<i xml:lang="la" lang="la">literatuses</i>.
-Here, indeed, is a moot point: How
-does a foreign word make its plural in English?
-Some years ago <abbr title="mister">Mr.</abbr> C. F. Thwing, writing in
-<i>Harper’s Bazar</i> on the college education of
-young women, spoke of <i xml:lang="la" lang="la">foci</i>. <abbr title="mister">Mr.</abbr> Churton
-Collins, preparing a book about the study of
-English literature in the British universities,
-expressed his desire “to raise Greek, now gradually
-falling out of our <i xml:lang="la" lang="la">curricula</i> and degenerating
-into the cachet and shibboleth of cliques of pedants,
-to its proper place in education.” Here
-we see <abbr title="mister">Mr.</abbr> Thwing and <abbr title="mister">Mr.</abbr> Collins treating
-<em>focus</em> and <em>curriculum</em> as words not yet assimilated
-by our language, and therefore required
-to assume the Latin plural.</p>
-
-<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_174">[Pg 174]</span></p>
-
-<p>Does not this suggest a certain lack of taste on
-the part of these writers? If <em>focus</em> and <em>curriculum</em>
-are not good English words, what need is
-there to employ them when you are using the
-English language to convey your thoughts?
-There are occasions, of course, where the employment
-of a foreign term is justifiable, but they
-must always be very rare. The imported word
-which we really require we had best take to
-ourselves, incorporating it in the language, treating
-it thereafter absolutely as an English word, and
-giving it the regular English plural. If the word
-we use is so foreign that we should print it in
-italics, then of course the plural should be formed
-according to the rules of the foreign language
-from which it has been borrowed; but if it has
-become so acclimated in our tongue that we
-should not think of underlining it, then surely it
-is English enough to take an English plural. If
-<em>cherub</em> is now English, its plural is the English
-<em>cherubs</em>, and not the Hebrew <i xml:lang="he" lang="he">cherubim</i>. If <i>criterion</i>
-is now English, its plural is the English
-<em>criterions</em>, and not the Greek <i xml:lang="el" lang="el">criteria</i>. If <em>formula</em>
-is now English, its plural is the English <em>formulas</em>,
-and not the Latin <i xml:lang="la" lang="la">formulæ</i>. If <em>bureau</em> is now
-English, its plural is the English <em>bureaus</em>, and
-not the French <i xml:lang="fr" lang="fr">bureaux</i>.</p>
-
-<p>What is the proper plural in English of <em>cactus</em>?
-of <em>vortex</em>? of <em>antithesis</em>? of <em>phenomenon</em>? In a<span class="pagenum" id="Page_175">[Pg 175]</span>
-volume on the ‘Augustan Age,’ in Professor
-George Saintsbury’s ‘Periods of European Literature,’
-we find <i xml:lang="fr" lang="fr">lexica</i>&mdash;a masterpiece of petty
-pedantry and of pedantic pettiness. As Landor
-made himself say in his dialog with Archdeacon
-Hare, “There is an affectation of scholarship in
-compilers of spelling-books, and in the authors
-they follow for examples, when they bring forward
-<i xml:lang="fr" lang="fr">phenomena</i> and the like. They might as
-well bring forward <i xml:lang="fr" lang="fr">mysteria</i>. We have no right
-to tear Greek and Latin declensions out of their
-grammars: we need no <i xml:lang="fr" lang="fr">vortices</i> when we have
-<em>vortexes</em> before us; and while we have <em>memorandums</em>,
-<em>factotums</em>, and <em>ultimatums</em>, let our shepherd
-dogs bring back to us by the ear such as
-have wandered from the flock.”</p>
-
-<p>Landor’s own scholarship was too keen and
-his taste was too fine for him not to abhor such affectation.
-He held that Greek and Latin words
-had no business in an English sentence unless
-they had been frankly acclimated in the English
-language, and that one of the conditions of this
-acclimatizing was the shedding of their original
-plurals. And that this is also the common-sense
-view of most users of English is obvious enough.
-Nobody now ventures to write <em>factota</em> or <em>ultimata</em>;
-and even <em>memoranda</em> seems to be vanishing.
-But <em>phenomena</em> and <em>data</em> still survive; and
-so do <em>errata</em> and <em>candelabra</em>. Whatever may<span class="pagenum" id="Page_176">[Pg 176]</span>
-be the fate of <em>phenomena</em>, that of the three other
-words may perhaps be like unto the fate of <em>opera</em>&mdash;which
-is also a Latin plural and which has
-become an English singular. We speak unhesitatingly
-of the <em>operas</em> of Rossini; are we going,
-in time, to speak unhesitatingly of the <em>candelabras</em>
-of Cellini? In his vigorous article on the
-orthography of the French language&mdash;which is
-still almost as chaotic and illogical as the orthography
-of the English language&mdash;Sainte-Beuve
-noted as a singular peculiarity the fact that <i xml:lang="fr" lang="fr">errata</i>
-had got itself recognized as a French singular,
-but that it did not yet take the French plural;
-thus we see <i xml:lang="fr" lang="fr">un errata</i> and <i xml:lang="fr" lang="fr">des errata</i>.</p>
-
-<p>It is true also that when we take over a term
-from another language we ought to be sure
-that it really exists in the other language. For
-lack of observance of this caution we find ourselves
-now in possession of phrases like <i xml:lang="fr" lang="fr">nom
-de plume</i> and <i xml:lang="fr" lang="fr">déshabille</i>, of which the French
-never heard. And even when we have assured
-ourselves of the existence of the word in the
-foreign language, it behooves us then to assure
-ourselves also of its exact meaning before we
-take it for our own. In his interesting and instructive
-book about ‘English Prose,’ Professor
-Earle reminds us that the French of Stratford-atte-Bowe
-is not yet an extinct species; and he adds
-in a note that “the word <i xml:lang="fr" lang="fr">levée</i> seems to be another<span class="pagenum" id="Page_177">[Pg 177]</span>
-genuine instance of the same insular dialect,”
-since it is not French of any date, but an English
-improvement upon the verb (or substantive)
-<em>lever</em>, “getting up in the morning.”</p>
-
-<p>An example even more extraordinary than any
-of these, I think, will occur to those of us who
-are in the habit of glancing through the theatrical
-announcements of the American newspapers.
-This is the taking of the French word <i xml:lang="fr" lang="fr">vaudeville</i>
-to designate what was once known as a “variety
-show” and what is now more often called a
-“specialty entertainment.” For any such interpretation
-of <i xml:lang="fr" lang="fr">vaudeville</i> there is no warrant whatever
-in French. Originally the “vaudeville”
-was a satiric ballad, bristling with hits at the
-times, and therefore closely akin to the “topical
-song” of to-day; and it is at this stage of its
-evolution that Boileau asserted that</p>
-
-
-<p class="poetry p0">Le Français, né malin, créa le vaudeville.</p>
-
-<p>In time there came to be spoken words accompanying
-those sung, and thus the “vaudeville”
-expanded slowly into a little comic play in which
-there were one or more songs. Of late the
-Parisian “vaudeville” has been not unlike the
-London “musical farce.” At no stage of its career
-had the “vaudeville” anything to do with
-the “variety show”; and yet to the average
-American to-day the two words seem synonymous.<span class="pagenum" id="Page_178">[Pg 178]</span>
-There was even organized in New York,
-in the fall of 1892, a series of subscription suppers
-during which “specialty entertainments”
-were to be given; and in spite of the fact that
-the organizers were presumably persons who had
-traveled, they called their society the “Vaudeville
-Club,” altho no real “vaudeville” was ever
-presented before the members during its brief
-and inglorious career. Of course explanation
-and protest are now equally futile. The meaning
-of the word is forever warped beyond correction;
-and for the future here in America a
-“vaudeville performance” is a “variety show,”
-no matter what it may be or may have been in
-France. When the people as a whole accept a
-word as having a certain meaning, that is and
-must be the meaning of the word thereafter;
-and there is no use in kicking against the pricks.</p>
-
-<p>The fate in English of another French term is
-even now trembling in the balance. This is the
-word <i xml:lang="fr" lang="fr">née</i>. The French have found a way out of
-the difficulty of indicating easily the maiden name
-of a married woman; they write unhesitatingly
-about Madame Machin, <i xml:lang="fr" lang="fr">née</i> Chose; and the Germans
-have a like idiom. But instead of taking a
-hint from the French and the Germans, and thus
-of speaking about Mrs. Brown, <em>born</em> Gray, as they
-do, not a few English writers have simply borrowed
-the actual French word, and so we read<span class="pagenum" id="Page_179">[Pg 179]</span>
-about Mrs. Black, <i xml:lang="fr" lang="fr">née</i> White. As usual, this borrowing
-is dangerous; and the temptation seems
-to be irresistible to destroy the exact meaning of
-<i xml:lang="fr" lang="fr">née</i> by using it in the sense of “formerly.” Thus
-in the ‘Letters of Matthew Arnold, 1848-88,’ collected
-and arranged by <abbr title="mister">Mr.</abbr> George W. E. Russell,
-the editor supplies in foot-notes information about
-the persons whose names appear in the correspondence.
-In one of these annotations we read
-that the wife of Sir Anthony de Rothschild was
-“<i xml:lang="fr" lang="fr">née</i> Louisa Montefiore” (i. 165), and in another
-that the <abbr title="honorable">Hon.</abbr> Mrs. Eliot Yorke was “<i xml:lang="fr" lang="fr">née</i> Annie
-de Rothschild” (ii. 160). Now, neither of these
-ladies was <em>born</em> with a given name as well as
-a family name. It is obvious that the editor
-has chosen arbitrarily to wrench the meaning
-of <i xml:lang="fr" lang="fr">née</i> to suit his own convenience, a proceeding
-of which I venture to think that Matthew
-Arnold himself would certainly have disapproved.
-In fact, I doubt if <abbr title="mister">Mr.</abbr> Russell is not
-here guilty of an absurdity almost as obvious as
-that charged against a wealthy western lady now
-residing at the capital of the United States, who
-is said to have written her name on the register of
-a New York hotel thus: “Mrs. Blank, Washington,
-<i xml:lang="fr" lang="fr">née</i> Chicago.”</p>
-
-<p>Why is it that the wandering stars of the theatrical
-firmament are wont to display themselves
-in a <i xml:lang="fr" lang="fr">répertoire</i> when it would be so much easier<span class="pagenum" id="Page_180">[Pg 180]</span>
-for them to make use of a <em>repertory</em>? And why
-does the teacher of young and ambitious singers
-insist on calling his school a <i xml:lang="fr" lang="fr">conservatoire</i> when
-it would assert its rank just as well if it was
-known as a <em>conservatory</em>? What strange freak
-of chance has led so many of the women who
-have made themselves masters of the technic of
-the piano to announce themselves as <i xml:lang="fr" lang="fr">pianistes</i> in
-the vain belief that <i xml:lang="fr" lang="fr">pianiste</i> is the feminine of
-<em>pianist</em>? How comes it that a man capable of
-composing so scholarly a book as the ‘Greek
-Drama’ of <abbr title="mister">Mr.</abbr> Lionel D. Barnett really is should
-be guilty of saying that certain declamations in
-the later theater “were adapted to the style of
-popular <i xml:lang="fr" lang="fr">artistes</i>”? And why does <abbr title="mister">Mr.</abbr> Andrew
-Lang (in his ‘Angling Sketches’) write about the
-<i xml:lang="fr" lang="fr">asphalte</i>, when the obvious English is either
-<em>asphalt</em> or <em>asphaltum</em>?</p>
-
-<p>And yet <abbr title="mister">Mr.</abbr> Lang, himself convicted of this
-dereliction, has no hesitation in objecting to a
-“delightful grammatical form which closes a
-scene in one of the new rag-bag journals. The
-author gets his characters off the stage with the
-announcement: ‘They exit.’ He seems to think
-that <em>exit</em> is a verb. I <em>exit</em>, he <em>exits</em>, they <em>exit</em>. It
-would be interesting to learn how he translates
-<i xml:lang="la" lang="la">exeunt omnes</i>. One is accustomed to ‘a <i xml:lang="la" lang="la">penetralia</i>’
-from young lions, and to ‘a <i xml:lang="la" lang="la">strata</i>,’ but
-‘they <em>exit</em>’ is original.”</p>
-
-<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_181">[Pg 181]</span></p>
-
-<p>But the verb <em>to exit</em> is not original with the
-writer in the new rag-bag journal. It has been
-current in England for three quarters of a century
-at least, and it can be found in the pages of that
-vigorously written pair of volumes, Mrs. Trollope’s
-‘Domestic Manners of the Americans’
-(published in 1831), in the picturesque passage in
-which she describes how the American women,
-left alone, “all console themselves together for
-whatever they may have suffered in keeping
-awake by taking more tea, coffee, hot cake
-and custard, hoe-cake, johnny-cake, waffle-cake
-and dodger-cake, pickled peaches and preserved
-cucumbers, ham, turkey, hung-beef, apple-sauce,
-and pickled oysters, than ever were prepared in
-any other country of the known world. After
-this massive meal is over, they return to the
-drawing-room, and it always appeared to me
-that they remained together as long as they could
-bear it, and then they rise <i xml:lang="fr" lang="fr">en masse</i>, cloak, bonnet,
-shawl, and exit.”</p>
-
-<p>The verb <em>to exit</em>, with the full conjugation <abbr title="mister">Mr.</abbr>
-Lang thought so strange, has long been common
-among theatrical folk. The stage-manager will
-tell the leading lady “You <em>exit</em> here, and she <em>exits</em>
-up left.” The theatrical folk, who probably
-first brought the verb into use, did not borrow it
-from the Latin, as <abbr title="mister">Mr.</abbr> Lang seems to suppose;
-they simply made a verb of the existing English<span class="pagenum" id="Page_182">[Pg 182]</span>
-noun <em>exit</em>, meaning a way out. We old New-Yorkers
-who can recall the time when Barnum’s
-Museum stood at the corner of Broadway and
-Ann Street, remember also the signs which used
-to declare</p>
-
-<div class="center p0 bbox square">
-
-<p class="center p0">THIS WAY</p>
-
-<p class="center p0 small">TO THE</p>
-
-<p class="center p0">GRAND EXIT</p>
-</div>
-
-<p>and we have not forgotten the facile anecdote of
-the countryman who went wonderingly to discover
-what manner of strange beast the “exit”
-might be, and who unexpectedly found himself
-in the street outside.</p>
-
-<p>The unfortunate remark of <abbr title="mister">Mr.</abbr> Lang was due
-to his happening not to recall the fact that <em>exit</em>
-had become, first, an English noun, and, second,
-an English verb. When once it was Anglicized,
-it had all the rights of a native; it was
-a citizen of no mean country. The principle
-which it is well to keep in mind in any consideration
-of the position in English of terms
-once foreign is that no word can serve two
-masters. The English language is ever ravenous
-and voracious; its appetite is insatiable.
-It is forever taking over words from strange
-tongues, dead and alive. These words are but<span class="pagenum" id="Page_183">[Pg 183]</span>
-borrowed at first, and must needs conform to
-all the grammatical peculiarities of their native
-speech. But some of them are sooner or later
-firmly incorporated into English; and thereafter
-they must cease to obey any laws but those of
-the language into which they have been adopted.
-Either a word is English or it is not; and a decision
-on this point is rarely difficult.</p>
-
-<div class="blockquot">
-<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_185">[Pg 185]</span></p>
-<p>(1895-1900)</p>
-</div>
-
-<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop" />
-
-<div class="chapter">
-<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_187">[Pg 187]</span></p>
-
-<h2 class="nobreak" id="Chapter_VIII">VIII<br />THE FUNCTION OF SLANG</h2>
-</div>
-
-
-<p>It is characteristic of the interest which science
-is now taking in things formerly deemed
-unworthy of consideration that philologists no
-longer speak of slang in contemptuous terms.
-Perhaps, indeed, it was not the scholar, but the
-amateur philologist, the mere literary man, who
-affected to despise slang. To the trained investigator
-into the mutations of language and into
-the transformations of the vocabulary, no word
-is too humble for respectful consideration; and it
-is from the lowly, often, that the most valuable
-lessons are learned. But until recently few men
-of letters ever mentioned slang except in disparagement
-and with a wish for its prompt extirpation.
-Even professed students of speech, like
-Trench and Alford (now sadly shorn of their
-former authority), are abundant in declarations
-of abhorrent hostility. De Quincey, priding himself
-on his independence and on his iconoclasm,
-was almost alone in saying a good word for
-slang.</p>
-
-<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_188">[Pg 188]</span></p>
-
-<p>There is this excuse for the earlier author who
-treated slang with contumely, that the differentiation
-of <em>slang</em> from <em>cant</em> was not complete in
-his day. <em>Cant</em> is the dialect of a class, often
-used correctly enough, as far as grammar is concerned,
-but often also unintelligible to those who
-do not belong to the class or who are not acquainted
-with its usages. <em>Slang</em> was at first the
-<em>cant</em> of thieves, and this seems to have been its
-only meaning until well into the present century.
-In ‘Redgauntlet,’ for example, published in 1824,
-Scott speaks of the “thieves’ Latin called <em>slang</em>.”
-Sometime during the middle of the century
-<em>slang</em> seems to have lost this narrow limitation,
-and to have come to signify a word or a phrase
-used with a meaning not recognized in polite
-letters, either because it had just been invented,
-or because it had passed out of memory. While
-<em>cant</em>, therefore, was a language within a language,
-so to speak, and not to be understanded of the
-people, <em>slang</em> was a collection of colloquialisms
-gathered from all sources, and all bearing alike
-the bend sinister of illegitimacy.</p>
-
-<p>Certain of its words were unquestionably of
-very vulgar origin, being survivals of the “thieves’
-Latin” Scott wrote about. Among these are <i xml:lang="la" lang="la">pal</i>
-and <i xml:lang="la" lang="la">cove</i>, words not yet admitted to the best
-society. Others were merely arbitrary misapplications
-of words of good repute, such as the<span class="pagenum" id="Page_189">[Pg 189]</span>
-employment of <em>awfully</em> and <em>jolly</em> as synonyms
-for <i>very</i>&mdash;as intensives, in short. Yet others
-were violent metaphors, like <em>in the soup</em>, <em>kicking
-the bucket</em>, <em>holding up</em> (a stage-coach). Others,
-again, were the temporary phrases which spring
-up, one scarcely knows how, and flourish unaccountably
-for a few months, and then disappear
-forever, leaving no sign; such as <em>shoo-fly</em> in
-America and <em>all serene</em> in England.</p>
-
-<p>An analysis of modern slang reveals the fact
-that it is possible to divide the words and phrases
-of which it is composed into four broad classes,
-of quite different origin and of very varying value.
-Toward two of these classes it may be allowable
-to feel the contempt so often expressed for slang
-as a whole. Toward the other two classes such a
-feeling is wholly unjustifiable, for they are performing
-an inestimable service to the language.</p>
-
-<p>Of the two unworthy classes, the first is that
-which includes the survivals of the “thieves’
-Latin,” the vulgar terms used by vulgar men to
-describe vulgar things. This is the slang which
-the police-court reporter knows and is fond of
-using profusely. This is the slang which Dickens
-introduced to literature. This class of slang
-it is which is mainly responsible for the ill repute
-of the word. Much of the dislike for slang felt
-by people of delicate taste is, however, due to
-the second class, which includes the ephemeral<span class="pagenum" id="Page_190">[Pg 190]</span>
-phrases fortuitously popular for a season, and
-then finally forgotten once for all. These mere
-catchwords of the moment are rarely foul, as the
-words and phrases of the first class often are, but
-they are unfailingly foolish. <em>There you go with
-your eye out</em>, which was accepted as a humorous
-remark in London, and <em>Where did you get that
-hat?</em> which had a like fleeting vogue in New
-York, are phrases as inoffensive as they are flat.
-These temporary terms come and go, and are
-forgotten swiftly. Probably most readers of
-Forcythe Wilson’s ‘Old Sergeant’ need now to
-have it explained to them that during the war a
-<em>grape-vine</em> meant a lying rumor.</p>
-
-<p>It must be said, however, that even in the
-terms of the first class there is a striving upward,
-a tendency to disinfect themselves, as any reader
-of Grose’s ‘Dictionary of the Vulgar Tongue’
-must needs remark when he discovers that
-phrases used now with perfect freedom had a
-secret significance in the last century. There
-are also innuendos not a few in certain of Shakspere’s
-best-known plays which fortunately escape
-the notice of all but the special student of
-the Elizabethan vocabulary.</p>
-
-<p>The other two classes of slang stand on a different
-footing. Altho they suffer from the stigma
-attached to all slang by the two classes
-already characterized, they serve a purpose. Indeed,<span class="pagenum" id="Page_191">[Pg 191]</span>
-their utility is indisputable, and it was
-never greater than it is to-day. One of these
-classes consists of old and forgotten phrases or
-words, which, having long lain dormant, are
-now struggling again to the surface. The other
-consists of new words and phrases, often vigorous
-and expressive, but not yet set down in the
-literary lexicon, and still on probation. In these
-two classes we find a justification for the existence
-of slang&mdash;for it is the function of slang to be
-a feeder of the vocabulary. Words get threadbare
-and dried up; they come to be like evaporated
-fruit, juiceless and tasteless. Now it is the
-duty of slang to provide substitutes for the good
-words and true which are worn out by hard
-service. And many of the recruits slang has
-enlisted are worthy of enrolment among the
-regulars. When a blinded conservative is called
-a <em>mossback</em>, who is so dull as not to perceive the
-poetry of the word? When an actor tells us
-how the traveling company in which he was
-engaged got <em>stranded</em>, who does not recognize
-the force and the felicity of the expression? And
-when we hear a man declare that he would to-day
-be rich if only his foresight had been equal
-to his <em>hindsight</em>, who is not aware of the value
-of the phrase? No wonder is it that the verbal
-artist hankers after such words which renew the
-lexicon of youth! No wonder is it that the<span class="pagenum" id="Page_192">[Pg 192]</span>
-writer who wishes to present his thought freshly
-seeks these words with the bloom yet on them,
-and neglects the elder words desiccated as tho
-for preservation in a herbarium!</p>
-
-<p>The student of slang is surprised that he is
-able to bring forward an honorable pedigree for
-many words so long since fallen from their high
-estate that they are now treated as upstarts when
-they dare to assert themselves. Words have
-their fates as well as men and books; and the
-ups and downs of a phrase are often almost as
-pathetic as those of a man. It has been said that
-the changes of fortune are so sudden here in
-these United States that it is only three generations
-from shirt sleeves to shirt sleeves. The
-English language is not quite so fast as the American
-people, but in the English language it is
-only three centuries from shirt sleeves to shirt
-sleeves. What could seem more modern, more
-western even, than <em>deck</em> for <em>pack</em> of cards, and <em>to
-lay out</em> or to <em>lay out cold</em> for <em>to knockdown</em>? Yet
-these are both good old expressions, in decay no
-longer, but now insisting on their right to a renewed
-life. <em>Deck</em> is Elizabethan, and we find in
-Shakspere’s ‘King Henry VI.’ (part iii., act v.,
-sc. i.) that</p>
-
-<p class="poetry p0">
-The king was slyly finger’d from the deck.<br />
-</p>
-
-<p><em>To lay out</em> in its most modern sense is very early
-English.</p>
-
-<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_193">[Pg 193]</span></p>
-
-<p>Even more important than this third class of
-slang expressions is the fourth, containing the
-terms which are, so to speak, serving their apprenticeship,
-and as yet uncertain whether or
-not they will be admitted finally into the gild
-of good English. These terms are either useful
-or useless; they either satisfy a need or they do
-not; they therefore live or die according to the
-popular appreciation of their value. If they expire,
-they pass into the limbo of dead-and-gone
-slang, than which there is no blacker oblivion. If
-they survive it is because they have been received
-into the literary language, having appealed to the
-perceptions of some master of the art and craft
-of speech, under whose sponsorship they are admitted
-to full rights. Thus we see that slang is
-a training-school for new expressions, only the
-best scholars getting the diploma which confers
-longevity, the others going surely to their fate.</p>
-
-<p>Sometimes these new expressions are words
-only, sometimes they are phrases. <em>To go back
-on</em>, for instance, and <em>to give one’s self away</em> are
-specimens of the phrase characteristic of this
-fourth and most interesting class of slang at its
-best. In its creation of phrases like these, slang
-is what idiom was before language stiffened into
-literature, and so killed its earlier habit of idiom-making.
-After literature has arrived, and after
-the schoolmaster is abroad, and after the printing-press<span class="pagenum" id="Page_194">[Pg 194]</span>
-has been set up in every hamlet, the
-idiom-making faculty of a language is atrophied
-by disuse. Slang is sometimes, and to a certain
-extent, a survival of this faculty, or at least a
-substitute for its exercise. In other words (and
-here I take the liberty of quoting from a private
-letter of one of the foremost authorities on the
-history of English, Professor Lounsbury), “slang
-is an effort on the part of the users of language
-to say something more vividly, strongly, concisely
-than the language as existing permits it to
-be said”; and he adds that slang is therefore
-“the source from which the decaying energies
-of speech are constantly refreshed.”</p>
-
-<p>Being contrary to the recognized standards of
-speech, slang finds no mercy at the hands of
-those who think it their duty to uphold the strict
-letter of the law. Nothing amazes an investigator
-more, and nothing more amuses him, than
-to discover that thousands of words now secure
-in our speech were once denounced as interlopers.
-“There is death in the dictionary,” said
-Lowell, in his memorable linguistic essay prefixed
-to the second series of the ‘Biglow Papers’;
-“and where language is too strictly limited by
-convention, the ground for expression to grow
-in is limited also, and we get a <em>potted</em> literature&mdash;Chinese
-dwarfs instead of healthy trees.”
-And in the paper on Dryden he declared that “a<span class="pagenum" id="Page_195">[Pg 195]</span>
-language grows and is not made.” Pedants are
-ever building the language about with rules of
-iron in a vain effort to keep it from growing
-naturally and according to its needs.</p>
-
-<p>It is true that <em>cab</em> and <em>mob</em> are clipped words,
-and there has always been a healthy dislike of any
-clipping of the verbal currency. But <em>consols</em>
-is firmly established. Two clipped words there
-are which have no friends&mdash;<em>gents</em> and <em>pants</em>.
-<abbr title="doctor">Dr.</abbr> Holmes has put them in the pillory of a
-couplet:</p>
-
-<p class="poetry p0">
-The things named <em>pants</em>, in certain documents,<br />
-A word not made for gentlemen, but <em>gents</em>.<br />
-</p>
-
-<p>And recently a sign, suspended outside a big
-Broadway building, announced that there were
-“Hands wanted on pants,” the building being a
-clothing factory, and not, as one might suppose,
-a boys’ school.</p>
-
-<p>The slang of a metropolis, be that where you
-will, in the United States or in Great Britain, in
-France or in Germany, is nearly always stupid.
-There is neither fancy nor fun in the Parisian’s
-<i xml:lang="fr" lang="fr">Ohé Lambert</i> or <i xml:lang="fr" lang="fr">on dirait du veau</i>, nor in the
-Londoner’s <em>all serene</em> or <em>there you go with your
-eye out</em>&mdash;catchwords which are humorous, if
-humorous they are, only by general consent and
-for some esoteric reason. It is to such stupid
-phrases of a fleeting popularity that <abbr title="doctor">Dr.</abbr> Holmes<span class="pagenum" id="Page_196">[Pg 196]</span>
-refers, no doubt, when he declares that “the use
-of slang, or cheap generic terms, as a substitute
-for differentiated specific expressions is at once a
-sign and a cause of mental atrophy.” And this
-use of slang is far more frequent in cities, where
-people often talk without having anything to say,
-than in the country, where speech flows slowly.</p>
-
-<p>Perhaps the more highly civilized a population
-is, the more it has parted with the power of pictorial
-phrase-making. It may be that a certain
-lawlessness of life is the cause of a lawlessness of
-language. Of all metropolitan slang that of the
-outlaws is most vigorous. It was after Vidocq
-had introduced thieves’ slang into polite society
-that Balzac, always a keen observer and always
-alert to pick up unworn words, ventured to say,
-perhaps to the astonishment of many, that
-“there is no speech more energetic, more colored,
-than that of these people.” Balzac was not academic
-in his vocabulary, and he owed not a little
-of the sharpness of his descriptions to his hatred
-of the cut-and-dried phrases of his fellow-novelists.
-He would willingly have agreed with
-Montaigne when the essayist declared that the
-language he liked, written or spoken, was “a succulent
-and nervous speech, short and compact,
-not so much delicated and combed out as vehement
-and brusk, rather arbitrary than monotonous, ...
-not pedantic, but soldierly rather, as<span class="pagenum" id="Page_197">[Pg 197]</span>
-Suetonius called Cæsar’s.” And this brings us
-exactly to <abbr title="mister">Mr.</abbr> Bret Harte’s</p>
-
-<p class="poetry p0">
-Phrases such as camps may teach,<br />
-Saber-cuts of Saxon speech,<br />
-</p>
-
-<p>There is a more soldierly frankness, a greater
-freedom, less restraint, less respect for law and
-order, in the west than in the east; and this may
-be a reason why American slang is superior to
-British and to French. The catchwords of New
-York may be as inept and as cheap as the catchwords
-of London and of Paris, but New York is
-not as important to the United States as London
-is to Great Britain and as Paris is to France; it is
-not as dominating, not as absorbing. So it is
-that in America the feebler catchwords of the city
-give way before the virile phrases of the west.
-There is little to choose between the <em>how’s your
-poor feet?</em> of London and the <em>well, I should smile</em>
-of New York, for neither phrase had any excuse
-for existence, and neither had any hope of survival.
-The city phrase is often doubtful in meaning
-and obscure in origin. In London, for example,
-the four-wheel cab is called a <em>growler</em>.
-Why? In New York a can brought in filled with
-beer at a bar-room is called a <em>growler</em>, and the
-act of sending this can from the private house to
-the public house and back is called <em>working the
-growler</em>. Why?</p>
-
-<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_198">[Pg 198]</span></p>
-
-<p>But when we find a western writer describing
-the effects of <em>tanglefoot</em> whisky, the adjective
-explains itself, and is justified at once. And we
-discover immediately the daringly condensed
-metaphor in the sign, “Don’t <em>monkey</em> with the
-<em>buzz-saw</em>”; the picturesqueness of the word
-<em>buzz-saw</em> and its fitness for service are visible at
-a glance. So we understand the phrase readily
-and appreciate its force when we read the story
-of ‘Buck Fanshaw’s Funeral,’ and are told that
-“he never <em>went back on</em> his mother,” or when
-we hear the defender of ‘Banty Tim’ declare that</p>
-
-<p class="poetry p0">
-“Ef one of you teches the boy<br />
-He’ll <em>wrestle his hash</em> to-night in hell,<br />
-<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Or my name’s not Tilman Joy.”</span><br />
-</p>
-
-<p><em>To wrestle one’s hash</em> is not an elegant expression,
-one must admit, and it is not likely to be adopted
-into the literary language; but it is forcible at
-least, and not stupid. <em>To go back on</em>, however,
-bids fair to take its place in our speech as a
-phrase at once useful and vigorous.</p>
-
-<p>From the wide and wind-swept plains of the
-west came <em>blizzard</em>, and altho it has been
-suggested that the word is a survival from some
-local British dialect, the west still deserves the
-credit of having rescued it from desuetude. From
-the logging-camps of the northwest came <em>boom</em>,
-an old word again, but with a new meaning<span class="pagenum" id="Page_199">[Pg 199]</span>
-which the language promptly accepted. From
-still farther west came the use of <em>sand</em> to indicate
-staying power, backbone&mdash;what New England
-knows as <em>grit</em> and old England as <em>pluck</em> (a far
-less expressive word). From the southwest came
-<em>cinch</em>, from the tightening of the girths of the
-pack-mules, and so by extension indicating a
-grasp of anything so firm that it cannot get away.</p>
-
-<p>Just why a <em>dead cinch</em> should be the securest
-of any, I confess I do not know. <em>Dead</em> is here
-used as an intensive; and the study of intensives
-is as yet in its infancy. In all parts of Great
-Britain and the United States we find certain
-words wrenched from their true meaning and
-most arbitrarily employed to heighten the value
-of other words. Thus we have a <em>dead cinch</em>, or
-a <em>dead sure thing</em>, a <em>dead shot</em>, a <em>dead level</em>&mdash;and
-for these last two terms we can discover perhaps a
-reason. Lowell noted in New England a use of
-<em>tormented</em> as a euphemism for <em>damned</em>, as “not
-a <em>tormented</em> cent.” Every American traveler in
-England must have remarked with surprise the
-British use of the Saxon synonym of <em>sanguinary</em>
-as an intensive, the chief British rivals of <em>bloody</em>
-in this respect being <em>blooming</em> and <em>blasted</em>. All
-three are held to be shocking to polite ears, and
-it was with bated breath that the editor of a London
-newspaper wrote about the prospects of “a
-b&mdash;&mdash;y war”; while, as another London editor<span class="pagenum" id="Page_200">[Pg 200]</span>
-declared recently, it is now impossible for a cockney
-to read with proper sympathy Jeffrey’s appeal
-to Carlyle, after a visit to Craigenputtock, to
-bring his “blooming Eve out of her blasted paradise.”
-Of the other slang synonyms for <em>very</em>&mdash;<i>jolly</i>,
-“he was <em>jolly</em> ill,” is British; <em>awfully</em> was
-British first, and is now American also; and <em>daisy</em>
-is American. But any discussion of intensives is
-a digression here, and I return as soon as may be
-to the main road.</p>
-
-<p><em>To freeze to</em> anything or any person is a
-down-east phrase, so Lowell records, but it has
-a far-western strength; and so has <em>to get solid
-with</em>, as when the advice is given that “if a man
-is courting a girl it is best <em>to get solid with</em> her
-father.” What is this phrase, however, but the
-French <i xml:lang="fr" lang="fr">solidarité</i>, which we have recently taken
-over into English to indicate a communion of interests
-and responsibilities? The likeness of
-French terms to American is no new thing;
-Lowell told us that Horace Mann, in one of his
-public addresses, commented at some length on
-the beauty and moral significance of the French
-phrase <i xml:lang="fr" lang="fr">s’orienter</i>, and called upon his young
-friends to practise it, altho “there was not a
-Yankee in his audience whose problem had not
-always been to find out what was <em>about east</em>, and
-to shape his course accordingly.” A few years
-ago, in turning over ‘Karikari,’ a volume of M.<span class="pagenum" id="Page_201">[Pg 201]</span>
-Ludovic Halévy’s clever and charming sketches
-of Parisian character, I met with a delightful
-young lady who had <i xml:lang="fr" lang="fr">pas pour deux liards de
-coquetterie</i>; and I wondered whether M. Halévy,
-if he were an American, and one of the forty of
-an American Academy, would venture the assertion
-that his heroine was <em>not coquettish for a
-cent</em>.</p>
-
-<p>Closely akin to <em>to freeze to</em> and <em>to be solid with</em> is
-<em>jumped on</em>. When severe reproof is administered
-the culprit is said to be <em>jumped on</em>; and if the
-reproof shall be unduly severe, the sufferer is said
-then to be <em>jumped on with both feet</em>. All three
-of these phrases belong to a class from which
-the literary language has enlisted many worthy
-recruits in the past, and it would not surprise me
-to see them answer to their names whenever a
-new dictionary calls the roll of English words.
-Will they find themselves shoulder to shoulder
-with <em>spook</em>, a word of Dutch origin, now volunteering
-for English service both in New York
-and in South Africa? And by that time will
-<em>slump</em> have been admitted to the ranks, and <em>fad</em>,
-and <i>crank</i>, in the secondary meaning of a man of
-somewhat unsettled mind? <em>Slump</em> is an Americanism,
-<em>crank</em> is an Americanism of remote British
-descent, and <em>fad</em> is a Briticism; this last is perhaps
-the most needed word of the three, and from it
-we get a name for the <em>faddist</em>, the bore who<span class="pagenum" id="Page_202">[Pg 202]</span>
-rides his hobby hard and without regard to the
-hounds.</p>
-
-<p>Just as in New York the “Upper Ten Thousand”
-of N. P. Willis have shrunk to the “Four
-Hundred” of <abbr title="mister">Mr.</abbr> Ward McAllister, so in London
-the <em>swells</em> soon became the <em>smart</em> set, and after
-a while developed into <em>swagger</em> people, as they
-became more and more exclusive and felt the
-need of new terms to express their new quality.
-But in no department of speech is the consumption
-of words more rapid than in that describing
-the degrees of intoxication; and the list of slang
-synonyms for the drunkard, and for his condition,
-and for the act which brings it about, is as
-long as Leporello’s. Among these, <em>to get loaded</em>
-and <em>to carry a load</em> are expressions obvious
-enough; and when we recall that <em>jag</em> is a provincialism
-meaning a light load, we see easily
-that the man who <em>has a jag on</em> is in the earlier
-stages of intoxication. This use of the word is,
-I think, wholly American, and it has not crossed
-the Atlantic as yet, or else a British writer could
-never have blundered into a definition of <em>jag</em> as
-an umbrella, quoting in illustration a paragraph
-from a <abbr title="saint">St.</abbr> Louis paper which said that “<abbr title="mister">Mr.</abbr>
-Brown was seen on the street last Sunday in the
-rain carrying a large fine jag.” One may wonder
-what this British writer would have made
-out of the remark of the Chicago humorist, that a<span class="pagenum" id="Page_203">[Pg 203]</span>
-certain man was not always drunk, even if he did
-jump “from jag to jag like an alcoholic chamois.”</p>
-
-<p>Here, of course, we are fairly within the boundaries
-of slang&mdash;of the slang which is temporary
-only, and which withers away swiftly. But is
-<em>swell</em> slang now, and <em>fad</em>, and <em>crank</em>? Is <em>boom</em>
-slang, and is <em>blizzard</em>? And if it is difficult to
-draw any line of division between mere slang on
-the one side, and idiomatic words and phrases on
-the other, it is doubly difficult to draw this line
-between mere slang and the legitimate technicalities
-of a calling or a craft. Is it slang to say of a
-picture that the chief figure in it is <em>out of drawing</em>,
-or that the painter has got his <em>values</em> wrong?
-And how could any historian explain the ins and
-outs of New York politics who could not state
-frankly that the <em>machine</em> made a <em>slate</em>, and that
-the <em>mugwumps</em> broke it. Such a historian must
-needs master the meaning of <em>laying pipe</em> for
-a nomination, or <em>pulling wires</em> to secure it, of
-<em>taking the stump</em> before election, and of <em>log-rolling</em>
-after it; he must apprehend the exact relation of
-the <em>boss</em> to his <em>henchmen</em> and his <em>heelers</em>; and he
-must understand who the <em>half-breeds</em> were, and
-the <em>stalwarts</em>, and how the <em>swallowtails</em> were
-different from the <em>short-hairs</em>.</p>
-
-<p>To call one man a <em>boss</em> and another a <em>henchman</em>
-may have been slang once, but the words are
-lawful now, because they are necessary. It is<span class="pagenum" id="Page_204">[Pg 204]</span>
-only by these words that the exact relation of a
-certain kind of political leader to a certain kind
-of political follower can be expressed succinctly.
-There are, of course, not a few political phrases
-still under the ban because they are needless.
-Some of these may some day come to convey an
-exact shade of meaning not expressed by any
-other word, and when this shall happen, they
-will take their places in the legitimate vocabulary.
-I doubt whether this good fortune will ever befall
-a use of <em>influence</em>, now not uncommon in Washington.
-The statesman at whose suggestion and
-request an office-holder has received his appointment
-is known as that office-holder’s <em>influence</em>.
-Thus a poor widow, suddenly turned out of a
-post she had held for years, because it was
-wanted by the henchman of some boss whose
-good will a senator or a department chief wished
-to retain, explained to a friend that her dismissal
-was due to the fact that her <em>influence</em> had died
-during the summer. The inevitable extension of
-the merit system in the civil service of our country
-will probably prevent the permanent acceptance
-of this new meaning.</p>
-
-<p>The political is only one of a vast number of
-technical vocabularies, all of which are proffering
-their words for popular consumption. Every art
-and every science, every trade and every calling,
-every sect and every sport, has its own special<span class="pagenum" id="Page_205">[Pg 205]</span>
-lexicon, the most of the words in which must
-always remain outside of the general speech
-of the whole people. They are reserves, to be
-drawn upon to fill up the regular army in time
-of need. Legitimate enough when confined to
-their proper use, those technicalities become
-slang when employed out of season, and when
-applied out of the special department of human
-endeavor in which they have been evolved. Of
-course, if the public interest in this department
-is increased for any reason, more and more words
-from that technical vocabulary are adopted into
-the wider dictionary of popular speech; and thus
-the general language is still enriching itself by
-the taking over of words and phrases from the
-terminology devised by experts for their own
-use. Not without interest would it be if we
-could ascertain exactly how much of the special
-vocabulary of the mere man of letters is now
-understandable by the plain people. It is one of
-the characters in ‘Middlemarch’ who maintains
-that “correct English” is only “the slang of
-prigs who write history and essays, and the
-strongest slang of all is the slang of poets.”</p>
-
-<p>Of recent years many of the locutions of the
-Stock Exchange have won their way into general
-knowledge; and there are few of us who do not
-know what <em>bears</em> and <em>bulls</em> are, what a <em>corner</em> is,
-and what is a <em>margin</em>. The practical application<span class="pagenum" id="Page_206">[Pg 206]</span>
-of scientific knowledge makes the public at large
-familiar with many principles hitherto the exclusive
-possession of the experts, and the public at
-large gets to use freely to-day technicalities which
-even the learned of yesterday would not have
-understood. <em>Current</em>, for example, and <em>insulation</em>,
-made familiar by the startlingly rapid extension
-of electrical possibilities in the last few years,
-have been so fully assimilated that they are now
-used independently and without avowed reference
-to their original electrical meanings.</p>
-
-<p>The prevalence of a sport or of a game brings
-into general use the terms of that special amusement.
-The Elizabethan dramatists, for example,
-use <em>vy</em> and <em>revy</em> and the other technicalities of the
-game of primero as freely as our western humorists
-use <em>going it blind</em> and <em>calling</em> and the other technicalities
-of the game of poker, which has been
-evolved out of primero in the course of the centuries.
-Some of the technicalities of euchre
-also, and of whist, have passed into every-day
-speech; and so have many of the terms of baseball
-and of football, of racing and of trotting,
-of rowing and of yachting. These made their
-way into the vocabulary of the average man one
-by one, as the seasons went around and as the
-sports followed one another in popularity. So
-during the civil war many military phrases were
-frequent in the mouths of the people; and some<span class="pagenum" id="Page_207">[Pg 207]</span>
-of these established themselves firmly in the
-vocabulary.</p>
-
-<p>“In language, as in life,” so Professor Dowden
-tells us, “there is, so to speak, an aristocracy
-and a commonalty: words with a heritage of dignity,
-words which have been ennobled, and a
-rabble of words which are excluded from positions
-of honor and trust.” Some writers and
-speakers there are with so delicate a sense of
-refinement that they are at ease only with the
-ennobled words, with the words that came
-over with the conquerer, with the lords, spiritual
-and temporal, of the vocabulary. Others
-there are, parvenus themselves, and so tainted
-with snobbery that they are happy only in the
-society of their betters; and these express the
-utmost contempt for the mass of the vulgar.
-Yet again others there are who have Lincoln’s
-liking for the plain words of the plain people&mdash;the
-democrats of the dictionary, homely,
-simple, direct. These last are tolerant of the
-words, once of high estate, which have lost their
-rank and are fallen upon evil days, preferring
-them over the other words, plebeian once, but
-having pushed their fortunes energetically in
-successive generations, until now there are none
-more highly placed.</p>
-
-<p>Perhaps the aristocratic figure of speech is
-a little misleading, because in the English language,<span class="pagenum" id="Page_208">[Pg 208]</span>
-as in France after the Revolution, we find
-<i xml:lang="fr" lang="fr">la carrière ouverte aux talents</i>, and every word
-has a fair chance to attain the highest dignity in
-the gift of the dictionary. No doubt family connections
-are still potent, and it is much easier for
-some words to rise in life than it is for others.
-Most people would hold that war and law and
-medicine made a more honorable pedigree for a
-technical term than the stage, for example, or than
-some sport.</p>
-
-<p>And yet the stage has its own enormous vocabulary,
-used with the utmost scientific precision.
-The theater is a hotbed of temporary slang, often
-as lawless, as vigorous, and as picturesque as the
-phrases of the west; but it has also a terminology
-of its own, containing some hundreds of words,
-used always with absolute exactness. A <em>mascot</em>,
-meaning one who brings good luck, and a <em>hoodoo</em>,
-meaning one who brings ill fortune, are terms
-invented in the theater, it is true; and many another
-odd word can be credited to the same
-source. But every one behind the scenes knows
-also what <em>sky-borders</em> are, and <em>bunch-lights</em>,
-and <em>vampire-traps</em>, and <em>raking-pieces</em>&mdash;technical
-terms all of them, and all used with rigorous exactitude.
-Like the technicalities of any other
-profession, those of the stage are often very puzzling
-to the uninitiated, and a greenhorn could
-hardly even make a guess at the meaning of<span class="pagenum" id="Page_209">[Pg 209]</span>
-terms which every visitor to a green-room might
-use at any moment. What layman could explain
-the office of a <em>cut-drop</em>, the utility of a <em>carpenter’s
-scene</em>, or the precise privileges of a <em>bill-board
-ticket</em>?</p>
-
-<p>There is one word which the larger vocabulary
-of the public has lately taken from the smaller
-vocabulary of the playhouse, and which some
-strolling player of the past apparently borrowed
-from some other vagabond familiar with thieves’
-slang. This word is <em>fake</em>. It has always conveyed
-the suggestion of an intent to deceive.
-“Are you going to get up new scenery for the
-new play?” might be asked; and the answer
-would be, “No; we shall <em>fake</em> it,” meaning
-thereby that old scenery would be retouched and
-readjusted so as to have the appearance of new.
-From the stage the word passed to the newspapers,
-and a <em>fake</em> is a story invented, not
-founded on fact, “made out of whole cloth,”
-as the stump-speakers say. <abbr title="mister">Mr.</abbr> Howells, always
-bold in using new words, accepts <em>fake</em> as good
-enough for him, and prints it in the ‘Quality of
-Mercy’ without the stigma of italics or quotation-marks;
-just as in the same story he has adopted
-the colloquial <em>electrics</em> for <em>electric lights</em>&mdash;i.e.,
-“He turned off the electrics.”</p>
-
-<p>And hereafter the rest of us may use either <em>fake</em>
-or <em>electrics</em> with a clear conscience, either hiding<span class="pagenum" id="Page_210">[Pg 210]</span>
-ourselves behind <abbr title="mister">Mr.</abbr> Howells, who can always
-give a good account of himself when attacked,
-or else coming out into the open and asserting
-our own right to adopt either word because it
-is useful. “Is it called for? Is it accordant with
-the analysis of the language? Is it offered or
-backed by good authority? These are the considerations
-by which general consent is won or
-repelled,” so Professor Whitney tells us, “and
-general consent decides every case without appeal.”
-It happens that Don Quixote preceded
-Professor Whitney in this exposition of the law,
-for when he was instructing Sancho Panza, then
-about to be appointed governor of an island, he
-used a Latinized form of a certain word which
-had become vulgar, explaining that “if some do
-not understand these terms it matters little, for
-custom will bring them into use in the course of
-time so that they will be readily understood.
-That is the way a language is enriched; custom
-and the public are all-powerful there.” Sometimes
-the needful word which is thought to be
-too common for use is Latinized, as Don Quixote
-preferred, but more often it is ennobled without
-change, being simply lifted out from among its
-former low companions.</p>
-
-<p>One of the hardest lessons for the amateurs in
-linguistics to learn&mdash;and most of them never
-attain to this wisdom&mdash;is that affectations are<span class="pagenum" id="Page_211">[Pg 211]</span>
-fleeting, that vulgarisms die of their own weakness,
-and that corruptions do little harm to the
-language. And the reason is not far to seek:
-either the apparent affectation, the alleged vulgarism,
-the so-called corruption, is accidental
-and useless, in which case its vogue will be
-brief and it will sink swiftly into oblivion; or
-else it represents a need and fills a want, in which
-case, no matter how careless it may be or how
-inaccurately formed, it will hold its own firmly,
-and there is really nothing more to be said about
-it. In other words, slang and all other variations
-from the high standard of the literary language
-are either temporary or permanent. If they are
-temporary only, the damage they can do is inconsiderable.
-If they are permanent, their survival
-is due solely to the fact that they were
-convenient or necessary. When a word or a
-phrase has come to stay (as <em>reliable</em> has, apparently),
-it is idle to denounce a decision rendered
-by the court of last resort. The most that we
-can do with advantage is to refrain from using the
-word ourselves, if we so prefer.</p>
-
-<p>It is possible to go further, even, and to turn
-the tables on those who see in slang an ever-growing
-evil. Not only is there little danger to
-the language to be feared from those alleged corruptions,
-and from these doubtful locutions of
-evanescent popularity, but real harm is done by<span class="pagenum" id="Page_212">[Pg 212]</span>
-the purists themselves, who do not understand
-every modification of our language, and who
-seek to check the development of idiom and to
-limit the liberty which enables our speech freely
-to provide for its own needs as these are revealed
-by time. It is these half-educated censors,
-prompt to protest against whatever is novel to
-them, and swift to set up the standard of a narrow
-personal experience, who try to curb the
-development of a language. It cannot be declared
-too often and too emphatically how fortunate
-it is that the care of our language and the
-control of its development is not in the hands
-even of the most competent scholars. In language,
-as in politics, the people at large are in
-the long run better judges of their own needs
-than any specialist can be. As Professor Whitney
-says, “the language would soon be shorn of no
-small part of its strength if placed exclusively in
-the hands of any individual or of any class.” In
-the hands of no class would it be enfeebled sooner
-than if it were given to the guardianship of the
-pedants and the pedagogs.</p>
-
-<p>A sloven in speech is as offensive as a sloven
-in manners or in dress; and neatness of phrase
-is as pleasant to the ear as neatness of attire to
-the eye. A man should choose his words at
-least as carefully as he chooses his clothes; a
-hint of the dandy even is unobjectionable, if it<span class="pagenum" id="Page_213">[Pg 213]</span>
-is but a hint. But when a man gives his whole
-mind to his dress, it is generally because he has
-but little mind to give; and so when a man spends
-his force wholly in rejecting words and phrases,
-it is generally because he lacks ideas to express
-with the words and phrases of which he does
-approve. In most cases a man can say best
-what he has to say without lapsing into slang;
-but then a slangy expression which actually tells
-us something is better than the immaculate sentence
-empty of everything but the consciousness
-of its own propriety.</p>
-
-<div class="blockquot">
-<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_215">[Pg 215]</span></p>
-<p>(1893)</p>
-</div>
-
-<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop" />
-
-<div class="chapter">
-<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_217">[Pg 217]</span></p>
-
-<h2 class="nobreak" id="Chapter_IX">IX<br />
-QUESTIONS OF USAGE</h2>
-</div>
-
-
-<p>If any proof were needed of the fact that an
-immense number of people take an intense
-interest in the right and wrong use of the English
-language, and also of the further fact that their
-interest is out of all proportion to their knowledge
-of the history of our speech, such proof could be
-found in the swift and unceasing eruption of
-“letters to the editor” which broke out in many
-of the American newspapers immediately after
-the publication of <abbr title="mister">Mr.</abbr> Rudyard Kipling’s ‘Recessional.’
-The exciting cause of this rash exhibition
-was found in the line which told us that</p>
-
-<p class="poetry p0">
-The shouting and the tumult dies.<br />
-</p>
-
-<p>The gross blunder in this sentence leaped to the
-eyes of many whose acquaintance with the principles
-of English construction was confined to
-what they chanced to remember of the rules
-learned by heart in their grammar-school days.
-But there were others whose reading was a little
-wider, and who were able to cite precedents in<span class="pagenum" id="Page_218">[Pg 218]</span>
-<abbr title="mister">Mr.</abbr> Kipling’s favor from Milton and from Shakspere
-and from the King James translation of the
-Bible. Yet the argument from the past failed to
-convince some of the original protestants, one of
-whom suggested that the erring poet should be
-sent to a night-school, while another objected to
-any further discussion of the subject, since “a
-person who doesn’t know that the plural form
-of the verb is used when the subject of said verb
-is two or more nouns in the singular number
-should receive no mention in a reputable newspaper.”
-It may be doubted whether the altercation
-was really bloody enough to demand
-attention from the disreputable newspapers,
-altho it was fierce and intolerant while it
-lasted.</p>
-
-<p>The battle raged for a fortnight, and the foundations
-of the deep were broken up. Yet it was
-really a tempest in a teapot, and oil for the
-troubled waters was ready at hand had any of
-those in danger of shipwreck thought to make
-use of it. In Professor Lounsbury’s ‘History of
-the English Language’&mdash;a book from which it is
-a constant pleasure to quote, since it combines
-sound scholarship, literary skill, and common
-sense in an uncommon degree&mdash;we are told that
-“rules have been and still are laid down ...
-which never had any existence outside of the
-minds of grammarians and verbal critics. By<span class="pagenum" id="Page_219">[Pg 219]</span>
-these rules, so far as they are observed, freedom
-of expression is cramped, idiomatic peculiarity
-destroyed, and false tests for correctness set up,
-which give the ignorant opportunity to point out
-supposed error in others, while the real error lies
-in their own imperfect acquaintance with the best
-usage.”</p>
-
-<p>And then Professor Lounsbury cites in illustration
-the rule which was brought up against <abbr title="mister">Mr.</abbr>
-Kipling: “There is a rule of Latin syntax that
-two or more substantives joined by a copulative
-require the verb to be in the plural. This has
-been foisted into the grammar of English, of
-which it is no more true than it is of modern
-German.... The grammar of English, as exhibited
-in the utterances of its best writers and
-speakers, has from the very earliest period allowed
-the widest discretion as to the use either
-of the singular or the plural in such cases. The
-importation and imposition of rules foreign to its
-idiom, like the one just mentioned, does more to
-hinder the free development of the tongue, and
-to dwarf its freedom of expression, than the
-widest prevalence of slovenliness of speech, or
-of affectation of style; for these latter are always
-temporary in their character, and are sure to be
-left behind by the advance in popular cultivation,
-or forgotten through the change in popular taste.”</p>
-
-<p>This is really a declaration of independence for<span class="pagenum" id="Page_220">[Pg 220]</span>
-writers of English. It is the frank assertion that
-a language is made by those who use it&mdash;made
-by that very use. Language is not an invention
-of the grammarians and of the word-critics,
-whose business, indeed, is not to make language
-or to prescribe rules, but more modestly to record
-usage and to discover the principles which may
-underlie the incessant development of our common
-speech. And here in discussing the syntax
-Professor Lounsbury is at one with <abbr title="mister">Mr.</abbr> George
-Meredith discussing the vocabulary of our language,
-when the British novelist notes his own
-liking for “our blunt and racy vernacular, which
-a society nourished upon Norman English and
-English Latin banishes from print, largely to its
-impoverishment, some think.”</p>
-
-<p>Those who have tried to impose a Latin syntax
-on the English language are as arbitrary as those
-who have insisted on an English pronunciation
-of the Latin language. Their attitude is as illogical
-as it is dogmatic; and nowhere is dogmatism
-less welcome than in the attempt to come to a just
-conclusion in regard to English usage; and nowhere
-is the personal equation more carefully to be
-allowed for. A term is not necessarily acceptable
-because we ourselves are accustomed to it, nor is
-it necessarily to be rejected because it reaches us
-as a novelty. The Americanism which a British
-journalist glibly denounces may be but the<span class="pagenum" id="Page_221">[Pg 221]</span>
-ephemeral catchword of a single street-gang, or
-it may have come over in the ‘Mayflower’ and
-be able to trace its ancestry back to a forefather
-that crossed with William the Conqueror. The
-Briticism which strikes some of us as uncouth
-and vulgar may be but a chance bit of cockney
-slang, or it may be warranted by the very genius
-of our language.</p>
-
-<p>Most of the little manuals which pretend to
-regulate our use of our own language and to
-declare what is and what is not good English are
-grotesque in their ignorance; and the best of them
-are of small value, because they are prepared on
-the assumption that the English language is dead,
-like the Latin, and that, like Latin again, its usage
-is fixed finally. Of course this assumption is as
-far as possible from the fact. The English language
-is alive now&mdash;very much alive. And because
-it is alive it is in a constant state of growth.
-It is developing daily according to its needs. It
-is casting aside words and usages that are no
-longer satisfactory; it is adding new terms as
-new things are brought forward; and it is making
-new usages, as convenience suggests, short-cuts
-across lots, and to the neglect of the five-barred
-gates rigidly set up by our ancestors. It is throwing
-away as worn out words which were once
-very fashionable; and it is giving up grammatical
-forms which seem to be no longer useful. It is<span class="pagenum" id="Page_222">[Pg 222]</span>
-continually trying to keep itself in the highest
-state of efficiency for work it has to do. It is
-ever urging ahead in the direction of increased
-utility; and if any of the so-called “rules” happens
-to stand in the path of its progress&mdash;so
-much the worse for the rule! As Stephenson
-said, “It will be bad for the coo!”</p>
-
-<p>The English language is the tool of the peoples
-who speak English and who have made it to fit
-their hands. They have fashioned it to suit their
-own needs, and it is quite as characteristic as anything
-else these same peoples have made&mdash;quite
-as characteristic as the common law and as parliamentary
-government. A language cannot but
-be a most important witness when we wish to
-inquire into the special peculiarities of a race.
-The French, for instance, are dominated by the
-social instinct, and they are prone to rely on logic
-a little too much, and their language is therefore
-a marvel of transparency and precision. In like
-manner we might deduce from an analysis of
-the German language an opinion as to the slowness
-of the individual Teuton, as to his occasional
-cloudiness, as to his willingness to take trouble,
-and as to his ultimate thoroughness.</p>
-
-<p>The peoples who speak English are very practical
-and very direct; they are impatient of needless
-detail; and they are intolerant of mere theory.
-These are some of the reasons why English is<span class="pagenum" id="Page_223">[Pg 223]</span>
-less embarrassed with niceties of inflection than
-other languages, why it has cut its syntax to the
-bone, why it has got rid of most of its declensions
-and conjugations&mdash;why, in short, it has
-almost justified the critic who called it a grammarless
-tongue. In every language there is a
-constant tendency toward uniformity and an unceasing
-effort to get rid of abnormal exceptions
-to the general rule; but in no language are these
-endeavors more effective than in English. In the
-past they have succeeded in simplifying the rules
-of our speech; and they are at work now in the
-present on the same task of making English a
-more efficient instrument for those who use it.</p>
-
-<p>This effort of the language to do its duty as
-best it can is partly conscious and partly unconscious;
-and where the word-critic can be of
-service is in watching for the result of the unconscious
-endeavor, so that it can be made plain,
-and so that it can be aided thereafter by conscious
-endeavor. The tendency toward uniformity is
-irresistible; and one of its results just now to be
-observed is an impending disappearance of the
-subjunctive mood. Those who may have supposed
-that the subjunctive was as firmly established
-in English as the indicative can discover
-easily enough by paying a little attention to their
-own daily speech and to the speech of their educated
-neighbors that “if I <em>be</em> not too late,” for<span class="pagenum" id="Page_224">[Pg 224]</span>
-instance, is a form now rarely heard even in cultivated
-society.</p>
-
-<p>And the same tendency is to be observed also
-in the written language. Letters in the London
-<i>Author</i> in June and July, 1897, showed that in a
-few less than a million words chosen from the
-works of recent authors of good repute there
-were only 284 instances of the subjunctive mood,
-and that of these all but fifteen were in the verb
-“to be.” This reveals to us that the value of this
-variation of form is no longer evident, not merely
-to careless speakers, but even to careful writers;
-and it makes it probable that it is only a question
-of time how soon the subjunctive shall be no
-longer differentiated from the indicative. Where
-our grandfathers would have taken pains to say
-“if I <em>were</em> to go away,” and “if I <em>be</em> not misinformed,”
-our grandchildren will unhesitatingly
-write, “if I <em>was</em> to go away,” and “if I <em>am</em> not
-misinformed.” And so posterity will not need
-to clog its memory with any rule for the employment
-of the subjunctive; and the English language
-will have cleansed itself of a barnacle.</p>
-
-<p>It is this same irresistible desire for the simplest
-form and for the shortest which is responsible for
-the increasing tendency to say “he don’t” and
-“she don’t,” on the analogy of “we don’t,” “you
-don’t,” and “they don’t,” instead of the more
-obviously grammatical “he does n’t” and “she<span class="pagenum" id="Page_225">[Pg 225]</span>
-does n’t.” A brave attempt has been made to
-maintain that “he don’t” is older than “he does n’t,”
-and that it has at least the sanction of antiquity.
-However this may be, “he don’t” is certain
-to sustain itself in the future because it calls for less
-effort and because any willingness to satisfy the
-purist will seem less and less worth while as time
-goes on. It is well that the purist should fight
-for his own hand; but it is well also to know
-that he is fighting a losing battle.</p>
-
-<p>The purist used to insist that we should not
-say “the house is <em>being built</em>,” but rather “the
-house is <em>building</em>.” So far as one can judge from
-a survey of recent writing the purist has abandoned
-this combat; and nobody nowadays hesitates
-to ask, “What is being done?” The purist
-still objects to what he calls the Retained Object
-in such a sentence as “he was given a new suit
-of clothes.” Here again the struggle is vain, for
-this usage is very old; it is well established in
-English; and whatever may be urged against it
-theoretically, it has the final advantage of convenience.
-The purist also tells us that we should
-say “come to see me” and “try to do it,” and
-not “come and see me” and “try and do it.”
-Here once more the purist is setting up a personal
-standard without any warrant. He may
-use whichever of these forms he likes best, and
-we on our part have the same permission, with<span class="pagenum" id="Page_226">[Pg 226]</span>
-a strong preference for the older and more idiomatic
-of them.</p>
-
-<p>Theory is all very well, but to be of any value
-it must be founded on the solid rock of fact; and
-even when it is so established it has to yield to
-convenience. This is what the purist cannot be
-induced to understand. He seems to think that
-the language was made once for all, and that any
-deviation from the theory acted on in the past is
-intolerable in the present. He is often wholly at
-sea in regard to his theories and to his facts&mdash;more
-often than not; but no doubt as to his own
-infallibility ever discourages him. He just knows
-that he is right and that everybody else is wrong;
-and he has no sense of humor to save him from
-himself. And he makes up in violence what he
-lacks in wisdom. He accepts himself as a prophet
-verbally inspired, and he holds that this
-gives him the right to call down fire from heaven
-on all who do not accept his message.</p>
-
-<p>It was a purist of this sort who once wrote to
-a little literary weekly in New York, protesting
-against the use of <em>people</em> when <em>persons</em> would
-seem to be the better word, and complacently
-declaring that “for twenty-five years or more I
-have kept my eye on this little word <em>people</em> and
-I have yet to find a single American or English
-author who does not misuse it.” We are instantly
-reminded of the Irish juryman who said,<span class="pagenum" id="Page_227">[Pg 227]</span>
-“Eleven more obstinate men I never met in the
-whole course of my life.” In this pitiful condition
-of affairs one cannot discover on what this
-purist bases the hope he expresses that “in the
-course of two or three hundred years the correct
-employment of it may possibly become general.”
-Rather may it be hoped that in the course of two
-or three hundred years a knowledge of the principles
-which govern English usage may become
-general.</p>
-
-<p>What is called the Split Infinitive is also a cause
-of pain to the purist, who is greatly grieved when
-he finds George Lewes in the ‘Life of Goethe’
-saying “to completely understand.” This inserting
-of an adverb between the <em>to</em> and the rest
-of the verb strikes the word-critic as pernicious,
-and he denounces it instantly as a novelty to be
-stamped out before it permanently contaminates
-our speech. Even Professor A. S. Hill, in his
-‘Foundations of Rhetoric,’ while admitting its
-antiquity, since it has been in use constantly
-from the days of Wyclif to the days of Herbert
-Spencer, still declares it to be “a common fault”
-not sanctioned or even condoned by good
-authority.</p>
-
-<p>The fact is, I think, that the Split Infinitive has
-a most respectable pedigree, and that it is rather
-the protest against it which is the novelty now
-establishing itself. The Split Infinitive is to be<span class="pagenum" id="Page_228">[Pg 228]</span>
-found in the pages of Shakspere, Massinger, Sir
-Thomas Browne, Defoe, Burke, Coleridge, Byron,
-De Quincey, Macaulay, Matthew Arnold, Browning,
-Motley, Lowell, and Holmes. But it is a fact
-also, I think, that since the protest has been raised
-there has been a tendency among careful writers
-to eschew the Split Infinitive, or at least to employ
-it only when there is a gain in lucidity from
-its use, as there is, for example, in Professor
-Lounsbury’s “to more than counterbalance”
-(‘Studies in Chaucer,’ i. 447).</p>
-
-<p>A writer who has worked out for himself a
-theory of style, and who has made up his mind
-as to the principles he ought to follow in writing,
-often yields to protests the validity of which he
-refuses to admit. He gives the protestant the
-benefit of the doubt and drops the stigmatized
-words from his vocabulary and refrains from the
-stigmatized usages, reserving always the right to
-avail himself of them at a pinch. What such a
-writer has for his supreme object is to convey his
-thought into the minds of his readers with the
-least friction; and he tries therefore to avoid all
-awkwardness of phrase, all incongruous words,
-all locutions likely to arouse resistance, since any
-one of these things will inevitably lessen the
-amount of attention which this reader or that will
-then have available for the reception of the writer’s
-message. This is what Herbert Spencer has called<span class="pagenum" id="Page_229">[Pg 229]</span>
-the principle of Economy of Attention; and a firm
-grasp of this principle is a condition precedent to
-a clear understanding of literary art.</p>
-
-<p>For a good and sufficient reason such a writer
-stands ready at any time to break this self-imposed
-rule. If a solecism, or a vulgarism even,
-will serve his purpose better at a given moment
-than the more elegant word, he avails himself of
-it, knowing what he is doing, and risking the
-smaller loss for the greater gain. M. Legouvé
-tells us that at a rehearsal of a play of Scribe’s
-he drew the author’s attention to a bit of bad
-French at the climax of one of the acts, and
-Scribe gratefully accepted the correct form which
-was suggested. But two or three rehearsals later
-Scribe went back unhesitatingly to the earlier and
-incorrect phrase, which happened to be swifter,
-more direct, and dramatically more expressive
-than the academically accurate sentence M. Legouvé
-had supplied. Shakspere seems often to
-have been moved by like motives, and to have
-been willing at any time to sacrifice strict grammar
-to stage-effectiveness.</p>
-
-<p>Two tendencies exist side by side to-day, and
-are working together for the improvement of our
-language. One is the tendency to disregard all
-useless distinctions and to abolish all useless exceptions
-and to achieve simplicity and regularity.
-The other is the tendency toward a more delicate<span class="pagenum" id="Page_230">[Pg 230]</span>
-precision which shall help the writer to present
-his thought with the utmost clearness.</p>
-
-<p>Of the first of these abundant examples can be
-cited phrases which the word-critic would denounce,
-and which are not easy to defend on any
-narrow ground, but which are employed freely
-even by conscientious writers, well aware that no
-utility is served by a pedantic precision. So we
-find Matthew Arnold in his lectures ‘On Translating
-Homer’ speaking of “the <em>four first</em>,” where
-the purist would prefer to have said “the <em>first
-four</em>.” So we find Hawthorne in the ‘Blithedale
-Romance’ writing “fellow, clown, or bumpkin,
-to <em>either</em> of these,” when the purist would have
-wished him to say “to any one of these,” holding
-that “either” can be applied only when there are
-but two objects.</p>
-
-<p>In like manner the word-critics object to the
-use of the superlative degree when the comparative
-is all that is needed; yet we find in the King
-James translation of Genesis, “her eldest son,
-Esau,” and she had but two sons. And they
-refuse to allow either a comparative or a superlative
-to adjectives which indicate completeness;
-yet we find in Gibbon’s ‘Decline and Fall,’ “its
-success was not more universal.” They do not
-like to see a writer say that anything is “more
-perfect” or “most complete,” holding that what
-is universal or perfect or complete “does not<span class="pagenum" id="Page_231">[Pg 231]</span>
-admit of augmentation,” as one of them declared
-more than a century ago in the <i>Gentleman’s Magazine</i>
-for July, 1797. In all these cases logic may
-be on the side of the word-critic. But what of
-it? Obedience to logic would here serve no useful
-purpose, and therefore logic is boldly disobeyed.
-However inexact these phrases may be,
-they mislead no one and they can be understood
-without hesitation.</p>
-
-<p>Side by side with this tendency to take the
-short-cut exists the other tendency to go the long
-way round if by so doing the writer’s purpose is
-more easily accomplished. There is a common
-usage which is frequently objurgated by the
-word-critics and which may fall into desuetude,
-not through their attacks, but because of its conflict
-with this second tendency. This is the insertion
-of an unnecessary <em>who</em> or <em>which</em> after an
-<em>and</em> or a <em>but</em>, as in this sentence from Professor
-Butcher’s admirable discussion of Aristotle’s
-‘Theory of Poetry’: “Nature is an artist capable
-indeed of mistakes, but <em>who</em> by slow advances
-and through many failures realizes her own
-idea.” So in Gibbon’s ‘Decline and Fall’ we
-are told of “a chorus of twenty-seven youths
-and as many virgins, of noble family, and <em>whose</em>
-parents were both alive.” This locution is proper
-in French, but it is denounced as improper
-in English by the purists, who would strike out<span class="pagenum" id="Page_232">[Pg 232]</span>
-the <em>but</em> from Professor Butcher’s and the <em>and</em>
-from Gibbon’s.</p>
-
-<p>It is a constant source of amusement to those
-interested in observing the condition and the
-development of the language to note the frequency
-with which the phrases put under taboo
-by the word-critics occur in the writings of the
-masters of English. In my own recent reading I
-have found this despised construction in the pages
-of Fielding, Johnson, Thackeray, Matthew Arnold,
-Robert Louis Stevenson, <abbr title="mister">Mr.</abbr> John Morley,
-<abbr title="mister">Mr.</abbr> Henry James, and Professor Jebb in Great
-Britain, and in pages of Hawthorne, Lowell,
-Holmes, and <abbr title="mister">Mr.</abbr> John Fiske in the United States.
-What is more significant perhaps is its discovery
-in the works of professed students of language&mdash;Trench,
-Isaac Taylor, Max Müller, and W. D.
-Whitney.</p>
-
-<p>And yet, in spite of this array of authorities, I
-am inclined to believe that this usage may perhaps
-disappear with the increasing attention
-which the best writers are now giving to the
-rhythm and balance of their sentences. It is not
-that the form is wrong&mdash;that is a matter not to
-be decided offhand; it is that the form is awkward
-and that it jars on the feeling for symmetry&mdash;the
-feeling which leads us to put a candlestick
-on each side of the clock on the mantelpiece.
-Professor Whitney began one of his sentences<span class="pagenum" id="Page_233">[Pg 233]</span>
-thus: “Castrén, himself a Finn, and whose long
-and devoted labors have taught us more respecting
-them than has been brought to light by any
-other man, ventures,” etc. Would not this sentence
-have been easier and more elegant if Whitney
-had either struck out <em>and</em> (which is not
-needed at all) or else inserted <em>who was</em> after
-Castrén? In the sentence as Whitney wrote it
-<em>and whose</em> makes me look back for the <em>who</em> which
-my feeling for symmetry leads me to suppose
-must have preceded it somewhere, and in this
-vain search part of my attention is abstracted. I
-have been forced to think of the manner of his
-remarks when my mind ought to have given itself
-so far as might be to the matter of them. In
-other words, the real objection to this usage is
-that it is in violation of the principle of Economy
-of Attention.</p>
-
-<p>Another usage also under fire from the purists
-is exemplified in another extract from Whitney:
-“It is, I am convinced, a mistake to commence
-at once upon a course of detailed comparative
-philology with pupils who have <em>only</em> enjoyed the
-ordinary training in the classical or modern languages.”
-Obviously his meaning would be more
-sharply defined if he had put <em>only</em> after instead of
-before <em>enjoyed</em>. So Froude, writing about ‘English
-Seamen in the Sixteenth Century,’ says that
-“the fore-and-aft rig alone would enable a vessel<span class="pagenum" id="Page_234">[Pg 234]</span>
-to tack, as it is called, and this could <em>only</em> be used
-with craft of moderate tonnage”; and here again
-a transposition after the verb would increase the
-exactness of the statement.</p>
-
-<p>The proposition of <em>only</em> is really important only
-when the misplacing of it may cause ambiguity;
-and Professor F. N. Scott has shown how Webster,
-always careful in the niceties of style, unhesitatingly
-put <em>only</em> out of its proper place, if by
-so doing he could improve the rhythm of his
-period, as in this sentence from the second
-Bunker Hill oration: “It did not, indeed, put an
-end to the war; but, in the then existing hostile
-state of feeling, the difficulties could only be referred
-to the arbitration of the sword.” This is
-as it should be, the small effect promptly sacrificed
-for the larger. The rule&mdash;if rule it really is&mdash;must
-be broken unhesitatingly when there is
-greater gain than loss.</p>
-
-<p>There is an anecdote in some volume of French
-theatrical memoirs narrating an experience of
-Mademoiselle Clairon, the great tragic actress,
-with a pupil of hers, a girl of fine natural gifts
-for the histrionic art, but far too frequent and
-too exuberant in her gesticulation. So when the
-pupil was once to appear before the public in a
-recitation, Mademoiselle Clairon bound the girl’s
-arms to her side by a stiff thread and sent her
-thus upon the stage. With the first strong feeling<span class="pagenum" id="Page_235">[Pg 235]</span>
-she had to express the pupil tried to raise her
-arms, only to be restrained by the thread. A
-dozen times in the course of her recitation she
-was prevented from making the gestures she desired,
-until at the very end she could stand it no
-longer, and in the climax of her emotion she
-broke her bonds and lifted her hands to her head.
-When she came off the stage she went humbly
-to where Mademoiselle Clairon was standing in
-the wings and apologized for having snapped the
-thread. “But you did quite right!” said the
-teacher. “That was the time to make the gesture&mdash;not
-before!”</p>
-
-<p>Rules exist to aid in composition; and by wise
-men composition is not undertaken merely to
-prove the existence of the rules. Circumstances
-may alter even codes of manners; in Paris, for
-instance, it is permissible to sop bread in the
-sauce, a practice which is bad form in London&mdash;since
-nobody would want any more of a British
-sauce than could be avoided. This paper, however,
-has failed of its purpose if it is taken as a
-plea for license. Rather is it intended as an argument
-for liberty. It has been written as the result
-of a belief that a frank protest is needed now
-and again against the excessive demands of the
-linguistic dogmatists. That what the linguistic
-dogmatists write is as widely read as it seems
-to be is a sign of a healthy interest in the speech<span class="pagenum" id="Page_236">[Pg 236]</span>
-which must serve us all, scholars and school-masters
-and plain people. This interest should
-be aroused also to shake off the shackles with
-which pedagogs and pedants seek to restrain not
-only the full growth of our noble tongue, but
-even its free use. As Renan pithily put it, every
-time that “grammarians have tried deliberately to
-reform a language, they have succeeded only in
-making it heavy, without expression, and often
-less logical than the humblest dialect.”</p>
-
-<p>If English is to be kept fit to do the mighty
-work it bids fair to be called upon to accomplish
-in the future, it must be allowed to develop along
-the line of least resistance. It must be encouraged
-to follow its own bent and to supply its own
-needs and to shed its worn-out members. It
-must not be hampered by syntax taken from
-Latin or by rules evolved out of the inner consciousness
-of word-critics. It must not be too
-squeamish or even too particular, since excessive
-refinement goes only with muscular weakness.
-It must be allowed to venture on solecisms, on
-neologisms, on Americanisms, on Briticisms, on
-Australianisms, if need be, however ugly some
-of these may seem, for the language uses itself up
-fast, and has to be replenished that it shall not
-lose its vigor and its ardor.</p>
-
-<p>To say this is not to say that every one of us
-who uses English in speaking or in writing should<span class="pagenum" id="Page_237">[Pg 237]</span>
-not always choose his words carefully and decide
-on his forms judiciously. Only by a wise selection
-can the language be kept at its highest efficiency;
-only thus can its full powers be revealed
-to us. And if we decide that we prefer to keep
-to the very letter of the law as laid down by the
-grammarians&mdash;why, that is our privilege and no
-one shall say us nay. But let us not think scorn
-of those who are careless in paying their tithes
-of mint and anise and cummin, if also they stand
-upright and speak the truth plainly.</p>
-
-<p>For myself&mdash;if a personal confession is not
-here out of place&mdash;I shrink always from profiting
-by any license I have just claimed for others; I
-strive always to eschew the Split Infinitive, to
-avoid <em>and who</em> when there is no preceding <em>who</em>
-which may balance it, and to put <em>only</em> always in
-the place where it will do most good. It is ever
-my aim to avail myself of the phrase which will
-convey my meaning into the reader’s mind with
-the least friction; and out of the effort to achieve
-this approach along the line of least resistance, I
-get something of the joy an honest craftsman
-ought always to feel in the handling of his tools.
-For this is what words are, after all; they are the
-tools of man, devised to serve his daily needs.
-As Bagehot once suggested, we may not know
-how language was first invented and made, “but
-beyond doubt it was shaped and fashioned into<span class="pagenum" id="Page_238">[Pg 238]</span>
-its present state by common, ordinary men and
-women using it for common and ordinary purposes.
-They wanted a carving-knife, not a razor
-or lancet; and those great artists who have to
-use language for more exquisite purposes, who
-employ it to describe changing sentiments and
-momentary fancies and the fluctuating and indefinite
-inner world, must use curious nicety and
-hidden but effectual artifice, else they cannot
-duly punctuate their thoughts and slice the fine
-edges of their reflections. A hair’s breadth is as
-important to them as a yard’s breadth to a common
-workman.”</p>
-<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_239">[Pg 239]</span></p>
-<div class="blockquot">
-
-<p>(1898)</p>
-</div>
-
-<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop" />
-
-<div class="chapter">
-<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_241">[Pg 241]</span></p>
-
-<h2 class="nobreak" id="Chapter_X">X<br />AN INQUIRY AS TO RIME</h2>
-</div>
-
-
-<p>“I have a theory about double rimes for which
-I shall be attacked by the critics, but which
-I could justify perhaps on high authority, or, at
-least, analogy,” wrote Mrs. Browning to a friend
-not long after the publication of one of her books.
-“These volumes of mine have more double rimes
-than any two books of English poems that ever
-to my knowledge were printed; I mean of English
-poems not comic. Now of double rimes in
-use which are perfect rimes you are aware how
-few there are; and yet you are also aware of what
-an admirable effect in making a rhythm various
-and vigorous double riming is in English poetry.
-Therefore I have used a certain license; and after
-much thoughtful study of the Elizabethan writers
-have ventured it with the public. And do you
-tell me&mdash;you who object to the use of a different
-vowel in a double rime&mdash;why you rime (as everybody
-does, without blame from everybody) <em>given</em>
-to <em>heaven</em>, when you object to my riming <em>remember</em>
-to <em>chamber</em>? The analogy is all on my side,<span class="pagenum" id="Page_242">[Pg 242]</span>
-and I believe that the spirit of the English language
-is also.”</p>
-
-<p>Here Mrs. Browning raises a question of interest
-to all who have paid any attention to the
-technic of verse. No doubt double rimes do
-give vigor and variety to a poem, altho no
-modern English lyrist has really rivaled the magnificent
-medieval ‘Dies Iræ,’ wherein the double
-rimes thrice repeated fall one after the other like
-the beating of mighty trip-hammers. There is
-no doubt also that the English language is not so
-fertile in double rimes as the Latin, the German,
-or the Italian; and that some of the English poets,
-clutching for these various and vigorous effects,
-have refused to abide by the strict letter of the
-law, and have claimed the license of modifying
-the emphatic vowel from one line to another.
-Mrs. Browning defends this revolt, and finds it
-easy to retort to her correspondent that he himself
-has ventured to link <em>heaven</em> and <em>given</em>. Many
-another poet has coupled these unwilling words;
-and not a few have also married <em>river</em> and <em>ever</em>,
-<em>meadow</em> and <em>shadow</em>, <em>spirit</em> and <em>inherit</em>.</p>
-
-<p>Mrs. Browning is prepared to justify herself by
-authority, or at least by analogy; and yet, in bringing
-about the espousal of <em>chamber</em> and <em>remember</em>,
-she is evidently aware that it is no love-match
-she is aiding and abetting, but at best a marriage
-of convenience. She pleads precedence to excuse<span class="pagenum" id="Page_243">[Pg 243]</span>
-her infraction of a statute the general validity of
-which she apparently admits. The most that she
-claims is that the tying together of <em>chamber</em> and
-<em>remember</em> is permissible. She seems to say that
-these ill-mated pairs are, of course, not the best
-possible rimes, but that, since double rimes are
-scarce in English, the lyrist may, now and then,
-avail himself of the second best. An American
-poet of my acquaintance is bolder than the British
-poetess; he has the full courage of his convictions.
-He assures me that he takes pleasure in
-the tying together of incompatible words like
-<em>river</em> and <em>ever</em>, <em>meadow</em> and <em>shadow</em>, finding in
-these arbitrary matings a capricious and agreeable
-relief from the monotony of more regular riming.</p>
-
-<p>This forces us to consider the basis upon which
-any theory of “allowable” rimes must rest&mdash;any
-theory, that is, which, after admitting that certain
-rimes are exact and absolutely adequate, asserts
-also that certain other combinations of terminal
-words, altho they do not rime completely and
-to the satisfaction of all, are still tolerable. This
-theory accepts certain rimes as good, and it claims
-in addition certain others as “good enough.”</p>
-
-<p>Any objection to the pairing of <em>spirit</em> and <em>inherit</em>,
-of <em>remember</em> and <em>chamber</em>, and the like,
-cannot be founded upon the fact that in the accepted
-orthography of the English language the
-spelling of the terminations differs. Rime has to<span class="pagenum" id="Page_244">[Pg 244]</span>
-do with pronunciation and not with orthography;
-rime is a match between sounds. The symbols
-that represent these sounds&mdash;or that may misrepresent
-them more or less violently&mdash;are of little
-consequence. What is absurdly called a “rime
-to the eye” is a flagrant impossibility, or else <em>hiccough</em>
-may pair off with <em>enough</em>, <em>clean</em> with <em>ocean</em>,
-and <em>plague</em> with <em>ague</em>. The eye is not the judge of
-sound, any more than the nose is the judge of
-color. <em>Height</em> is not a rime to <em>eight</em>; but it is a
-rime to <em>sight</em>, to <em>bite</em>, to <em>proselyte</em>, and to <em>indict</em>.
-So <em>one</em> does not rime with either <em>gone</em> or <em>tone</em>;
-but it does with <em>son</em> and with <em>bun</em>. <em>Tomb</em> and
-<em>comb</em>, and <em>rhomb</em> and <em>bomb</em> are not rimes; but
-<em>tomb</em> and <em>doom</em>, and <em>spume</em> and <em>rheum</em> are. The
-objection to the linking together of <em>meadow</em> and
-<em>shadow</em>, and of <em>ever</em> and <em>river</em> is far deeper than
-any superficial difference of spelling; it is rooted
-in the difference of the sounds themselves. In
-spite of the invention of printing, or even of
-writing itself, the final appeal of poetry is still to
-the ear and not to the eye.</p>
-
-<p>Probably the first utterances of man were
-rhythmic, and probably poetry had advanced far
-toward perfection long before the alphabet was
-devised as an occasional substitute for speech.
-In the beginning the poet had to charm the ears
-of those whom he sought to move, since there
-was then no way by which he could reach the<span class="pagenum" id="Page_245">[Pg 245]</span>
-eye also. To the rhapsodists verse was an oral
-art solely, as it is always for the dramatists,
-whose speeches must fall trippingly from the
-tongue, or fail of their effect. The work of the
-lyrist&mdash;writer of odes, minnesinger, troubadour,
-ballad-minstrel&mdash;has always been intended to be
-said or sung; that it should be read is an afterthought
-only. Even to-day, when the printing-press
-has us all under its wheels, it is by our
-tongues that we possess ourselves of the poetry
-we truly relish. A poem is not really ours till
-we know it by heart and can say it to ourselves,
-or at least until we have read it aloud, and until
-we can quote it freely. If a poem has actually
-taken hold on our souls, it rings in our ears, even
-if we happen to be visualizers also, and can call
-up at will the printed page whereon it is preserved.</p>
-
-<p>This fact, that poetry is primarily meant to be
-spoken aloud rather than read silently, altho
-obvious when plainly stated, has not been firmly
-grasped by many of those who have considered
-the technic of the art, and therefore there is often
-obscurity in the current discussions of rime and
-rhythm. In the rhetoric of verse there is to-day
-not a little of the confusion which existed in the
-rhetoric of prose before Herbert Spencer put forth
-his illuminating and stimulating essay on the
-‘Philosophy of Style.’ Even in that paper he<span class="pagenum" id="Page_246">[Pg 246]</span>
-suggested that the principle of Economy of Attention
-was as applicable to verse as to prose;
-and he remarked that “were there space, it might
-be worth while to inquire whether the pleasure
-we take in rime, and also that which we take in
-euphony, are not partly ascribable to the same
-general cause.”</p>
-
-<p>This principle of Economy of Attention explains
-why it is that any style of speaking or
-writing is more effective than another, by reminding
-us that we have, at any given moment, only
-so much power of attention, and that, therefore,
-however much of this power has to be
-employed on the form of any message must be
-subtracted from the total power, leaving just so
-much less attention available for the apprehension
-of the message itself. To convey a thought
-from one mind to another, we must use words
-the reception of which demands more or less
-mental exertion; and therefore that statement is
-best which carries the thought with the least
-verbal friction. Some friction there must be
-always; but the less there is, the more power of
-attention the recipient has left to master the transmitted
-thought.</p>
-
-<p>It is greatly to be regretted that Spencer did
-not spare the space to apply to verse this principle,
-which has been so helpful in the analysis
-of prose. He did go so far as to suggest that<span class="pagenum" id="Page_247">[Pg 247]</span>
-metrical language is more effective than prose,
-because when “we habitually preadjust our perceptions
-to the measured movement of verse” it
-is “probable that by so doing we economize
-attention.” This suggestion has been elaborated
-by one of his disciples, the late <abbr title="mister">Mr.</abbr> Grant Allen, in
-his treatise on ‘Physiological Esthetics,’ and it has
-been formally controverted by the late <abbr title="mister">Mr.</abbr> Gurney,
-in his essay on the ‘Power of Sound.’
-Perhaps both Spencer and Gurney are right; part
-of our pleasure in rhythm is due to the fact that
-“the mind may economize its energies by anticipating
-the attention required for each syllable,”
-as the former says, and part of it is “of an entirely
-positive kind, acting directly on the sense,”
-as the latter maintains.</p>
-
-<p>Whether or not Spencer’s principle of Economy
-of Attention adequately explains our delight in
-rhythm, there is no doubt that it can easily be
-utilized to construct a theory of rime. Indeed,
-it is the one principle which provides a satisfactory
-solution to the problem propounded by Mrs.
-Browning. No one can deny that more or less
-of our enjoyment of rimed verse is due to the
-skill with which the poet satisfies with the second
-rime the expectation he has aroused with the
-first. When he ends a line with <em>gray</em>, or <em>grow</em>,
-or <em>grand</em>, we do not know which of the twoscore
-or more of possible rimes to each of these<span class="pagenum" id="Page_248">[Pg 248]</span>
-the lyrist will select, and we await his choice
-with happy anticipation. If he should balk us of
-our pleasure, if he should omit the rime we had
-confidently counted upon, we are rudely awakened
-from our dream of delight, and we ask ourselves
-abruptly what has happened. It is as
-tho the train of thought had run off the track.
-Spencer notes how we are put out by halting
-versification; “much as at the bottom of a flight
-of stairs a step more or less than we counted
-upon gives us a shock, so too does a misplaced
-accent or a supernumerary syllable.”</p>
-
-<p>So, too, does an inaccurate or an arbitrary rime
-give us a shock. If verse is something to be said
-or sung, if its appeal is to the ear primarily, if
-rime is a terminal identity of sound, then any
-theory of “allowable” rimes is impossible, since
-an “allowable” rime is necessarily inexact, and
-thus may tend to withdraw attention from the
-matter of the poem to its manner. No doubt
-there are readers who do not notice the incompatibility
-of these matings, and there are others
-who notice yet do not care. But the more accurately
-trained the ear is, the more likely these
-alliances are to annoy; and the less exact the rime,
-the more likely the ear is to discover the discrepancy.
-The only safety for the rimester who
-wishes to be void of all offense is to risk no
-union of sounds against whose marriage anybody<span class="pagenum" id="Page_249">[Pg 249]</span>
-knows any just cause of impediment. Perhaps
-a wedding within the prohibited degrees may be
-allowed to pass without protest now and again;
-but sooner or later somebody will surely forbid
-the banns.</p>
-
-<p>Just as a misplaced accent or a supernumerary
-syllable gives us a shock, so does the attempt of
-Mrs. Browning to pair off <em>remember</em> and <em>chamber</em>;
-so may also the attempt of Poe to link together
-<em>valleys</em> and <em>palace</em>. The lapse from the perfect
-ideal may be but a trifle, but a lapse it is nevertheless.
-A certain percentage of our available
-attention may thus be wasted, and worse than
-wasted; it may be called away from the poem
-itself, and absorbed suddenly by the mere versification.
-For a brief moment we may be forced
-to consider a defect of form, when we ought to
-have our minds absolutely free to receive the
-poet’s meaning. Whenever a poet cheats us of
-our expectancy of perfect rime, he forces us to
-pay exorbitant freight charges on the gift he has
-presented to us.</p>
-
-<p>It is to be noted, however, that as rime is a
-matching of sounds, certain pairs of words whose
-union is not beyond reproach can hardly be rejected
-without pedantry, since the ordinary pronunciation
-of cultivated men takes no account of
-the slight differences of sound audible if the
-words are uttered with absolute precision. Thus<span class="pagenum" id="Page_250">[Pg 250]</span>
-Tennyson in the ‘Revenge’ rimes <em>Devon</em> and
-<em>Heaven</em>; and thus Lowell in the ‘Fable for Critics’
-rimes <em>irresistible</em> and <em>untwistable</em>. In ‘Elsie
-Venner’ <abbr title="doctor">Dr.</abbr> Holmes held up to derision “the
-inevitable rime of cockney and Yankee beginners,
-<em>morn</em> and <em>dawn</em>”; but, at the risk of revealing
-myself as a Yankee of New York, I must confess
-that any pronunciation of this pair of words
-seems to me stilted that does not make them
-quite impeccable as a rime.</p>
-
-<p>We are warned, however, to be on our guard
-against pushing any principle to an absurd extreme.
-If certain pairs of words have been sent
-forth into the world by English poets from a time
-whereof the memory of man runneth not to the
-contrary, then perhaps they may now plead prescription
-whenever any cold-hearted commentator
-is disposed to doubt the legitimacy of their
-conjunction. Altho the union is forbidden by
-the strict letter of the law,&mdash;like marriage with a
-deceased wife’s sister in England,&mdash;only the censorious
-are disposed to take the matter into court.
-In time certain rimes&mdash;falsely so called&mdash;“are
-legitimated by custom,” one British critic has
-declared, citing <em>love</em> and <em>prove</em>, for example, and
-asserting that “<em>river</em> has just got to rime with
-<em>ever</em> or the game cannot be played.” You must
-have <em>forgiven</em> or you will never get to <em>heaven</em>.
-“We expect these licenses and do not resent<span class="pagenum" id="Page_251">[Pg 251]</span>
-them, as we do resent Poe’s <em>valleys</em> and <em>palace</em>
-and the eccentricities of Mrs. Browning.” That
-there is force in this contention cannot be denied;
-but it must be remembered that those who urge
-it are necessarily lovers of poetry, or at least fairly
-familiar with a large body of English verse, or
-else they would not be aware of the fact that <em>love</em>
-and <em>prove</em>, <em>heaven</em> and <em>given</em>, have often been tied
-together. But even if these critics, who have
-been sophisticated by over-familiarity with poetic
-license, do not resent this pairing of unequal
-sounds, it does not follow that those who for the
-first time hear <em>dove</em> linked with <em>Jove</em> are equally
-forgiving or negligent. Even if these licenses
-are pardoned by some as venial offenses, there
-are others whose ears are annoyed by them and
-whose attention is distracted. In other words,
-we are here face to face with the personal equation;
-and the only way for a writer of verse to
-be certain that one or another of his rimes will
-not be resented by this reader or that is to make
-sure that all his marriages are flawless.</p>
-
-<p>Thus and thus only can he avoid offense with
-absolute certainty. If his rimes are perfect to the
-ear when read aloud or recited, then they will
-never divert the attention of the auditor from the
-matter of the poem to the mere manner. On the
-other hand, it is only fair to confess that there
-are some lovers of poetry who find a charm in<span class="pagenum" id="Page_252">[Pg 252]</span>
-lawlessness and in eccentricity. A series of perfect
-rimes pleases them; but so also does an
-occasional rime in which the vowel is slightly
-varied. And the poet’s consolation for the loss
-of these must lie in the knowledge that he cannot
-hope to satisfy everybody. Consolation may
-lie also in the belief that any lapse from the perfect
-rime is dangerous, for even if there are some
-who enjoy the divergence when it is delicate,&mdash;that
-is, when the vowel sound, even if not absolutely
-identical, is sympathetically akin,&mdash;there
-are very few who are not annoyed when the
-difference becomes as obvious as in the attempt
-to link together <em>dial</em> and <em>ball</em> or <em>water</em> and <em>clear</em>.</p>
-
-<p>And as it is only a sophisticated ear which enjoys
-the mating of <em>valleys</em> with <em>palace</em>, for example,
-so the attempted rime of this type is to
-be found chiefly in the more labored poets&mdash;in
-those who are consciously literary. The primitive
-lyrist, the unconscious singer who makes a
-ballad of a May morning or rimes a jingle for the
-nursery or puts together a couplet to give point
-to a fragment of proverbial wisdom, is nearly
-always exact in the repetition of his vowel.
-Where he is careless is in the accompanying
-consonants. As is remarked by the British critic
-from whom quotation has already been made,
-“we may observe that in all early European
-poetry, from the ‘Song of Roland’ to the popular<span class="pagenum" id="Page_253">[Pg 253]</span>
-ballads, the ear was satisfied with assonance, that
-is, the harmony of the vowel sounds; <em>hat</em> is assonant
-to <em>tag</em>, and that was good enough.” So
-in the proverbial couplet,</p>
-
-<p class="poetry p0">
-See a pin and pick it <em>up</em>,<br />
-All day long you’ll have good <em>luck</em>.<br />
-</p>
-
-<p>So again more than once in the unaffected lyrics
-of the laureate of the nursery, Mother Goose:</p>
-
-<p class="poetry p0">
-Goosy, goosy <em>gander</em>,<br />
-<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Where do you <em>wander</em>?</span><br />
-Upstairs and downstairs,<br />
-<span style="margin-left: 1em;">And in my lady’s <em>chamber</em>.</span><br />
-</p>
-
-<p class="poetry p0">
-<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Leave them <em>alone</em></span><br />
-<span style="margin-left: 2em;">And they will come <em>home</em>.</span><br />
-</p>
-
-<p>This assonance is visible in the linking of <em>wild
-wood</em> and <em>childhood</em>, which many versifiers have
-proffered as tho it was a double rime; it is to
-be seen again in Whittier’s <em>main land</em> and <em>trainband</em>;
-and it is obvious in <abbr title="mister">Mr.</abbr> Bret Harte’s ‘Her
-Letter’:</p>
-
-<p class="poetry p0">
-Of that ride&mdash;that to me was the <em>rarest</em>;<br />
-<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Of&mdash;the something you said at the gate.</span><br />
-Ah! Joe, then I wasn’t an <em>heiress</em><br />
-<span style="margin-left: 1em;">To the best-paying lead in the State.</span><br />
-</p>
-
-<p>Altho this substitution of assonance for rime
-is uncommon in the more literary lyrics, which<span class="pagenum" id="Page_254">[Pg 254]</span>
-we may suppose to have been composed with
-the pen, it is still frequently to be found in the
-popular song, born on the lips of the singer, and
-set down in black and white only as an afterthought.
-It abounds in the college songs which
-have been sung into being, and in the brisk ballads
-of the variety-show&mdash;which Planché neatly
-characterized as “most music-hall, most melancholy.”
-In one dime song-book containing the
-words set to music by <abbr title="mister">Mr.</abbr> David Braham to enliven
-one of <abbr title="mister">Mr.</abbr> Edward Harrigan’s amusing
-pictures of life among the lowly in the tenement-house
-districts of New York, there can be discovered
-at least a dozen instances of this use of
-assonance as tho it were rime:</p>
-
-<p class="poetry p0">
-<span style="margin-left: 2em;">De gal’s name is <em>Nannie</em>,</span><br />
-<span style="margin-left: 2em;">And she’s just left her <em>mammie</em>.</span><br />
-</p>
-
-<p class="poetry p0">
-He can get a pair of crutches<br />
-<span style="margin-left: 1em;">From the doctor, it’s well <em>known</em>,</span><br />
-And feel like the King of Persia,<br />
-<span style="margin-left: 1em;">When he goes marching <em>home</em>.</span><br />
-</p>
-
-<p class="poetry p0">
-<span style="margin-left: 2em;">One husband was a <em>toper</em>,</span><br />
-<span style="margin-left: 2em;">The other was a <em>loafer</em>.</span><br />
-</p>
-
-<p class="poetry p0">
-<span style="margin-left: 2em;">’T is there the solid <em>voters</em></span><br />
-<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Wear Piccadilly <em>chokers</em>.</span><br />
-</p>
-
-<p class="poetry p0">
-<span style="margin-left: 1em;">On Sundays, then, the <em>ladies</em></span><br />
-<span style="margin-left: 1em;">With a hundred million <em>babies</em>.</span><br />
-</p>
-
-<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_255">[Pg 255]</span></p>
-
-<p class="poetry p0">
-To the poor of suffering Ireland:<br />
-<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Time and time <em>again</em>;</span><br />
-We thank you for our countrymen,<br />
-<span style="margin-left: 1em;">And Donavan is our <em>name</em>.</span><br />
-</p>
-
-<p>When these lines are sung, rough as they are,
-the ear is satisfied by the absolute identity of the
-final vowel, upon which the voice lingers&mdash;while
-the final consonant is elided or almost suppressed.
-It may be doubted whether one in a hundred of
-those who heard these songs ever discovered any
-deficiency in the rimes. In more literary ballads
-only an exact rime attains to the sterling standard;
-but in folk-songs, ancient and modern, assonance
-seems to be legal tender by tacit convention.
-When Benedick was trying to make a copy of
-verses for Beatrice, he declared that he could
-“find out no rime to <em>lady</em> but <em>baby</em>, an innocent
-rime”&mdash;a remark which shows us that Benedick’s
-theory of riming was much the same as
-<abbr title="mister">Mr.</abbr> Harrigan’s.</p>
-
-<p>Probably, however, the attempt to substitute
-assonance for rime would be resented by many
-of the readers who are tolerant toward such departures
-from exactness as <em>heaven</em> and <em>shriven</em> or
-<em>grove</em> and <em>dove</em>. That is to say, the unliterary ear
-insists on the identity of the vowel while careless
-as to the consonant, and the literary ear insists on
-the identity of the consonant while not quite so
-careful as to the vowel. And here is another<span class="pagenum" id="Page_256">[Pg 256]</span>
-reason for exact accuracy, which satisfies alike
-the learned and the unlearned, and is also in
-accord with Herbert Spencer’s principle. It is
-true, probably, that such minor divergencies as
-the mating of <em>home</em> and <em>alone</em> and of <em>shadow</em> and
-<em>meadow</em>&mdash;to take one of each class&mdash;are not generally
-conscious on the part of the poet himself.
-Nor are they generally noticed by the reader or
-the auditor; and even when noticed they are not
-always resented as offensive. But just so long
-as there is a chance that they may be noticed and
-that they may be resented, they had best be
-avoided. The poet avails himself of his license
-at his peril. That way danger lies.</p>
-
-<p>It is in the ‘Adventures of Philip’ that Thackeray
-records his hero’s disapproval of a poet who
-makes <em>fire</em> rime with <em>Marire</em>. Even if the rime
-is made accurate to the ear, it is only by convicting
-the lyrist of carelessness of speech&mdash;not to
-call it vulgarity of pronunciation. But <abbr title="doctor">Dr.</abbr> Holmes
-himself, sharp as he was upon those who rimed
-<em>dawn</em> and <em>morn</em>, was none the less guilty of a
-peccadillo quite as reprehensible&mdash;<em>Elizas</em> and <em>advertisers</em>.
-Whittier ventured to chain <em>Eva</em> not
-only with <em>leave her</em> and <em>receive her</em>, which suggest
-a slovenly utterance, but also with <em>give her</em>,
-<em>river</em>, and <em>never</em>, which are all of them wrenched
-from their true sounds to force them unto a vain
-and empty semblance of a rime. A kindred<span class="pagenum" id="Page_257">[Pg 257]</span>
-cockney recklessness can be found in one of
-Mrs. Browning’s misguided modernizations of
-Chaucer:</p>
-
-<p class="poetry p0">
-Now grant my ship some smooth haven <em>win her</em>;<br />
-I follow Statius first, and then <em>Corinna</em>.<br />
-</p>
-
-<p>In each of these cases the poet takes out a wedding
-license for his couplet, only at the cost of
-compelling the reader to miscall the names of
-these ladies, and to address them as <em>Marire</em>,
-<em>Elizer</em>, <em>Ever</em>, and <em>Corinner</em>; and tho the rimes
-themselves are thus placed beyond reproach, the
-poet is revealed as regardless of all delicacy and
-precision of speech. Surely such a vulgarity of
-pronunciation is as disenchanting as any vulgarity
-in grammar.</p>
-
-<p>Not quite so broad in the mispronunciation that
-makes these rimes are certain of <abbr title="mister">Mr.</abbr> Kipling’s,
-as to which we are a little in doubt whether he
-is making his rime by violence to the normal
-sound or whether his own pronunciation is so
-abnormal that the rime itself seems to him accurate:</p>
-
-<p class="poetry p0">
-<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Railways and roads they <em>wrought</em></span><br />
-<span style="margin-left: 3em;">For the needs of the soil within;</span><br />
-<span style="margin-left: 2em;">A time to scribble in <em>court</em>.</span><br />
-<span style="margin-left: 3em;">A time to bear and grin.</span><br />
-</p>
-
-<p class="poetry p0">
-Long he pondered o’er the question in his scantly furnished <em>quarters</em>,<br />
-Then proposed to Minnie Boffkin, eldest of Judge Boffkin’s <em>daughters</em>.<span class="pagenum" id="Page_258">[Pg 258]</span><br />
-<br />
-<span style="margin-left: 2em;">I quarrel with my wife at home.</span><br />
-<span style="margin-left: 3em;">We never fight <em>abroad</em>;</span><br />
-<span style="margin-left: 2em;">But Mrs. B. has grasped the fact,</span><br />
-<span style="margin-left: 3em;">I am her only <em>lord</em>.</span><br />
-</p>
-
-<p>Far less offensive than this wilful slovenliness,
-and yet akin to it, is the trick of forcing an emphasis
-upon a final syllable which is naturally
-short, in order that it may be made to rime with
-a syllable which is naturally long. For example,
-in the exquisite lyric of Lovelace’s, ‘To Althea
-from Prison,’ in the second quatrain of the second
-stanza we find that we must prolong the final
-syllable of the final word:</p>
-
-<p class="poetry p0">
-When thirsty grief in wine we steep,<br />
-<span style="margin-left: 1em;">When healths and draughts go <em>free</em>,</span><br />
-Fishes that tipple in the deep<br />
-<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Know no such liber<em>ty</em>.</span><br />
-</p>
-
-<p>Here the rime evades us unless we read the
-last word <em>libertee</em>. But what then are we to do
-with the same word in the second quatrain of the
-first stanza? To get his rime here, the poet insists
-on our reading the last word <em>libertie</em>:</p>
-
-<p class="poetry p0">
-When I lie tangled in her hair<br />
-<span style="margin-left: 1em;">And fettered to her <em>eye</em>,</span><br />
-The birds that wanton in the air<br />
-<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Know no such liber<em>ty</em>.</span><br />
-</p>
-
-<p>Lovelace thus forces us not only to give an
-arbitrary pronunciation to the final word of his<span class="pagenum" id="Page_259">[Pg 259]</span>
-refrain, but also to vary this arbitrary pronunciation
-from stanza to stanza, awkwardly arresting
-our attention to no purpose, when we ought to
-be yielding ourselves absolutely to the charm of
-his most charming poem. Many another instance
-of this defect in craftsmanship can be discovered
-in the English poets, one of them in a lyric by
-that master of metrics, Poe, who opens the
-‘Haunted Palace’ with a quatrain in which <em>tenanted</em>
-is made to mate with <em>head</em>:</p>
-
-<p class="poetry p0">
-In the greenest of our valleys,<br />
-<span style="margin-left: 1em;">By good angels tenan<em>ted</em>,</span><br />
-Once a fair and stately palace&mdash;<br />
-<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Radiant palace&mdash;reared its <em>head</em>.</span><br />
-</p>
-
-<p>In the one poem of Walt Whitman’s in which
-he seemed almost willing to submit to the bonds
-of rime and meter, and which&mdash;perhaps for that
-reason partly&mdash;is the lyric of his now best known
-and best beloved, in ‘O Captain, My Captain,’
-certain of the rimes are possible only by putting
-an impossible stress upon the final syllables of
-both words of the pair:</p>
-
-<p class="poetry p0">
-The port is near, the bells I hear, the people all <em>exulting</em>,<br />
-While follow eyes the steady keel, the vessel grim and <em>daring</em>.<br />
-</p>
-
-<p>And again:</p>
-
-<p class="poetry p0">
-For you bouquets and ribbon’d wreaths, for you the shores <em>a-crowding</em>;<br />
-For you they call, the swaying mass, their eager faces <em>turning</em>.<br />
-</p>
-
-<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_260">[Pg 260]</span></p>
-
-<p>In all these cases&mdash;Lovelace’s, Poe’s, Whitman’s&mdash;we
-find that the principle of Economy of
-Attention has been violated, with a resulting
-shock which diminishes somewhat our pleasure
-in the poems, delightful as they are, each in its
-several way. We have been called to bestow a
-momentary consideration on the mechanism of
-the poem, when we should have preferred to
-reserve all our power to receive the beauty of its
-spirit.</p>
-
-<p>It may be doubted whether any pronunciation,
-however violently dislocated, can justify Whittier’s
-joining of <em>bruised</em> and <em>crusade</em> in his ‘To
-England,’ or Browning’s conjunction of <em>windows</em>
-and <em>Hindus</em> in his ‘Youth and Art.’ In ‘Cristina’
-Browning tries to combine <em>moments</em> and
-<em>endowments</em>; in his ‘Another Way of Love’ he
-conjoins <em>spider</em> and <em>consider</em>; and in his ‘Soliloquy
-in a Spanish Cloister’ he binds together
-<em>horse-hairs</em> and <em>corsair’s</em>. Perhaps one reason
-why Browning has made his way so slowly with
-the broad public&mdash;whom every poet must conquer
-at last, or in the end confess defeat&mdash;is that his
-rimes are sometimes violent and awkward, and
-sometimes complicated and arbitrary. The poet
-has reveled in his own ingenuity in compounding
-them, and so he flourishes them in the face of
-the reader. The principle of Economy of Attention
-demands that in serious verse the rime must<span class="pagenum" id="Page_261">[Pg 261]</span>
-be not only so accurate as to escape remark, but
-also wholly unstrained. It must seem natural,
-necessary, obvious, even inevitable, or else our
-minds are wrested from a rapt contemplation of
-the theme to a disillusioning consideration of the
-sounds by which it is bodied forth.</p>
-
-<p>“Really the meter of some of the modern
-poems I have read,” said Coleridge, “bears about
-the same relation to meter, properly understood,
-that dumb-bells do to music; both are for exercise,
-and pretty severe too, I think.” A master
-of meter Browning proved himself again and
-again, very inventive in the new rhythms he introduced,
-and almost unfailingly felicitous; and
-yet there are poems of his in which the rimes
-impose on the reader a steady muscular exercise.
-In the ‘Glove,’ for example, there not only
-abound manufactured rimes, each of which in
-turn arrests the attention, and each of which
-demands a most conscientious articulation before
-the ear can apprehend it, but with a persistent
-perversity the poet puts the abnormal combination
-first, and puts last the normal word with
-which it is to be united in wedlock. Thus <em>aghast
-I’m</em> precedes <em>pastime</em>, and <em>well swear</em> comes before
-<em>elsewhere</em>. This is like presenting us with
-the answer before propounding the riddle.</p>
-
-<p>In comic verse, of course, difficulty gaily vanquished
-may be a part of the joke, and an adroit<span class="pagenum" id="Page_262">[Pg 262]</span>
-and unexpected rime may be a witticism in itself.
-But in the ‘Ingoldsby Legends’ and in the ‘Fable
-for Critics’ it is generally the common word that
-comes before the uncommon combination the
-alert rimester devises to accompany it. When a
-line of Barham’s ends with <em>Mephistopheles</em> we
-wonder how he is going to solve the difficulty,
-and our expectation is swiftly gratified with
-<em>coffee lees</em>; and when Lowell informs us that
-Poe</p>
-
-<p class="poetry p0">
-... talks like a book of iambs and <em>pentameters</em>,<br />
-</p>
-
-<p>we bristle our ears while he adds:</p>
-
-<p class="poetry p0">
-In a way to make people of common sense <em>damn meters</em>.<br />
-</p>
-
-<p>But the ‘Glove’ is not comic in intent; the
-core of it is tragic, and the shell is at least romantic.
-Perhaps a hard and brilliant playfulness
-of treatment might not be out of keeping with
-the psychologic subtlety of its catastrophe; but
-not a few readers resentfully reject the misplaced
-ingenuity of the wilfully artificial double rimes.
-The incongruity between the matter of the poem
-and the manner of it attracts attention to the form,
-and leaves us the less for the fact.</p>
-
-<p>It would be interesting to know just why
-Browning chose to do what he did in the ‘Glove’
-and in more than one other poem. He had his
-reasons, doubtless, for he was no unconscious
-warbler of unpremeditated lays. If he refused to<span class="pagenum" id="Page_263">[Pg 263]</span>
-be loyal to the principle of Economy of Attention,
-he knew what he was doing. It was not from
-any heedlessness&mdash;like that of Emerson when he
-recklessly rimed <em>woodpecker</em> with <em>bear</em>; or like
-that of Lowell when he boldly insisted on riming
-the same <em>woodpecker</em> with <em>hear</em>. Emerson and
-Lowell&mdash;and Whittier also&mdash;it may be noted,
-were none of them enamoured of technic; and
-when a couplet or a quatrain or a stanza of theirs
-happened to attain perfection, as not infrequently
-they do, we cannot but feel it to be only a
-fortunate accident. They were not untiring
-students of versification, forever seeking to spy
-out its mysteries and to master its secrets, as
-Milton was, and Tennyson and Poe.</p>
-
-<p>And yet no critic has more satisfactorily explained
-the essential necessity of avoiding discords
-than did Lowell when he affirmed that
-“not only meter but even rime itself is not without
-suggestion in outward nature. Look at the
-pine, how its branches, balancing each other, ray
-out from the tapering stem in stanza after stanza,
-how spray answers to spray, strophe and antistrophe,
-till the perfect tree stands an embodied
-ode, Nature’s triumphant vindication of proportion,
-number, and harmony. Who can doubt
-the innate charm of rime who has seen the blue
-river repeat the blue o’erhead; who has been
-ravished by the visible consonance of the tree<span class="pagenum" id="Page_264">[Pg 264]</span>
-growing at once toward an upward and a downward
-heaven on the edge of the twilight cove; or
-who has watched how, as the kingfisher flitted
-from shore to shore, his visible echo flies under
-him, and completes the fleeting couplet in the
-visionary vault below?... You must not only
-expect, but you must expect in the right way;
-you must be magnetized beforehand in every
-fiber by your own sensibility in order that you
-may feel what and how you ought.”</p>
-
-<p>Here Lowell is in full agreement with Poe,
-who declared that “what, in rime, first and principally
-pleases, may be referred to the human
-sense or appreciation of equality.” But there is
-no equality in the sound of <em>valleys</em> and <em>palace</em>,
-and so the human sense is robbed of its pleasure;
-and there is no consonance, visible or
-audible, between <em>woodpecker</em> and <em>hear</em>, and so
-we are suddenly demagnetized by our own sensibility,
-and cannot feel what and how we
-ought.</p>
-
-<p>So long as the poet gives us rimes exact to the
-ear and completely satisfactory to the sense to
-which they appeal, he has solid ground beneath
-his feet; but if once he leaves this, then is chaos
-come again. Admit <em>given</em> and <em>heaven</em>, and it is
-hard to deny <em>chamber</em> and <em>remember</em>. Having
-relinquished the principle of uniformity of sound,
-you land yourself logically in the wildest anarchy.<span class="pagenum" id="Page_265">[Pg 265]</span>
-Allow <em>shadow</em> and <em>meadow</em> to be legitimate, and
-how can you put the bar sinister on <em>hear</em> and
-<em>woodpecker</em>? Indeed, we fail to see how you
-can help feeling that John Phœnix was unduly
-harsh when he rejected the poem of a Young
-Astronomer beginning, “O would I had a telescope
-with fourteen slides!” on account of the
-atrocious attempt in the second line to rime
-<em>Pleiades</em> with <em>slides</em>.</p>
-
-<p>Lieutenant Derby was a humorist; but is his
-tying together of incompatible vocables much
-worse than one offense of which Keats is guilty?</p>
-
-<p class="poetry p0">
-<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Then who would go</span><br />
-<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Into dark Soho,</span><br />
-And chatter with dack’d-haired <em>critics</em>,<br />
-<span style="margin-left: 2em;">When he can stay</span><br />
-<span style="margin-left: 2em;">For the new-mown hay</span><br />
-And startle the dappled <em>prickets</em>?<br />
-</p>
-
-<p>This quotation is due to Professor F. N. Scott,
-who has drawn attention also to an astounding
-quatrain of Tennyson’s ‘Palace of Art’:</p>
-
-<p class="poetry p0">
-Or in a clear-wall’d city on the sea,<br />
-<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Near gilded organ-pipes, her <em>hair</em></span><br />
-Wound with white roses, slept <abbr title="saint">St.</abbr> Cecily;<br />
-<span style="margin-left: 1em;">An angel look’d at <em>her</em>.</span><br />
-</p>
-
-<p>Professor Scott declares that he hesitates “for
-a term by which to characterize such rimes as
-these. Certainly they are not eye-rimes in the<span class="pagenum" id="Page_266">[Pg 266]</span>
-proper meaning of that term. Perhaps ... they
-may be called nose-rimes.”</p>
-
-<p>Just as every instance of bad grammar interferes
-with the force of prose, so in verse every
-needless inversion and every defective rime interrupts
-the impression which the poet wishes to
-produce. There are really not so many in Pope’s
-poems as there may seem to be, for since
-Queen Anne’s day our language has modified its
-pronunciation here and there, leaving now only
-to the Irish the <em>tea</em> which is a perfect rime to
-<em>obey</em>, and the <em>join</em> which is a perfect rime to <em>line</em>.</p>
-
-<p>Perhaps the prevalence in English verse of the
-intolerable “allowable rimes” is due in part to an
-acceptance of what seems like an evil precedent,
-to be explained away by our constantly changing
-pronunciation. Perhaps it is due in part also
-to the present wretched orthography of our language.
-The absurd “rimes to the eye” which
-abound in English are absent from Italian verse
-and from French. The French, as the inheritors
-through the Latin of the great Greek tradition,
-have a finer respect for form, and strive constantly
-for perfection of technic, altho the genius
-of their language seems to us far less lyric
-than ours. Théodore de Banville, in his little
-book on French versification, declared formally
-and emphatically that there is no such thing as a
-poetic license. And Voltaire, in a passage admirably<span class="pagenum" id="Page_267">[Pg 267]</span>
-rendered into English by the late Frederick
-Locker-Lampson, says that the French
-“insist that the rime shall cost nothing to the
-ideas, that it shall be neither trivial, nor too far-fetched;
-we exact vigorously in a verse the same
-purity, the same precision, as in prose. We do
-not admit the smallest license; we require an
-author to carry without a break all these chains,
-yet that he should appear ever free.”</p>
-
-<p>In a language as unrhythmic as the French,
-rime is far more important than it need be in a
-lilting and musical tongue like our own; but in
-the masterpieces of the English lyrists, as in those
-of the French, rime plays along the edges of a
-poem, ever creating the expectation it swiftly
-satisfies and giving most pleasure when its presence
-is felt and not flaunted. Like the dress of
-the well-bred woman, which sets off her beauty
-without attracting attention to itself, rime must
-be adequate and unobtrusive, neither too fine nor
-too shabby, but always in perfect taste.</p>
-
-<div class="blockquot">
-<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_269">[Pg 269]</span></p>
-<p>(1898-1900)</p>
-</div>
-
-<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop" />
-
-<div class="chapter">
-<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_271">[Pg 271]</span></p>
-
-<h2 class="nobreak" id="Chapter_XI">XI<br />ON THE POETRY OF PLACE-NAMES</h2>
-</div>
-
-
-<p>Plutarch tells us that the tragedian Æsopus,
-when he spoke the opening lines of
-the ‘Atreus,’ a tragedy by Attius,</p>
-
-<p class="poetry p0">
-I’m Lord of Argos, heir of Pelops’ crown.<br />
-As far as Helle’s sea and Ion’s main<br />
-Beat on the Isthmus,<br />
-</p>
-
-<p>entered so keenly into the spirit of this lofty
-passage that he struck dead at his feet a slave
-who approached too near to the person of royalty;
-and Professor Tyrrel notes how these verses
-affect us with “the weight of names great in
-myth-land and hero-land,” and he suggests that
-they produce “a vague impression of majesty,”
-like Milton’s</p>
-
-<p class="poetry p0">
-Jousted in Aspromont or Montalban,<br />
-Damasco or Morocco or Trebizond,<br />
-Or whom Biserta sent from Afric’s shore,<br />
-When Charlemagne with all his peerage fell<br />
-By Fontarabia.<br />
-</p>
-
-<p>It is a question how far the beauty of the resonant
-lines of the ‘Agamemnon’ of Æschylus,<span class="pagenum" id="Page_272">[Pg 272]</span>
-where the news of the fall of Troy is flashed
-along the chain of beacons from hilltop to promontory,
-is due even more to the mere sounds of
-the proper names than it is to the memories these
-mighty names evoke. Far inferior to this, and
-yet deriving its effect also from the sonorous roll
-of the lordly proper names (which had perhaps
-lingered in the poet’s memory ever since the
-travels of his childhood), is the passage in the
-‘Hernani’ of Victor Hugo, when, the new emperor
-ordering all the conspirators to be set free
-who are not of noble blood, the hero steps forward
-hotly to declare his rank:</p>
-
-<p class="poetry p0"><span xml:lang="fr" lang="fr">
-Puisqu’il faut être grand pour mourir, je me lève.<br />
-Dieu qui donne le sceptre et qui te le donna<br />
-M’a fait duc de Segorbe et duc de Cardona,<br />
-Marquis de Mouroy, comte Albatera, vicomte<br />
-De Gor, seigneur de lieux dont j’ignore le compte.<br />
-Je suis Jean d’Aragon, grand maître d’Avis, né<br />
-Dans l’exil, fils proscrit d’un père assassiné<br />
-Par sentence du tien, roi Carlos de Castille!<br /></span>
-</p>
-
-<p>Lowell, after telling us that “precisely what
-makes the charm of poetry is what we cannot
-explain any more than we can describe a perfume,”
-proceeds to point out that it is a prosaic
-passage of Drayton’s ‘Polyolbion’ which gave a
-hint to Wordsworth, thus finely utilized in one
-of the later bard’s ‘Poems on the Naming of
-Places’:</p>
-
-<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_273">[Pg 273]</span></p>
-
-<p class="poetry p0">
-Joanna, looking in my eyes, beheld<br />
-That ravishment of mine, and laughed aloud.<br />
-The Rock, like something starting from a sleep,<br />
-Took up the Lady’s voice, and laughed again;<br />
-The ancient Woman seated on Helm-crag<br />
-Was ready with her cavern; Hammar-scar,<br />
-And the tall steep of Silver-how, sent forth<br />
-A noise of laughter; southern Loughrigg heard,<br />
-And Fairfield answered with a mountain tone;<br />
-Helvellyn, far into the clear blue sky,<br />
-Carried the Lady’s voice,&mdash;old Skiddaw blew<br />
-His speaking-trumpet;&mdash;back out of the clouds<br />
-Of Glaramara southward came the voice;<br />
-And Kirkstone tossed it from his misty head.<br />
-</p>
-
-<p>Not a little of this same magic is there in many
-a line of Walt Whitman; especially did he rejoice
-to point out the beauty of Manahatta:</p>
-
-<p class="poetry p0">
-I was asking something specific and perfect for my city,<br />
-Whereupon lo! upsprang the aboriginal name.<br />
-</p>
-
-<p>Longfellow has recorded his feeling that</p>
-
-<p class="poetry p0">
-<span style="margin-left: 4em;">The destined walls</span><br />
-Of Cambalu and of Cathain Can<br />
-</p>
-
-<p>(from the eleventh book of ‘Paradise Lost’) is a
-“delicious line.” Longfellow was always singularly
-sensitive to the magic power of words, and
-not long after that entry in his journal there is
-this other: “I always write the name October
-with especial pleasure. There is a secret charm
-about it, not to be defined. It is full of memories,<span class="pagenum" id="Page_274">[Pg 274]</span>
-it is full of dusky splendors, it is full of
-glorious poetry.” And Poe was so taken with
-the melody of this same word that in ‘Ulalume’
-he invented a proper name merely that he might
-have a rime for it:</p>
-
-<p class="poetry p0">
-It was night in the lonesome October<br />
-<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Of my most immemorial year;</span><br />
-It was hard by the dim lake of Auber,<br />
-<span style="margin-left: 1em;">In the misty mid-region of Weir&mdash;</span><br />
-It was down by the dank tarn of Auber,<br />
-<span style="margin-left: 1em;">In the ghoul-haunted woodland of Weir.</span><br />
-</p>
-
-<p>The charm of these lines is due mainly to their
-modulated music, and to the contrast of the
-vowel sounds in <em>Auber</em> and <em>Weir</em>, just as a great
-part of the beauty of Landor’s exquisite lyric,
-‘Rose Aylmer,’ is contained in the name itself.
-Is there any other reason why Mesopotamia
-should be a “blessed word,” save that its vowels
-and its consonants are so combined as to fill the
-ear with sweetness? Yet <abbr title="mister">Mr.</abbr> Lecky records
-Garrick’s assertion that Whitefield could pronounce
-Mesopotamia so as to make a congregation
-weep. And others have found delight in repeating
-a couplet of Campbell’s:</p>
-
-<p class="poetry p0">
-And heard across the waves’ tumultuous roar<br />
-The wolfs long howl from Oonalaska’s shore&mdash;<br />
-</p>
-
-<p>a delight due, I think, chiefly to the unexpected
-combination of open vowels and sharp consonants<span class="pagenum" id="Page_275">[Pg 275]</span>
-in the single Eskimo word, the meaning of
-it being unknown and wholly unimportant, and
-the sound of it filling the ear with an uncertain
-and yet awaited pleasure.</p>
-
-<p>Just as Oonalaska strikes us at once as the fit
-title for a shore along which the lone wolf should
-howl, so Atchafalaya bears in its monotonous
-vowel a burden of melancholy, made more pitiful
-to us by our knowledge that it was the name
-of the dark water where Evangeline and Gabriel
-almost met in the night and then parted again
-for years. Charles Sumner wrote to Longfellow
-that Mrs. Norton considered “the scene on the
-Lake Atchafalaya, where the two lovers pass each
-other, so typical of life that she had a seal cut
-with that name upon it”; and shortly afterward
-Leopold, the King of the Belgians, speaking of
-‘Evangeline,’ “asked her if she did not think the
-word Atchafalaya was suggestive of experience
-in life, and added that he was about to have it
-cut on a seal”&mdash;whereupon, to his astonishment,
-she showed him hers.</p>
-
-<p>It would be difficult indeed to declare how
-much of the delight our ear may take in these
-words&mdash;Atchafalaya, Oonalaska, Mesopotamia,&mdash;is
-due simply to their own melody, and how
-much to the memories they may stir. Here we
-may see one reason why the past seems so much
-more romantic than the present. In tales of<span class="pagenum" id="Page_276">[Pg 276]</span>
-olden time even the proper names linger in our
-ears with an echo of “the glory that was Greece
-and the grandeur that was Rome.” Here is, in
-fact, an unfair advantage which dead-and-gone
-heroes of foreign birth have over the men of our
-own day and our own country. “If we dilate in
-beholding the Greek energy, the Roman pride, it
-is that we are already domesticating the same
-sentiment,” said Emerson in his essay on ‘Heroism,’
-and he added that the first step of our
-worthiness was “to disabuse us of our superstitious
-associations with places and times.” And
-he asks, “Why should these words, Athenian,
-Roman, Asia, and England, so tingle in the ear?
-Where the heart is, there the muses, there the
-gods sojourn, and not in any geography of fame.
-Massachusetts, Connecticut River, and Boston
-Bay you think paltry places, and the ear loves
-the names of foreign and classic topography.
-But here we are; and if we hurry a little, we may
-come to learn that here is best.... The Jerseys
-were honest ground enough for Washington
-to tread.”</p>
-
-<p>Emerson penned these sentences in the first
-half of the nineteenth century, when we Americans
-were still fettered by the inherited shackles
-of colonialism. Fifty years after he wrote, it
-would have been hard to find an American who
-thought either Boston Bay or Massachusetts a<span class="pagenum" id="Page_277">[Pg 277]</span>
-paltry place. And Matthew Arnold has recorded
-that to him, when he was an undergraduate,
-Emerson was then “but a voice speaking from
-three thousand miles away; but so well he spoke
-that from that time forth Boston Bay and Concord
-were names invested to my ear with a sentiment
-akin to that which invests for me the
-names of Oxford and Weimar.”</p>
-
-<p>As for the Connecticut River, had not Thoreau
-done it the service Irving had rendered long before
-to the Hudson?&mdash;had he not given it a right
-to be set down in the geography of literature?
-It is well that we should be reminded now and
-again that the map which the lover of letters has
-in his mind’s eye is different by a whole world
-from the projection which the school-boy smears
-with his searching finger, since the tiny little
-rivers on whose banks great men grew to maturity,
-the Tiber and the Po, the Seine and the
-Thames, flow across its pages with a fuller
-stream than any Kongo or Amazon. And on
-this literary map the names of not a few American
-rivers and hills and towns are now inscribed.</p>
-
-<p>It is fortunate that many of the American places
-most likely to be mentioned in the poetic gazetteer
-have kept the liquid titles the aborigines
-gave them. “I climbed one of my hills yesterday
-afternoon and took a sip of Wachusett, who
-was well content that Monadnock was out of the<span class="pagenum" id="Page_278">[Pg 278]</span>
-way,” wrote Lowell in a letter. “How lucky
-our mountains (many of them) are in their names,
-tho they must find it hard to live up to them
-sometimes! The Anglo-Saxon sponsor would
-Nicodemus ’em to nothing in no time.” It will
-be pitiful if the Anglo-Saxons on the Pacific coast
-allow Mount Tacoma to be Nicodemused to
-Mount Rainier, as the Anglo-Saxons of the Atlantic
-coast allowed Lake Andiatarocte to be
-Nicodemused into Lake George. Fenimore
-Cooper strove in vain for the acceptance of Horicon
-as the name of this lovely sheet of water,
-which the French discoverer called the Lake of
-the Holy Sacrament.</p>
-
-<p>Marquette spoke of a certain stream as the
-River of the Immaculate Conception, altho
-the Spaniards were already familiar with it as
-the River of the Holy Spirit; and later La Salle
-called it after Colbert; but an Algonquin word
-meaning “many waters” clung to it always; and
-so we know it now as the Mississippi. The
-Spaniard has been gone from its banks for more
-than a hundred years, and the Frenchman has
-followed the Indian, and the Anglo-Saxon now
-holds the mighty river from its source to its many
-mouths; but the broad stream bears to-day the
-name the red men gave it. And so also the Ohio
-keeps its native name, tho the French hesitated
-between <abbr title="saint">St.</abbr> Louis and La Belle Rivière<span class="pagenum" id="Page_279">[Pg 279]</span>
-as proper titles for it. Cataraqui is one old
-name for an American river, and Jacques Cartier
-accepted for this stream another Indian word,
-Hochelaga, but (as Professor Hinsdale reminded
-us) “<abbr title="saint">St.</abbr> Lawrence, the name that Cartier had
-given to the Gulf, unfortunately superseded it.”</p>
-
-<p>Much of the charm of these Indian words,
-Atchafalaya, Ohio, Andiatarocte, Tacoma, is due
-no doubt to their open vowels; but is not some
-of it to be ascribed to our ignorance of their
-meanings? We may chance to know that Mississippi
-signifies “many waters” and that Minnehaha
-can be interpreted as “laughing water,”
-but that is the furthermost border of our knowledge.
-If we were all familiar with the Algonquin
-dialects, I fancy that the fascination of many
-of these names would fade swiftly. And yet
-perhaps it would not, for we could never be on
-as friendly terms with the Indian language as we
-are with our own; and there is ever a suggestion
-of the mystic in the foreign tongue.</p>
-
-<p>We engrave <em>Souvenir</em> on our sweetheart’s
-bracelet or brooch; but the French for this purpose
-prefer <em>Remember</em>. “The difficulty of translation
-lies in the <em>color</em> of words,” Longfellow
-declared. “Is the Italian <i xml:lang="it" lang="it">ruscilletto gorgoglioso</i>
-fully rendered by <em>gurgling brooklet</em>? Or the
-Spanish <i xml:lang="es" lang="es">pojaros vocingleros</i> by <em>garrulous birds</em>?
-Something seems wanting. Perhaps it is only<span class="pagenum" id="Page_280">[Pg 280]</span>
-the fascination of foreign and unfamiliar sounds;
-and to the Italian and Spanish ear the English
-words may seem equally beautiful.”</p>
-
-<p>After the death of the Duke of Wellington,
-Longfellow wrote a poem on the ‘Warden of
-the Cinque Ports’; and to us Americans there was
-poetry in the very title. And yet it may be
-questioned whether the Five Ports are necessarily
-any more poetic than the Five Points or the
-Seven Dials. So also Sanguelac strikes us as far
-loftier than Bloody Pond, but is it really? I have
-wondered often whether to a Jew of the first
-century Aceldama, the field of blood, and Golgotha,
-the place of a skull, were not perfectly commonplace
-designations, quite as common, in fact,
-as Bone Gulch or Hangman’s Hollow would be
-to us, and conveying the same kind of suggestion.</p>
-
-<p>We are always prone to accept the unknown
-as the magnificent,&mdash;if I may translate the Latin
-phrase,&mdash;to put a higher value on the things veiled
-from us by the folds of a foreign language. The
-Bosporus is a more poetic place than Oxford,
-tho the meaning of both names is the same.
-Montenegro fills our ears and raises our expectations
-higher than could any mere Black Mountain.
-The “Big River” is but a vulgar nickname, and
-yet we accept the equivalent Guadalquivir and
-Rio Grande; we even allow ourselves sometimes
-to speak of the Rio Grande River&mdash;which is as<span class="pagenum" id="Page_281">[Pg 281]</span>
-tautological as De Quincey declared the name of
-Mrs. Barbauld to be. Bridgeport is as prosaic
-as may be, while Alcantara has a remote and
-romantic aroma, and yet the latter word signifies
-only “the bridge.” We can be neighborly,
-most of us, with the White Mountains; but we
-feel a deeper respect for Mont Blanc and the
-Weisshorn and the Sierra Nevada.</p>
-
-<p>Sometimes the hard facts are twisted arbitrarily
-to force them into an imported falsehood. Elberon,
-where Garfield died, was founded by one
-L. B. Brown, so they say, and the homely name
-of the owner was thus contorted to make a seemingly
-exotic appellation for the place. And they
-say also that the man who once dammed a brook
-amid the pines of New Jersey had three children,
-Carrie, Sally, and Joe, and that he bestowed their
-united names upon Lake Carasaljo, the artificial
-piece of water on the banks of which Lakewood
-now sits salubriously. In <abbr title="mister">Mr.</abbr> Cable’s ‘John
-March, Southerner,’ one of the characters explains:
-“You know an ancestor of his founded
-Suez. That’s how it got its name. His name
-was Ezra and hers was Susan, don’t you see?”
-And I have been told of a town on the Northern
-Pacific Railroad which the first comers called
-Hell-to-Pay, and which has since experienced a
-change of heart and become Eltopia.</p>
-
-<p>In the third quarter of the nineteenth century a<span class="pagenum" id="Page_282">[Pg 282]</span>
-thirst for self-improvement raged among the villages
-of the lower Hudson River, and many a
-modest settlement thought to better itself and to
-rise in the world by the assumption of a more
-swelling style and title. When a proposition was
-made to give up the homely Dobbs Ferry for
-something less plebeian, the poet of ‘Nothing to
-Wear’ rimed a pungent protest:</p>
-
-<p class="poetry p0">
-They say “Dobbs” ain’t melodious;<br />
-It’s “horrid,” “vulgar,” “odious”;<br />
-<span style="margin-left: 1em;">In all their crops it sticks;</span><br />
-And then the worse addendum<br />
-Of “Ferry” does offend ’em<br />
-<span style="margin-left: 1em;">More than its vile prefix.</span><br />
-Well, it does seem distressing,<br />
-But, if I’m good at guessing,<br />
-<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Each one of these same nobs</span><br />
-If there was money in it,<br />
-Would ferry in a minute,<br />
-<span style="margin-left: 1em;">And change his name to Dobbs!</span><br />
-<br />
-That’s it&mdash;they’re not partic’lar<br />
-Respecting the auric’lar<br />
-<span style="margin-left: 1em;">At a stiff market rate;</span><br />
-But Dobbs’s special vice is<br />
-That he keeps down the prices<br />
-<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Of all their real estate!</span><br />
-A name so unattractive<br />
-Keeps villa-sites inactive,<br />
-<span style="margin-left: 1em;">And spoils the broker’s jobs;</span><br />
-They think that speculation<br />
-Would rage at “Paulding’s Station,”<br />
-<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Which stagnates now at “Dobbs.”</span><br />
-</p>
-
-<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_283">[Pg 283]</span></p>
-
-<p>In the later stanzas <abbr title="mister">Mr.</abbr> Butler denounces
-changes nearer to New York:</p>
-
-<p class="poetry p0">
-Down there, on old Manhattan,<br />
-Where land-sharks breed and fatten,<br />
-<span style="margin-left: 1em;">They wiped out Tubby Hook.</span><br />
-That famous promontory,<br />
-Renowned in song and story,<br />
-<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Which time nor tempest shook,</span><br />
-Whose name for aye had been good,<br />
-Stands newly christened “Inwood,”<br />
-<span style="margin-left: 1em;">And branded with the shame</span><br />
-Of some old rogue who passes<br />
-By dint of aliases,<br />
-<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Afraid of his own name!</span><br />
-<br />
-See how they quite outrival<br />
-Plain barn-yard Spuyten Duyvil<br />
-<span style="margin-left: 1em;">By peacock Riverdale,</span><br />
-Which thinks all else it conquers,<br />
-And over homespun Yonkers<br />
-<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Spreads out its flaunting tail!</span><br />
-</p>
-
-<p>No loyal Manhattaner but would regret to part
-with Spuyten Duyvil and Yonkers and Harlem,
-and the other good old names that recall the good
-old Dutchmen who founded New Amsterdam.
-Few loyal Manhattaners, I think, but would be
-glad to see the Greater New York (now at last
-an accomplished fact) dignified by a name less
-absurd than New York. If Pesth and Buda could
-come together and become Budapest, why may
-not the Greater New York resume the earlier<span class="pagenum" id="Page_284">[Pg 284]</span>
-name and be known to the world as Manhattan?
-Why should the people of this great city of ours
-let the Anglo-Saxons “Nicodemus us to nothing,”
-or less than nothing, with a name so pitiful as
-New York? “I hope and trust,” wrote Washington
-Irving, “that we are to live to be an old
-nation, as well as our neighbors, and have no
-idea that our cities when they shall have attained
-to venerable antiquity shall still be dubbed New
-York and New London and new this and new
-that, like the Pont Neuf (the new bridge) at Paris,
-which is the oldest bridge in that capital, or like
-the Vicar of Wakefield’s horse, which continued
-to be called the colt until he died of old age.”</p>
-
-<p>Whenever any change shall be made we must
-hope that the new will be not only more euphonious
-than the old, but more appropriate and
-more stately. Perhaps Hangtown in California
-made a change for the better many years ago
-when it took the name of Placerville; but perhaps
-Placerville was not the best name it could
-have taken. “We will be nothing but Anglo-Saxons
-in the old world or in the new,” wrote
-Matthew Arnold when he was declaring the
-beauty of Celtic literature; “and when our race
-has built Bold Street in Liverpool, and pronounced
-it very good, it hurries across the Atlantic,
-and builds Nashville and Jacksonville and
-Milledgeville, and thinks it is fulfilling the designs<span class="pagenum" id="Page_285">[Pg 285]</span>
-of Providence in an incomparable manner.” In
-this sentence the criticism cuts both British habits
-and American. Later in life Matthew Arnold
-sharpened his knife again for use on the United
-States alone. “What people,” he asked, “in
-whom the sense for beauty and fitness was
-quick, could have invented or tolerated the hideous
-names ending in <em>ville</em>&mdash;the Briggsvilles,
-Higginsvilles, Jacksonvilles&mdash;rife from Maine to
-Florida?”</p>
-
-<p>Now, it must be confessed at once that we
-have no guard against a thrust like that. Such
-names do abound and they are of unsurpassed
-hideousness. But could not the same blow have
-got home as fatally had it been directed against
-his own country? A glance at any gazetteer of
-the British Isles would show that the British are
-quite as vulnerable as the Americans. In fact,
-this very question of Matthew Arnold’s suggested
-to an anonymous American rimester the
-perpetration of a copy of verses, the quality of
-which can be gaged by these first three stanzas:</p>
-
-<p class="poetry p0">
-Of Briggsville and Jacksonville<br />
-<span style="margin-left: 1em;">I care not now to sing;</span><br />
-They make me sad and very mad&mdash;<br />
-<span style="margin-left: 1em;">My inmost soul they wring.</span><br />
-I’ll hie me back to England,<br />
-<span style="margin-left: 1em;">And straightway I will go</span><br />
-To Boxford and to Swaffham,<br />
-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_286">[Pg 286]</span><span style="margin-left: 1em;">To Plunger and Loose Hoe.</span><br />
-<br />
-At Scrooby and at Gonerby,<br />
-<span style="margin-left: 1em;">At Wigton and at Smeeth,</span><br />
-At Bottesford and Runcorn,<br />
-<span style="margin-left: 1em;">I need not grit my teeth.</span><br />
-At Swineshead and at Crummock,<br />
-<span style="margin-left: 1em;">At Sibsey and Spithead,</span><br />
-Stoke Poges and Wolsoken<br />
-<span style="margin-left: 1em;">I will not wish me dead.</span><br />
-<br />
-At Horbling and at Skidby,<br />
-<span style="margin-left: 1em;">At Chipping Ongar, too,</span><br />
-At Botterel Stotterdon and Swops,<br />
-<span style="margin-left: 1em;">At Skellington and Skew,</span><br />
-At Piddletown and Blumsdown,<br />
-<span style="margin-left: 1em;">At Shanklin and at Smart,</span><br />
-At Gosberton and Wrangle<br />
-<span style="margin-left: 1em;">I’ll soothe this aching heart.</span><br />
-</p>
-
-<p>To discover a mote in our neighbor’s eyes does
-not remove the mote in our own, however much
-immediate relief it may give us from the acuteness
-of our pain. When Matthew Arnold animadverted
-upon “the jumbles of unnatural and
-inappropriate names everywhere,” he may have
-had in mind the most absurd medley existing
-anywhere in the world&mdash;the handful of Greek
-and Roman names of all sorts which was sown
-broadcast over the western part of New York
-State. Probably this region of misfortune it was
-that Irving was thinking about when he denounced
-the “shallow affectation of scholarship,”
-and told how “the whole catalog of ancient<span class="pagenum" id="Page_287">[Pg 287]</span>
-worthies is shaken out of the back of Lemprière’s
-Classical Dictionary, and a wide region of wild
-country is sprinkled over with the names of
-heroes, poets, sages of antiquity, jumbled into
-the most whimsical juxtaposition.”</p>
-
-<p>Along the road from Dublin, going south to
-Bray, the traveler finds Dumdrum and Stillorgan,
-as tho&mdash;to quote the remarks of the Irish
-friend who gave me these facts&mdash;a band of
-wandering musicians had broken up and scattered
-their names along the highway. For sheer
-ugliness it would be hard to beat two other
-proper names near Dublin, where the Sallynoggin
-road runs into the Glenageary.</p>
-
-<p>It may be that these words sound harsher in
-our strange ears than they do to a native wonted
-to their use. We take the unknown for the
-magnificent sometimes, no doubt; but sometimes
-also we take it for the ridiculous. To us New-Yorkers,
-for instance, there is nothing absurd or
-ludicrous in the sturdy name of Schenectady;
-perhaps there is even a hint of stateliness in the
-syllables. But when <abbr title="mister">Mr.</abbr> Laurence Hutton was
-in the north of Scotland some years ago there
-happened to be in his party a young lady from
-that old Dutch town; and when a certain laird
-who lived in those parts chanced to be told that
-this young lady dwelt in Schenectady he was
-moved to inextinguishable laughter. He ejaculated<span class="pagenum" id="Page_288">[Pg 288]</span>
-the outlandish sounds again and again in
-the sparse intervals of his boisterous merriment.
-He announced to all his neighbors that among
-their visitors was a young lady from Schenectady,
-and all who called were presented to her, and at
-every repetition of the strange syllables his violent
-cachinnations broke forth afresh. Never had
-so comic a name fallen upon his ears; and yet he
-himself was the laird of Balduthro (pronounced
-Balduthy); his parish was Ironcross (pronounced
-Aron-crouch); his railway-station was Kilconquhar
-(pronounced Kinŏcher); and his post-office
-was Pittenweem!</p>
-
-<p>Robert Louis Stevenson was a Scotchman who
-had changed his point of view more often than
-the laird of Balduthro; he had a broader vision
-and a more delicate ear and a more refined perception
-of humor. When he came to these
-United States as an amateur immigrant on his
-way across the plains, he asked the name of a
-river from a brakeman on the train; and when he
-heard that the stream “was called the Susquehanna,
-the beauty of the name seemed part and
-parcel of the beauty of the land. As when Adam
-with divine fitness named the creatures, so this
-word Susquehanna was at once accepted by the
-fancy. That was the name, as no other could
-be, for that shining river and desirable valley.”</p>
-
-<p>And then Stevenson breaks from his narrative<span class="pagenum" id="Page_289">[Pg 289]</span>
-to sing the praises of our place-names. The
-passage is long for quotation in a paper where
-too much has been quoted already; and yet I
-should be derelict to my duty if I did not transcribe
-it here. Stevenson had lived among many
-peoples, and he was far more cosmopolitan than
-Matthew Arnold, and more willing, therefore, to
-dwell on beauties than on blemishes. “None
-can care for literature in itself,” he begins, “who
-do not take a special pleasure in the sound of
-names; and there is no part of the world where
-nomenclature is so rich, poetical, humorous, and
-picturesque as the United States of America.
-All times, races, and languages have brought
-their contribution. Pekin is in the same State
-with Euclid, with Bellefontaine, and with Sandusky.
-Chelsea, with its London associations of
-red brick, Sloane Square, and the King’s Road, is
-own suburb to stately and primeval Memphis;
-there they have their seat, translated names of
-cities, where the Mississippi runs by Tennessee
-and Arkansas.... Old, red Manhattan lies,
-like an Indian arrow-head under a steam-factory,
-below Anglified New York. The names of the
-States and Territories themselves form a chorus
-of sweet and most romantic vocables: Delaware,
-Ohio, Indiana, Florida, Dakota, Iowa, Wyoming,
-Minnesota, and the Carolinas; there are few
-poems with a nobler music for the ear; a songful,<span class="pagenum" id="Page_290">[Pg 290]</span>
-tuneful land; and if the new Homer shall
-arise from the western continent, his verse will
-be enriched, his pages sing spontaneously, with
-the names of states and cities that would strike
-the fancy in a business circular.”</p>
-
-<p>As Campbell had utilized the innate beauty of
-the word Wyoming, so Stevenson himself made
-a ballad on the dreaded name of Ticonderoga;
-and these are two of the proper names of modern
-America that sing themselves. But there is
-nothing canorous in Anglified New York; there
-is no sonority in its syllables; there is neither
-dignity nor truth in its obvious meaning. It
-might serve well enough as the address of a
-steam-factory in a business circular; but it lacks
-absolutely all that the name of a metropolis demands.
-Stevenson thought that the new Homer
-would joy in working into his strong lines the
-beautiful nomenclature of America; but Washington
-Irving had the same anticipation, and it
-forced him to declare that if New York “were to
-share the fate of Troy itself, to suffer a ten years’
-siege, and be sacked and plundered, no modern
-Homer would ever be able to elevate the name
-to epic dignity.” Irving went so far as to wish
-not only that New York city should be Manhattan
-again, but that New York State should be
-Ontario, the Hudson River the Mohegan, and the
-United States themselves Appalachia. Edgar<span class="pagenum" id="Page_291">[Pg 291]</span>
-Allan Poe, than whom none of our poets had a
-keener perception of the beauty of sounds and
-the fitness of words, approved of Appalachia as
-the name of the whole country.</p>
-
-<p>Perhaps we must wait yet a little while for
-Appalachia and Ontario and the Mohegan; but
-has not the time come to dig up that old red
-arrow-head Manhattan, and fit it to a new shaft?</p>
-
-<div class="blockquot">
-<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_293">[Pg 293]</span></p>
-<p>(1895)</p>
-</div>
-
-
-
-<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop" />
-
-<div class="chapter">
-<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_295">[Pg 295]</span></p>
-
-<h2 class="nobreak" id="Chapter_XII">XII<br />AS TO “AMERICAN SPELLING”</h2>
-</div>
-
-
-<p class="center p0">[This paper is here reprinted from an earlier volume now out
-of print.]</p>
-
-<p>When the author of the ‘Cathedral’ was
-accosted by the wandering Englishmen
-within the lofty aisles of Chartres, he cracked a
-joke,</p>
-
-<p class="poetry p0">
-Whereat they stared, then laughed, and we were friends.<br />
-The seas, the wars, the centuries interposed,<br />
-Abolished in the truce of common speech<br />
-And mutual comfort of the mother-tongue.<br />
-</p>
-
-<p>In this common speech other Englishmen are
-not always ready to acknowledge the full rights
-of Lowell’s countrymen. They would put us
-off with but a younger brother’s portion of the
-mother-tongue, seeming somehow to think that
-they are more closely related to the common
-parent than we are. But Orlando, the younger
-son of Sir Rowland du Bois, was no villain; and
-tho we have broken with the fatherland, the
-mother-tongue is none the less our heritage.
-Indeed, we need not care whether the division is
-<em>per stirpes</em> or <em>per capita</em>; our share is not the less
-in either case.</p>
-
-<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_296">[Pg 296]</span></p>
-
-<p>Beneath the impotent protests which certain
-British newspapers are prone to make every
-now and again against the “American language”
-as a whole, and against the stray Americanism
-which has happened last to invade England, there
-is a tacit assumption that we Americans are outer
-barbarians, mere strangers, wickedly tampering
-with something which belongs to the British
-exclusively. And the outcry against the “American
-language” is not as shrill nor as piteous as
-the shriek of horror with which certain of the
-journals of London greet “American spelling,” a
-hideous monster which they feared was ready to
-devour them as soon as the international copyright
-bill should become law. In the midst of every discussion
-of the effect of the copyright act in Great
-Britain, the bugbear of “American spelling”
-reared its grisly head. The London <i>Times</i> declared
-that English publishers would never put
-any books into type in the United States because
-the people of England would never tolerate the
-peculiarities of orthography which prevailed in
-American printing-offices. The <i><abbr title="saint">St.</abbr> James’s Gazette</i>
-promptly retorted that “already newspapers
-in London are habitually using the ugliest forms
-of American spelling, and these silly eccentricities
-do not make the slightest difference in their circulation.”
-The <i>Times</i> and the <i><abbr title="saint">St.</abbr> James’s Gazette</i>
-might differ as to the effect of the copyright act<span class="pagenum" id="Page_297">[Pg 297]</span>
-on the profits of the printers of England, but
-they agreed heartily as to the total depravity of
-“American spelling.” I think that any disinterested
-foreigner who might chance to hear these
-violent outcries would suppose that English
-orthography was as the law of the Medes and
-Persians, which altereth not; he would be justified
-in believing that the system of spelling now
-in use in Great Britain was hallowed by the
-Established Church, and in some way mysteriously
-connected with the state religion.</p>
-
-<p>Just what the British newspapers were afraid of
-it is not easy to say, and it is difficult to declare
-just what they mean when they talk of “American
-spelling.” Probably they do not refer to the
-improvements in orthography suggested by the
-first great American&mdash;Benjamin Franklin. Possibly
-they do refer to the modifications in the
-accepted spelling proposed by another American,
-Noah Webster&mdash;not so great, and yet not to be
-named slightingly by any one who knows how
-fertile his labors have been for the good of the
-whole country. Noah Webster, so his biographer,
-<abbr title="mister">Mr.</abbr> Scudder, tells us, “was one of the
-first to carry a spirit of democracy into letters....
-Throughout his work one may detect a confidence
-in the common sense of the people which
-was as firm as Franklin’s.” But the innovations
-of Webster were hesitating and often inconsistent;<span class="pagenum" id="Page_298">[Pg 298]</span>
-and most of them have been abandoned by later
-editors of Webster’s American Dictionary of the
-English Language.</p>
-
-<p>What, then, do British writers mean when
-they animadvert upon “American spelling”?
-So far as I have been able to discover, the British
-journalists object to certain minor labor-saving
-improvements of American orthography, such as
-the dropping of the <em>k</em> from <em>almanack</em>, the omission
-of one <em>g</em> from <em>waggon</em>, and the like; and
-they protest with double force, with all the
-strength that in them lies, against the substitution
-of a single <em>l</em> for a double <em>l</em> in such words as
-<em>traveller</em>, against the omission of the <em>u</em> from such
-words as <em>honour</em>, against the substitution of an
-<em>s</em> for a <em>c</em> in such words as <em>defence</em>, and against
-the transposing of the final two letters of such
-words as <em>theatre</em>. The objection to “American
-spelling” may lie deeper than I have here suggested,
-and it may have a wider application; but
-I have done my best to state it fully and fairly as
-I have deduced it from a painful perusal of many
-columns of exacerbated British writing.</p>
-
-<p>Now if I have succeeded in stating honestly
-the extent of the British journalistic objections to
-“American spelling,” the unprejudiced reader
-may be moved to ask: “Is this all? Are these
-few and slight and unimportant changes the
-cause of this mighty commotion?” One may<span class="pagenum" id="Page_299">[Pg 299]</span>
-agree with Sainte-Beuve in thinking that “orthography
-is the beginning of literature,” without
-discovering in these modifications from the
-Johnsonian canon any cause for extreme disgust.
-And since I have quoted Sainte-Beuve once, I
-venture to cite him again, and to take from the
-same letter of March 15, 1867, his suggestion
-that “if we write more correctly, let it be to express
-especially honest feelings and just thoughts.”</p>
-
-<p>Feelings may be honest tho they are violent,
-but irritation is not the best frame of mind for
-just thinking. The tenacity with which some of
-the newspapers of London are wont to defend
-the accepted British orthography is perhaps due
-rather to feeling than to thought. Lowell told
-us that esthetic hatred burned nowadays with
-as fierce a flame as ever once theological hatred;
-and any American who chances to note the force
-and the fervor and the frequency of the objurgations
-against “American spelling” in the columns
-of the <i>Saturday Review</i>, for example, and of the
-<i>Athenæum</i>, may find himself wondering as to
-the date of the papal bull which declared the infallibility
-of contemporary British orthography,
-and as to the place where the council of the
-church was held at which it was made an article
-of faith.</p>
-
-<p>The <i>Saturday Review</i> and the <i>Athenæum</i>,
-highly pitched as their voices are, yet are scarcely<span class="pagenum" id="Page_300">[Pg 300]</span>
-shriller in their cry to arms against the possible
-invasion of the sanctity of British orthography
-by “American spelling” than is the London
-<i>Times</i>, the solid representative of British thought,
-the mighty organ-voice of British feeling. Yet
-the <i>Times</i> is not without orthographic eccentricities
-of its own, as Matthew Arnold took occasion
-to point out. In his essay on the ‘Literary
-Influence of Academies,’ he asserted that “every
-one has noticed the way in which the <i>Times</i>
-chooses to spell the word <em>diocese</em>; it always
-spells it <em>diocess</em>, deriving it, I suppose, from
-<em>Zeus</em> and <em>census</em>.... Imagine an educated
-Frenchman indulging himself in an orthographical
-antic of this sort!”</p>
-
-<p>When we read what is written in the <i>Times</i>
-and the <i>Saturday Review</i> and the <i>Athenæum</i>,
-sometimes in set articles on the subject, and
-even more often in casual and subsidiary slurs
-in the course of book-reviews, we wonder at
-the vehemence of the feeling displayed. If we
-did not know that ancient abuses are often defended
-with more violence and with louder shouts
-than inheritances of less doubtful worth, we
-might suppose that the present spelling of the
-English language was in a condition perfectly
-satisfactory alike to scholar and to student.
-Such, however, is not the case. The leading
-philologists of Great Britain and of the United<span class="pagenum" id="Page_301">[Pg 301]</span>
-States have repeatedly denounced English spelling
-as it now is on both sides of the Atlantic,
-Professor Max Müller at Oxford being no less emphatic
-than Professor Whitney at Yale. There
-is now living no scholar of any repute who any
-longer defends the ordinary orthography of the
-English language.</p>
-
-<p>The fact is that a little learning is quite as dangerous
-a thing now as it was in Pope’s day.
-Those who are volubly denouncing “American
-spelling” in the columns of British journals are
-not students of the history of English speech;
-they are not scholars in English; in so far as they
-know anything of the language, they are but
-amateur philologists. As a well-known writer
-on spelling reform once neatly remarked, “The
-men who get their etymology by inspiration are
-like the poor in that we have them always with
-us.” Altho few of them are as ignorant and
-dense as the unknown unfortunate who first tortured
-the obviously jocular <em>Welsh rabbit</em> into a
-ridiculously impossible <em>Welsh rarebit</em>, still the
-most of their writing serves no good purpose.
-Nor do we discover in these specimens of British
-journalism that abundant urbanity which etymology
-might lead us to look for in the writing
-of inhabitants of so large a city as London.</p>
-
-<p>Any one who takes the trouble to inform himself
-on the subject will soon discover that it is<span class="pagenum" id="Page_302">[Pg 302]</span>
-chiefly the half-educated men who defend the contemporary
-orthography of the English language,
-and who denounce the alleged “American spelling”
-of <em>center</em> and <em>honor</em>. The uneducated
-reader may wonder perchance what the <em>g</em> is
-doing in <em>sovereign</em>; the half-educated reader discerns
-in the <em>g</em> a connecting-link between the
-English <em>sovereign</em> and the Latin <i xml:lang="la" lang="la">regno</i>; the well-educated
-reader knows that there is no philological
-connection whatever between <i xml:lang="la" lang="la">regno</i> and
-<em>sovereign</em>.</p>
-
-<p>Most of those who write with ease in British
-journals, deploring the prevalence of “American
-spelling,” have never carried their education so
-far as to acquire that foundation of wisdom which
-prevents a man from expressing an opinion on
-subjects as to which he is ignorant. The object
-of education, it has been said, is to make a man
-know what he knows, and also to know how
-much he does not know. Despite the close
-sympathy between the intellectual pursuits, a
-student of optics is not necessarily qualified to
-express an opinion in esthetics; and on the other
-hand, a critic of art may easily be ignorant of
-science. Now literature is one of the arts, and
-philology is a science. Altho men of letters
-have to use words as the tools of their trade,
-orthography is none the less a branch of philology,
-and philology does not come by nature. Literature<span class="pagenum" id="Page_303">[Pg 303]</span>
-may even exist without writing, and therefore
-without spelling. Writing, indeed, has
-no necessary connection with literature; still less
-has orthography. A literary critic is rarely a
-scientific student of language; he has no need to
-be; but being ignorant, it is the part of modesty
-for him not to expose his ignorance. To boast
-of it is unseemly.</p>
-
-<p>Far be it from me to appear as the defender of
-the “American spelling” which the British journalists
-denounce. This “American spelling” is
-less absurd than the British spelling only in so
-far as it has varied therefrom. Even in these
-variations there is abundant absurdity. Once
-upon a time most words that now are spelled
-with a final <em>c</em> had an added <em>k</em>. Even now both
-British and American usage retains this <em>k</em> in <em>hammock</em>,
-altho both British and Americans have
-dropped the needless letter from <em>havoc</em>; while the
-British retain the <em>k</em> at the end of <em>almanack</em> and
-the Americans have dropped it. <abbr title="doctor">Dr.</abbr> Johnson
-was a reactionary in orthography as in politics;
-and in his dictionary he wilfully put a final <em>k</em>
-to words like <em>optick</em>, without being generally
-followed by the publick&mdash;as he would have
-spelled it. <em>Music</em> was then <em>musick</em>, altho, even
-as late as Aubrey’s time, it had been <em>musique</em>.
-In our own day we are witnessing the very
-gradual substitution of the logical <em>technic</em> for<span class="pagenum" id="Page_304">[Pg 304]</span>
-the form originally imported from France&mdash;<i xml:lang="fr" lang="fr">technique</i>.</p>
-
-<p>I am inclined to think that <em>technic</em> is replacing
-<i xml:lang="fr" lang="fr">technique</i> more rapidly&mdash;or should I say less
-slowly?&mdash;in the United States than in Great
-Britain. We Americans like to assimilate our
-words and to make them our own, while the
-British have rather a fondness for foreign phrases.
-A London journalist recently held up to public
-obloquy as an “ignorant Americanism” the
-word <em>program</em>, altho he would have found it
-set down in Professor Skeat’s Etymological
-Dictionary. “<i xml:lang="fr" lang="fr">Programme</i> was taken from the
-French,” so a recent writer reminds us, “and in
-violation of analogy, seeing that, when it was
-imported into English, we had already <em>anagram</em>,
-<em>cryptogram</em>, <em>diagram</em>, <em>epigram</em>, etc.” The logical
-form <em>program</em> is not common even in America;
-and British writers seem to prefer the French
-form, as British speakers still give a French pronunciation
-to <em>charade</em>, and to <em>trait</em>, which in
-America have long since been accepted frankly as
-English words.</p>
-
-<p>Possibly it is idle to look for any logic in anything
-which has to do with modern English
-orthography on either side of the ocean. Perhaps,
-however, there is less even than ordinary
-logic in the British journalist’s objection to the
-so-called “American spelling” of <em>meter</em>; for why<span class="pagenum" id="Page_305">[Pg 305]</span>
-should any one insist on <em>metre</em> while unhesitatingly
-accepting its compound <em>diameter</em>? <abbr title="mister">Mr.</abbr> John
-Bellows, in the preface to his inestimable French-English
-and English-French pocket dictionary,
-one of the very best books of reference ever published,
-informs us that “the act of Parliament
-legalizing the use of the metric system in this
-country [England] gives the words <em>meter</em>, <em>liter</em>,
-<em>gram</em>, etc., spelled on the American plan.” Perhaps
-now that the sanction of law has been given
-to this spelling, the final <em>er</em> will drive out the <em>re</em>
-which has usurped its place. In one of the last
-papers that he wrote, Lowell declared that “<em>center</em>
-is no Americanism; it entered the language
-in that shape, and kept it at least as late as Defoe.”
-“In the sixteenth and in the first half of the seventeenth
-century,” says Professor Lounsbury,
-“while both ways of writing these words existed
-side by side, the termination <em>er</em> is far more common
-than that in <em>re</em>. The first complete edition
-of Shakspere’s plays was published in 1623. In
-that work <em>sepulcher</em> occurs thirteen times; it is
-spelled eleven times with <em>er</em>. <em>Scepter</em> occurs
-thirty-seven times; it is not once spelled with <em>re</em>,
-but always with <em>er</em>. <em>Center</em> occurs twelve times,
-and in nine instances out of the twelve it ends in
-<em>er</em>.” So we see that this so-called “American
-spelling” is fully warranted by the history of the
-English language. It is amusing to note how<span class="pagenum" id="Page_306">[Pg 306]</span>
-often a wider and a deeper study of English will
-reveal that what is suddenly denounced in Great
-Britain as the very latest Americanism, whether
-this be a variation in speech or in spelling, is
-shown to be really a survival of a previous usage
-of our language, and authorized by a host of
-precedents.</p>
-
-<p>Of course it is idle to kick against the pricks of
-progress, and no doubt in due season Great
-Britain and her colonial dependencies will be
-content again to spell words that end in <em>er</em> as
-Shakspere and Ben Jonson and Spenser spelled
-them. But when we get so far toward the orthographic
-millennium that we all spell <em>sepulcher</em>,
-the ghost of Thomas Campbell will groan within
-the grave at the havoc then wrought in the final
-line of ‘Hohenlinden,’ which will cease to end
-with even the outward semblance of a rime to
-the eye. We all know that</p>
-
-<p class="poetry p0">
-On Linden, when the sun was low,<br />
-All bloodless lay the untrodden snow,<br />
-And dark as winter was the flow<br />
-<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Of Iser, rolling rapidly;</span><br />
-</p>
-
-<p>and those of us who have persevered may remember
-that with one exception every fourth
-line of Campbell’s poem ends with a <em>y</em>,&mdash;the
-words are <em>rapidly</em>, <em>scenery</em>, <em>revelry</em>, <em>artillery</em>,
-<em>canopy</em>, and <em>chivalry</em>,&mdash;not rimes of surpassing<span class="pagenum" id="Page_307">[Pg 307]</span>
-distinction, any of them, but perhaps passable
-to a reader who will humor the final syllable.
-The one exception is the final line of the poem&mdash;</p>
-
-<p class="poetry p0">
-Shall be a soldier’s <em>sepulchre</em>.<br />
-</p>
-
-<p>To no man’s ear did <em>sepulchre</em> ever rime justly
-with <em>chivalry</em> and <em>canopy</em> and <em>artillery</em>, altho
-Campbell may have so contorted his vision that
-he evoked the dim spook of a rime in his mind’s
-eye. A rime to the eye is a sorry thing at best,
-and it is sorriest when it depends on an inaccurate
-and evanescent orthography.</p>
-
-<p><abbr title="doctor">Dr.</abbr> Johnson was as illogical in his keeping in
-and leaving out of the <em>u</em> in words like <em>honor</em> and
-<em>governor</em> as he was in many other things; and
-the makers of later dictionaries have departed
-widely from his practice, those in Great Britain
-still halting half-way, while those in the United
-States have gone on to the bitter end. The illogic
-of the burly lexicographer is shown in his
-omission of the <em>u</em> from <em>exterior</em> and <em>posterior</em>,
-and his retention of it in the kindred words <em>interiour</em>
-and <em>anteriour</em>; this, indeed, seems like
-wilful perversity, and justifies Hood’s merry jest
-about “<abbr title="doctor">Dr.</abbr> Johnson’s Contradictionary.” The
-half-way measures of later British lexicographers
-are shown in their omission of the <em>u</em> from words
-which <abbr title="doctor">Dr.</abbr> Johnson spelled <em>emperour</em>, <em>governour</em>,<span class="pagenum" id="Page_308">[Pg 308]</span>
-<em>oratour</em>, <em>horrour</em>, and <em>dolour</em>, while still retaining
-it in <em>favour</em> and <em>honour</em> and a few others.</p>
-
-<p>The reason for his disgust generally given by
-the London man of letters who is annoyed by
-the “American spelling” of <em>honor</em> and <em>favor</em> is
-that these words are not derived directly from the
-Latin, but indirectly through the French; this is the
-plea put forward by the late Archbishop Trench.
-Even if this plea were pertinent, the application
-of this theory is not consistent in current British
-orthography, which prescribes the omission of
-the <em>u</em> from <em>error</em> and <em>emperor</em>, and its retention
-in <em>colour</em> and <em>honour</em>&mdash;altho all four words are
-alike derived from the Latin through the French.
-And this plea fails absolutely to account for the
-<em>u</em> which the British insist on preserving in <em>harbour</em>
-and in <em>neighbour</em>, words not derived from
-the Latin at all, whether directly or indirectly
-through the French. An American may well
-ask, “If the <em>u</em> in <em>honour</em> teaches etymology,
-what does the <em>u</em> in <em>harbour</em> teach?” There is
-no doubt that the <em>u</em> in <em>harbour</em> teaches a false
-etymology; and there is no doubt also that the
-<em>u</em> in <em>honour</em> has been made to teach a false etymology,
-for Trench’s derivation of this final <em>our</em>
-from the French <i xml:lang="fr" lang="fr">eur</i> is absurd, as the old French
-was <i xml:lang="fr" lang="fr">our</i>, and sometimes <i xml:lang="fr" lang="fr">ur</i>, sometimes even <i xml:lang="fr" lang="fr">or</i>.
-Pseudo-philology of this sort is no new thing;
-Professor Max Müller noted that the Roman<span class="pagenum" id="Page_309">[Pg 309]</span>
-prigs used to spell <em>cena</em> (to show their knowledge
-of Greek), <em>coena</em>, as if the word were somehow
-connected with <i lang="grc" xml:lang="grc">κοινή</i>.</p>
-
-<p>Thus we see that the <em>u</em> in <em>honour</em> suggests a
-false etymology; so does the <em>ue</em> in <em>tongue</em>, and
-the <em>g</em> in <em>sovereign</em>, and the <em>c</em> in <em>scent</em>, and the <em>s</em>
-in <em>island</em>, and the <em>mp</em> in <em>comptroller</em>, and the <em>h</em>
-in <em>rhyme</em>; and there are many more of our ordinary
-orthographies which are quite as misleading
-from a philological point of view. As the late
-Professor Hadley mildly put it, “our common
-spelling is often an untrustworthy guide to etymology.”
-But why should we expect or desire
-spelling to be a guide to etymology? If it is to
-be a guide at all, we may fairly insist on its being
-trustworthy; and so we cannot help thinking
-scorn of those who insist on retaining a superfluous
-<em>u</em> in <em>harbour</em>.</p>
-
-<p>But why should orthography be made subservient
-to etymology? What have the two things
-in common? They exist for wholly different
-ends, to be attained by wholly different means.
-To bend either from its own work to the aid of
-the other is to impair the utility of both. This
-truth is recognized by all etymologists, and by
-all students of language, altho it has not yet
-found acceptance among men of letters, who are
-rarely students of language in the scientific sense.
-“It may be observed,” <abbr title="mister">Mr.</abbr> Sweet declares,<span class="pagenum" id="Page_310">[Pg 310]</span>
-“that it is mainly among the class of half-taught
-dabblers in philology that etymological spelling
-has found its supporters”; and he goes on to
-say that “all true philologists and philological
-bodies have uniformly denounced it as a monstrous
-absurdity both from a practical and a scientific point
-of view.” I should never dare to apply to the late
-Archbishop Trench and the London journalists
-who echo his errors so harsh a phrase as <abbr title="mister">Mr.</abbr>
-Sweet’s “half-taught dabblers in philology”;
-but when a fellow-Briton uses it perhaps I may
-venture to quote it without reproach.</p>
-
-<p>As I have said before, the alleged “American
-spelling” differs but very slightly from that
-which prevails in England. A wandering New-Yorker
-who rambles through London is able to
-collect now and again evidences of orthographic
-survivals which give him a sudden sense of being
-in an older country than his own. I have seen a
-man whose home was near Gramercy Park stop
-short in the middle of a little street in Mayfair,
-and point with ecstatic delight to the strip of
-paper across the glass door of a bar proclaiming
-that <em>CYDER</em> was sold within. I have seen the
-same man thrill with pure joy before the shop of
-a <em>chymist</em> in the window of which <em>corn-plaisters</em>
-were offered for sale. He wondered why a
-British house should have <em>storeys</em> when an
-American house has <em>stories</em>; and he disliked intensely<span class="pagenum" id="Page_311">[Pg 311]</span>
-the wanton <em>e</em> wherewith British printers
-have recently disfigured <em>form</em>, which in the latest
-London typographical vocabularies appears as
-<em>forme</em>. This <em>e</em> in <em>form</em> is a gratuitous addition,
-and therefore contrary to the trend of orthographic
-progress, which aims at the suppression
-of all arbitrary and needless letters.</p>
-
-<p>The so-called “American spelling” differs
-from the spelling which obtains in England only
-in so far as it has yielded a little more readily to
-the forces which make for progress, for uniformity,
-for logic, for common sense. But just how
-fortuitous and chaotic the condition of English
-spelling is nowadays both in Great Britain and
-in the United States no man knows who has not
-taken the trouble to investigate for himself. In
-England, the reactionary orthography of Samuel
-Johnson is no longer accepted by all. In America,
-the revolutionary orthography of Noah
-Webster has been receded from even by his own
-inheritors. There is no standard, no authority,
-not even that of a powerful, resolute, and domineering
-personality.</p>
-
-<p>Perhaps the attitude of philologists toward
-the present spelling of the English language, and
-their opinion of those who are up in arms in defense
-of it, have never been more tersely stated
-than in Professor Lounsbury’s most admirable
-‘Studies in Chaucer,’ a work which I should term<span class="pagenum" id="Page_312">[Pg 312]</span>
-eminently scholarly, if that phrase did not perhaps
-give a false impression of a book wherein the results
-of learning are set forth with the most adroit
-literary art, and with an uninsistent but omnipresent
-humor, which is a constant delight to the
-reader:</p>
-
-<p>“There is certainly nothing more contemptible
-than our present spelling, unless it be the
-reasons usually given for clinging to it. The
-divorce which has unfortunately almost always
-existed between English letters and English
-scholarship makes nowhere a more pointed exhibition
-of itself than in the comments which
-men of real literary ability make upon proposals
-to change or modify the cast-iron framework in
-which our words are now clothed. On one side
-there is an absolute agreement of view on the
-part of those who are authorized by their knowledge
-of the subject to pronounce an opinion.
-These are well aware that the present orthography
-hides the history of the word instead of
-revealing it; that it is a stumbling-block in the
-way of derivation or of pronunciation instead of
-a guide to it; that it is not in any sense a growth
-or development, but a mechanical malformation,
-which owes its existence to the ignorance of
-early printers and the necessity of consulting the
-convenience of printing-offices. This consensus
-of scholars makes the slightest possible impression<span class="pagenum" id="Page_313">[Pg 313]</span>
-upon men of letters throughout the whole
-great Anglo-Saxon community. There is hardly
-one of them who is not calmly confident of the
-superiority of his opinion to that of the most
-famous special students who have spent years in
-examining the subject. There is hardly one of
-them who does not fancy he is manifesting a
-noble conservatism by holding fast to some spelling
-peculiarly absurd, and thereby maintaining a
-bulwark against the ruin of the tongue. There
-is hardly one of them who has any hesitation in
-discussing the question in its entirety, while
-every word he utters shows that he does not
-understand even its elementary principles. There
-would be something thoroughly comic in turning
-into a fierce international dispute the question
-of spelling <em>honor</em> without the <em>u</em>, were it not for
-the depression which every student of the language
-cannot well help feeling in contemplating
-the hopeless abysmal ignorance of the history of
-the tongue which any educated man must first
-possess in order to become excited over the subject
-at all.” (‘Studies in Chaucer,’ vol. iii., pp.
-265-267.)</p>
-
-<p>Pronunciation is slowly but steadily changing.
-Sometimes it is going further and further away
-from the orthography; for example, <em>either</em> and
-<em>neither</em> are getting more and more to have in
-their first syllable the long <em>i</em> sound instead of the<span class="pagenum" id="Page_314">[Pg 314]</span>
-long <em>e</em> sound which they had once. Sometimes
-it is being modified to agree with the orthography;
-for example, the older pronunciations of
-<em>again</em> to rime with <em>men</em>, and of <em>been</em> to rime
-with <em>pin</em>, in which I was carefully trained as a
-boy, seem to me to be giving way before a pronunciation
-in exact accord with the spelling,
-<em>again</em> to rime with <em>pain</em>, and <em>been</em> to rime
-with <em>seen</em>. These two illustrations are from the
-necessarily circumscribed experience of a single
-observer, and the observation of others may not
-bear me out in my opinion; but tho the illustrations
-fall to the ground, the main assertion, that
-pronunciation is changing, is indisputable.</p>
-
-<p>No doubt the change is less rapid than it was
-before the invention of printing; far less rapid
-than it was before the days of the public school
-and of the morning newspaper. There are variations
-of pronunciation in different parts of the
-United States and of Great Britain, as there are
-variations of vocabulary; but in the future there
-will be a constantly increasing tendency for
-these variations to disappear. There are irresistible
-forces making for uniformity&mdash;forces
-which are crushing out Platt-Deutsch in Germany,
-Provençal in France, Romansch in Switzerland.
-There is a desire to see a standard set
-up to which all may strive to conform. In
-France a standard of pronunciation is found at<span class="pagenum" id="Page_315">[Pg 315]</span>
-the Comédie Française; and in Germany, what
-is almost a standard of vocabulary has been set
-in what is now known as <i xml:lang="de" lang="de">Bühnen-Deutsch</i>.</p>
-
-<p>In France the Academy was constituted chiefly
-to be a guardian of the language; and the
-Academy, properly conservative as it needs must
-be, is engaged in a slow reform of French orthography,
-yielding to the popular demand decorously
-and judiciously. By official action, also, the
-orthography of German has been simplified and
-made more logical and brought into closer relation
-with modern pronunciation. Even more
-thorough reforms have been carried through in
-Italy, in Spain, and in Holland. Yet neither
-French nor German, not Italian, Spanish, or
-Dutch, stood half as much in need of the broom
-of reform as English, for in no one of these languages
-were there so many dark corners which
-needed cleaning out; in no one of them the difference
-between orthography and pronunciation so
-wide; and in no one of them was the accepted
-spelling debased by numberless false etymologies.</p>
-
-<p>Beyond all question, what is needed on both
-sides of the Atlantic, in the United States as
-well as in Great Britain, is a conviction that the
-existing orthography of English is not sacred,
-and that to tamper with it is not high treason.
-What is needed is the consciousness that neither
-Samuel Johnson nor Noah Webster compiled his<span class="pagenum" id="Page_316">[Pg 316]</span>
-dictionary under direct inspiration. What is
-needed is an awakening to the fact that our
-spelling, so far from being immaculate at its best,
-is, at its best, hardly less absurd than the haphazard,
-rule-of-thumb, funnily phonetic spelling
-of Artemus Ward and of Josh Billings. What is
-needed is anything which will break up the
-lethargy of satisfaction with the accepted orthography,
-and help to open the eyes of readers and
-writers to the stupidity of the present system and
-tend to make them discontented with it.</p>
-
-<div class="blockquot">
-<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_317">[Pg 317]</span></p>
-<p>(1892)</p>
-</div>
-
-<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop" />
-
-<div class="chapter">
-<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_319">[Pg 319]</span></p>
-
-<h2 class="nobreak" id="Chapter_XIII">XIII<br />THE SIMPLIFICATION OF ENGLISH
-SPELLING</h2>
-</div>
-
-
-<p>In a communication to a London review Professor
-W. W. Skeat remarked that “it is notorious
-that all the leading philologists of Europe,
-during the last quarter of a century, have unanimously
-condemned the present chaotic spelling
-of the English language, and have received on
-the part of the public generally, and of the most
-blatant and ignorant among the self-constituted
-critics, nothing but abusive ridicule, which is
-meant to be scathing, but is harmless from its
-silliness”; and it cannot be denied that the orthographic
-simplifications which the leading philologists
-of Great Britain and the United States
-are advocating have not yet been widely adopted.
-In an aggressive article an American essayist has
-sought to explain this by the assertion that phonetic-reform
-“is hopelessly, unspeakably, sickeningly
-vulgar; and this is an eternal reason why
-men and women of taste, refinement, and discrimination
-will reject it with a shudder of disgust.”<span class="pagenum" id="Page_320">[Pg 320]</span>
-Satisfactory as this explanation may seem
-to the essayist, I have a certain difficulty in accepting
-it myself, since I find on the list of the
-vice-presidents of the Orthographic Union the
-names of <abbr title="mister">Mr.</abbr> Howells, of Colonel Higginson, of
-<abbr title="doctor">Dr.</abbr> Eggleston, of Professor Lounsbury, and of
-President White; and even if I was willing to
-admit that these gentlemen were all of them
-lacking in taste, refinement, and discrimination,
-I still could not agree with the aggressive essayist
-so long as my own name was on the same
-list.</p>
-
-<p>What strikes me as a better explanation is that
-given by the president of the Orthographic
-Union, <abbr title="mister">Mr.</abbr> Benjamin E. Smith, who has suggested
-that phonetic-reformers have asked too
-much, and so have received too little; they have
-demanded an immediate and radical change, and
-as a result they have frightened away all but the
-most resolute radicals; they have failed to reckon
-with the immense conservatism which gives stability
-to all the institutions of the English-speaking
-race. As <abbr title="mister">Mr.</abbr> Smith puts it, “there is a
-deep-rooted feeling that the existing printed form
-is not only <em>a</em> symbol but the <em>most fitting</em> symbol
-for our mother-tongue, and that a radical change
-must impair <em>for us</em> the beauty and spiritual effectiveness
-of that which it symbolizes.”</p>
-
-<p>A part of the unreadiness of the public to listen<span class="pagenum" id="Page_321">[Pg 321]</span>
-to the advocates of phonetic-reform has been due
-also to the general consciousness that pronunciation
-is not fixed but very variable indeed, being
-absolutely alike in no two places where English
-is spoken, and perhaps in no two persons who
-speak English. The humorous poet has shown
-to us how the little word <em>vase</em> once served as a
-shibboleth to reveal the homes of each of the four
-young ladies who came severally from New
-York and Boston and Philadelphia and Kalamazoo.
-The difference between the pronunciation
-of New York and Boston is not so marked as
-that between London and Edinburgh&mdash;or as that
-between New York and London. And the pronunciation
-of to-day is not that of to-morrow; it
-is constantly being modified, sometimes by imperceptible
-degrees and sometimes by a sudden
-change like the arbitrary substitution of <em>aither</em> and
-<em>naither</em> for <em>eether</em> and <em>neether</em>. Now, if pronunciation
-is not uniform in any two persons, in any
-two places, at any two periods, the wayfaring
-man is not to blame if he is in doubt, first, as to
-the possibility of a uniform phonetic spelling,
-and, second, as to its permanence even if it was
-once to be attained.</p>
-
-<p>A glance down the history of English orthography
-discloses the fact that, however chaotic our
-spelling may seem to be now or may seem to
-have been in Shakspere’s day, it is and it always<span class="pagenum" id="Page_322">[Pg 322]</span>
-has been striving ineffectively to be phonetic.
-Always the attempt has been to use the letters of
-the word to represent its sounds. From the beginning
-there has been an unceasing struggle to
-keep the orthography as phonetic as might be.
-This continuous striving toward exactness of
-sound-reproduction has never been radical or violent;
-it has always been halting and half-hearted:
-but it has been constant, and it has accomplished
-marvels in the course of the centuries. The
-most that we can hope to do is to help along
-this good work, to hasten this inevitable but belated
-progress, to make the transitions as easy as
-possible, and to smooth the way so that the
-needful improvements may follow one another as
-swiftly as shall be possible. We must remember
-that a half-loaf is better than no bread; and
-we must remind ourselves frequently that the
-greatest statesmen have been opportunists, knowing
-what they wanted, but taking what they
-could get.</p>
-
-<p>We have now to face the fact that in no language
-is a sudden and far-reaching reform in
-spelling ever likely to be attained; and in none is
-it less likely than in English. The history of the
-peoples who use our tongue on both sides of the
-Atlantic proves that they belong to a stock which
-is wont to make haste slowly, to take one step at
-a time, and never to allow itself to be overmastered<span class="pagenum" id="Page_323">[Pg 323]</span>
-by mere logic. By a series of gradations
-almost invisible the loose confederacy of 1776
-developed into the firm union of 1861, which was
-glad to grant to Abraham Lincoln a power broader
-than that wielded by any dictator. Even the
-abolition of the corn-laws and the adoption of
-free-trade in Great Britain, sudden as it may seem,
-was only the final result of a long series of
-events.</p>
-
-<p>The securing of an absolutely phonetic spelling
-being impracticable,&mdash;even if it was altogether
-desirable,&mdash;the efforts of those who are dissatisfied
-with the prevailing orthography of our language
-had best be directed toward the perfectly
-practical end of getting our improvement on the
-instalment plan. We must seek now to have
-only the most flagrant absurdities corrected. We
-must be satisfied to advance little by little. We
-must begin by showing that there is nothing
-sacrosanct about the present spelling either in
-Great Britain or in the United States. We must
-make it clear to all who are willing to listen&mdash;and
-it is our duty to be persuasive always and never
-dogmatic&mdash;that the effort of the English language
-to rid itself of orthographic anomalies is almost
-as old as the language itself. We must show
-those who insist on leaving the present spelling
-undisturbed that in taking this attitude they are
-setting themselves in opposition to the past,<span class="pagenum" id="Page_324">[Pg 324]</span>
-which they pretend to respect. The average man
-is open to conviction if you do not try to browbeat
-him into adopting your beliefs; and he can
-be induced to accept improvements, one at a
-time, if he has it made plain to him that each of
-these is but one in a series unrolling itself since
-Chaucer. We must convince the average man
-that we want merely to continue the good work
-of our forefathers, and that the real innovators are
-those who maintain the absolute inviolability of
-our present spelling.</p>
-
-<p>Even the vehement essayist from whom I have
-quoted already, and who is the boldest of later
-opponents of phonetic-reform, is vehement chiefly
-against the various schemes of wholesale revision.
-He himself refuses to make any modification,&mdash;except
-to revert now and again to a
-medievalism like <em>pædagogue</em>,&mdash;but he knows the
-history of language too well not to be forced to
-admit that a simplification of some sort is certain
-to be achieved in the future. “The written forms
-of English words will change in time, as the language
-itself will change,” he confesses; “it will
-change in its vocabulary, in its idioms, in its
-pronunciation, and perhaps to some extent in its
-structural form. For change is the one essential
-and inevitable phenomenon of a living language,
-as it is of any living organism; and with these
-changes, slow and silent and unconscious, will<span class="pagenum" id="Page_325">[Pg 325]</span>
-come a change in the orthography.” As we read
-this admirable statement we cannot but wonder
-why a writer who understands so well the conditions
-of linguistic growth should wish to bind
-his own language in the cast-iron bonds of an
-outworn orthography. We may wonder also
-why he is not consistent in his own practice, and
-why he does not spell <em>phænomenon</em> as Macaulay
-did only threescore and ten years ago.</p>
-
-<p>Underneath the American essayist’s objection
-to any orthographic simplification in English, and
-underneath the plaintive protests of certain British
-men of letters against “American spelling,” so
-called, lies the assumption that there is at the
-present moment a “regular” spelling, which has
-existed time out of mind and which the tasteless
-reformers wish to destroy. For this assumption
-there is no warrant whatever. The orthography
-of our language has never been stable; it has
-always been fluctuating; and no authority has
-ever been given to anybody to lay down laws for
-its regulation. For a convention to have validity
-it must have won general acceptance at some
-period; and the history of English shows that
-there has never been any such common agreement,
-expressed or implied, in regard to English
-spelling. Some of the unphonetic forms which
-are most vigorously defended, as hallowed by
-custom and by sentiment, are comparatively recent;<span class="pagenum" id="Page_326">[Pg 326]</span>
-and others which seem as sacred have had
-foisted into them needless letters conveying false
-impressions about their origins.</p>
-
-<p>That there is no theory or practice of English
-orthography universally accepted to-day is obvious
-to all who may take the trouble to observe
-for themselves. The spelling adopted by the
-‘Century Magazine’ is different from that to be
-found in ‘Harper’s Magazine’; and this differs
-again from that insisted upon in the pages of the
-‘Bookman.’ The ‘Century’ has gone a little in
-advance of American spelling generally, as seen in
-‘Harper’s,’ and the ‘Bookman’ is intentionally reactionary.
-In the United States orthography is
-in a healthier state of instability than it is in
-Great Britain, where there is a closer approximation
-to a deadening uniformity; but even in London
-and Edinburgh those who are on the watch
-can discover many a divergence from the strict
-letter of the doctrine of orthographic rigidity.</p>
-
-<p>And just as there is no system of English spelling
-tacitly agreed on by all men of education
-using the English language at present, so there was
-also no system of English spelling consistently
-and continually used by our ancestors in the past.
-The orthography of Matthew Arnold differs a
-little, altho not much, from the orthography of
-Macaulay; and that in turn a little from the orthography
-of Johnson. In like manner the spelling<span class="pagenum" id="Page_327">[Pg 327]</span>
-of Dryden is very different from the spelling
-of Spenser, and the spelling of Spenser is very
-different from the spelling of Chaucer. At no
-time in the long unrolling of English literature
-from Chaucer to Arnold has there been any agreement
-among those who used the language as to
-any precise way in which its words should be
-spelled or even as to any theory which should
-govern particular instances. The history of English
-orthography is a record still incomplete of
-incessant variation; and a study of it shows
-plainly how there have been changes in every
-generation, some of them logical and some of
-them arbitrary, some of them helpful simplifications,
-and some of them gross perversities.</p>
-
-<p>Thus we see that those who defend any existing
-orthography, which they choose to regard as
-“regular” and outside of which they affect to
-behold only vulgar aberration, are setting themselves
-against the example left us by our forefathers.
-We see also that those of us who are
-striving to modify our spelling in moderation are
-doing exactly what has been done by every generation
-that preceded us. To repeat in other
-words what I have said already, there is not any
-system of English orthography which is supported
-by a universal convention to-day or which
-has any sanctity from its supposed antiquity.</p>
-
-<p>The opponents of simplification have been<span class="pagenum" id="Page_328">[Pg 328]</span>
-greatly aided by the general acceptance of this
-assumption of theirs that the advocates of simplification
-wanted to remove ancient landmarks,
-to break with the past, to introduce endless innovations.
-The best part of their case will fall
-to the ground when it is generally understood
-that the orthography of our language has never
-been fixed for a decad at a time. And this understanding
-of the real facts of the situation is
-likely to be enlarged in the immediate future by
-the wide circulation of many recent reprints of
-the texts of the great authors of the past in the
-exact spelling of the original edition. So long as
-we were in the habit of seeing the works of
-Shakspere and Steele, of Scott, Thackeray, and
-Hawthorne, all in an orthography which, if not
-uniform exactly, did not vary widely, we were
-sorely tempted to say that the spelling which
-was good enough for them is good enough for
-us and for our children.</p>
-
-<p>But when we have in our hands the works
-of those great writers as they were originally
-printed, and when we are forced to remark that
-they spell in no wise alike one to the other; and
-when we discover that such uniformity of orthography
-they may have seemed to have was
-due, not to any theory of the authors themselves,
-but merely to the practice of the modern printing-offices
-and proof-readers&mdash;when these things<span class="pagenum" id="Page_329">[Pg 329]</span>
-are brought home to us, any superstitious reverence
-bids fair to vanish which we may have had
-for the orthography we believed to be Shakspere’s
-and Steele’s and Scott’s and Thackeray’s and
-Hawthorne’s.</p>
-
-<p>And one indirect result of this scholarly desire
-to get as near as may be to the masterpiece as the
-author himself presented it to the world, is that
-men of letters and lovers of literature&mdash;two
-classes hitherto strangely ignorant of the history
-of the English language and of the constant
-changes always going on in its vocabulary, in its
-syntax, and in its orthography&mdash;will at least have
-the chance to acquire information at first hand.
-Their resistance to simplification ought to become
-less irreconcilable when the men of letters,
-now its chief opponents, have discovered for
-themselves that there is not now and never has
-been any stable system of orthography. When
-they really grasp the fact that there has been no
-permanency in the past and that there is no uniformity
-in the present, perhaps they will show
-themselves less unwilling to take the next step
-forward. Just now they are rather like the
-Tories, who, as Aubrey de Vere declared, wanted
-to uninvent printing and to undiscover America.</p>
-
-<p>The most powerful single influence in fixing
-the present absurd spelling of our language was
-undoubtedly Johnson’s Dictionary, published in<span class="pagenum" id="Page_330">[Pg 330]</span>
-the middle of the eighteenth century. We cannot
-but respect the solid learning of <abbr title="doctor">Dr.</abbr> Johnson
-and his indomitable energy; but the making of
-an English dictionary was not the task for which
-his previous studies had preëminently fitted him.
-Probably he would have succeeded better with a
-Latin dictionary; and indeed there is something
-characteristically incongruous in the spectacle of
-the burly doctor’s spending his toil in compiling
-a list of the words in a language the use of which
-he held to be disgraceful in a friend’s epitaph.
-Johnson was, in fact, as unfit a person as could be
-found to record English orthography, a task calling
-for a science the existence of which he did not
-even suspect, and for a delicacy of perception he
-lacked absolutely. In all matters of taste he was
-an elephantine pachyderm; and there are only a
-few of his principles of criticism which are not
-now disestablished.</p>
-
-<p>Any one whose reading is at all varied and who
-strays outside of books printed within the past
-quarter-century, can find abundant evidence of
-the former chaos of English orthography. In
-Moxon’s ‘Mechanic Exercises,’ published in 1683,
-for example, we read that “how well other Forrain
-languages are Corrected by the Author, we
-may perceive by the English that is Printed in
-Forrain Countries”; and this shows us that the
-phonetic form <em>forrain</em> is older than the unphonetic<span class="pagenum" id="Page_331">[Pg 331]</span>
-<em>foreign</em>. In the ‘Spectator’ (<abbr title="number">No.</abbr> 510)
-Steele wrote <em>landskip</em> where we should now
-write <em>landscape</em>; in Addison’s criticism of ‘Paradise
-Lost,’ contributed to the same periodical, we
-find <em>critick</em>, <em>heroick</em>, and <em>epick</em>; and whether
-Steele or Addison held the pen, <em>ribbons</em> were then
-always <em>ribands</em>.</p>
-
-<p>On the title-page of the first edition of ‘Robinson
-Crusoe,’ published in 1719, we are told that
-we can read within “an account of how he was
-at last strangely delivered by <em>Pyrates</em>.” Fielding,
-in the ‘Champion’ in 1740, tells us that “dinner
-soon follow’d, being a gammon of bacon and
-some chickens, with a most excellent apple-<em>pye</em>.”
-In the same essay Fielding wrote that “our friends
-<em>exprest</em> great pleasure at our drinking”; and in
-‘Tom Jones’ he wrote <em>profest</em> for <em>professed</em> (as
-we should now spell it). Here we discover that
-the nineteenth century is sometimes more backward
-than the eighteenth, <em>profest</em> and <em>exprest</em>
-being the very spellings which many are now
-advocating. Fielding also wrote <em>Salique</em> where
-we should now write <em>Salic</em>, as Wotton had written
-<em>Dorique</em> for <em>Doric</em> in a letter to Milton; and
-here the advantage is with us. So it is also in
-our spelling of the italicized word in the playbill
-of the third night of <abbr title="mister">Mr.</abbr> Cooper’s engagement at
-the Charleston theater, Friday, April 18, 1796:
-“<em>Smoaking</em> in the Theatre Prohibited.”</p>
-
-<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_332">[Pg 332]</span></p>
-
-<p>Attention has already been called to Macaulay’s
-<em>phænomenon</em> (and to Professor Peck’s <em>pædagogue</em>).
-The abolition of the digraph has been
-a protracted enterprise not yet completed. In a
-translation of Schlegel’s ‘Lectures on Dramatic
-Literature,’ published in London early in the
-nineteenth century, I have found <em>æra</em> for <em>era</em>; and
-in the eighteenth century <em>economics</em> was <em>œconomics</em>.
-<em>Esthetic</em> has not yet quite expelled <em>æsthetic</em>,
-altho <em>anesthetic</em> seems now fairly established.</p>
-
-<p>The Greek <em>ph</em> is also a stumbling-block. We
-write <em>phantom</em> on the one hand and <em>fancy</em> on the
-other, and either <em>phantasy</em> or <em>fantasy</em>; yet all
-these words are derived from the same Greek
-root. Probably <em>phancy</em> would seem as absurd to
-most of us as <em>fantom</em>. Yet <em>fantasy</em> has only
-recently begun to get the better of <em>phantasy</em>. The
-Italians are bolder than we are, for they have not
-hesitated to write <em>filosofia</em> and <em>fotografia</em>. To
-most of us <em>fotografer</em>, as we read it on a sign in
-Union Square, seems truly outlandish; and yet if
-our great-grandfathers were willing to accept
-<em>fancy</em> there is no logical reason why our great-grandchildren
-may not accept <em>fotografy</em>. There
-is no longer any logical basis for opposition on
-the ground of scholarship. Indeed, the scholarly
-opposition to these orthographic simplifications
-is not unlike the opposition in Germany to the
-adoption of the Roman alphabet by those who<span class="pagenum" id="Page_333">[Pg 333]</span>
-cling to the old Gothic letter on the ground that
-it is more German, altho it is in reality only
-a medieval corruption of the Roman letter. With
-those who speak German, as with those who
-speak English, the chief obstacle to the accomplishment
-of proposed improvements in writing
-the language is to be found in the general ignorance
-of its history&mdash;or perhaps rather in that
-conceited half-knowledge which is always more
-dangerous than modest ignorance.</p>
-
-<p>To diffuse accurate information about the history
-of English orthography is the most pressing
-and immediate duty now before those of us who
-wish to see our spelling simplified. We must
-keep reminding those we wish to convince that
-we want their aid in helping along the movement
-which has in the past changed <em>musique</em> to <em>music</em>,
-<em>riband</em> to <em>ribbon</em>, <em>phantasy</em> to <em>fantasy</em>, <em>æra</em> to
-<em>era</em>, <em>phænomenon</em> to <em>phenomenon</em>, and which in
-the present is changing <em>catalogue</em> to <em>catalog</em>, <em>æsthetic</em>
-to <em>esthetic</em>, <em>programme</em> to <em>program</em>, <em>technique</em>
-to <em>technic</em>.</p>
-
-<p>There never has been any “regular” spelling
-accepted by everybody, or any system of orthography
-sustained by universal convention. To
-assume that there is anything of the sort is
-adroitly to beg the very question at issue. There
-are always in English many words the spelling of
-which is not finally fixed; and these doubtful<span class="pagenum" id="Page_334">[Pg 334]</span>
-orthographies Professor Peck, for example, would
-decide in one way and Professor Skeat would decide
-in another. The most of Professor Peck’s
-decisions would result in conforming his spelling
-to that which obtains in the printing-office of the
-London <i>Times</i>, but in several cases he would
-exercise the right of private judgment, spelling
-<em>pædagogue</em>, for example, and <em>Vergil</em>. But if he
-chooses to exercise the right of private judgment,
-he is estopped from denying this right also to
-Professor Skeat; and the moment either of them
-sets up the personal equation as a guide, all pretense
-of an accepted system vanishes.</p>
-
-<p>It is our duty also to draw attention to the
-fact that it is a wholesome thing that there is
-no accepted system and that the orthography of
-our language should be free to modify itself in
-the future as it has in the past. It is this absence
-of system which gives fluidity and flexibility and
-the faculty of adaptation to changing conditions.
-The Chief Justice of England, when he addressed
-the American Bar Association, recorded his protest
-against a cast-iron code in law as tending to
-hinder legal development; and our language, like
-our law, must beware lest it lose its power of
-conforming to the needs of our people as these
-may be unexpectedly developed. Just as the
-conservatism of the English-speaking stock makes
-it highly improbable that any sweeping change in<span class="pagenum" id="Page_335">[Pg 335]</span>
-our spelling will ever be made, so the enterprise
-of the English-speaking stock, its energy and its
-common sense, make it highly improbable that
-any system will long endure which cramps and
-confines and prevents progress and simplification.</p>
-
-<p>Finally, we must all of us bend our energies
-to combating the notion that, as <abbr title="mister">Mr.</abbr> Smith
-has put it, “the existing printed form is not
-only <em>a</em> symbol but the <em>most fitting</em> symbol of
-our mother-tongue.” There is an almost superstitious
-veneration felt by most of us for the
-spellings we learnt at school; they seem to us
-sanctified by antiquity; and perhaps even an inquiry
-into the history of the language is not
-always enough to disestablish this reverence for
-false gods. Yet knowledge helps to free us from
-servitude to idols; and when we are told that the
-so-called “accepted spelling” has “dignity,” we
-may ask ourselves what dignity there can be in
-the spelling of <em>harbour</em> with an inserted <em>u</em> which
-is not pronounced, which has been thrust in comparatively
-recently, and which is etymologically
-misleading.</p>
-
-<p>In his effective answer to <abbr title="mister">Mr.</abbr> Herbert Spencer’s
-argument against the metric system, President
-T. C. Mendenhall remarked that “ignorant prejudice”
-is not so dangerous an obstacle to human
-progress, nor as common, as what may be called
-“intelligent prejudice,” meaning thereby “an<span class="pagenum" id="Page_336">[Pg 336]</span>
-obstinate conservatism which makes people cling
-to what is or has been, merely because it is or
-has been, not being willing to take the trouble to
-do better, because already doing well, all the
-while knowing that doing better is not only the
-easier, but is more in harmony with existing conditions.
-Such conservatism is highly developed
-among English-speaking people on both sides of
-the Atlantic.” It is just such conservatism as this
-that those of us will have to overcome who wish
-to see our English orthography continue its lifelong
-efforts toward simplification.</p>
-
-<p>To understand how unfortunate for the cause
-of progress it is when its leaders miscalculate
-the popular inertia and when they are therefore
-moved to demand more than seems reasonable
-to the people as a whole, we have only to consider
-the result of the joint action, in 1883, of the
-Philological Society of England and of the American
-Philological Association, in consequence of
-which certain rules were prepared to simplify
-our spelling. Here was a union of indisputable
-authorities in favor of an amended orthography;
-but unfortunately the changes suggested were
-both many and various. They were too various
-to please any but the most resolute radicals;
-and they were too many to be remembered
-readily by the great majority of every-day folk
-taking no particular interest in the subject. They<span class="pagenum" id="Page_337">[Pg 337]</span>
-included <em>theater</em>, <em>honor</em>, <em>advertize</em>, <em>catalog</em>; and
-had they not included anything else, or had they
-included only a very few similar simplifications,
-these spellings might have won acceptance in the
-past score of years, even in Great Britain; the same
-authorities would now be in a position to make
-a few further suggestions equally easy to remember,
-with a fair hope that these would
-establish themselves in turn.</p>
-
-<p>Owing to this attempt to do too much all at
-once, the joint action of the two great philological
-organizations came to naught. Such effect as
-it had was indirect at best. It may have been
-the exciting cause of the so-called “Printers’
-Rules,” which were approved and recommended
-by many of the leading typographers of the
-United States a few years later. These printers’
-rules were few and obvious. They suggested
-<em>catalog</em>, <em>program</em>, <em>epaulet</em>, <em>esthetic</em>&mdash;all of which
-have become more familiar of late. They suggested
-further <em>opposit</em>, <em>hypocrit</em>, etc., and also
-<em>fotograf</em>, <em>fonetic</em>, etc.; and these simplifications
-have not yet been adopted widely enough to prevent
-the words thus emended from seeming a
-little strange to all those who had paid no special
-attention to the subject. And these uninterested
-outsiders are the very people who are
-to be converted. To them and to them only
-must all argument be addressed. We may rest<span class="pagenum" id="Page_338">[Pg 338]</span>
-assured that we have slight chance of bringing
-over to our side any of those who have actually
-enlisted against us. We must not count on desertions
-from the enemy; we must enroll the
-neutrals at every opportunity.</p>
-
-<p>Probably the most important action yet taken
-in regard to our orthography was that of the
-National Educational Association in formally
-adopting for use in all its official publications
-twelve simplified spellings&mdash;<em>program</em>, <em>tho</em>, <em>altho</em>,
-<em>thoro</em>, <em>thorofare</em>, <em>thru</em>, <em>thruout</em>, <em>catalog</em>, <em>prolog</em>,
-<em>decalog</em>, <em>demagog</em>, <em>pedagog</em>. These simplified
-spellings were immediately adopted in the ‘Educational
-Review’ and in other periodicals edited
-by members of the association. They are very
-likely to appear with increasing frequency in the
-school-books which members may hereafter prepare;
-and any simplified spelling which once gets
-itself into a school-book is pretty sure to hold its
-own in the future. After an interval of ten or
-fifteen years the National Educational Association
-will be in a position to consider the situation
-again; and it may then decide that these twelve
-words have established themselves in their new
-form sufficiently widely and firmly to make it
-probable that the association could put forward
-another list of a dozen more simplified spellings
-with a reasonable certainty that those also will be
-accepted.</p>
-
-<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_339">[Pg 339]</span></p>
-
-<p>The United States government appointed a
-board to decide on a uniform orthography for
-geographical names; and the recommendations
-of this body were generally in the direction of
-increased simplicity&mdash;<em>Bering</em> Straits, for example.
-The spellings thus officially adopted by the national
-government were at once accepted by the
-chief publishers of school text-books. And these
-makers of school-books also follow the rules
-formulated by a committee of the American Association
-for the Advancement of Science appointed
-to bring about uniformity in the spelling
-and pronunciation of chemical terms. Among
-the rules formulated by the committee and
-adopted by the association were two which
-dropped a terminal <em>e</em> from certain chemical terms
-entering into more general use. Thus the men
-of science now write <em>oxid</em>, <em>iodid</em>, <em>chlorid</em>, etc.,
-and <em>quinin</em>, <em>morphin</em>, <em>anilin</em>, etc., altho the general
-public has not relinquished the earlier orthography,
-<em>oxide</em> and <em>quinine</em>. Even the word
-<em>toxin</em>, which came into being since the adoption
-of these rules by the associated scientists, is
-sometimes to be seen in newspapers as <em>toxine</em>.</p>
-
-<p>Thus we see that there is progress all along the
-line; it may seem very slow, like that of a glacier,
-but it is as certain as it is irresistible. There
-is no call for any of us to be disheartened by
-the prospect. We may, indeed, each of us do<span class="pagenum" id="Page_340">[Pg 340]</span>
-what little we can severally toward hastening the
-result. We can form the habit of using in our
-daily writing such simplified spellings as will not
-seem affected or freakish, keeping ourselves always
-in the forefront of the movement, but never
-going very far in advance of the main body. We
-must not make a fad of orthographic amelioration,
-nor must we devote to it a disproportionate
-share of our activity&mdash;since we know that there
-are other reforms as pressing as this and even
-more important. But we can hold ourselves
-ready always to lend a hand to help along the
-cause; and we can show our willingness always
-to stand up and be counted in its favor.</p>
-
-<div class="blockquot">
-<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_341">[Pg 341]</span></p>
-<p>(1898-1901)</p>
-</div>
-
-<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop" />
-
-<div class="chapter">
-<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_343">[Pg 343]</span></p>
-
-<h2 class="nobreak" id="Chapter_XIV">XIV<br />AMERICANISM&mdash;AN ATTEMPT
-AT A DEFINITION</h2>
-</div>
-
-
-<p>There are many words in circulation among
-us which we understand fairly well, which
-we use ourselves, and which we should, however,
-find it difficult to define. I think that
-<em>Americanism</em> is one of these words; and I think
-also it is well for us to inquire into the exact
-meaning of this word, which is often most carelessly
-employed. More than once of late have we
-heard a public man praised for his “aggressive
-Americanism,” and occasionally we have seen a
-man of letters denounced for his “lack of Americanism.”
-Now what does the word really mean
-when it is thus used?</p>
-
-<p>It means, first of all, a love for this country of
-ours, an appreciation of the institutions of this
-nation, a pride in the history of this people to
-which we belong. And to this extent <em>Americanism</em>
-is simply another word for <em>patriotism</em>.
-But it means also, I think, more than this: it
-means a frank acceptance of the principles which<span class="pagenum" id="Page_344">[Pg 344]</span>
-underlie our government here in the United
-States. It means, therefore, a faith in our fellow-man,
-a belief in liberty and in equality. It implies,
-further, so it seems to me, a confidence in
-the future of this country, a confidence in its
-destiny, a buoyant hopefulness that the right
-will surely prevail.</p>
-
-<p>In so far as Americanism is merely patriotism,
-it is a very good thing. The man who does not
-think his own country the finest in the world is
-either a pretty poor sort of a man or else he has
-a pretty poor sort of a country. If any people
-have not patriotism enough to make them willing
-to die that the nation may live, then that people
-will soon be pushed aside in the struggle of life,
-and that nation will be trampled upon and
-crushed; probably it will be conquered and absorbed
-by some race of a stronger fiber and of a
-sterner stock. Perhaps it is difficult to declare
-precisely which is the more pernicious citizen of
-a republic when there is danger of war with
-another nation&mdash;the man who wants to fight,
-right or wrong, or the man who does not want
-to fight, right or wrong; the hot-headed fellow
-who would plunge the country into a deadly
-struggle without first exhausting every possible
-chance to obtain an honorable peace, or the cold-blooded
-person who would willingly give up
-anything and everything, including honor itself,<span class="pagenum" id="Page_345">[Pg 345]</span>
-sooner than risk the loss of money which every
-war surely entails. “My country, right or
-wrong,” is a good motto only when we add to
-it, “and if she is in the wrong, I’ll help to put
-her in the right.” To shrink absolutely from a
-fight where honor is really at stake, this is the
-act of a coward. To rush violently into a quarrel
-when war can be avoided without the sacrifice
-of things dearer than life, this is the act of a
-fool.</p>
-
-<p>True patriotism is quiet, simple, dignified; it
-is not blatant, verbose, vociferous. The noisy
-shriekers who go about with a chip on their
-shoulders and cry aloud for war upon the slightest
-provocation belong to the class contemptuously
-known as “Jingoes.” They may be patriotic,&mdash;and
-as a fact they often are,&mdash;but their
-patriotism is too frothy, too hysteric, too unintelligent,
-to inspire confidence. True patriotism
-is not swift to resent an insult; on the contrary,
-it is slow to take offense, slow to believe that an
-insult could have been intended. True patriotism,
-believing fully in the honesty of its own
-acts, assumes also that others are acting with the
-same honesty. True patriotism, having a solid
-pride in the power and resources of our country,
-doubts always the likelihood of any other nation
-being willing carelessly to arouse our enmity.</p>
-
-<p>In so far, therefore, as Americanism is merely<span class="pagenum" id="Page_346">[Pg 346]</span>
-patriotism it is a very good thing, as I have tried
-to point out. But Americanism is something
-more than patriotism. It calls not only for love of
-our common country, but also for respect for our
-fellow-man. It implies an actual acceptance of
-equality as a fact. It means a willingness always
-to act on the theory, not that “I’m as good as the
-other man,” but that “the other man is as good as
-I am.” It means leveling up rather than leveling
-down. It means a regard for law, and a desire to
-gain our wishes and to advance our ideas always
-decently and in order, and with deference to the
-wishes and the ideas of others. It leads a man
-always to acknowledge the good faith of those
-with whom he is contending, whether the contest
-is one of sport or of politics. It prevents a
-man from declaring, or even from thinking, that
-all the right is on his side, and that all the honest
-people in the country are necessarily of his
-opinion.</p>
-
-<p>And, further, it seems to me that true Americanism
-has faith and hope. It believes that the
-world is getting better, if not year by year, at
-least century by century; and it believes also that
-in this steady improvement of the condition of
-mankind these United States are destined to do
-their full share. It holds that, bad as many
-things may seem to be to-day, they were worse
-yesterday, and they will be better to-morrow.<span class="pagenum" id="Page_347">[Pg 347]</span>
-However dark the outlook for any given cause
-may be at any moment, the man imbued with
-the true spirit of Americanism never abandons
-hope and never relaxes effort; he feels sure that
-everything comes to him who waits. He knows
-that all reforms are inevitable in the long run;
-and that if they do not finally establish themselves
-it is because they are not really reforms,
-tho for a time they may have seemed to be.</p>
-
-<p>And a knowledge of the history of the American
-people will supply ample reasons for this faith
-in the future. The sin of negro-slavery never
-seemed to be more secure from overthrow than
-it did in the ten years before it was finally abolished.
-A study of the political methods of the
-past will show that there has been immense improvement
-in many respects; and it is perhaps in
-our political methods that we Americans are most
-open to censure. That there was no deterioration
-of the moral stamina of the whole people
-during the first century of the American republic
-any student can make sure of by comparing the
-spirit which animated the inhabitants of the
-thirteen colonies during the Revolution with
-the spirit which animated the population of the
-northern states (and of the southern no less)
-during the civil war. We are accustomed to sing
-the praises of our grandfathers who won our
-independence, and very properly; but our grandchildren<span class="pagenum" id="Page_348">[Pg 348]</span>
-will have also to sing the praises of our
-fathers who stood up against one another for
-four years of the hardest fighting the world has
-ever seen, bearing the burdens of a protracted
-struggle with an uncomplaining cheerfulness
-which was not a characteristic of the earlier war.</p>
-
-<p>True Americanism is sturdy but modest. It is
-as far removed from “Jingoism” in times of
-trouble as it is from “Spread-Eagleism” in times
-of peace. It is neither vainglorious nor boastful.
-It knows that the world was not created in 1492,
-and that July 4, 1776, is not the most important
-date in the whole history of mankind. It does
-not overestimate the contribution which America
-has made to the rest of the world, nor does it
-underestimate this contribution. True Americanism,
-as I have said, has a pride in the past of this
-great country of ours, and a faith in the future;
-but none the less it is not so foolish as to think
-that all is perfection on this side of the Atlantic,
-and that all is imperfection on the other side.</p>
-
-<p>It knows that some things are better here than
-anywhere else in the world, that some things are
-no better, and that some things are not so good
-in America as they are in Europe. For example,
-probably the institutions of the nation fit the
-needs of the population with less friction here in
-the United States than in any other country in
-the world. But probably, also, there is no other<span class="pagenum" id="Page_349">[Pg 349]</span>
-one of the great nations of the world in which
-the government of the large cities is so wasteful
-and so negligent.</p>
-
-<p>True Americanism recognizes the fact that
-America is the heir of the ages, and that it is for
-us to profit as best we can by the experience of
-Europe, not copying servilely what has been
-successful in the old world, but modifying
-what we borrow in accord with our own needs
-and our own conditions. It knows, and it has
-no hesitation in declaring, that we must always
-be the judges ourselves as to whether or not we
-shall follow the example of Europe. Many times
-we have refused to walk in the path of European
-precedent, preferring very properly to blaze out
-a track for ourselves. More often than not this
-independence was wise, but now and again it
-was unwise.</p>
-
-<p>Finally, one more quality of true Americanism
-must be pointed out. It is not sectional. It does
-not dislike an idea, a man, or a political party
-because that idea, that man, or that party comes
-from a certain part of the country. It permits a
-man to have a healthy pride in being a son of
-Virginia, a citizen of New York, a native of Massachusetts,
-but only on condition that he has a
-pride still stronger that he is an American, a citizen
-of the United States. True Americanism is
-never sectional. It knows no north and no<span class="pagenum" id="Page_350">[Pg 350]</span>
-south, no east and no west. And as it has no
-sectional likes and dislikes, so it has no international
-likes and dislikes. It never puts itself in
-the attitude of the Englishman who said, “I’ve
-no prejudices, thank Heaven, but I do hate a
-Frenchman!” It frowns upon all appeals to the
-former allegiance of naturalized citizens of this
-country; and it thinks that it ought to be enough
-for any man to be an American without the aid
-of the hyphen which makes him a British-American,
-an Irish-American, or a German-American.</p>
-
-<p>True Americanism, to conclude, feels that a
-land which bred Washington and Franklin in the
-last century, and Emerson and Lincoln in this
-century, and which opens its schools wide to give
-every boy the chance to model himself on these
-great men, is a land deserving of Lowell’s praise
-as “a good country to live in, a good country to
-live for, and a good country to die for.”</p>
-
-<div class="blockquot">
-
-<p>(1896)</p>
-</div>
-
-
-<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop" />
-
-<div class="chapter transnote">
-<h2 class="nobreak" id="Transcribers_Notes">Transcriber’s Notes</h2>
-
-
-<p>In a few cases, obvious errors in punctuation have been corrected.</p>
-
-<p><a href="#Page_107">Page 107</a>: “‘Tess of the Durbervilles’” changed to “‘Tess of the d’Urbervilles’”</p>
-</div>
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