THE VULGAR GIRL.
As translated by Cowley, Horace is made to say--
"Hence, ye profane, I hate ye all,
Both the great vulgar and the small!"
[Illustration: The small vulgar]
There will be no attempt made in this paper to deal with the great
vulgar, but some attempt will be made in it to deal with the small,
being the category to which, it may be assumed, belongs the average
vulgar girl.
It is of course impossible within the limits of a short essay to
indicate more than a few of the leading characteristics of this girl.
She it is who not only wants to monopolise the conversation, but who
wants to confine it to one subject. She should remember the quaint
counsel, "The honourablest part of talk is to give the occasion,
and again to moderate, and pass to something else." Moreover in
conversation she too often follows the rule laid down by a French
author for those about to write love-letters:
"Begin without knowing what you are going to say, and end without
knowing what you have said."
If at the end of a conversation she sometimes knew what she had said,
the vulgar girl, who is not necessarily a callous girl, would feel very
unhappy.
Her tendency to talk indiscreetly has doubtless its origin in the
precipitancy which causes her to break in upon the speech of others.
There is a lesson which she might learn from a certain polite echo.
This echo may be heard opposite to Mugdock Castle in Scotland. It will
repeat any sentence of six syllables in the exact tone in which it is
uttered--waiting till the sentence is finished.
Another result of the lack of deliberation which characterises the
vulgar girl is seen in the fact that the latest book, the latest play,
the latest picture, is to her Thingimy by Thingimbob. That nomenclature
is somewhat vague, and is moreover out of date, but it still commends
itself to the vulgar girl, as does the soubriquet _The Bard_ for
Shakespeare.
Her singular phraseology, which she conceives to set her at an
advantage, in reality sometimes sets the vulgar girl at a disadvantage.
Of Tennyson she said the other day--
"I don't pretend to understand him any more than Browning, but then he
tootles on prettily, and that's what I like in poetry."
[Illustration]
A main difference between Browning and Tennyson was here correctly set
forth, but the phrasing was in questionable taste. "Tootles" is a good
word, but to say that Tennyson "tootles on prettily," is to understate
his merits. It shall here be pointed out in passing that "I don't
pretend" is a favourite form of asseveration with the vulgar girl, and
is one which she should try to vary, if only because it inferentially
asserts that other people do pretend.
The vulgar girl is "by way of being" (her own phrase) witty. One part
of her wit is to say "muchly" for much, and another part of it is to
say "free gratis" for free of charge.
Flippancy as a substitute for wit so often evokes mirth that the vulgar
girl as would-be wit not incomprehensibly largely indulges in it. I sat
beside her once during a performance of Beethoven's Septett, one of
the loveliest things in music, with here and there a heart-delighting
gaiety in it. During the fifth movement of it she whispered to me--
"Isn't it like 'The Bogie Man'?"
[Illustration]
The levity in what follows was even more remarkable. The speaker was a
young bride.
"I didn't feel a bit nervous at my wedding," she said. "You see, I have
been used to private theatricals."
A girl like that mistakes gaiety of head for gaiety of heart.
[Illustration: Her first appearance in a new role]
As a sample of vulgar girl-wit at its crudest, I give the following, in
which a girl spoke of a lady--
"She couldn't turn white, but she went the colour of an unripe tomato."
[Illustration: Upset by Tomato sauce]
The vulgar girl who is "by way of being" witty is not "by way of
being" sentimental, and is rather addicted to signing her letters
"Your's," which word she believes to be rightly written as above, with
an apostrophe. This girl, for the rest, is generally good-natured, and
her vein of censure is more often odd than terrible. Thus she said the
other day of a dentist--
"He is a horrible little snob, but that doesn't matter when he gets
into your mouth."
[Illustration: An old Fairy Tale]
As often as not the vulgar girl has both sense and sensibility. Of the
latter fact she is profoundly ashamed, and has been known to say of a
book that has deeply agitated her--
"I got to feel quite eye-in-water over it."
She affects to care, only for the gaieties of life, but knows something
of its gravities, and has often a bit of heroine in her. The worst
thing about her is her speech. "Jolly" is her favourite adverb. She
is jolly glad when she is not jolly mad, and she will soon describe
herself as jolly sad. She uses the verb "mashed" hideously; where her
prototype of twenty years ago said "swell" she says "swagger;" and
she does not stick at saying "beastly." For the rest, she has always
some pet word of the hour. Thus "dotty" is an adjective now much in
favour with her. Thereby hangs a tale. The vulgar girl sometimes knows
Italian, and it was she who translated a line from a famous lady's
epitaph--
"_Vergine magnanime, dotta, divina._"
"A virgin magnanimous, dotty, divine."
On the other hand there are vulgar girls who do not know Latin, and one
of them has been known to say "effluvia" for "smell," the Latin for
"smell" being "effluvium."
The pronunciation of her own language is by some thought to offer
insuperable difficulties to the English vulgar girl, who pronounces
the "t" in "often" but does not pronounce it in "Westminster," whose
favourite colour, she has been heard to aver, is "terrar cottar,"
who plays an instrument which she calls "the varlin," who says
"to_wards_" and "inter_est_ing," who pronounces "ate" "et," and whose
vocabulary has been known to include the words "pantomine," "Feb'uary"
and "sec'etary." So far is this list from exhausting the faults of
pronunciation of the said vulgar girl, that it must be added that she
gives to no one vowel its proper sound, while among the consonants
"h" initial and "g" final stumble her. She is particularly careless
regarding the latter consonant when the form which her vulgarity takes
is that of would-be "smartness."
Very abominable to this girl is grammar, which is all but invariably
set at defiance by her. Thus, even when she does not say "it were," as
did Mrs. Cluppins, she favours such phrasing as "those sort of," "very
pleased," "different to" and "between you and I."
[Illustration: A model]
Her predilection for abbreviations is another marked feature of the
vulgar girl. To "'bus" she has lately added "biz," and "spec" has found
her approval.
The pity of it!
Just as she has always a favourite word, she has mostly a favourite
phrase. In one instance known to me it is "You know what I mean," and
everyone knows what she means, as well everyone may.
Take this assertion--
"It's one of those schools where they sleep in carbuncles--you know
what I mean."
Of course everyone knows what she means.
[Illustration]
Or take this--
"I can't be in six or seven places at one; I'm not omnivorous--you know
what I mean."
[Illustration: not omnivorous]
Of course everyone knows what she means.
They call her Mrs. Malaprop; but, in point of fact, her case is a
notable improvement upon that of Sheridan's heroine, the ignorance
of that lady having been of a shade by just so much deeper that it
left her unwitting of the fact that she was wrong. The girl here in
view has a shrewd suspicion that she is wrong, but pays her hearers
the compliment of assuming that they will understand her. In only one
instance, so far as has come to my knowledge, has she ever overtaxed
her listener's powers of comprehension. She spoke of a living novelist.
"I can't bear his books," she said. "They're so very _femme de
chambre_--you know what I mean."
Not only did the person addressed not know what she meant, but he
will not now be induced to believe that she meant "_fin de siècle_,"
and unconsciously used what, it seems to some of us, was a very happy
substitute for this rather hackneyed phrase.
I have in the foregoing dwelt more particularly on what is to me the
most striking fact in connection with the vulgar girl, the base uses
to which she puts her native speech; that my account of her may not,
however, be wholly inadequate, I have also conferred with persons whose
views on manners and deportment, as frequently expressed by them, have
led me to believe that they may be better able than I am to point out
what, from the social standpoint, constitutes a vulgar girl. Of the
many _data_ supplied me, I give below a few.
The vulgar girl is "arch."
The vulgar girl is "coy."
The vulgar girl loves "chaff."
The vulgar girl has sidelong looks.
The vulgar girl calls milk "cream" and bacon "ham."
The vulgar girl shouts or whispers.
The vulgar girl thinks all other girls vulgar.
[Illustration: An extreme view]
The vulgar girl has never been told, or has been told in vain, to sit
up and put her knees together.
The vulgar girl is the girl of whom the vulgar boy says that she is
"not half a bad sort."
(_To be continued._)
"OUR HERO."
A TALE OF THE FRANCO-ENGLISH WAR NINETY YEARS AGO.
BY AGNES GIBERNE, Author of "Sun, Moon and Stars," "The Girl at the
Dower House," etc.