Chapter IX: Miscellanea, 301 (5)

An Englishman, entering his home, does not walk in upon the [Pg103] /first floor/, but upon the /ground floor/. What he calls the /first floor/ (or, more commonly, /first storey/, not forgetting the penultimate /e/!) is what we call the /second floor/, and so on up to the roof--which is covered not with /tin/, but with /slate/, /tiles/ or /leads/. He does not /take/ a paper; he /takes in/ a paper. He does not ask his servant, "is there any /mail/ for me?" but, "are there any /letters/ for me?" for /mail/, in the American sense, is a word that he seldom uses, save in such compounds as /mail-van/ and /mail-train/. He always speaks of it as /the post/. The man who brings it is not a /letter-carrier/, but a /postman/. It is /posted/, not /mailed/, at a /pillar-box/, not at a /mail-box/. It never includes /postal-cards/, but only /post-cards/; never /money-orders/, but only /postal-orders/. The Englishman dictates his answers, not to a /typewriter/, but to a /typist/; a /typewriter/ is merely the machine. If he desires the recipient to call him by telephone he doesn't say, "/phone me/ at a quarter /of/ eight," but "/ring me up/ at a quarter /to/ eight." And when the call comes he says "/are you there?/" When he gets home, he doesn't find his wife waiting for him in the /parlor/ or /living-room/,[4] but in the /drawing-room/ or in her /sitting-room/, and the tale of domestic disaster that she has to tell does not concern the /hired-girl/ but the /slavey/ and the /scullery-maid/. He doesn't bring her a box of /candy/, but a box of /sweets/. He doesn't leave a /derby/ hat in the hall, but a /bowler/. His wife doesn't wear /shirtwaists/ but /blouses/. When she buys one she doesn't say "/charge it/" but "/put it down/." When she orders a /tailor-made suit/, she calls it a /coat-and-skirt/. When she wants a /spool of thread/ she asks for a /reel of cotton/. Such things are bought, not in the /department-stores/, but at the /stores/, which are substantially the same thing. In these stores /calico/ means a plain cotton cloth; in the United States it means a printed cotton cloth. Things bought on the instalment plan in England are said to be bought on the /hire-purchase/ plan or system; the instalment business itself is the /credit-trade/. Goods ordered by /post/ (not mail) on which the dealer pays the cost of transportation are said to be sent, not /postpaid/ or /prepaid/, but /post-free/ or /carriage-paid/. [Pg104]

An Englishman does not wear /suspenders/ and /neckties/, but /braces/ and /cravats/. /Suspenders/ are his wife's garters; his own are /sock-suspenders/. The family does not seek sustenance in a /rare tenderloin/ and /squash/, but in /underdone under-cut/ and /vegetable marrow/. It does not eat /beets/, but /beet-roots/. The wine on the table, if miraculously German, is not /Rhine wine/, but /Hock/.... The maid who laces the stays of the mistress of the house is not /Maggie/ but /Robinson/. The nurse-maid is not /Lizzie/ but /Nurse/. So, by the way, is a trained nurse in a hospital, whose full style is not /Miss Jones/, but /Nurse Jones/. And the hospital itself, if private, is not a hospital at all, but a /nursing-home/, and its trained nurses are plain /nurses/, or /hospital nurses/, or maybe /nursing sisters/. And the white-clad young gentlemen who make love to them are not /studying medicine/ but /walking the hospitals/. Similarly, an English law student does not study law, but /the/ law.

If an English boy goes to a /public school/, it is not a sign that he is getting his education free, but that his father is paying a good round sum for it and is accepted as a gentleman. A /public school/ over there corresponds to our /prep school/; it is a place maintained chiefly by endowments, wherein boys of the upper classes are prepared for the universities. What we know as a /public school/ is called a /board school/ in England, not because the pupils are boarded but because it is managed by a school board. English school-boys are divided, not into /classes/, or /grades/, but into /forms/, which are numbered, the lowest being the /first form/. The benches they sit on are also called /forms/. The principal of an English school is a /head-master/ or /head-mistress/; the lower pedagogues used to be /ushers/, but are now /assistant masters/ (or /mistresses/). The head of a university is a /chancellor/. He is always some eminent public man, and a /vice-chancellor/ performs his duties. The head of a mere college may be a /president/, /principal/, /rector/, /dean/ or /provost/. At the universities the students are not divided into /freshmen/, /sophomores/, /juniors/ and /seniors/, as with us, but are simply /first-year men/, /second-year men/, and so on. Such distinctions, however, are not as important in England as in America; members of the university (they are called [Pg105] /members/, not /students/) do not flock together according to seniority. An English university man does not /study/; he /reads/. He knows nothing of /frats/, /class-days/, /senior-proms/ and such things; save at Cambridge and Dublin he does not even have a /commencement/. On the other hand his daily speech is full of terms unintelligible to an American student, for example, /wrangler/, /tripos/, /head/, /pass-degree/ and /don/.

The upkeep of board-schools in England comes out of the /rates/, which are local taxes levied upon householders. For that reason an English municipal taxpayer is called a /ratepayer/. The functionaries who collect and spend his money are not /office-holders/ but /public-servants/. The head of the local police is not a /chief of police/, but a /chief constable/. The fire /department/ is the fire /brigade/. The /street-cleaner/ is a /crossing-sweeper/. The parish /poorhouse/ is a /workhouse/. If it is maintained by two or more parishes jointly it becomes a /union/. A pauper who accepts its hospitality is said to be /on the rates/. A policeman is a /bobby/ familiarly and /constable/ officially. He is commonly mentioned in the newspapers, not by his surname, but as /P. C. 643a/--/i. e./, Police Constable No. 643a. The /fire laddie/, the /ward executive/, the /roundsman/, the /strong-arm squad/ and other such objects of American devotion are unknown in England. An English saloon-keeper is officially a licensed /victualler/. His saloon is a /public house/, or, colloquially, a /pub/. He does not sell beer by the /bucket/ or /can/ or /growler/ or /schooner/, but by the /pint/. He and his brethren, taken together, are the /licensed trade/. His back-room is a /parlor/. If he has a few upholstered benches in his place he usually calls it a /lounge/. He employs no /bartenders/ or /mixologists/. /Barmaids/ do the work, with maybe a /barman/ to help.

The American language, as we have seen, has begun to take in the English /boot/ and /shop/, and it is showing hospitality to /head-master/, /haberdasher/ and /week-end/, but /subaltern/, /civil servant/, /porridge/, /moor/, /draper/, /treacle/, /tram/ and /mufti/ are still strangers in the United States, as /bleachers/, /picayune/, /air-line/, /campus/, /chore/, /scoot/, /stogie/ and /hoodoo/ are in England. A /subaltern/ is a commissioned officer in the army, under the rank of [Pg106] captain. A /civil servant/ is a public servant in the national civil service; if he is of high rank, he is usually called a /permanent official/. /Porridge/, /moor/, /scullery/, /draper/, /treacle/ and /tram/, though unfamiliar, still need no explanation. /Mufti/ means ordinary male clothing; an army officer out of uniform is said to be in /mufti/. To this officer a sack-suit or business-suit is a /lounge-suit/. He carries his clothes, not in a /trunk/ or /grip/ or /suit-case/, but in a /box/. He does not /miss/ a train; he /loses/ it. He does not ask for a /round-trip/ ticket, but for a /return/ ticket. If he proposes to go to the theatre he does not /reserve/ or /engage/ seats; he /books/ them, and not at the /box-office/, but at the /booking-office/. If he sits downstairs, it is not in the /orchestra/, but in the /stalls/. If he likes vaudeville, he goes to a /music-hall/, where the /head-liners/ are /top-liners/. If he has to stand in line, he does it, not in a /line/, but in a /queue/.

In England a corporation is a /public company/ or /limited liability company/. The term /corporation/, over there, is applied to the mayor, aldermen and sheriffs of a city, as in /the London corporation/. An Englishman writes /Ltd./ after the name of an incorporated bank or trading company as we write /Inc./ He calls its president its /chairman/ or /managing director/. Its stockholders are its /shareholders/, and hold /shares/ instead of /stock/ in it. Its bonds are /debentures/. The place wherein such companies are floated and looted--the Wall Street of England--is called the /City/, with a capital /C/. Bankers, stock-jobbers, promoters, directors and other such leaders of its business are called /City/ men. The financial editor of a newspaper is its /City/ editor. Government bonds are /consols/, or /stocks/, or the /funds/.[5] To have /money in the stocks/ is to own such bonds. Promissory notes are /bills/. An Englishman hasn't a /bank-account/, but a /banking-account/. He draws /cheques/ (not /checks/), not on his /bank/, but on his /bankers/.[6] In England there is a rigid distinction between a /broker/ and a /stock-broker/. A /broker/ means, not a dealer in [Pg107] securities, as in our /Wall Street broker/, but a dealer in second-hand furniture. /To have the brokers/[7] /in the house/ means to be bankrupt, with one's very household goods in the hands of one's creditors.

/Tariff reform/, in England, does not mean a movement toward free trade, but one toward protection. The word /Government/, meaning what we call the administration, is always capitalized and plural, /e. g./, "The Government /are/ considering the advisability, etc." /Vestry/, /committee/, /council/, /ministry/ and even /company/ are also plural, though sometimes not capitalized. A member of Parliament does not /run/ for office; he /stands/.[8] He does not make a /campaign/, but a /canvass/. He does not represent a /district/, but a /division/ or /constituency/. He never makes a /stumping trip/, but always a /speaking tour/. When he looks after his fences he calls it /nursing the constituency/. At a political meeting (they are often rough in England) the /bouncers/ are called /stewards/; the suffragettes used to delight in stabbing them with hatpins. A member of Parliament is not afflicted by the numerous bugaboos that menace an American congressman. He knows nothing of /lame ducks/, /pork barrels/, /gag-rule/, /junkets/, /gerrymanders/, /omnibus bills/, /snakes/, /niggers in the woodpile/, /Salt river/, /crow/, /bosses/, /ward heelers/, /men higher up/, /silk-stockings/, /repeaters/, /ballot-box stuffers/ and /straight/ and /split tickets/ (he always calls them /ballots/ or /voting papers/). He has never heard of /direct primaries/, the /recall/ or the /initiative and referendum/. A /roll-call/ in Parliament is a /division/. A member speaking is said to be /up/ or /on his legs/. When the house adjourns it is said to /rise/. A member referring to another in the course of a debate does not say "the gentleman from Manchester," but "the /honorable/ gentleman" (written /hon. gentleman/) or, if he happens to be a privy councillor, "the /right honorable/ gentleman," or, if he is a member for one of the universities, "the /honorable and learned/ gentleman." If the speaker chooses to be intimate or facetious, he may say "my honorable /friend/." [Pg108]

In the United States a /pressman/ is a man who runs a printing press; in England he is a newspaper reporter, or, as the English usually say, a /journalist/.[9] This journalist works, not at /space/ rates, but at /lineage/ rates. A printing press is a /machine/. An editorial in a newspaper is a /leading article/ or /leader/. An editorial paragraph is a /leaderette/. A newspaper clipping is a /cutting/. A proof-reader is a /corrector of the press/. A pass to the theatre is an /order/. The room-clerk of a hotel is the /secretary/. A real-estate agent or dealer is an /estate-agent/. The English keep up most of the old distinctions between physicians and surgeons, barristers and solicitors. A surgeon is often plain /Mr./, and not /Dr./ Neither he nor a doctor has an /office/, but always a /surgery/ or /consulting room/. A barrister is greatly superior to a solicitor. He alone can address the higher courts and the parliamentary committees; a solicitor must keep to office work and the courts of first instance. A man with a grievance goes first to his solicitor, who then /instructs/ or /briefs/ a barrister for him. If that barrister, in the course of the trial, wants certain evidence removed from the record, he moves that it be /struck out/, not /stricken out/, as an American lawyer would say. Only barristers may become judges. An English barrister, like his American brother, takes a /retainer/ when he is engaged. But the rest of his fee does not wait upon the termination of the case: he expects and receives a /refresher/ from time to time. A barrister is never admitted to the bar, but is always /called/. If he becomes a /King's Counsel/, or /K. C./ (a purely honorary appointment), he is said to have /taken silk/.

The common objects and phenomena of nature are often differently named in English and American. As we saw in a previous chapter, such Americanisms as /creek/ and /run/, for small streams, are practically unknown in England, and the English /moor/ and /downs/ early disappeared from American. The Englishman knows the meaning of /sound/ (/e. g./, Long Island /Sound/), but he [Pg109] nearly always uses /channel/ in place of it. In the same way the American knows the meaning of the English /bog/, but rejects the English distinction between it and /swamp/, and almost always uses /swamp/, or /marsh/ (often elided to /ma'sh/). The Englishman seldom, if ever, describes a severe storm as a /hurricane/, a /cyclone/, a /tornado/ or a /blizzard/. He never uses /cold-snap/, /cloudburst/ or /under the weather/. He does not say that the temperature is /29 degrees/ (Fahrenheit) or that the thermometer or the mercury is at 29 degrees, but that there are /three degrees of frost/. He calls ice water /iced-water/. He knows nothing of /blue-grass/ country or of /pennyr'yal/. What we call the /mining regions/ he knows as the /black country/. He never, of course, uses /down-East/ or /up-State/. Many of our names for common fauna and flora are unknown to him save as strange Americanisms, /e. g./, /terrapin/, /moose/, /persimmon/, /gumbo/, /egg-plant/, /alfalfa/, /sweet-corn/, /sweet-potato/ and /yam/. Until lately he called the /grapefruit/ a /shaddock/. He still calls the /beet/ a /beet-root/ and the /rutabaga/ a /mangel-wurzel/. He is familiar with many fish that we seldom see, /e. g./, the /turbot/. He also knows the /hare/, which is seldom heard of in America. But he knows nothing of /devilled-crabs/, /crab-cocktails/, /clam-chowder/ or /oyster-stews/, and he never goes to /oyster-suppers/, /clam-bakes/ or /burgoo-picnics/. He doesn't buy /peanuts/ when he goes to the circus. He calls them /monkey-nuts/, and to eat them publicly is /infra dig/. The common American use of /peanut/ as an adjective of disparagement, as in /peanut politics/, is incomprehensible to him.

In England a /hack/ is not a public coach, but a horse let out at hire, or one of similar quality. A life insurance policy is usually not an insurance policy at all, but an /assurance/ policy. What we call the normal income tax is the /ordinary/ tax; what we call the surtax is the /supertax/.[10] An Englishman never lives /on/ a street, but always /in/ it. He never lives in a /block/ of houses, but in a /row/; it is never in a /section/ of the city, but always in a /district/. Going home by train he always takes the /down-train/, no matter whether he be proceeding southward to Wimbleton, [Pg110] westward to Shepherd's Bush, northward to Tottenham or eastward to Noak's Hill. A train headed toward London is always an /up-train/, and the track it runs on is the /up-line/. /Eastbound/ and /westbound/ tracks and trains are unknown in England. When an Englishman boards a bus it is not at a /street-corner/, but at a /crossing/, though he is familiar with such forms as Hyde Park /Corner/. The place he is bound for is not three /squares/ or /blocks/ away, but three /turnings/. /Square/, in England, always means a small park. A backyard is a /garden/. A subway is always a /tube/, or the /underground/, or the /Metro/. But an underground passage for pedestrians is a /subway/. English streets have no /sidewalks/; they always call them /pavements/ or /footways/. An automobile is always a /motor-car/ or /motor/. /Auto/ is almost unknown, and with it the verb /to auto/. So is /machine/. So is /joy-ride/.

An Englishman always calls russet, yellow or tan shoes /brown/ shoes (or, if they cover the ankle, /boots/). He calls a pocketbook a /purse/, and gives the name of /pocketbook/ to what we call a /memorandum-book/. His walking-stick is always a /stick/, never a /cane/. By /cord/ he means something strong, almost what we call /twine/; a thin cord he always calls a /string/; his /twine/ is the lightest sort of /string/. When he applies the adjective /homely/ to a woman he means that she is simple and home-loving, not necessarily that she is plain. He uses /dessert/, not to indicate the whole last course at dinner, but to designate the fruit only; the rest is /ices/ or /sweets/. He uses /vest/, not in place of /waistcoat/, but in place of /undershirt/. Similarly, he applies /pants/, not to his trousers, but to his drawers. An Englishman who inhabits bachelor quarters is said to live in /chambers/; if he has a flat he calls it a /flat/, and not an /apartment/;[11] /flat-houses/ are often /mansions/. The janitor or superintendent thereof is a /care-taker/. The scoundrels who snoop around in search of divorce evidence are not /private detectives/, but /private enquiry agents/. [Pg111]

The Englishman is naturally unfamiliar with baseball, and in consequence his language is bare of the countless phrases and metaphors that it has supplied to American. Many of these phrases and metaphors are in daily use among us, for example, /fan/, /rooter/, /bleachers/, /batting-average/, /double-header/, /pennant-winner/, /gate-money/, /busher/, /minor-leaguer/, /glass-arm/, /to strike out/, /to foul/, /to be shut out/, /to coach/, /to play ball/, /on the bench/, /on to his curves/ and /three strikes and out/. The national game of draw-poker has also greatly enriched American with terms that are either quite unknown to the Englishman, or known to him only as somewhat dubious Americanisms, among them /cold-deck/, /kitty/, /full-house/, /divvy/, /a card up his sleeve/, /three-of-a-kind/, /to ante up/, /to pony up/, /to hold out/, /to cash in/, /to go it one better/, /to chip in/ and /for keeps/. But the Englishman uses many more racing terms and metaphors than we do, and he has got a good many phrases from other games, particularly cricket. The word /cricket/ itself has a definite figurative meaning. It indicates, in general, good sportsmanship. To take unfair advantage of an opponent is not /cricket/. The sport of boating, so popular on the Thames, has also given colloquial English some familiar terms, almost unknown in the United States, /e. g./, /punt/ and /weir/. Contrariwise, /pungy/, /batteau/ and /scow/ are unheard of in England, and /canoe/ is not long emerged from the estate of an Americanism.[12] The game known as /ten-pins/ in America is called /nine-pins/ in England, and once had that name over here. The Puritans forbade it, and its devotees changed its name in order to evade the prohibition.[13] Finally, there is /soccer/, a form of football quite unknown in the United States. What we call simply football is /Rugby/ or /Rugger/ to the Englishman. The word /soccer/ is derived from /association/; the rules of the game were [Pg112] established by the London Football Association. /Soccer/ is one of the relatively few English experiments in ellipsis. Another is to be found in /Bakerloo/, the name of one of the London underground lines, from /Baker-street/ and /Waterloo/, its termini.

The English have an ecclesiastical vocabulary with which we are almost unacquainted, and it is in daily use, for the church bulks large in public affairs over there. Such terms as /vicar/, /canon/, /verger/, /prebendary/, /primate/, /curate/, /non-conformist/, /dissenter/, /convocation/, /minster/, /chapter/, /crypt/, /living/, /presentation/, /glebe/, /benefice/, /locum tenens/, /suffragan/, /almoner/, /dean/ and /pluralist/ are to be met with in the English newspapers constantly, but on this side of the water they are seldom encountered. Nor do we hear much of /matins/, /lauds/, /lay-readers/, /ritualism/ and the /liturgy/. The English use of /holy orders/ is also strange to us. They do not say that a young man is /studying for the ministry/, but that he is /reading for holy orders/. They do not say that he is /ordained/, but that he /takes orders/. Save he be in the United Free Church of Scotland, he is never a /minister/; save he be a nonconformist, he is never a /pastor/; a clergyman of the Establishment is always either a /rector/, a /vicar/ or a /curate/, and colloquially a /parson/.

In American /chapel/ simply means a small church, usually the branch of some larger one; in English it has the special sense of a place of worship unconnected with the establishment. Though three-fourths of the people of Ireland are Catholics (in Munster and Connaught, more than nine-tenths), and the Protestant Church of Ireland has been disestablished since 1871, a Catholic place of worship in the country is still a /chapel/ and not a /church/.[14] So is a Methodist wailing-place in England, however large it may be, though now and then /tabernacle/ is substituted. In the same way the English Catholics sometimes vary /chapel/ with /oratory/, as in /Brompton Oratory/. A Methodist, in Great [Pg113] Britain, is not a /Methodist/, but a /Wesleyan/. Contrariwise, what the English call simply a /churchman/ is an /Episcopalian/ in the United States, what they call the /Church/ (always capitalized!) is the /Protestant Episcopal/ Church,[15] what they call a /Roman Catholic/ is simply a /Catholic/, and what they call a /Jew/ is usually softened (if he happens to be an advertiser) to a /Hebrew/. The English Jews have no such idiotic fear of the plain name as that which afflicts the more pushing and obnoxious of the race in America.[16] "News of /Jewry/" is a common head-line in the /London Daily Telegraph/, which is owned by Lord Burnham, a Jew, and has had many Jews on its staff, including Judah P. Benjamin, the American. The American language, of course, knows nothing of /dissenters/. Nor of such gladiators of dissent as the /Plymouth Brethren/, nor of the /nonconformist conscience/, though the United States suffers from it even more damnably than England. The English, to make it even, get on without /circuit-riders/, /holy-rollers/, /Dunkards/, /Seventh Day Adventists/ and other such American /ferae naturae/, and are born, live, die and go to heaven without the aid of either the /uplift/ or the /chautauqua/.

In music the English cling to an archaic and unintelligible nomenclature, long since abandoned in America. Thus they call a double whole note a /breve/, a whole note a /semibreve/, a half note a /minim/, a quarter note a /crotchet/, an eighth note a /quaver/, a sixteenth note a /semi-quaver/, a thirty-second note a /demisemiquaver/, and a sixty-fourth note a /hemidemisemiquaver/, or /semidemisemiquaver/. If, by any chance, an English musician should write a one-hundred-and- twenty-eighth note he probably wouldn't know what to call it. This clumsy terminology goes back to the days of plain chant, with its /longa/, /brevis/, /semi-brevis/, /minima/ and /semiminima/. The French and Italians cling to a system almost as confusing, but the Germans use /ganze/, /halbe/, /viertel/, [Pg114] /achtel/, etc. I have been unable to discover the beginnings of the American system, but it would seem to be borrowed from the German. Since the earliest times the majority of music teachers in the United States have been Germans, and most of the rest have had German training.

In the same way the English hold fast to a clumsy and inaccurate method of designating the sizes of printers' types. In America the simple point system makes the business easy; a line of /14-point/ type occupies exactly the vertical space of two lines of /7-point/. But the English still indicate differences in size by such arbitrary and confusing names as /brilliant/, /diamond/, /small pearl/, /pearl/, /ruby/, /ruby-nonpareil/, /nonpareil/, /minion-nonpareil/, /emerald/, /minion/, /brevier/, /bourgeois/, /long primer/, /small pica/, /pica/, /English/, /great primer/ and /double pica/. They also cling to a fossil system of numerals in stating ages. Thus, an Englishman will say that he is /seven-and-forty/, not that he is /forty-seven/. This is probably a direct survival, preserved by more than a thousand years of English conservatism, of the Anglo-Saxon /seofan-and-feowertig/. He will also say that he weighs eleven /stone/ instead of 154 pounds. A /stone/ is 14 pounds, and it is always used in stating the heft of a man. Finally, he employs such designations of time as /fortnight/ and /twelvemonth/ a great deal more than we do, and has certain special terms of which we know nothing, for example, /quarter-day/, /bank holiday/, /long vacation/, /Lady Day/ and /Michaelmas/. /Per contra/, he knows nothing whatever of our /Thanksgiving/, /Arbor/, /Labor/ and /Decoration Days/, or of /legal holidays/, or of /Yom Kippur/.

In English usage, to proceed, the word /directly/ is always used to signify /immediately/; in American a contingency gets into it, and it may mean no more than /soon/. In England /quite/ means "completely, wholly, entirely, altogether, to the utmost extent, nothing short of, in the fullest sense, positively, absolutely"; in America it is conditional, and means only nearly, approximately, substantially, as in "he sings /quite/ well." An Englishman does not say "I will pay you /up/" for an injury, but "I will pay you /back/." He doesn't look /up/ a definition in a dictionary; he looks it /out/. He doesn't say, being ill, "I am /getting/ on well," but [Pg115] "I am /going/ on well." He doesn't use the American "different /from/" or "different /than/"; he uses "different /to/." He never adds the pronoun in such locutions as "it hurts /me/," but says simply "it hurts." He never "catches /up with you/" on the street; he "catches /you up/." He never says "are you through?" but "have you finished?" He never uses /to notify/ as a transitive verb; an official act may be /notified/, but not a person. He never uses /gotten/ as the perfect participle of /get/; he always uses plain /got/.[17] An English servant never washes the /dishes/; she always washes the /dinner/ or /tea things/. She doesn't /live out/, but /goes into service/. She smashes, not the /mirror/, but the /looking-glass/. Her beau is not her /fellow/, but her /young man/. She does not /keep company/ with him but /walks out/ with him.

That an Englishman always calls out "/I/ say!", and not simply "say!" when he desires to attract a friend's attention or register a protestation of incredulity--this perhaps is too familiar to need notice. His "/hear, hear!/" and "/oh, oh!/" are also well known. He is much less prodigal with /good-bye/ than the American; he uses /good-day/ and /good-afternoon/ far more often. A shop-assistant would never say /good-bye/ to a customer. To an Englishman it would have a subtly offensive smack; /good-afternoon/ would be more respectful. Another word that makes him flinch is /dirt/. He never uses it, as we do, to describe the soil in the garden; he always says /earth/. Various very common American phrases are quite unknown to him, for example, /over his signature/, /on time/ and /planted to corn/. The first-named he never uses, and he has no equivalent for it; an Englishman who issues a signed statement simply makes it /in writing/. He knows nothing of our common terms of disparagement, such as /kike/, /wop/, /yap/ and /rube/. His pet-name for a tiller of the soil is not /Rube/ or /Cy/, but /Hodge/. When he goes gunning he does not call it /hunting/, but /shooting/; /hunting/ is reserved for the chase of the fox.

An intelligent Englishwoman, coming to America to live, told me that the two things which most impeded her first communications with untravelled Americans, even above the gross differences [Pg116] between England and American pronunciation and intonation, were the complete absence of the general utility adjective /jolly/ from the American vocabulary, and the puzzling omnipresence and versatility of the American verb /to fix/. In English colloquial usage /jolly/ means almost anything; it intensifies all other adjectives, even including /miserable/ and /homesick/. An Englishman is /jolly/ tired, /jolly/ hungry or /jolly well/ tired; his wife is /jolly/ sensible; his dog is /jolly/ keen; the prices he pays for things are /jolly dear/ (never /steep/ or /stiff/ or /high/: all Americanisms). But he has no noun to match the American /proposition/, meaning proposal, business, affair, case, consideration, plan, theory, solution and what not: only the German /zug/ can be ranged beside it.[18] And he has no verb in such wide practise as /to fix/. In his speech it means only to make fast or to determine. In American it may mean to repair, as in "the plumber /fixed/ the pipe"; to dress, as in "Mary /fixed/ her hair"; to prepare, as in "the cook is /fixing/ the gravy"; to bribe, as in "the judge was /fixed/"; to settle, as in "the quarrel was /fixed/ up"; to heal, as in "the doctor /fixed/ his boil"; to finish, as in "Murphy /fixed/ Sweeney in the third round"; to be well-to-do, as in "John is well-/fixed/"; to arrange, as in "I /fixed/ up the quarrel"; to be drunk, as in "the whiskey /fixed/ him"; to punish, as in "I'll /fix/ him"; and to correct, as in "he /fixed/ my bad Latin." Moreover, it is used in all its English senses. An Englishman never goes to a dentist to have his teeth /fixed/. He does not /fix/ the fire; he /makes it up/, or /mends/ it. He is never /well-fixed/, either in money or by liquor.[19]

The English use /quite/ a great deal more than we do, and, as we have seen, in a different sense. /Quite rich/, in American, [Pg117] means tolerably rich, richer than most; /quite so/, in English, is identical in meaning with /exactly so/. In American /just/ is almost equivalent to the English /quite/, as in /just lovely/. Thornton shows that this use of /just/ goes back to 1794. The word is also used in place of /exactly/ in other ways, as in /just in time/, /just how many/ and /just what do you mean?/

§ 3

/Honorifics/--Among the honorifics and euphemisms in everyday use one finds many notable divergences between the two languages. On the one hand the English are almost as diligent as the Germans in bestowing titles of honor upon their men of mark, and on the other hand they are very careful to withhold such titles from men who do not legally bear them. In America every practitioner of any branch of the healing art, even a chiropodist or an osteopath, is a doctor /ipso facto/, but in England, as we have seen, a good many surgeons lack the title and it is not common in the lesser ranks. Even graduate physicians may not have it, but here there is a yielding of the usual meticulous exactness, and it is customary to address a physician in the second person as /Doctor/, though his card may show that he is only /Medicinae Baccalaureus/, a degree quite unknown in America. Thus an Englishman, when he is ill, always sends for the /doctor/, as we do. But a surgeon is usually plain /Mr./[20] An English veterinarian or dentist or druggist or masseur is never /Dr./

Nor /Professor/. In all save a few large cities of America every male pedagogue is a professor, and so is every band leader, dancing master and medical consultant. But in England the title is very rigidly restricted to men who hold chairs in the universities, a necessarily small body. Even here a superior title [Pg118] always takes precedence. Thus, it used to be /Professor/ Almroth Wright, but now it is always /Sir/ Almroth Wright. Huxley was always called /Professor/ Huxley until he was appointed to the Privy Council. This appointment gave him the right to have /Right Honourable/ put before his name, and thereafter it was customary to call him simply /Mr./ Huxley, with the /Right Honourable/, so to speak, floating in the air. The combination, to an Englishman, was more flattering than /Professor/, for the English always esteem political dignities far more than the dignities of learning. This explains, perhaps, why their universities distribute so few honorary degrees. In the United States every respectable Protestant clergyman is a D.D., and it is almost impossible for a man to get into the papers without becoming an LL.D.,[21] but in England such honors are granted only grudgingly. So with military titles. To promote a war veteran from sergeant to colonel by acclamation, as is often done in the United States, is unknown over there. The English have nothing equivalent to the gaudy tin soldiers of our governors' staffs, nor to the bespangled colonels and generals of the Knights Templar and Patriarchs Militant, nor to the nondescript captains and majors of our country towns. An English railroad conductor (/railway guard/) is never /Captain/, as he always is in the United States. Nor are military titles used by the police. Nor is it the custom to make every newspaper editor a colonel, as is done south of the Potomac. Nor is an attorney-general or postmaster-general called /General/. Nor are the glories of public office, after they have officially come to an end, embalmed in such clumsy quasi-titles as /ex-United States Senator/, /ex-Judge of the Circuit Court of Appeals/, /ex-Federal Trade Commissioner/ and /former Chief of the Fire Department/.

But perhaps the greatest difference between English and American usage is presented by /the Honorable/. In the United States the title is applied loosely to all public officials of apparent respectability, from senators and ambassadors to the mayors of [Pg119] fifth-rate cities and the members of state legislatures, and with some show of official sanction to many of them, especially congressmen. But it is questionable whether this application has any actual legal standing, save perhaps in the case of certain judges. Even the President of the United States, by law, is not /the Honorable/, but simply /the President/. In the First Congress the matter of his title was exhaustively debated; some members wanted to call him /the Honorable/ and others proposed /His Excellency/ and even /His Highness/. But the two Houses finally decided that it was "not proper to annex any style or title other than that expressed by the Constitution." Congressmen themselves are not /Honorables/. True enough, the /Congressional Record/, in printing a set speech, calls it "Speech of /Hon./ John Jones" (without the /the/ before the /Hon./--a characteristic Americanism), but in reporting the ordinary remarks of a member it always calls him plain /Mr./ Nevertheless, a country congressman would be offended if his partisans, in announcing his appearance on the stump, did not prefix /Hon./ to his name. So would a state senator. So would a mayor or governor. I have seen the sergeant-at-arms of the United States Senate referred to as /Hon./ in the records of that body.[22] More, the prefix is actually usurped by the Superintendent of State Prisons of New York.[23]

In England the thing is more carefully ordered, and bogus /Hons./ are unknown. The prefix is applied to both sexes and belongs by law, /inter alia/, to all present or past maids of honor, to all justices of the High Court during their terms of office, to the Scotch Lords of Session, to the sons and daughters of viscounts and barons, to the younger sons and all daughters of earls, and to the members of the legislative and executive councils of the colonies. But /not/ to members of Parliament, though each is, in debate, an /hon. gentleman/. Even a member of the cabinet is not an /Hon./, though he is a /Right Hon./ by virtue of membership in the Privy Council, of which the Cabinet is legally merely a committee. This last honorific belongs, not only to [Pg120] privy councillors, but also to all peers lower than marquesses (those above are /Most Hon./), to Lord Mayors during their terms of office, to the Lord Advocate and to the Lord Provosts of Edinburgh and Glasgow. Moreover, a peeress whose husband is a /Right Hon./ is a /Right Hon./ herself.

The British colonies follow the jealous usage of the mother-country. Even in Canada the lawless American example is not imitated. I have before me a "Table of Titles to be Used in Canada," laid down by royal warrant, which lists those who are /Hons./ and those who are not /Hons./ in the utmost detail. Only privy councillors of Canada (not to be confused with imperial privy councillors) are permitted to retain the prefix after going out of office, though ancients who were legislative councillors at the time of the union, July 1, 1867, may still use it by a sort of courtesy, and former speakers of the Dominion Senate and House of Commons and various retired judges may do so on application to the King, countersigned by the governor-general. The following are lawfully /the Hon./, but only during their tenure of office: the solicitor-general, the speaker of the House of Commons, the presidents and speakers of the provincial legislatures, members of the executive councils of the provinces, the chief justice, the judges of the Supreme and Exchequer Courts, the judges of the Supreme Courts of Ontario, Nova Scotia, New Brunswick, British Columbia, Prince Edward Island, Saskatchewan and Alberta, the judges of the Courts of Appeal of Manitoba and British Columbia, the Chancery Court of Prince Edward Island, and the Circuit Court of Montreal--these, and no more. A lieutenant-governor of a province is not /the Hon./, but /His Honor/. The governor-general is /His Excellency/, and so is his wife, but in practise they usually have superior honorifics, and do not forget to demand their use.

But though an Englishman, and, following him, a colonial, is thus very careful to restrict /the Hon./ to proper uses, he always insists, when he serves without pay as an officer of any organization, to indicate his volunteer character by writing /Hon./ before the name of his office. If he leaves it off it is a sign that he is a hireling. Thus, the agent of the New Zealand [Pg121] government in London, a paid officer, is simply the /agent/, but the agents at Brisbane and Adelaide, in Australia, who serve for the glory of it, are /hon. agents/. In writing to a Briton one must be careful to put /Esq./, behind his name, and not /Mr./, before it. The English make a clear distinction between the two forms. /Mr./, on an envelope, indicates that the sender holds the receiver to be his inferior; one writes to /Mr./ John Jackson, one's green-grocer, but to James Thompson, /Esq./, one's neighbor. Any man who is entitled to the /Esq./ is a /gentleman/, by which an Englishman means a man of sound connections and dignified occupation--in brief, of ponderable social position. Thus a dentist, a shop-keeper or a clerk can never be a gentleman in England, even by courtesy, and the qualifications of an author, a musical conductor, a physician, or even a member of Parliament have to be established. But though he is thus enormously watchful of masculine dignity, an Englishman is quite careless in the use of /lady/. He speaks glibly of /lady-clerks/, /lady-typists/, /lady-doctors/ and /lady-inspectors/. In America there is a strong disposition to use the word less and less, as is revealed by the substitution of /saleswoman/ and /salesgirl/ for the /saleslady/ of yesteryear. But in England /lady/ is still invariably used instead of woman in such compounds as /lady-golfer/, /lady-secretary/ and /lady-champion/. The /women's singles/, in England tennis, are always /ladies' singles/; /women's wear/, in English shops, is always /ladies' wear/. Perhaps the cause of this distinction between /lady/ and /gentleman/ has been explained by Price Collier in "England and the English." In England, according to Collier, the male is always first. His comfort goes before his wife's comfort, and maybe his dignity also. /Gentleman-clerk/ or /gentleman-author/ would make an Englishman howl, though he uses /gentleman-rider/. So would the growing American custom of designating the successive heirs of a private family by the numerals proper to royalty. John Smith /3rd/ and William Simpson /IV/ are gravely received at Harvard; at Oxford they would be ragged unmercifully.

An Englishman, in speaking or writing of public officials, avoids those long and clumsy combinations of title and name [Pg122] which figure so copiously in American newspapers. Such locutions as /Assistant Secretary of the Interior/ Jones, /Fourth Assistant Postmaster-General/ Brown, /Inspector of Boilers/ Smith, /Judge of the Appeal Tax Court/ Robinson, /Chief Clerk of the Treasury/ Williams and /Collaborating Epidermologist/ White[24] are quite unknown to him. When he mentions a high official, such as the Secretary for Foreign Affairs, he does not think it necessary to add the man's name; he simply says "the Secretary for Foreign Affairs" or "the Foreign Secretary." And so with the Lord Chancellor, the Chief Justice, the Prime Minister, the Bishop of Carlisle, the Chief Rabbi, the First Lord (of the Admiralty), the Master of Pembroke (College), the Italian Ambassador, and so on. Certain ecclesiastical titles are sometimes coupled to surnames in the American manner, as in /Dean Stanley/, and /Canon Wilberforce/, but /Prime Minister Lloyd-George/ would seem heavy and absurd. But in other directions the Englishman has certain clumsinesses of his own. Thus, in writing a letter to a relative stranger, he sometimes begins it, not /My dear Mr. Jones/ but /My dear John Joseph Jones/. He may even use such a form as /My dear Secretary for War/ in place of the American /My dear Mr. Secretary/. In English usage, incidentally, /My dear/ is more formal than simply /Dear/. In America, of course, this distinction is lost, and such forms as /My dear John Joseph Jones/ appear only as conscious imitations of English usage.

I have spoken of the American custom of dropping the definite article before /Hon./ It extends to /Rev./ and the like, and has the authority of very respectable usage behind it. The opening sentence of the /Congressional Record/ is always: "The Chaplain, /Rev./--------, D.D., offered the following prayer." When chaplains for the army or navy are confirmed by the Senate they always appear in the /Record as Revs./, never as /the Revs./ I also find the honorific without the article in the New International Encyclopaedia, in the /World/ Almanac, and in a widely-popular [Pg123] American grammar-book.[25] So long ago as 1867, Gould protested against this elision as barbarous and idiotic, and drew up the following /reductio ad absurdum/:

At last annual meeting of Black Book Society, honorable John Smith took the chair, assisted by reverend John Brown and venerable John White. The office of secretary would have been filled by late John Green, but for his decease, which rendered him ineligible. His place was supplied by inevitable John Black. In the course of the evening eulogiums were pronounced on distinguished John Gray and notorious Joseph Brown. Marked compliment was also paid to able historian Joseph White, discriminating philosopher Joseph Green, and learned professor Joseph Black. But conspicuous speech of the evening was witty Joseph Gray's apostrophe to eminent astronomer Jacob Brown, subtle logician Jacob White, etc., etc.[26]

Richard Grant White, a year or two later, joined the attack in the New York /Galaxy/, and William Cullen Bryant included the omission of the article in his /Index Expurgatorius/, but these anathemas were as ineffective as Gould's irony. The more careful American journals, of course, incline to the /the/, and I note that it is specifically ordained on the Style-sheet of the /Century Magazine/, but the overwhelming majority of American newspapers get along without it, and I have often noticed its omission on the sign-boards at church entrances.[27] In England it is never omitted. [Pg124]

§ 4

/Euphemisms and Forbidden Words/--But such euphemisms as /lady-clerk/ are, after all, much rarer in English than in American usage. The Englishman seldom tries to gloss menial occupations with sonorous names; on the contrary, he seems to delight in keeping their menial character plain. He says /servants/, not /help/. Even his railways and banks have /servants/; the chief trades-union of the English railroad men is the Amalgamated Society of Railway /Servants/. He uses /employé/ in place of /clerk/, /workman/ or /laborer/ much less often than we do. True enough he calls a boarder a /paying-guest/, but that is probably because even a boarder may be a gentleman. Just as he avoids calling a fast train the /limited/, the /flier/ or the /cannon-ball/, so he never calls an /undertaker/ a /funeral director/ or /mortician/,[28] or a /dentist/ a /dental surgeon/ or /ontologist/, or an /optician/ an /optometrist/, or a /barber shop/ (he always makes it /barber's shop/) a /tonsorial parlor/, or a common public-house a /café/, a /restaurant/, an /exchange/, a /buffet/ or a /hotel/, or a tradesman a /storekeeper/ or /merchant/, or a fresh-water college a /university/. A /university/, in England, always means a collection of colleges.[29] He avoids displacing terms of a disparaging or disagreeable significance with others less brutal, or thought to be less brutal, /e. g./, /ready-to-wear/ or /ready-tailored/ for /ready-made/, /used/ or /slightly-used/ for /second-hand/, /mahoganized/ for /imitation-mahogany/, /aisle manager/ for /floor-walker/ (he makes it /shop-walker/), /loan-office/ for /pawn-shop/. Also, he is careful not to use such words as /rector/, /deacon/ and /baccalaureate/ in merely rhetorical senses.[30] [Pg125]

When we come to words, that, either intrinsically or by usage, are improper, a great many curious differences between English and American reveal themselves. The Englishman, on the whole, is more plain-spoken than the American, and such terms as /bitch/, /mare/ and /in foal/ do not commonly daunt him, largely, perhaps, because of his greater familiarity with country life; but he has a formidable index of his own, and it includes such essentially harmless words as /sick/, /stomach/, /bum/ and /bug/. The English use of /ill/ for /sick/ I have already noticed, and the reasons for the English avoidance of /bum/. /Sick/, over there, means nauseated, and when an Englishman says that he was /sick/ he means that he vomited, or, as an American would say, was /sick at the stomach/. The older (and still American) usage, however, survives in various compounds. /Sick-list/, for example, is official in the Navy,[31] and /sick-leave/ is known in the Army, though it is more common to say of a soldier that he is /invalided home/. /Sick-room/ and /sick-bed/ are also in common use, and /sick-flag/ is used in place of the American /quarantine-flag/. But an Englishman hesitates to mention his stomach in the presence of ladies, though he discourses freely about his liver. To avoid the necessity he employs such euphemisms as /Little Mary/. As for /bug/, he restricts its use very rigidly to the /Cimex lectularius/, or common bed-bug, and hence the word has a highly impolite connotation. All other crawling things he calls /insects/. An American of my acquaintance once greatly offended an English friend by using /bug/ for /insect/. The two were playing billiards one summer evening in the Englishman's house, and various flying things came through the window and alighted on the cloth. The American, essaying a shot, remarked that he had killed a /bug/ with his cue. To the Englishman this seemed a slanderous reflection upon the cleanliness of his house.[32] [Pg126]

The Victorian era saw a great growth of absurd euphemisms in England, including /second wing/ for the leg of a fowl, but it was in America that the thing was carried farthest. Bartlett hints that /rooster/ came into use in place of /cock/ as a matter of delicacy, the latter word having acquired an indecent significance, and tells us that, at one time, even /bull/ was banned as too vulgar for refined ears. In place of it the early purists used /cow-creature/, /male-cow/ and even /gentleman-cow/.[33] /Bitch/, /ram/, /buck/ and /sow/ went the same way, and there was a day when even /mare/ was prohibited. Bache tells us that /pismire/ was also banned, /antmire/ being substituted for it. In 1847 the word /chair/ was actually barred out and /seat/ was adopted in its place.[34] These were the palmy days of euphemism. The delicate /female/ was guarded from all knowledge, and even from all suspicion, of evil. "To utter aloud in her presence the word /shirt/," says one historian, "was an open insult."[35] Mrs. Trollope, writing in 1832, tells of "a young German gentleman of perfectly good manners" who "offended one of the principal families ... by having pronounced the word /corset/ before the ladies of it."[36] The word /woman/, in those sensitive days, became a term of reproach, comparable to the German /mensch/; the uncouth /female/ took its place.[37] In the same way the legs of the fair became /limbs/ and their breasts /bosoms/, and /lady/ was substituted for /wife/. /Stomach/, under the ban in England, was transformed, by some unfathomable magic, into a euphemism denoting the whole region from the nipples to the pelvic arch. It was during [Pg127] this time that the newspapers invented such locutions as /interesting/ (or /delicate/) /condition/, /criminal operation/, /house of ill/ (or /questionable/) /repute/, /disorderly-house/, /sporting-house/, /statutory offense/, /fallen woman/ and /criminal assault/. Servant girls ceased to be seduced, and began to be /betrayed/. Various French terms, /enceinte/ and /accouchement/ among them, were imported to conceal the fact that lawful wives occasionally became pregnant and had lyings-in.

White, between 1867 and 1870, launched various attacks upon these ludicrous gossamers of speech, and particularly upon /enceinte/, /limb/ and /female/, but only /female/ succumbed. The passage of the notorious Comstock Postal Act, in 1873, greatly stimulated the search for euphemisms. Once that act was upon the statute-books and Comstock himself was given the amazingly inquisitorial powers of a post-office inspector, it became positively dangerous to print certain ancient and essentially decent English words. To this day the effects of that old reign of terror are still visible. We yet use /toilet/ and /public comfort station/ in place of better terms,[38] and such idiotic forms as /red-light district/, /disorderly-house/, /blood-poison/, /social-evil/, /social disease/ and /white slave/ ostensibly conceal what every flapper is talking about. The word /cadet/, having a foreign smack and an innocent native meaning, is preferred to the more accurate /procurer/; even prostitutes shrink from the forthright /pimp/, and employ a characteristic American abbreviation, /P. I./--a curious brother to /S. O. B./ and /2 o'clock/. Nevertheless, a movement toward honesty is getting on its legs. The vice crusaders, if they have accomplished nothing else, have at least forced the newspapers to use the honest terms, /syphilis/, /prostitute/, /brothel/ and /venereal disease/, albeit somewhat gingerly. It is, perhaps, significant of the change going on that the /New York Evening Post/ [Pg128] recently authorized its reporters to use /street-walker/.[39] But in certain quarters the change is viewed with alarm, and curious traces of the old prudery still survive. The Department of Health of New York City, in April, 1914, announced that its efforts to diminish venereal disease were much handicapped because "in most newspaper offices the words /syphilis/ and /gonorrhea/ are still tabooed, and without the use of these terms it is almost impossible to correctly state the problem." The Army Medical Corps, in the early part of 1918, encountered the same difficulty: most newspapers refused to print its bulletins regarding venereal disease in the army. One of the newspaper trade journals thereupon sought the opinions of editors upon the subject, and all of them save one declared against the use of the two words. One editor put the blame upon the Postoffice, which still cherishes the Comstock tradition. Another reported that "at a recent conference of the Scripps Northwest League editors" it was decided that "the use of such terms as /gonorrhea/, /syphilis/, and even /venereal diseases/ would not add to the tone of the papers, and that the term /vice diseases/ can be readily substituted."[40] The Scripps papers are otherwise anything but distinguished for their "tone," but in this department they yield to the Puritan habit. An even more curious instance of prudery came to my notice in Philadelphia several years ago. A one-act play of mine, "The Artist," was presented at the Little Theatre there, and during its run, on February 26, 1916, the /Public Ledger/ reprinted some of the dialogue. One of the characters in the piece is /A Virgin/. At every occurrence a change was made to /A Young Girl/. Apparently, even /virgin/ is still regarded as too frank in Philadelphia.[41] Fifty years [Pg129] ago the very word /decent/ was indecent in the South: no respectable woman was supposed to have any notion of the difference between /decent/ and /indecent/.