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/.
In their vocabularies of opprobrium and profanity English and
Americans diverge sharply. The English /rotter/ and /blighter/ are
practically unknown in America, and there are various American
equivalents that are never heard in England. A /guy/, in the American
vulgate, simply signifies a man; there is not necessarily any
disparaging significance. But in English, high or low, it means one
who is making a spectacle of himself. The derivative verb, /to guy/,
is unknown in English; its nearest equivalent is /to spoof/, which is
unknown in American. The average American, I believe, has a larger
vocabulary of profanity than the average Englishman, and swears a good
deal more, but he attempts an amelioration of many of his oaths by
softening them to forms with no apparent meaning. /Darn/
(=/dern/=/durn/) for /damn/ is apparently of English origin, but it is
heard ten thousand times in America to once in England. So is
/dog-gone/. Such euphemistic written forms as /damphool/ and /damfino/
are also far more common in this country. /All-fired/ for
/hell-fired/, /gee-whiz/ for /Jesus/, /tarnal/ for /eternal/,
/tarnation/ for /damnation/, /cuss/ for /curse/, /goldarned/ for
/God-damned/, /by gosh/ for /by God/ and /great Scott/ for /great God/
are all Americanisms; Thornton has traced /all-fired/ to 1835,
/tarnation/ to 1801 and /tarnal/ to 1790. /By golly/ has been found in
English literature so early as 1843, but it probably originated in
America; down to the Civil War it was the characteristic oath of the
negro slaves. Such terms as /bonehead/, /pinhead/ and /boob/ have been
invented, perhaps, to take the place of the English /ass/, which has a
flavor of impropriety in America on account of its identity in sound
with the American pronunciation of /arse/.[42] At an earlier day /ass/
was always differentiated by making it /jackass/. Another word that is
improper in America but not in England is /tart/. To an Englishman the
word connotes sweetness, and so, if he be of the lower orders, he may
apply [Pg130] it to his sweetheart. But to the American it signifies
a prostitute, or, at all events, a woman of too ready an amiability.
But the most curious disparity between the profane vocabulary of the
two tongues is presented by /bloody/. This word is entirely without
improper significance in America, but in England it is regarded as the
vilest of indecencies. The sensation produced in London when George
Bernard Shaw put it into the mouth of a woman character in his play,
"Pygmalion," will be remembered. "The interest in the first English
performance," said the /New York Times/,[43] "centered in the
heroine's utterance of this banned word. It was waited for with
trembling, heard shudderingly, and presumably, when the shock
subsided, interest dwindled." But in New York, of course, it failed to
cause any stir. Just why it is regarded as profane and indecent by the
English is one of the mysteries of the language. The theory that it
has some blasphemous reference to the blood of Christ is disputed by
many etymologists. It came in during the latter half of the
seventeenth century, and at the start it apparently meant no more than
"in the manner of a blood," /i. e./, a rich young roisterer of the
time. Thus, /bloody drunk/ was synonymous with as /drunk as a lord/.
The adjective remained innocuous for 200 years. Then it suddenly
acquired its present abhorrent significance. It is regarded with such
aversion by the English that even the lower orders often substitute
/bleeding/ as a euphemism.
So far no work devoted wholly to the improper terms of English and
American has been published, but this lack may be soon remedied by a
compilation made by a Chicago journalist. It is entitled "The Slang of
Venery and Its Analogues," and runs to two large volumes. A small
edition, mimeographed for private circulation, was issued in 1916. I
have examined this work and found it of great value. If the influence
of comstockery is sufficient to prevent its publication in the United
States, as seems likely, it will be printed in Switzerland.
FOOTNOTES:
[1] It should be noted that /mews/ is used only in the larger cities.
In the small towns /livery-stable/ is commoner. /Mews/ is quite
unknown in America save as an occasional archaism.
[2] Sometimes /whiffle-tree/.
[3] The latter has crept into American of late. I find it on p. 58 of
The United States at War, a pamphlet issued by the Library of
Congress, 1917. The compiler of this pamphlet is a savant bearing the
fine old British name of Herman H. B. Meyer.
[4] /Living-room/, however, is gradually making its way in England. It
was apparently suggested, in America, by the German /wohnzimmer/.
[5] This form survives in the American term /city-stock/, meaning the
bonds of a municipality. But government securities are always called
/bonds/.
[6] /Cf./ A Glossary of Colloquial Slang and Technical Terms in Use in
the Stock Exchange and in the Money Market, by A. J. Wilson, London,
1895.
[7] Or /bailiffs/.
[8] But he is /run/ by his party organization. /Cf./ The Government of
England, by A. Lawrence Lowell; New York, 1910, vol. ii, p. 29.
[9] Until very recently no self-respecting American newspaper reporter
would call himself a /journalist/. He always used /newspaper man/, and
referred to his vocation, not as a profession, but as the newspaper
/business/. This old prejudice, however, now seems to be breaking
down. /Cf./ Don't Shy at Journalist, /The Editor and Publisher and
Journalist/, June 27, 1914.
[10] /Cf./ a speech of Senator La Follette, /Congressional Record/,
Aug. 27, 1917, p. 6992.
[11] According to the New International Encyclopedia, 2nd ed. (/Art./
Apartment House), the term /flat/ "is usually in the United States
restricted to apartments in houses having no elevator or hall
service." In New York such apartments are commonly called /walk-up
apartments/. Even with the qualification, /apartment/ is better than
/flat/.
[12] Canoeing was introduced into England by John MacGregor in 1866,
and there is now a Royal Canoe Club. In America the canoe has been
familiar from the earliest times, and in Mme. Sarah Kemble Knight's
diary (1704) there is much mention of /cannoos/. The word itself is
from an Indian dialect, probably the Haitian, and came into American
through the Spanish, in which it survives as /canoa/.
[13] "An act was passed to prohibit playing /nine-pins/; as soon as
the law was put in force, it was notified everywhere, '/Ten-pins/
played here.'"--Capt. Marryat: Diary in America, vol. iii, p. 195.
[14] "The term /chapel/," says Joyce, in English as We Speak It in
Ireland, "has so ingrained itself in my mind that to this hour the
word instinctively springs to my lips when I am about to mention a
Catholic place of worship; and I always feel some sort of hesitation
or reluctance in substituting the word /church/. I positively could
not bring myself to say, 'Come, it is time now to set out for
/church/' It must be either /mass/ or chapel."
[15] Certain dissenters, of late, show a disposition to borrow the
American usage. Thus the /Christian World/, organ of the English
Congregationalists, uses /Episcopal/ to designate the Church of
England.
[16] So long ago as the 70's certain Jews petitioned the publishers of
Webster's and Worcester's dictionaries to omit their definitions of
the verb /to jew/, and according to Richard Grant White, the publisher
of Worcester's complied. Such a request, in England, would be greeted
with derision.
[17] But nevertheless he uses /begotten/, not /begot/.
[18] This specimen is from the /Congressional Record/ of Dec. 11,
1917: "I do not like to be butting into this /proposition/, but I look
upon this postoffice business as a purely business /proposition/." The
speaker was "Hon" Homer P. Snyder, of New York. In the /Record/ of
Jan. 12, 1918, p. 8294, /proposition/ is used as a synonym for state
of affairs.
[19] Already in 1855 Bristed was protesting that /to fix/ was having
"more than its legitimate share of work all over the Union." "In
English conversation," he said, "the panegyrical adjective of all work
is /nice/; in America it is /fine/." This was before the adoption of
/jolly/ and its analogues, /ripping/, /stunning/, /rattling/, etc.
[20] In the Appendix to the Final Report of the Royal Commission on
Venereal Diseases, London, 1916, p. iv., I find the following: "/Mr./
C. J. Symonds, F.R.C.S., M.D.; /Mr./ F. J. McCann, F.R.C.S., M.D.;
/Mr./ A. F. Evans, F.R.C.S". /Mr./ Symonds is consulting surgeon to
Guy's Hospital, /Mr./ McCann is an eminent London gynecologist, and
/Mr./ Evans is a general surgeon in large practise. All would be
called /Doctor/ in the United States.
[21] Among the curious recipients of this degree have been Gumshoe
Bill Stone, Uncle Joe Cannon and Josephus Daniels. Billy Sunday, the
evangelist, is a D.D.
[22] /Congressional Record/, May 16, 1918, p. 7147.
[23] /Vide/ his annual reports, printed at Sing Sing Prison.
[24] I encountered this gem in /Public Health Reports/, a government
publication, for April 26, 1918, p. 619.
[25] For the /Record/ see the issue of Dec. 14, 1917, p. 309. For the
New International Encyclopaedia see the article on Brotherhood of
Andrew and Philip. For the /World/ Almanac see the article on Young
People's Society of Christian Endeavor, ed. of 1914. The grammar-book
is Longman's Briefer Grammar; New York, 1908, p. 160. The editor is
George J. Smith, a member of the board of examiners of the New York
City Department of Education.
[26] Edwin S. Gould: Good English; New York, 1867, pp. 56-57.
[27] Despite the example of Congress, however, the Department of State
inserts the /the/. /Vide/ the /Congressional Record/, May 4, 1918, p.
6552. But the War Department, the Treasury and the Post Office omit
it. /Vide/ the /Congressional Record/, May 11, 1918, p. 6895 and p.
6914 and May 14, p. 7004, respectively. So, it appears, does the White
House. /Vide/ the /Congressional Record/, May 10, 1918, p. 6838, and
June 12, 1918, p. 8293.
[28] In the 60's an undertaker was often called an /embalming surgeon/
in America.
[29] In a list of American "universites" I find the Christian of
Canton, Mo., with 125 students; the Lincoln, of Pennsylvania, with
184; the Southwestern Presbyterian, of Clarksville, Tenn., with 86;
and the Newton Theological, with 77. Most of these, of course, are
merely country high-schools.
[30] The Rev. John C. Stephenson in the /New York Sun/, July 10, 1914:
... "that empty courtesy of addressing every clergyman as /Doctor/....
And let us abolish the abuse of ... /baccalaureate/ sermons for
sermons before graduating classes of high schools and the like."
[31] /Cf./ Dardanelles Commission Report; London, 1916, p. 58, § 47.
[32] Edgar Allan Poe's "The Gold /Bug/" is called "The Golden
/Beetle/" in England. Twenty-five years ago an Englishman named
/Buggey/, laboring under the odium attached to the name, had it
changed to /Norfolk-Howard/, a compound made up of the title and
family name of the Duke of Norfolk. The wits of London at once doubled
his misery by adopting /Norfolk-Howard/ as a euphemism for /bed-bug/.
[33] A recent example of the use of /male-cow/ was quoted in the
/Journal/ of the American Medical Association, Nov. 17, 1917,
advertising page 24.
[34] /New York Organ/ (a "/family journal/ devoted to temperance,
morality, education and general literature"), May 29, 1847. One of the
editors of this delicate journal was T. S. Arthur, author of Ten
Nights in a Bar-room.
[35] John Graham Brooks: As Others See Us; New York, 1908, p. 11.
[36] Domestic Manners of the Americans, 2 vols.; London, 1832; vol. i,
p. 132.
[37] /Female/, of course, was epidemic in England too, but White says
that it was "not a Briticism," and so early as 1839 the Legislature of
Maryland expunged it from the title of a bill "to protect the
reputation of unmarried /females/," substituting /women/, on the
ground that /female/ "was an Americanism in that application."
[38] The French /pissoir/, for instance, is still regarded as indecent
in America, and is seldom used in England, but it has gone into most
of the Continental languages. It is curious to note, however, that
these languages also have their pruderies. Most of them, for example,
use /W. C./, an abbreviation of the English /water-closet/, as a
euphemism. The whole subject of national pruderies, in both act and
speech, remains to be investigated.
[39] Even the /Springfield Republican/, the last stronghold of Puritan
/Kultur/, printed the word on Oct. 11, 1917, in a review of New
Adventures, by Michael Monahan.
[40] /Pep/, July, 1918, p. 8.
[41] Perhaps the Quaker influence is to blame. At all events,
Philadelphia is the most pecksniffian of American cities, and thus
probably leads the world. Early in 1918, when a patriotic
moving-picture entitled "To Hell with the Kaiser" was sent on tour
under government patronage, the word /hell/ was carefully toned down,
on the Philadelphia billboards, to /h----/.
[42] /Cf./ R. M. Bache: Vulgarisms and Other Errors of Speech; Phila.,
1869, p. 34 /et seq./
[43] April 14, 1914.
[Pg131]
V
Tendencies in American
§ 1
/International Exchanges/--More than once, during the preceding
chapters, we encountered Americanisms that had gone over into English,
and English locutions that had begun to get a foothold in the United
States. Such exchanges are made very frequently and often very
quickly, and though the guardians of English still attack every new
Americanism vigorously, even when, as in the case of /scientist/, it
is obviously sound and useful, they are often routed by public
pressure, and have to submit in the end with the best grace possible.
For example, consider /caucus/. It originated in Boston at some
indeterminate time before 1750, and remained so peculiarly American
for more than a century following that most of the English visitors
before the Civil War remarked its use. But, according to J. Redding
Ware,[1] it began to creep into English political slang about 1870,
and in the 80's it was lifted to good usage by the late Joseph
Chamberlain. Ware, writing in the first years of the present century,
said that the word had become "very important" in England, but was
"not admitted into dictionaries." But in the Concise Oxford
Dictionary, dated 1914, it is given as a sound English word, though
its American origin is noted. The English, however, use it in a sense
that has become archaic in America, thus preserving an abandoned
American meaning in the same way that many abandoned British meanings
have been preserved on this side. In the United States the word means,
and has meant for years, a meeting of some division, [Pg132] large or
small, of a political or legislative body for the purpose of agreeing
upon a united course of action in the main assembly. In England it
means the managing committee of a party or fraction--something
corresponding to our national committee, or state central committee,
or steering committee, or to the half-forgotten congressional caucuses
of the 20's. It has a disparaging significance over there, almost
equal to that of our words /organization/ and /machine/. Moreover, it
has given birth to two derivatives of like quality, both unknown in
America--/caucusdom/, meaning machine control, and /caucuser/, meaning
a machine politician.[2]
A good many other such Americanisms have got into good usage in
England, and new ones are being exported constantly. Farmer describes
the process of their introduction, and assimilation. American books,
newspapers and magazines, especially the last, circulate in England in
large number, and some of their characteristic locutions pass into
colloquial speech. Then they get into print, and begin to take on
respectability. "The phrase, 'as the Americans say,'" he continues,
"might in some cases be ordered from the type foundry as a logotype,
so frequently does it do introduction duty."[3] Ware shows another
means of ingress: the argot of sailors. Many of the Americanisms he
notes as having become naturalized in England, /e. g./, /boodle/,
/boost/ and /walk-out/, are credited to Liverpool as a sort of
half-way station. Travel brings in still more: England swarms with
Americans, and Englishmen themselves, visiting America, bring home new
and racy phrases. Bishop Coxe says[4] that [Pg133] Dickens, in his
"American Notes," gave English currency to /reliable/, /influential/,
/talented/ and /lengthy/. Bristed, writing in 1855, said that
/talented/ was already firmly fixed in the English vocabulary by that
time. All four words are in the Concise Oxford Dictionary, and only
/lengthy/ is noted as "originally an Americanism." Finally, there is
the influence of the moving pictures. Hundreds of American films are
shown in England every week, and the American words and phrases
appearing in their titles, sub-titles and other explanatory legends
thus become familiar to the English. "The patron of the picture
palace," says W. G. Faulkner, in an article in the /London Daily
Mail/, "learns to think of his railway station as a /depot/; he has
alternatives to one of our newest words, /hooligan/, in /hoodlum/ and
/tough/; he watches a /dive/, which is a thieves' kitchen or a room in
which bad characters meet, and whether the villain talks of /dough/ or
/sugar/ he knows it is money to which he is referring. The musical
ring of the word /tramp/ gives way to the stodgy /hobo/ or
/dead-beat/. It may be that the plot reveals an attempt to deceive
some simple-minded person. If it does, the innocent one is spoken of
as a /sucker/, a /come-on/, a /boob/, or a /lobster/ if he is stupid
into the bargain."
Mr. Faulkner goes on to say that a great many other Americanisms are
constantly employed by Englishmen "who have not been affected by the
avalanche ... which has come upon us through the picture palace."
"Thus today," he says, "we hear people speak of the /fall/ of the
year, a /stunt/ they have in hand, their desire to /boost/ a
particular business, a /peach/ when they mean a pretty girl, a
/scab/--a common term among strikers,--the /glad-eye/, /junk/ when
they mean worthless material, their efforts /to make good/, the
/elevator/ in the hotel or office, the /boss/ or manager, the /crook/
or swindler; and they will tell you that they have the /goods/--that
is, they possess the requisite qualities for a given position." The
venerable Frederic Harrison, writing in the /Fortnightly Review/ in
the Spring of 1918, denounced this tendency with a vigor recalling the
classical anathemas of Dean Alford and Sydney Smith.[5] "Stale
American phrases, ..." [Pg134] he said, "are infecting even our
higher journalism and our parliamentary and platform oratory.... A
statesman is now /out/ for victory; he is /up against/ pacificism....
He has a /card up his sleeve/, by which the enemy are at last to be
/euchred/. Then a fierce fight in which hundreds of noble fellows are
mangled or drowned is a /scrap/.... To criticise a politician is to
call for his /scalp/.... The other fellow is beaten to a /frazzle/."
And so on. "Bolshevism," concluded Harrison sadly, "is ruining
language as well as society."
But though there are still many such alarms by constables of the
national speech, the majority of Englishmen continue to make
borrowings from the tempting and ever-widening American vocabulary.
What is more, some of these loan-words take root, and are presently
accepted as sound English, even by the most watchful. The two Fowlers,
in "The King's English," separate Americanisms from other current
vulgarisms, but many of the latter on their list are actually American
in origin, though they do not seem to know it--for example, /to
demean/ and /to transpire/. More remarkable still, the Cambridge
History of English Literature lists /backwoodsman/, /know-nothing/ and
/yellow-back/ as English compounds, apparently in forgetfulness of
their American origin, and adds /skunk/, /squaw/ and /toboggan/ as
direct importations from the Indian tongues, without noting that they
came through American, and remained definite Americanisms for a long
while.[6] It even adds /musquash/, a popular name for the /Fiber
zibethicus/, borrowed from the Algonquin /muskwessu/ but long since
degenerated to /musk-rat/ in America. /Musquash/ has been in disuse in
this country, indeed, since the middle of the last century, save as a
stray localism, but the English have preserved it, and it appears in
the Oxford Dictionary.[7]