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diff --git a/.gitattributes b/.gitattributes new file mode 100644 index 0000000..d7b82bc --- /dev/null +++ b/.gitattributes @@ -0,0 +1,4 @@ +*.txt text eol=lf +*.htm text eol=lf +*.html text eol=lf +*.md text eol=lf diff --git a/LICENSE.txt b/LICENSE.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..6312041 --- /dev/null +++ b/LICENSE.txt @@ -0,0 +1,11 @@ +This eBook, including all associated images, markup, improvements, +metadata, and any other content or labor, has been confirmed to be +in the PUBLIC DOMAIN IN THE UNITED STATES. + +Procedures for determining public domain status are described in +the "Copyright How-To" at https://www.gutenberg.org. + +No investigation has been made concerning possible copyrights in +jurisdictions other than the United States. Anyone seeking to utilize +this eBook outside of the United States should confirm copyright +status under the laws that apply to them. diff --git a/README.md b/README.md new file mode 100644 index 0000000..8488e2c --- /dev/null +++ b/README.md @@ -0,0 +1,2 @@ +Project Gutenberg (https://www.gutenberg.org) public repository for +eBook #67503 (https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/67503) diff --git a/old/67503-0.txt b/old/67503-0.txt deleted file mode 100644 index f79ace2..0000000 --- a/old/67503-0.txt +++ /dev/null @@ -1,7338 +0,0 @@ -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’” - -*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK PARTS OF SPEECH: ESSAYS ON -ENGLISH *** - -Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions will -be renamed. - -Creating the works from print editions not protected by U.S. copyright -law means that no one owns a United States copyright in these works, -so the Foundation (and you!) can copy and distribute it in the -United States without permission and without paying copyright -royalties. 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Thus, we do not -necessarily keep eBooks in compliance with any particular paper -edition. - -Most people start at our website which has the main PG search -facility: www.gutenberg.org - -This website includes information about Project Gutenberg-tm, -including how to make donations to the Project Gutenberg Literary -Archive Foundation, how to help produce our new eBooks, and how to -subscribe to our email newsletter to hear about new eBooks. diff --git a/old/67503-0.zip b/old/67503-0.zip Binary files differdeleted file mode 100644 index 3538716..0000000 --- a/old/67503-0.zip +++ /dev/null diff --git a/old/67503-h.zip b/old/67503-h.zip Binary files differdeleted file mode 100644 index 8e54808..0000000 --- a/old/67503-h.zip +++ /dev/null diff --git a/old/67503-h/67503-h.htm b/old/67503-h/67503-h.htm deleted file mode 100644 index e7a5fe4..0000000 --- a/old/67503-h/67503-h.htm +++ /dev/null @@ -1,10538 +0,0 @@ -<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Strict//EN" - "http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-strict.dtd"> -<html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml" xml:lang="en" lang="en"> - <head> - <meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html;charset=utf-8" /> - <meta http-equiv="Content-Style-Type" content="text/css" /> - <title> - Parts of Speech - Essays on English, by Brander Matthews—A Project Gutenberg eBook - </title> - <link rel="coverpage" href="images/cover.jpg" /> - <style type="text/css"> - -body { - margin-left: 10%; - margin-right: 10%; -} - - h1,h2,h3,h4,h5,h6 { - text-align: center; /* all headings centered */ - clear: both; -} - -p { - margin-top: .51em; - text-align: justify; - margin-bottom: .49em; - text-indent: 1em; -} - -.p2 {margin-top: 2em;} -.p4 {margin-top: 4em;} -.p0 {text-indent: 0em;} -.indent {margin-left: 5%;} - -hr { - width: 33%; - margin-top: 2em; - margin-bottom: 2em; - margin-left: 33.5%; - margin-right: 33.5%; - clear: both; -} - -hr.chap {width: 65%; margin-left: 17.5%; margin-right: 17.5%;} -@media print { hr.chap {display: none; visibility: hidden;} } - -hr.r5 {width: 5%; margin-top: 1em; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 47.5%; margin-right: 47.5%;} - -div.chapter {page-break-before: always;} -h2.nobreak {page-break-before: avoid;} - - -abbr[title] { - text-decoration: none; -} - -table { - margin-left: auto; - margin-right: auto; -} -table.autotable { border-collapse: collapse; font-size: 1.1em;} -table.wide {width: 90%;} -table.autotable td, -table.autotable th { padding: 6px; } -.x-ebookmaker .wide {width: 95%} -.page {width: 4em;} - -.tdl {text-indent: 2em;} -.tdr {text-align: right;} -.tdc {text-align: center;} -.square {margin-left: 20%; margin-right: 20%; width: 60%;} - -.pagenum { /* uncomment the next line for invisible page numbers */ - /* visibility: hidden; */ - position: absolute; - left: 92%; - font-size: smaller; - text-align: right; - font-style: normal; - font-weight: normal; - font-variant: normal; -} /* page numbers */ - -.blockquot { - margin-left: 5%; - margin-right: 10%; -} - -.bbox {border: 2px solid;} - -.center {text-align: center;} - -.right {text-align: right;} - -.smcap {font-variant: small-caps;} - -.xxbig {font-size: 2em;} -.xbig {font-size: 1.5em;} -.big {font-size: 1.2em;} -.small {font-size: 0.8em;} - -/* Poetry */ -.poetry {text-align: left; margin-left: 5%; margin-right: 5%;} -@media print { .poetry {display: block;} } -.x-ebookmaker .poetry {display: block;} - -/* Transcriber's notes */ -.transnote {background-color: #E6E6FA; - color: black; - font-size:smaller; - padding:0.5em; - margin-bottom:5em; - font-family:sans-serif, serif; } - - </style> - </head> -<body> -<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—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—whether of orthography -or of syntax—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—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—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”—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—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—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,—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,<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—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—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—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<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—“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<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—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—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—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.</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—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—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—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—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.</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—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.</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,—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—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.</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,—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.</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,—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.</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—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<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—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—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—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—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—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—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.</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—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’—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—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>—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—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—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—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<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”;—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—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<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—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—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.</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—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—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—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—in England -itself, even in London, and not afar in the -remote borders of the Empire—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—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>—that is, “like we do”—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—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;—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,—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—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.</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—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—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—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<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—a hidden storehouse—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—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—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?”—a usage -abhorred by <abbr title="doctor">Dr.</abbr> 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 <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’—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—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<span class="pagenum" id="Page_110">[Pg 110]</span> -and the Canadians as well as by ourselves. -<em>Telephone</em>, for example,—both the thing and the -word are of American invention,—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—<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—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—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>,—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>—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—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,<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”—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”—this is a true Americanism undoubtedly. -And its compound <em>claim-shack</em>=“a shack -built to hold a claim on a preëmption”—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—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—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>—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,—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 -<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—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—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—a master of style well known to -<abbr title="mister">Mr.</abbr> 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<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—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—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—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<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—<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—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—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.</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”—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—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>—as in -the sentence “it was <em>calculated</em> 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.” <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”—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>—<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—<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—<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—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,—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 <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—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<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—or at least we do not and we -will not—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,—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—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 <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,—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 <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—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—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—and with this most precious -quality Franklin was better furnished than either -Johnson or Dryden—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—“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—etymologically at least—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—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’—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—<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>—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>—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—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 <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>—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—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—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—<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>—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—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>—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——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>—<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—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—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>—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>—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—and most of them never -attain to this wisdom—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’—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<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—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—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—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—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—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—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—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—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<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—if rule it really is—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—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—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—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—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 <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—you who object to the use of a different -vowel in a double rime—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—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—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 <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—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.</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,—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 <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,—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 <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—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—that to me was the <em>rarest</em>;<br /> -<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Of—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—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—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”—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>—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.</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—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—<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—<br /> -<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Radiant palace—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—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:</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—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.</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—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<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—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—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.</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,—old Skiddaw blew<br /> -His speaking-trumpet;—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—</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—<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”—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—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<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?—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,—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<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—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>—the Briggsvilles, -Higginsvilles, Jacksonvilles—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—<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—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—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.</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—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, -<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—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—<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—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 <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>,—the -words are <em>rapidly</em>, <em>scenery</em>, <em>revelry</em>, <em>artillery</em>, -<em>canopy</em>, and <em>chivalry</em>,—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—</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>—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—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—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,—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,<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,—except -to revert now and again to a -medievalism like <em>pædagogue</em>,—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—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—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.</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—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>—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—<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—<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—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—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—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,—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.</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> -<div style='display:block; margin-top:4em'>*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK PARTS OF SPEECH: ESSAYS ON ENGLISH ***</div> -<div style='text-align:left'> - -<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'> -Updated editions will replace the previous one—the old editions will -be renamed. -</div> - -<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'> -Creating the works from print editions not protected by U.S. copyright -law means that no one owns a United States copyright in these works, -so the Foundation (and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United -States without permission and without paying copyright -royalties. 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