Proverb and Platitude1 —No people, save perhaps the Spaniards, have a richer store of proverbial wisdom than the Americans, and surely none other make more diligent2 and deliberate efforts to augment3 its riches. The American literature of "inspirational" platitude is enormous and almost unique. There are half a dozen authors, e. g., Dr. Orison Swett Marden and Dr. Frank Crane, who devote themselves exclusively, and to vast profit, to the composition of arresting and uplifting apothegms, and the fruits of their fancy are not only sold in books but also displayed upon an infinite variety of calendars, banners and wall-cards. It is rarely that one enters the office of an American business man without encountering at least one of these wall-cards. It may, on the one hand, show nothing save a succinct4 caution that time is money, say, "Do It Now," or "This Is My Busy Day"; on the other hand, it may embody5 a long and complex sentiment, ornately set forth6. The taste for such canned sagacity seems to have arisen in America at a very early day. Benjamin Franklin's "Poor Richard's Almanac," begun in 1732, remained a great success for twenty-five years, and the annual sales reached 10,000. It had many imitators, and founded an aphoristic7 style of writing which culminated8 in the essays of Emerson, often mere9 strings10 of sonorous11 certainties, defectively13 articulated. The "Proverbial Philosophy" of Martin Farquhar Tupper, dawning upon the American public in the early 40's, was welcomed with enthusiasm; as Saintsbury says,[1] its success [Pg302] on this side of the Atlantic even exceeded its success on the other. But that was the last and perhaps the only importation of the sage14 and mellifluous15 in bulk. In late years the American production of such merchandise has grown so large that the balance of trade now flows in the other direction. Visiting Denmark, Germany, Switzerland, France and Spain in the spring of 1917, I found translations of the chief works of Dr. Marden on sale in all those countries, and with them the masterpieces of such other apostles of the New Thought as Ralph Waldo Trine and Elizabeth Towne. No other American books were half so well displayed.
The note of all such literature, and of the maxims16 that precipitate17 themselves from it, is optimism. They "inspire" by voicing and revoicing the New Thought doctrine18 that all things are possible to the man who thinks the right sort of thoughts—in the national phrase, to the right-thinker. This right-thinker is indistinguishable from the forward-looker, whose belief in the continuity and benignity19 of the evolutionary20 process takes on the virulence21 of a religious faith. Out of his confidence come the innumerable saws, axioms and geflügelte Worte in the national arsenal22, ranging from the "It won't hurt none to try" of the great masses of the plain people to such exhilarating confections of the wall-card virtuosi as "The elevator to success is not running; take the stairs." Naturally enough, a grotesque23 humor plays about this literature of hope; the folk, though it moves them, prefer it with a dash of salt. "Smile, damn you, smile!" is a typical specimen24 of this seasoned optimism. Many examples of it go back to the early part of the last century, for instance, "Don't monkey with the buzz-saw" and "It will never get well if you pick it." Others are patently modern, e. g., "The Lord is my shepherd; I should worry" and "Roll over; you're on your back." The national talent for extravagant25 and pungent26 humor is well displayed in many of these maxims. It would be difficult to match, in any other folk-literature, such examples as "I'd rather have them say 'There he goes' than 'Here he lies,'" or "Don't spit: remember the Johnstown flood," or "Shoot it in the arm; your leg's full," or "Cheer up; [Pg303] there ain't no hell," or "If you want to cure homesickness, go back home." Many very popular phrases and proverbs are borrowings from above. "Few die and none resign" originated with Thomas Jefferson; Bret Harte, I believe, was the author of "No check-ee, no shirt-ee," General W. T. Sherman is commonly credited with "War is hell," and Mark Twain with "Life is one damn thing after another." An elaborate and highly characteristic proverb of the uplifting variety—"So live that you can look any man in the eye and tell him to go to hell"—was first given currency by one of the engineers of the Panama Canal, a gentleman later retired28, it would seem, for attempting to execute his own counsel. From humor the transition to cynicism is easy, and so many of the current sayings are at war with the optimism of the majority. "Kick him again; he's down" is a depressing example. "What's the use?" a rough translation of the Latin "Cui bono?" is another. The same spirit is visible in "Tell your troubles to a policeman," "How'd you like to be the ice-man?" "Some say she do and some say she don't," "Nobody loves a fat man," "I love my wife, but O you kid," and "Would you for fifty cents?" The last originated in the ingenious mind of an advertisement writer and was immediately adopted. In the course of time it acquired a naughty significance, and helped to give a start to the amazing button craze of ten or twelve years ago—a saturnalia of proverb and phrase making which finally aroused the guardians29 of the public morals and was put down by the police.
That neglect which marks the study of the vulgate generally extends to the subject of popular proverb-making. The English publisher, Frank Palmer, prints an excellent series of little volumes presenting the favorite proverbs of all civilized30 races, including the Chinese and Japanese, but there is no American volume among them. Even such exhaustive collections as that of Robert Christy[2] contain no American specimens—not even "Don't monkey with the buzz-saw" or "Root, hog31, or die." [Pg304]
§ 2
American Slang—This neglect of the national proverbial philosophy extends to the national slang. There is but one work, so far as I can discover, formally devoted32 to it,[3] and that work is extremely superficial. Moreover, it has been long out of date, and hence is of little save historical value. There are at least a dozen careful treatises33 on French slang,[4] half as many on English slang,[5] and a good many on German slang, but American slang, which is probably quite as rich as that of France and a good deal richer than that of any other country, is yet to be studied at length. Nor is there much discussion of it, of any interest or value, in the general philological34 literature. Fowler and all the other early native students of the language dismissed it with lofty gestures; down to the time of Whitney it was scarcely regarded as a seemly subject for the notice of a man of learning. Lounsbury, less pedantic37, viewed its phenomena38 more hospitably39, and even defined it as "the source from which the decaying energies of speech are constantly refreshed," and Brander Matthews, following him, has described its function as that of providing "substitutes for the good words and true which are worn out by hard service."[6] But that is about as far as the investigation40 has got. Krapp has some judicious41 paragraphs upon the matter in his "Modern English,"[7] there are a few scattered42 essays upon the underlying43 psychology,[8] and various uninforming magazine articles, but that is all. The practising authors of the country, like its philologians, have always shown [Pg305] a gingery44 and suspicious attitude. "The use of slang," said Oliver Wendell Holmes, "is at once a sign and a cause of mental atrophy45." "Slang," said Ambrose Bierce fifty years later, "is the speech of him who robs the literary garbage carts on their way to the dumps." Literature in America, as we have seen, remains46 aloof47 from the vulgate. Despite the contrary examples of Mark Twain and Howells, all the more pretentious48 American authors try to write chastely49 and elegantly; the typical literary product of the country is still a refined essay in the Atlantic Monthly, perhaps gently jocose50 but never rough—by Emerson, so to speak, out of Charles Lamb—the sort of thing one might look to be done by a somewhat advanced English curate. George Ade, undoubtedly51 one of the most adept52 anatomists of the American character and painters of the American scene that the national literature has yet developed, is neglected because his work is grounded firmly upon the national speech—not that he reports it literally53, like Lardner and the hacks54 trailing after Lardner, but that he gets at and exhibits its very essence. It would stagger a candidate for a doctorate55 in philology56, I daresay, to be told off by his professor to investigate the slang of Ade in the way that Bosson,[9] the Swede, has investigated that of Jerome K. Jerome, and yet, until something of the sort is undertaken, American philology will remain out of contact with the American language.
Most of the existing discussions of slang spend themselves upon efforts to define it, and, in particular, upon efforts to differentiate57 it from idiomatic58 neologisms of a more legitimate59 type. This effort is largely in vain; the border-line is too vague and wavering to be accurately60 mapped; words and phrases are constantly crossing it, and in both directions. There was a time, perhaps, when the familiar American counter-word, proposition, was slang; its use seems to have originated in the world of business, and it was soon afterward61 adopted by the sporting fraternity. But today it is employed without much feeling that it needs apology, and surely without any feeling that it is low. [Pg306] Nice, as an adjective of all work, was once in slang use only; today no one would question "a nice day," or "a nice time" or "a nice hotel." Awful seems to be going the same route. "Awful sweet" and "awfully62 dear" still seem slangy and school-girlish, but "awful children," "awful weather" and "an awful job" have entirely63 sound support, and no one save a pedant36 would hesitate to use them. Such insidious64 purifications and consecrations of slang are going on under our noses all the time. The use of some as a general adjective-adverb seems likely to make its way in the same manner. It is constantly forgotten by purists of defective12 philological equipment that a great many of our most respectable words and phrases originated in the plainest sort of slang. Thus, quandary65, despite a fanciful etymology66 which would identify it with wandreth (=evil), is probably simply a composition form of the French phrase, qu'en dirai-je? Again, to turn to French itself, there is tête, a sound name for the human head for many centuries—though its origin was in the Latin testa (=pot), a favorite slang-word of the soldiers of the decaying empire, analogous67 to our own block, nut and conch. The word slacker, recently come into good usage in the United States as a designation for an unsuccessful shirker of conscription, is a substantive68 derived69 from the English verb to slack, which was born as university slang and remains so to this day. Brander Matthews, so recently as 1901, thought to hold up slang; it is now perfectly70 good American.
The contrary movement of words from the legitimate vocabulary into slang is constantly witnessed. Some one devises a new and intriguing71 trope or makes use of an old one under circumstances arresting the public attention, and at once it is adopted into slang, given a host of remote significances, and ding-donged ad nauseam. The Rooseveltian phrases, muck-raker, Ananias Club, short and ugly word, nature-faker and big-stick, offer examples. Not one of them was new and not one of them was of much pungency72, but Roosevelt's vast talent for delighting the yokelry threw about them a charming air, and so they entered into current slang and were mouthed idiotically for months. Another example is to be found in steam-roller. [Pg307] It was first heard of in June, 1908, when it was applied73 by Oswald F. Schuette, of the Chicago Inter-Ocean, to the methods employed by the Roosevelt-Taft majority in the Republican National Committee in over-riding the protests against seating Taft delegates from Alabama and Arkansas. At once it struck the popular fancy and was soon heard on all sides. All the usual derivatives74 appeared, to steam-roller, steam-rollered, and so on. Since then, curiously75 enough, the term has gradually forced its way back from slang to good usage, and even gone over to England. In the early days of the Great War it actually appeared in the most solemn English reviews, and once or twice, I believe, in state papers.
Much of the discussion of slang by popular etymologists is devoted to proofs that this or that locution is not really slang at all—that it is to be found in Shakespeare, in Milton, or in the Revised Version. These scientists, of course, overlook the plain fact that slang, like the folk-song, is not the creation of people in the mass, but of definite individuals, and that its character as slang depends entirely upon its adoption76 by the ignorant, who use its novelties too assiduously and with too little imagination, and so debase them to the estate of worn-out coins, smooth and valueless. It is this error, often shared by philologists77 of sounder information, that lies under the doctrine that the plays of Shakespeare are full of slang, and that the Bard79 showed but a feeble taste in language. Nothing could be more absurd. The business of writing English, in his day, was unharassed by the proscriptions of purists, and so the vocabulary could be enriched more facilely than today, but though Shakespeare and his fellow-dramatists quickly adopted such neologisms as to bustle80, to huddle81, bump, hubbub82 and pat, it goes without saying that they exercised a sound discretion83 and that the slang of the Bankside was full of words and phrases which they were never tempted84 to use. In our own day the same discrimination is exercised by all writers of sound taste. On the one hand they disregard the senseless prohibitions85 of school-masters, and on the other hand they draw the line with more or less watchfulness86, according as they are of conservative or liberal habit. I [Pg308] find the best of the bunch and joke-smith in Saintsbury;[10] one could scarcely imagine either in Walter Pater. But by the same token one could not imagine chicken (for young girl),[11] aber nit, to come across or to camouflage87 in Saintsbury.
What slang actually consists of doesn't depend, in truth, upon intrinsic qualities, but upon the surrounding circumstances. It is the user that determines the matter, and particularly the user's habitual88 way of thinking. If he chooses words carefully, with a full understanding of their meaning and savor90, then no word that he uses seriously will belong to slang, but if his speech is made up chiefly of terms poll-parroted, and he has no sense of their shades and limitations, then slang will bulk largely in his vocabulary. In its origin it is nearly always respectable; it is devised not by the stupid populace, but by individuals of wit and ingenuity91; as Whitney says, it is a product of an "exuberance92 of mental activity, and the natural delight of language-making." But when its inventions happen to strike the popular fancy and are adopted by the mob, they are soon worn thread-bare and so lose all piquancy93 and significance, and, in Whitney's words, become "incapable94 of expressing anything that is real."[12] This is the history of such slang phrases, often interrogative, as "How'd you like to be the ice-man?" "How's your poor feet?" "Merci pour la langouste," "Have a heart," "This is the life," "Where did you get that hat?" "Would you for fifty cents?" "Let her go, Gallegher," "Shoo-fly, don't bother me," "Don't wake him up" and "Let George do it." The last well exhibits the process. It originated in France, as "Laissez faire à Georges," during the fifteenth century, and at the start had satirical reference to the multiform activities of Cardinal95 Georges d'Amboise, prime minister to Louis XII.[13] It later [Pg309] became common slang, was translated into English, had a revival96 during the early days of David Lloyd-George's meteoric97 career, was adopted into American without any comprehension of either its first or its latest significance, and enjoyed the brief popularity of a year.
Krapp attempts to distinguish between slang and sound idiom by setting up the doctrine that the former is "more expressive98 than the situation demands." "It is," he says, "a kind of hyperesthesia in the use of language. To laugh in your sleeve is idiom because it arises out of a natural situation; it is a metaphor99 derived from the picture of one raising his sleeve to his face to hide a smile, a metaphor which arose naturally enough in early periods when sleeves were long and flowing; but to talk through your hat is slang, not only because it is new, but also because it is a grotesque exaggeration of the truth."[14] The theory, unluckily, is combated by many plain facts. To hand it to him, to get away with it and even to hand him a lemon are certainly not metaphors100 that transcend101 the practicable and probable, and yet all are undoubtedly slang. On the other hand, there is palpable exaggeration in such phrases as "he is not worth the powder it would take to kill him," in such adjectives as break-bone (fever), and in such compounds as fire-eater, and yet it would be absurd to dismiss them as slang. Between block-head and bone-head there is little to choose, but the former is sound English, whereas the latter is American slang. So with many familiar similes102, e. g., like greased lightning, as scarce as hen's teeth; they are grotesque hyperboles, but surely not slang.
The true distinction between slang and more seemly idiom, in so far as any distinction exists at all, is that indicated by Whitney. Slang originates in an effort, always by ingenious individuals, to make the language more vivid and expressive. When in the form of single words it may appear as new metaphors, [Pg310] e. g., bird and peach; as back formations, e. g., beaut and flu; as composition-forms, e. g., whatdyecallem; as picturesque103 compounds, e. g., booze-foundry; as onomatopes, e. g., biff and zowie; or in any other of the shapes that new terms take. If, by the chances that condition language-making, it acquires a special and limited meaning, not served by any existing locution, it enters into sound idiom and is presently wholly legitimatized; if, on the contrary, it is adopted by the populace as a counter-word and employed with such banal104 imitativeness that it soon loses any definite significance whatever, then it remains slang and is avoided by the finical. An example of the former process is afforded by Tommy-rot. It first appeared as English school-boy slang, but its obvious utility soon brought it into good usage. In one of Jerome K. Jerome's books, "Paul Kelver," there is the following dialogue:
"The wonderful songs that nobody ever sings, the wonderful pictures that nobody ever paints, and all the rest of it. It's Tommy-rot!"
"I wish you wouldn't use slang."
"Well, you know what I mean. What is the proper word? Give it to me."
"No, I don't. Cant is something that you don't believe in yourself. It's Tommy-rot; there isn't any other word."
Nor was there any other word for hubbub and to dwindle106 in Shakespeare's time; he adopted and dignified107 them because they met genuine needs. Nor was there any other satisfactory word for graft108 when it came in, nor for rowdy, nor for boom, nor for joy-ride, nor for omnibus-bill, nor for slacker, nor for trust-buster. Such words often retain a humorous quality; they are used satirically and hence appear but seldom in wholly serious discourse109. But they have standing89 in the language nevertheless, and only a prig would hesitate to use them as Saintsbury used the best of the bunch and joke-smith.
On the other hand, many an apt and ingenious neologism, by falling too quickly into the gaping110 maw of the proletariat, is spoiled forthwith. Once it becomes, in Oliver Wendell Holmes' phrase, "a cheap generic111 term, a substitute for differentiated112 [Pg311] specific expressions," it quickly acquires such flatness that the fastidious flee it as a plague. One recalls many capital verb-phrases, thus ruined by unintelligent appreciation113, e. g., to hand him a lemon, to freeze on to, to have the goods, to fall for it, and to get by. One recalls, too, some excellent substantives114, e. g., dope and dub115, and compounds, e. g., come-on and easy-mark, and verbs, e. g., to vamp. These are all quite as sound in structure as the great majority of our most familiar words, but their adoption by the ignorant and their endless use and misuse116 in all sorts of situations have left them tattered117 and obnoxious118, and they will probably go the way, as Matthews says, of all the other "temporary phrases which spring up, one scarcely knows how, and flourish unaccountably for a few months, and then disappear forever, leaving no sign." Matthews is wrong in two particulars here. They do not arise by any mysterious parthenogenesis, but come from sources which, in many cases, may be determined119. And they last, alas120, a good deal more than a month. Shoo-fly afflicted121 the American people for at least two years, and "I don't think" and aber nit quite as long. Even "good-night" lasted a whole year.
A very large part of our current slang is propagated by the newspapers, and much of it is invented by newspaper writers. One needs but turn to the slang of baseball to find numerous examples. Such phrases as to clout122 the sphere, the initial sack, to slam the pill and the dexter meadow are obviously not of bleachers manufacture. There is not enough imagination in that depressing army to devise such things; more often than not, there is not even enough intelligence to comprehend them. The true place of their origin is the perch123 of the newspaper reporters, whose competence124 and compensation is largely estimated, at least on papers of wide circulation, by their capacity for inventing novelties. The supply is so large that connoisseurship125 has grown up; an extra-fecund slang-maker on the press has his following. During the summer of 1913 the Chicago Record-Herald, somewhat alarmed by the extravagant fancy of its baseball reporters, asked its readers if they would prefer a return to plain English. Such of them as were literate126 enough [Pg312] to send in their votes were almost unanimously against a change. As one of them said, "one is nearer the park when Schulte slams the pill than when he merely hits the ball." In all other fields the newspapers originate and propagate slang, particularly in politics. Most of our political slang-terms since the Civil War, from pork-barrel to steam-roller, have been their inventions. The English newspapers, with the exception of a few anomalies such as the Pink-Un, lean in the other direction; their fault is not slanginess, but an otiose127 ponderosity—in Dean Alford's words, "the insisting on calling common things by uncommon128 names; changing our ordinary short Saxon nouns and verbs for long words derived from the Latin."[15] The American newspapers, years ago, passed through such a stage of bombast129, but since the invention of yellow journalism130 by the elder James Gordon Bennett—that is, the invention of journalism for the frankly131 ignorant and vulgar—they have gone to the other extreme. Edmund Clarence Stedman noted132 the change soon after the Civil War. "The whole country," he wrote to Bayard Taylor in 1873, "owing to the contagion133 of our newspaper 'exchange' system, is flooded, deluged134, swamped beneath a muddy tide of slang."[16] A thousand alarmed watchmen have sought to stay it since, but in vain. The great majority of our newspapers, including all those of large circulation, are chiefly written, as one observer says, "not in English, but in a strange jargon135 of words that would have made Addison or Milton shudder136 in despair."[17]
§ 3
The Future of the Language—The great Jakob Grimm, the founder137 of comparative philology, hazarded the guess more than three-quarters of a century ago that English would one day become [Pg313] the chief language of the world, and perhaps crowd out several of the then principal idioms altogether. "In wealth, wisdom and strict economy," he said, "none of the other living languages can vie with it." At that time the guess was bold, for English was still in fifth place, with not only French and German ahead of it, but also Spanish and Russian. In 1801, according to Michael George Mulhall, the relative standing of the five, in the number of persons using them, was as follows:
French 31,450,000
Russian 30,770,000
German 30,320,000
Spanish 26,190,000
English 20,520,000
The population of the United States was then but little more than 5,000,000, but in twenty years it had nearly doubled, and thereafter it increased steadily138 and enormously, and by 1860 it was greater than that of the United Kingdom. Since that time the majority of English-speaking persons in the world have lived on this side of the water; today there are nearly three times as many as in the United Kingdom and nearly twice as many as in the whole British Empire. This great increase in the American population, beginning with the great immigrations of the 30's and 40's, quickly lifted English to fourth place among the languages, and then to third, to second and to first. When it took the lead the attention of philologists was actively139 directed to the matter, and in 1868 one of them, a German named Brackebusch, first seriously raised the question whether English was destined140 to obliterate141 certain of the older tongues.[18] Brackebusch decided142 against on various philological grounds, [Pg314] none of them sound. His own figures, as the following table from his dissertation143 shows,[19] were against him:
English 60,000,000
German 52,000,000
Russian 45,000,000
French 45,000,000
Spanish 40,000,000
This in 1868. Before another generation had passed the lead of English, still because of the great growth of the United States, was yet more impressive, as the following figures for 1890 show:
English 111,100,000
German 75,200,000
Russian 75,000,000
French 51,200,000
Spanish 42,800,000
Italian 33,400,000
Today the figures exceed even these. They show that English is now spoken by two and a half times as many persons as spoke145 it at the close of the American Civil War and by nearly eight times as many as spoke it at the beginning of the nineteenth century. No other language has spread in any such proportions. Even German, which is next on the list, shows but a four-fold gain since 1801, or just half that of English. The number of persons speaking Russian, despite the vast extension of the Russian empire during the last century of the czars, has little more than tripled, and the number speaking French has less than doubled. But here are the figures for 1911:
English 160,000,000
German 130,000,000
Russian 100,000,000
French 70,000,000
Spanish 50,000,000
Italian 50,000,000
Portuguese 25,000,000[21]
Japanese, perhaps, should follow French: it is spoken by 60,000,000 persons. But Chinese may be disregarded, for it is split into half a dozen mutually unintelligible146 dialects, and shows no sign of spreading beyond the limits of China. The same may be said of Hindustani, which is the language of 100,000,000 inhabitants of British India; it shows wide dialectical variations and the people who speak it are not likely to spread. But English is the possession of a race that is still pushing in all directions, and wherever that race settles the existing languages tend to succumb148. Thus French, despite the passionate149 resistance of the French-Canadians, is gradually decaying in Canada; in all the newly-settled regions English is universal. And thus Spanish is dying out in our own Southwest, and promises to meet with severe competition in some of the nearer parts of Latin-America. The English control of the sea has likewise carried the language into far places. There is scarcely a merchant ship-captain on deep water, of whatever nationality, who does not find some acquaintance with it necessary, and it has become, in debased forms, the lingua franca of Oceanica and the Far East generally. "Three-fourths of the world's mail matter," says E. H. Babbitt, "is now addressed in English," and "more than half of the world's newspapers are printed in English."[22]
Brackebusch, in the speculative150 paper just mentioned, came to the conclusion that the future domination of English would be prevented by its unphonetic spelling, its grammatical decay and the general difficulties that a foreigner encounters in seeking to master it. "The simplification of its grammar," he said, "is the commencement of dissolution, the beginning of the end, and its extraordinary tendency to degenerate152 into slang of [Pg316] every kind is the foreshadowing of its approaching dismemberment." But in the same breath he was forced to admit that "the greater development it has obtained" was the result of this very simplification of grammar, and an inspection153 of the rest of his reasoning quickly shows its unsoundness, even without an appeal to the plain facts. The spelling of a language, whether it be phonetic151 or not, has little to do with its spread. Very few men learn it by studying books; they learn it by hearing it spoken. As for grammatical decay, it is not a sign of dissolution, but a sign of active life and constantly renewed strength. To the professional philologist78, perhaps, it may sometimes appear otherwise. He is apt to estimate languages by looking at their complexity154; the Greek aorist elicits155 his admiration156 because it presents enormous difficulties and is inordinately157 subtle. But the object of language is not to bemuse grammarians, but to convey ideas, and the more simply it accomplishes that object the more effectively it meets the needs of an energetic and practical people and the larger its inherent vitality158. The history of every language of Europe, since the earliest days of which we have record, is a history of simplifications. Even such languages as German, which still cling to a great many exasperating159 inflections, including the absurd inflection of the article for gender160, are less highly inflected than they used to be, and are proceeding161 slowly but surely toward analysis. The fact that English has gone further along that road than any other civilized tongue is not a proof of its decrepitude162, but a proof of its continued strength. Brought into free competition with another language, say German or French or Spanish, it is almost certain to prevail, if only because it is vastly easier—that is, as a spoken language—to learn. The foreigner essaying it, indeed, finds his chief difficulty, not in mastering its forms, but in grasping its lack of forms. He doesn't have to learn a new and complex grammar; what he has to do is to forget grammar.
Once he has done so, the rest is a mere matter of acquiring a vocabulary. He can make himself understood, given a few nouns, pronouns, verbs and numerals, without troubling [Pg317] himself in the slightest about accidence. "Me see she" is bad English, perhaps, but it would be absurd to say that it is obscure—and on some not too distant tomorrow it may be very fair American. Essaying an inflected language, the beginner must go into the matter far more deeply before he may hope to be understood. Bradley, in "The Making of English,"[23] shows clearly how German and English differ in this respect, and how great is the advantage of English. In the latter the verb sing has but eight forms, and of these three are entirely obsolete163, one is obsolescent164, and two more may be dropped out without damage to comprehension. In German the corresponding verb, singen, has no less than sixteen forms. How far English has proceeded toward the complete obliteration165 of inflections is shown by such barbarous forms of it as Pigeon English and Beach-la-Mar, in which the final step is taken without appreciable166 loss of clarity. The Pigeon English verb is identical in all tenses. Go stands for both went and gone; makee is both make and made. In the same way there is no declension of the pronoun for case. My is thus I, me, mine and our own my. "No belong my" is "it is not mine"—a crude construction, of course, but still clearly intelligible147. Chinamen learn Pigeon English in a few months, and savages167 in the South Seas master Beach-la-Mar almost as quickly. And a white man, once he has accustomed himself to either, finds it strangely fluent and expressive. He cannot argue politics in it, nor dispute upon transubstantiation, but for all the business of every day it is perfectly satisfactory.
As we have seen in Chapters V and VI, the American dialect of English has gone further along the road thus opened ahead than the mother dialect, and is moving faster. For this reason, and because of the fact that it is already spoken by a far larger and more rapidly multiplying body of people than the latter, it seems to me very likely that it will determine the final form of the language. For the old control of English over American to be reasserted is now quite unthinkable; if the two dialects are not to drift apart entirely English must follow in American's tracks. This yielding seems to have begun; the exchanges from [Pg318] American into English grow steadily larger and more important than the exchanges from English into American. John Richard Green, the historian, discerning the inevitable168 half a century ago, expressed the opinion, amazing and unpalatable then, that the Americans were already "the main branch of the English people." It is not yet wholly true; a cultural timorousness169 yet shows itself; there is still a class which looks to England as the Romans long looked to Greece. But it is not the class that is shaping the national language, and it is not the class that is carrying it beyond the national borders. The Americanisms that flood the English of Canada are not borrowed from the dialects of New England Loyalists and fashionable New Yorkers, but from the common speech that has its sources in the native and immigrant proletariat and that displays its gaudiest170 freightage in the newspapers.
The impact of this flood is naturally most apparent in Canada, whose geographical171 proximity172 and common interests completely obliterate the effects of English political and social dominance. By an Order in Council, passed in 1890, the use of the redundant173 u in such words as honor and labor27 is official in Canada, but practically all the Canadian newspapers omit it. In the same way the American flat a has swept whole sections of the country, and American slang is everywhere used, and the American common speech prevails almost universally in the newer provinces. More remarkable174 is the influence that American has exerted upon the speech of Australia and upon the crude dialects of Oceanica and the Far East. One finds such obvious Americanisms as tomahawk, boss, bush, canoe, go finish (=to die) and pickaninny in Beach-la-Mar[24] and more of them in Pigeon English. And one observes a very large number of American words and phrases in the slang of Australia. The Australian common speech, in pronunciation and intonation175, resembles Cockney English, and a great many Cockneyisms are in it, but despite the small number of Americans in the Antipodes [Pg319] it has adopted, of late, so many Americanisms that a Cockney visitor must often find it difficult. Among them are the verb and verb-phrases, to beef, to biff, to bluff176, to boss, to break away, to chase one's self, to chew the rag, to chip in, to fade away, to get it in the neck, to back and fill, to plug along, to get sore, to turn down and to get wise; the substantives, dope, boss, fake, creek177, knockout-drops and push (in the sense of crowd); the adjectives, hitched178 (in the sense of married) and tough (as before luck), and the adverbial phrases, for keeps and going strong.[25] Here, in direct competition with English locutions, and with all the advantages on the side of the latter, American is making steady progress.
"This American language," says a recent observer, "seems to be much more of a pusher than the English. For instance, after eight years' occupancy of the Philippines it was spoken by 800,000, or 10 per cent, of the natives, while after an occupancy of 150 of India by the British, 3,000,000, or one per cent, of the natives speak English."[26] I do vouch179 for the figures. They may be inaccurate180, in detail, but they at least state what seems to be a fact. Behind that fact are phenomena which certainly deserve careful study, and, above all, study divested181 of unintelligent prejudice. The attempt to make American uniform with English has failed ingloriously; the neglect of its investigation is an evidence of snobbishness182 that is a folly183 of the same sort. It is useless to dismiss the growing peculiarities184 of the American vocabulary and of grammar and syntax in the common speech as vulgarisms beneath serious notice. Such vulgarisms have a way of intrenching themselves, and gathering185 dignity as they grow familiar. "There are but few forms in use," says Lounsbury, "which, judged by a standard previously186 existing, would not be regarded as gross barbarisms."[27] Each language, in such matters, is a law unto itself, and each vigorous dialect, particularly if it be spoken by millions, is a [Pg320] law no less. "It would be as wrong," says Sayce, "to use thou for the nominative thee in the Somersetshire dialect as it is to say thee art instead of you are in the Queen's English." All the American dialect needs, in the long run, to make even pedagogues187 acutely aware of it, is a poet of genius to venture into it, as Chaucer ventured into the despised English of his day, and Dante into the Tuscan dialect, and Luther, in his translation of the Bible, into peasant German. Walt Whitman made a half attempt and then drew back; Lowell, perhaps, also heard the call, but too soon. The Irish dialect of English, vastly less important than the American, has already had its interpreters—Douglas Hyde, John Milington Synge and Augusta Gregory—and with what extraordinary results we all know. Here we have writing that is still indubitably English, but English rid of its artificial restraints and broken to the less self-conscious grammar and syntax of a simple and untutored folk. Synge, in his preface to "The Playboy of the Western World,"[28] tells us how he got his gypsy phrases "through a chink in the floor of the old Wicklow house where I was staying, that let me hear what was being said by the servant girls in the kitchen." There is no doubt, he goes on, that "in the happy ages of literature striking and beautiful phrases were as ready to the story-teller's or the playwright's hand as the rich cloaks and dresses of his time. It is probable that when the Elizabethan dramatist took his ink-horn and sat down to his work he used many phrases that he had just heard, as he sat at dinner, from his mother or his children."
The result, in the case of the neo-Celts, is a dialect that stands incomparably above the tight English of the grammarians—a dialect so na?f, so pliant188, so expressive, and, adeptly189 managed, so beautiful that even purists have begun to succumb to it, and it promises to leave lasting190 marks upon English style. The American dialect has not yet come to that stage. In so far as it is apprehended191 at all it is only in the sense that Irish-English was apprehended a generation ago—that is, as something [Pg321] uncouth192 and comic. But that is the way that new dialects always come in—through a drum-fire of cackles. Given the poet, there may suddenly come a day when our theirns and would'a hads will take on the barbaric stateliness of the peasant locutions of old Maurya in "Riders to the Sea." They seem grotesque and absurd today because the folks who use them seem grotesque and absurd. But that is a too facile logic35 and under it is a false assumption. In all human beings, if only understanding be brought to the business, dignity will be found, and that dignity cannot fail to reveal itself, soon or late, in the words and phrases with which they make known their high hopes and aspirations193 and cry out against the intolerable meaninglessness of life.
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1
platitude
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| n.老生常谈，陈词滥调 | |
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diligent
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| adj.勤勉的，勤奋的 | |
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augment
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| vt.(使)增大，增加，增长，扩张 | |
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succinct
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| adj.简明的，简洁的 | |
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embody
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| vt.具体表达，使具体化；包含，收录 | |
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forth
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| adv.向前；向外，往外 | |
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aphoristic
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| 警句（似）的，格言（似）的 | |
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culminated
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| v.达到极点( culminate的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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mere
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| adj.纯粹的；仅仅，只不过 | |
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strings
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| n.弦 | |
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sonorous
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| adj.响亮的，回响的；adv.圆润低沉地；感人地；n.感人，堂皇 | |
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defective
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| adj.有毛病的，有问题的，有瑕疵的 | |
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defectively
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| adv.有缺陷地，缺乏地 | |
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sage
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| n.圣人，哲人；adj.贤明的，明智的 | |
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mellifluous
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| adj.（音乐等）柔美流畅的 | |
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maxims
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| n.格言，座右铭( maxim的名词复数 ) | |
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precipitate
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| adj.突如其来的；vt.使突然发生；n.沉淀物 | |
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doctrine
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| n.教义；主义；学说 | |
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benignity
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| n.仁慈 | |
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evolutionary
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| adj.进化的；演化的，演变的；[生]进化论的 | |
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virulence
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| n.毒力，毒性；病毒性；致病力 | |
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arsenal
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| n.兵工厂，军械库 | |
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grotesque
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| adj.怪诞的，丑陋的；n.怪诞的图案，怪人（物） | |
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specimen
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| n.样本，标本 | |
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extravagant
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| adj.奢侈的；过分的；(言行等)放肆的 | |
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pungent
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| adj.（气味、味道）刺激性的，辛辣的；尖锐的 | |
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labor
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| n.劳动，努力，工作，劳工；分娩；vi.劳动，努力，苦干；vt.详细分析；麻烦 | |
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retired
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| adj.隐退的，退休的，退役的 | |
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guardians
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| 监护人( guardian的名词复数 )； 保护者，维护者 | |
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civilized
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| a.有教养的，文雅的 | |
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hog
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| n.猪；馋嘴贪吃的人；vt.把…占为己有，独占 | |
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devoted
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| adj.忠诚的，忠实的，热心的，献身于...的 | |
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treatises
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| n.专题著作，专题论文，专著( treatise的名词复数 ) | |
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philological
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| adj.语言学的，文献学的 | |
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logic
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| n.逻辑(学)；逻辑性 | |
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pedant
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| n.迂儒；卖弄学问的人 | |
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pedantic
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| adj.卖弄学问的；迂腐的 | |
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phenomena
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| n.现象 | |
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hospitably
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| 亲切地，招待周到地，善于款待地 | |
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investigation
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| n.调查，调查研究 | |
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judicious
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| adj.明智的，明断的，能作出明智决定的 | |
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scattered
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| adj.分散的，稀疏的；散步的；疏疏落落的 | |
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underlying
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| adj.在下面的，含蓄的，潜在的 | |
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gingery
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| adj.姜味的 | |
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atrophy
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| n./v.萎缩，虚脱，衰退 | |
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remains
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| n.剩余物，残留物；遗体，遗迹 | |
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aloof
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| adj.远离的；冷淡的，漠不关心的 | |
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48
pretentious
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| adj.自命不凡的，自负的，炫耀的 | |
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chastely
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| adv.贞洁地，清高地，纯正地 | |
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jocose
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| adj.开玩笑的，滑稽的 | |
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undoubtedly
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| adv.确实地，无疑地 | |
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adept
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| adj.老练的，精通的 | |
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literally
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| adv.照字面意义，逐字地；确实 | |
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hacks
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| 黑客 | |
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doctorate
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| n.(大学授予的)博士学位 | |
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philology
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| n.语言学；语文学 | |
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57
differentiate
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| vi.(between)区分；vt.区别；使不同 | |
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idiomatic
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| adj.成语的，符合语言习惯的 | |
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legitimate
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| adj.合法的，合理的，合乎逻辑的；v.使合法 | |
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accurately
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| adv.准确地，精确地 | |
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afterward
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| adv.后来；以后 | |
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awfully
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| adv.可怕地，非常地，极端地 | |
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entirely
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| ad.全部地，完整地；完全地，彻底地 | |
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insidious
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| adj.阴险的，隐匿的，暗中为害的，（疾病）不知不觉之间加剧 | |
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quandary
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| n.困惑，进迟两难之境 | |
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etymology
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| n.语源；字源学 | |
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analogous
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| adj.相似的；类似的 | |
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substantive
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| adj.表示实在的；本质的、实质性的；独立的；n.实词，实名词；独立存在的实体 | |
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derived
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| vi.起源；由来；衍生；导出v.得到( derive的过去式和过去分词 )；（从…中）得到获得；源于；（从…中）提取 | |
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perfectly
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| adv.完美地，无可非议地，彻底地 | |
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intriguing
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| adj.有趣的；迷人的v.搞阴谋诡计(intrigue的现在分词)；激起…的好奇心 | |
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pungency
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| n.（气味等的）刺激性；辣；（言语等的）辛辣；尖刻 | |
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applied
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| adj.应用的；v.应用，适用 | |
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derivatives
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| n.衍生性金融商品；派生物，引出物( derivative的名词复数 )；导数 | |
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curiously
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| adv.有求知欲地；好问地；奇特地 | |
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adoption
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| n.采用，采纳，通过；收养 | |
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philologists
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| n.语文学( philology的名词复数 ) | |
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philologist
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| n.语言学者，文献学者 | |
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bard
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| n.吟游诗人 | |
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bustle
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| v.喧扰地忙乱，匆忙，奔忙；n.忙碌；喧闹 | |
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81
huddle
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| vi.挤作一团；蜷缩；vt.聚集；n.挤在一起的人 | |
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hubbub
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| n.嘈杂；骚乱 | |
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discretion
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| n.谨慎；随意处理 | |
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tempted
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| v.怂恿（某人）干不正当的事；冒…的险（tempt的过去分词） | |
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prohibitions
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| 禁令，禁律( prohibition的名词复数 )； 禁酒； 禁例 | |
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watchfulness
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| 警惕，留心； 警觉（性） | |
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camouflage
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| n./v.掩饰，伪装 | |
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habitual
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| adj.习惯性的；通常的，惯常的 | |
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standing
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| n.持续，地位；adj.永久的，不动的，直立的，不流动的 | |
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savor
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| vt.品尝，欣赏；n.味道，风味；情趣，趣味 | |
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ingenuity
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| n.别出心裁；善于发明创造 | |
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exuberance
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| n.丰富；繁荣 | |
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piquancy
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| n.辛辣，辣味，痛快 | |
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incapable
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| adj.无能力的，不能做某事的 | |
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cardinal
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| n.(天主教的)红衣主教；adj.首要的，基本的 | |
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revival
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| n.复兴，复苏，（精力、活力等的）重振 | |
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meteoric
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| adj.流星的，转瞬即逝的，突然的 | |
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expressive
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| adj.表现的，表达…的，富于表情的 | |
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metaphor
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| n.隐喻，暗喻 | |
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100
metaphors
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| 隐喻( metaphor的名词复数 ) | |
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101
transcend
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| vt.超出，超越(理性等)的范围 | |
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102
similes
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| （使用like或as等词语的）明喻( simile的名词复数 ) | |
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103
picturesque
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| adj.美丽如画的，（语言）生动的，绘声绘色的 | |
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104
banal
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| adj.陈腐的，平庸的 | |
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105
cant
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| n.斜穿，黑话，猛扔 | |
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106
dwindle
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| v.逐渐变小（或减少） | |
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107
dignified
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| a.可敬的，高贵的 | |
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108
graft
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| n.移植，嫁接，艰苦工作，贪污；v.移植，嫁接 | |
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109
discourse
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| n.论文，演说；谈话；话语；vi.讲述，著述 | |
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110
gaping
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| adj.口的；张口的；敞口的；多洞穴的v.目瞪口呆地凝视( gape的现在分词 )；张开，张大 | |
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111
generic
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| adj.一般的，普通的，共有的 | |
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112
differentiated
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| 区分，区别，辨别( differentiate的过去式和过去分词 )； 区别对待； 表明…间的差别，构成…间差别的特征 | |
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113
appreciation
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| n.评价；欣赏；感谢；领会，理解；价格上涨 | |
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114
substantives
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| n.作名词用的词或词组（substantive的复数形式） | |
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115
dub
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| vt.（以某种称号）授予，给...起绰号，复制 | |
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116
misuse
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| n.误用，滥用；vt.误用，滥用 | |
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117
tattered
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| adj.破旧的，衣衫破的 | |
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118
obnoxious
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| adj.极恼人的，讨人厌的，可憎的 | |
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119
determined
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| adj.坚定的；有决心的 | |
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120
alas
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| int.唉(表示悲伤、忧愁、恐惧等) | |
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121
afflicted
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| 使受痛苦，折磨( afflict的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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122
clout
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| n.用手猛击；权力，影响力 | |
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123
perch
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| n.栖木，高位，杆；v.栖息，就位，位于 | |
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124
competence
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| n.能力，胜任，称职 | |
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125
connoisseurship
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| n.鉴赏家（或鉴定家、行家）身份，鉴赏（或鉴定）力 | |
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126
literate
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| n.学者；adj.精通文学的，受过教育的 | |
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127
otiose
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| adj.无效的，没有用的 | |
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128
uncommon
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| adj.罕见的，非凡的，不平常的 | |
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129
bombast
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| n.高调，夸大之辞 | |
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130
journalism
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| n.新闻工作，报业 | |
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131
frankly
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| adv.坦白地，直率地；坦率地说 | |
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132
noted
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| adj.著名的，知名的 | |
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133
contagion
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| n.(通过接触的疾病)传染；蔓延 | |
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134
deluged
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| v.使淹没( deluge的过去式和过去分词 )；淹没；被洪水般涌来的事物所淹没；穷于应付 | |
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135
jargon
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| n.术语，行话 | |
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136
shudder
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| v.战粟，震动，剧烈地摇晃；n.战粟，抖动 | |
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137
Founder
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| n.创始者，缔造者 | |
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138
steadily
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| adv.稳定地；不变地；持续地 | |
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139
actively
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| adv.积极地，勤奋地 | |
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140
destined
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| adj.命中注定的；(for)以…为目的地的 | |
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141
obliterate
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| v.擦去，涂抹，去掉...痕迹，消失，除去 | |
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142
decided
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| adj.决定了的，坚决的；明显的，明确的 | |
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143
dissertation
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| n.（博士学位）论文，学术演讲，专题论文 | |
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144
Portuguese
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| n.葡萄牙人；葡萄牙语 | |
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145
spoke
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| n.（车轮的）辐条；轮辐；破坏某人的计划；阻挠某人的行动 v.讲，谈（speak的过去式）；说；演说；从某种观点来说 | |
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146
unintelligible
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| adj.无法了解的，难解的，莫明其妙的 | |
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147
intelligible
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| adj.可理解的，明白易懂的，清楚的 | |
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148
succumb
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| v.屈服，屈从；死 | |
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149
passionate
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| adj.热情的，热烈的，激昂的，易动情的，易怒的，性情暴躁的 | |
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150
speculative
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| adj.思索性的，暝想性的，推理的 | |
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151
phonetic
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| adj.语言的，语言上的，表示语音的 | |
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152
degenerate
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| v.退步，堕落；adj.退步的，堕落的；n.堕落者 | |
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153
inspection
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| n.检查，审查，检阅 | |
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154
complexity
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| n.复杂(性)，复杂的事物 | |
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155
elicits
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| 引出，探出( elicit的第三人称单数 ) | |
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156
admiration
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| n.钦佩，赞美，羡慕 | |
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157
inordinately
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| adv.无度地，非常地 | |
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158
vitality
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| n.活力，生命力，效力 | |
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159
exasperating
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| adj. 激怒的 动词exasperate的现在分词形式 | |
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160
gender
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| n.（生理上的）性，（名词、代词等的）性 | |
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161
proceeding
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| n.行动，进行，(pl.)会议录，学报 | |
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162
decrepitude
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| n.衰老；破旧 | |
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163
obsolete
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| adj.已废弃的，过时的 | |
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164
obsolescent
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| adj.过时的，难管束的 | |
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165
obliteration
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| n.涂去，删除；管腔闭合 | |
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166
appreciable
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| adj.明显的，可见的，可估量的，可觉察的 | |
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167
savages
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| 未开化的人，野蛮人( savage的名词复数 ) | |
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168
inevitable
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| adj.不可避免的，必然发生的 | |
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169
timorousness
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| n.羞怯，胆怯 | |
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170
gaudiest
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| adj.花哨的，俗气的( gaudy的最高级 ) | |
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171
geographical
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| adj.地理的；地区(性)的 | |
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172
proximity
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| n.接近，邻近 | |
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173
redundant
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| adj.多余的，过剩的；(食物)丰富的；被解雇的 | |
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174
remarkable
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| adj.显著的，异常的，非凡的，值得注意的 | |
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175
intonation
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| n.语调，声调；发声 | |
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176
bluff
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| v.虚张声势，用假象骗人；n.虚张声势，欺骗 | |
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177
creek
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| n.小溪，小河，小湾 | |
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178
hitched
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| （免费）搭乘他人之车( hitch的过去式和过去分词 )； 搭便车； 攀上； 跃上 | |
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179
vouch
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| v.担保；断定；n.被担保者 | |
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180
inaccurate
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| adj.错误的，不正确的，不准确的 | |
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181
divested
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| v.剥夺( divest的过去式和过去分词 )；脱去（衣服）；2。从…取去…；1。（给某人）脱衣服 | |
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182
snobbishness
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| 势利； 势利眼 | |
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183
folly
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| n.愚笨，愚蠢，蠢事，蠢行，傻话 | |
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184
peculiarities
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| n. 特质, 特性, 怪癖, 古怪 | |
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185
gathering
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| n.集会，聚会，聚集 | |
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186
previously
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| adv.以前，先前（地） | |
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187
pedagogues
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| n.教师，卖弄学问的教师( pedagogue的名词复数 ) | |
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188
pliant
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| adj.顺从的；可弯曲的 | |
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189
adeptly
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190
lasting
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| adj.永久的，永恒的；vbl.持续，维持 | |
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191
apprehended
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| 逮捕，拘押( apprehend的过去式和过去分词 )； 理解 | |
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192
uncouth
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| adj.无教养的，粗鲁的 | |
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193
aspirations
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| 强烈的愿望( aspiration的名词复数 )； 志向； 发送气音； 发 h 音 | |
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