Wan thing oim after noticin’ lately is a great tindency on the part of
some folks who pertend to what they call culchure, to throw into their
conversation the worrd “gotten”--an ungainly worrd that has been out
of date since the time when yer grandfather swore “odsbodkins” an’ the
like, until some fad hunter dug it up. Oi mind a friend of mine sint
a note to his wife sayin’ “I have gotten tickets fer Melba to-night.”
He wasn’t a very good writer, an’ his wife thought he meant he had got
_ten_ tickets, and begob she invited the whole neighborhood and it
nearly broke him makin’ good.
Now culchure is a quare thing; an uncommon thing; a thing that’s hard
to define and harder to get. ’Tis not in usin’ this worrd “gotten” or
any other perticular worrd; ’tis not in usin’ the long “a” in “bath” or
pronouncin’ “calf” as if it was “koff”; nor is it in callin’ a counter
jumper or a lad in the Civil Service a “clark” instid of a “clerk.”
Not a whit. All these things may be signs of culchure, an’ they may
not--mostly not. They are a lot of people who niver had nawthin’ but a
rude eddication, (that’s whoy it’s called a “rudimentary eddication”),
an’ never larned anything since they wint to school; but who, be hook
or be crook, (mostly crook), an’ a few dollars, or inflooence, or by
marryin’ into dollars and inflooence, have gotten onto the skirts of
what they call sassiety; an’ begob these people I’m tellin’ ye about
they think that culchure is in the usin’ of perticular worrds or in
perticular pernounce-i-ation. It niver enters their nuts that culchure
is shown by the thots ye express an’ the depth of knowledge ye show of
men an’ things, an’ not by little peculiarities of pro-nounce-i-ation
which a man may inherit from his grandfather, or have caughten from a
locality in his youth--de ye follow me?
Now “etiket” is the usages of culchured sassiety, an’ it’s fer that
same etiket that I’ve been stearin’ all the while. Etiket an’ culchure
is not the same thing among different people. ’Tis wan thing in wan
place, an’ another in another place. Fer example, a gintleman in the
Figi Islands wud think it no disgrace to ate his grandmother. ’Tis
looked at different here, altho’ ye can skin yer brother-in-law, or
never return borried money to yer father-in-law.
Now, I gev ye all this harrd earned wisdom that I cud worrk down to me
frind Dundonald an’ his riferince to “Etiket.”--De ye ketch me pint?
Me Earl lad is no judge of Etiket in Canada; he’s only a soldier anny
way, an’ a soldier is no more a judge of etiket than a butcher is of
plumbin’, or an Englishman is of a Canadian. Etiket, is it? Why, begob,
I cud intrajuice the Dundonald into sassiety in Ottawa where he wud
fall seven times over etiket before he opened his mouth wanst.
Etiket changes wid locality, as I told ye. The Earl only knowin’ wan
kind, put his fut in it an’ showed his ignorance. Sure the most of us
is por, wan-sided creatures. We look a fact in the face, an’ think
we know all about it, never dreamin’ that it shud be turned over an’
examined on the back of it, not to mintchin’ the several sides of it.
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