_nasty_, the English in turn have twisted the _ilk_ of North Britain
to serve their own ends. _Of that ilk_ is a phrase added to a man’s
surname to show that this name and the name of his estate are the same;
thus Bradwardine of Bradwardine would be called “Bradwardine _of that
ilk_.” But it is not uncommon now to see a phrase like “people of that
ilk,” meaning obviously “people of that sort.”
In like manner _awful_ and _terrible_ and _elegant_ have been so
misused as mere intensives that a careful writer now strikes them out
when they come off the end of his pen in their original meaning. So
_quite_ no longer implies _completely_ but is almost synonymous with
_somewhat_--_quite poor_ meaning _somewhat poor_ and _quite good_
meaning _pretty good_. _Unique_ is getting to imply merely excellent
or perhaps only unusual; its exact etymological value is departing
forever. _Creole_, which should be applied only to Caucasian natives of
tropical countries born of Latin parents, is beginning to carry with it
in the vulgar tongue of to-day a vague suspicion of negro blood.
While the perversion of _nice_ and _nasty_ is British, there is an
American perversion of _dirt_ not unlike it. To most Americans, I
think, _dirt_ suggests _earth_ or _soil_ or _clay_ or _dust_; to most
Americans, I think, _dirt_ no longer carries with it any suggestion
of _dirtiness_. I have heard a mother send her little boy off to make
mud-pies on condition that he used only “clean _dirt_”; and I know
that a lawn-tennis ground of compacted earth is called a _dirt_ court.
Yet, tho the noun has thus been defecated, the adjective keeps its
earlier force; and there even lingers something of the pristine value
in the noun itself when it is employed in the picturesque idiom of the
Rocky Mountains, where to be guilty of an underhand injury against any
one is _to do him dirt_. Lovers of Western verse will recall how the
frequenters of Casey’s table d’hôte went to see “Modjesky as Cameel,”
and how they sat in silence until the break occurs between the lover
and his mistress:
At that Three-fingered Hoover says: “I’ll chip into this game,
And see if Red Hoss Mountain cannot reconstruct the same.
I won’t set by and see the feelin’s of a lady hurt--
Gol durn a critter, anyhow, that does a woman dirt!”
Here no doubt, we have crossed the confines of slang; but having done
so, I venture upon an anecdote which will serve to show how completely
sometimes the newer meaning of a word substitutes itself for the older.
Two friends of mine were in a train of the elevated railroad, passing
through that formerly craggy part of upper New York which was once
called Shantytown and which now prefers to be known as Harlem. One of
them drew the attention of the other to the capering young capricorns
that sported over the blasted rocks by the side of the lofty track.
“Just look at those kids,” were the words he used. He was overheard
by a boy of the streets sitting in the next seat, who glanced out of
the window at once, but failed to discover the children he expected to
behold. Whereupon he promptly looked up and corrected my friend. “Them
’s not kids,” declared the urchin of Manhattan; “them’s little goats!”
In the mind of this native youngster there was no doubt at all as to
the meaning of the word _kid_; to him it meant _child_; and he would
have scorned any explanation that it ever had meant _young goat_.
In ignorance is certainty, and with increase of wisdom comes hesitancy.
For example, what does the word _romantic_ really mean? Few adjectives
are harder worked in the history of modern literature; and no two of
those who use it would agree upon its exact context. It suggests one
set of circumstances to the student of English literature, a second set
to a student of German literature, and a third to a student of French
literature; while every student of comparative literature must echo
Professor Kuno Francke’s longing for “the formation of an international
league for the suppression of the terms both _romanticism_ and
_classicism_.”
Other words there are almost as ambiguous--_philology_, for example,
and _college_ and _chapel_. By _classical philology_ we understand
the study of all that survives of the civilizations of Greece and
Rome, their languages, their literature, their laws, their arts. But
has _Romance philology_ or _Germanic philology_ so broad a basis? Has
_English philology_? To nine out of ten of us, this use of the word now
seems to put stress on the study of linguistics as against the study
of literature; to ninety-nine out of a hundred, I think, _philologist_
suggests the narrow student of linguistics; and therefore the wider
meaning seems likely soon to fall into innocuous desuetude.
The change in the application of _college_ is still in process of
accomplishment. In England a college was a place of instruction,
sometimes independent (as Eton College, in which case it is really a
high school) and sometimes a component part of a university (in which
case the rest of the organization is not infrequently non-existent).
An English university is not unlike a federation of colleges; and
the relation of Merton and Magdalen to Oxford is not unlike that of
Massachusetts and Virginia to the United States. In America _college_
and _university_ were long carelessly confused, as tho they were
interconvertible terms; but of late a sharp distinction is being set
up--a distinction quite different from that obtaining in England. In
this new American usage, a _college_ is a place where undergraduates
are trained, and a _university_ is a place where graduate-students
are guided in research. Thus the college gives breadth, and the
university adds depth. Thus the college provides general culture and
the university provides the opportunity of specialization. If we
accept this distinction,--and it has been accepted by all those who
discuss the higher education in America,--we are forced to admit that
the most of the self-styled universities of this country should be
called colleges; and we are allowed to observe that the college and
the university can exist side by side in the same institution, as at
Harvard and at Columbia. We are forced also to admit that what is known
in Great Britain as “University Extension” cannot fairly retain that
title here in the United States, since its object is not the extension
of university work, as we now understand the word _university_ here; it
is at most the extension of college work.
While this modification of the meaning of _college_ is being made in
America, a modification of _chapel_ has been made in England. At first
_chapel_ described a subordinate part of a _church_, devoted to special
services. By natural extension it came to denote a smaller edifice
subsidiary to a large church, as Grace Church, in New York, was once a
chapel of Trinity Church. But in the nineteenth century _chapel_ came
to be applied in England especially to the humbler meeting-houses of
the various sects of dissenters, while _church_ is reserved for the
places of worship of the established religion. Thus Sir Walter Besant
classifies the population of a riverside parish in London into those
who go to _church_ and those who go to _chapel_, having no doubt that
all his British readers will understand the former to be Episcopalians
and the latter Methodists or the like.
This is a Briticism not likely ever to be adopted in America. But
another Briticism bids fair to have a better fortune. Living as they
do on a little group of islands, the British naturally are in the
habit of referring to the rest of Europe as the _Continent_. They run
across the Channel to take a little tour “on the Continent.” They speak
of the pronunciation of Latin that obtains everywhere but in Great
Britain and Ireland as the _continental_ pronunciation. When they
wish to differentiate their authors, for instance, from the French
and the German and the Italians, they lump these last together as
the _continental_ authors. The division of Europe into _continental_
and _British_ is so convenient that it is certain to be adopted on
this side of the Atlantic. Already has a New York literary review,
after having had a series of papers on “Living Critics” (in which
were included both British writers and American), followed it with a
series of “Living Continental Critics” (in which the chief critics of
France, Germany, Spain, and Scandinavia were considered). Yet there is
no logic in this use of the word over here, since we Americans are not
insular; and since North America is a continent just as Europe is. As
it happens, the word _continental_ in a wholly contradictory meaning is
glorious in the history of the United States. Who does not know how,
In their ragged regimentals,
Stood the old Continentals,
Yielding not?
None the less will the convenience of this British use of the word
outweigh its lack of logic in America--as convenience has so often
overridden far more serious considerations. Language is only a
tool, after all; and it must ever be shaped to fit the hand that
uses it. This is why another illogical misuse of a word will get
itself recognized as legitimate sooner or later--the limitations of
_American_ to mean only that which belongs to the United States. When
we speak of American ideas we intend to exclude not only the ideas of
South America but also those of Mexico and of Canada; we are really
arrogating to ourselves a supremacy so overwhelming as to warrant our
ignoring altogether all the other peoples having a right to share
in the adjective. Our reason for this is that there is no national
adjective available for us. We can speak of _Mexican_ ideas and of
_Canadian_ ideas; but we cannot--or at least we do not and we will
not--speak of _United Statesian_ ideas. And this appropriation to
ourselves of an adjective really the property of all the inhabitants of
the continent seems to be perfectly acceptable to the only other group
of those inhabitants speaking our language,--the English colonists to
the north of us. On both sides of the Niagara River the smaller brother
of the gigantic Horseshoe cataract is known as the “American fall.”
Even in the last century the British employed _American_ to indicate
the inhabitants of the thirteen colonies; and Dr. Johnson wrote in
1775: “That the _Americans_ are able to bear taxation is indubitable.”
But our ownership of _American_ as a national adjective, if tolerated
by the Canadians and the British, is not admitted by those who do not
speak our language. Probably to both the Italians and the Spaniards
South America rather than North is the part of the world that rises in
the mental vision when the word _American_ is suddenly pronounced.
Another distinction not unlike this, but logical as well as convenient,
is getting itself recognized. This distinction results from accepting
the obvious fact that the literature of the English language has
nowadays two independent divisions--that produced in the British Isles
and that produced in the United States. The writers of both nations
speak the English language, and therefore their works--whensoever these
rise to the level of literature--belong to English literature. We are
wont to call one division _American_ literature, and we are beginning
to see that logic will soon force us to call the other division
_British_ literature. Mr. Stedman has dealt with the poetry of the
English language of the past sixty years in two volumes, one on the
‘Victorian Poets,’ and the other on the ‘Poets of America,’ and this
serves to show how sharp is the line of separation. With his customary
carefulness of epithet, Mr. Stedman in the preface to the earlier
volume always uses _British_ as the antithesis of _American_, reserving
_English_ as the broader adjective to cover both branches of our
literature. Probably the many collections of the ‘British Poets,’ the
‘British Novelists,’ the ‘British Theater,’ were so called to allow
the inclusion of works produced in the sister kingdoms; it is well to
remember that Scott and Moore were neither of them Englishmen. There is
a certain piquancy in the fact that the adjective _British_, available
in the beginning of the nineteenth century because it included the
Scotch and the Irish, is even more useful at the end of the nineteenth
century because it differentiates the English, Scotch, and Irish, taken
all together, from the Americans.
_Telegram_ was denounced as a mismade word, and _cablegram_ was
rejected with abhorrence by all defenders of purity. Yet the firm
establishment of _telegraph_ and _telephone_ made certain the ultimate
acceptance of _telegram_. But _cablegram_ is still on probation, and
may fail of admission in the end, perhaps, because a part of the word
seems to be better fitted for its purpose than the whole. A message
received by the telegraph under the ocean is often curtly called a
_cable_, as when a man says, “I’ve just had a cable from my wife in
Paris.” This, I think, is rather American than British; but it is
akin to the British use of _wire_ as synonymous with both _telegram_
and _to telegraph_. An Englishman invites you to a house-party, and
writes that he will meet you at the station “on a _wire_,” intending to
convey to you his desire that you should telegraph him the hour of your
arrival. In a short story by Mr. Henry James, that most conscientious
of recorders of British speech, he tells us that after _wires_ and
_counterwires_ one of the characters of his tale was at last able to
arrive at the house where the action takes place. The locution is hot
from the verbal foundry; and it seems to imply what an American writer
would have expressed by saying that there had been “telegraphing to and
fro.”
American, probably, is the verb _to process_, and also its past
participle _processed_. When new methods of photo-engraving were
introduced here in the United States, a black-and-white artist would
express a preference either to have his drawing engraved on wood or
have it reproduced mechanically by a photo-engraving process; and as
he needed a brief word to describe this latter act, one was promptly
forthcoming, and he asked, “Is this thing of mine to be engraved
or _processed_?” The word _half-tone_ seems also to be of American
manufacture; and it describes one of these methods of photo-engraving.
It is not only a noun, but also, on occasions, a verb; and the artist
will ask if his wash-drawing is to be _half-toned_. Of necessity the
several improvements in the art of photo-engraving brought with them
a variety of new terms absolutely essential in the terminology of the
craft, most of them remaining hidden in the technical vocabulary,
altho now and again one or another has thrust itself up into the
general language.
Any attempt to declare the British or the American origin of an idiom
is most precarious; and he who ventures upon it has need of double
caution. When a friend of mine asked the boy at the door of the club
if it was still raining, and was answered, “No, sir; it’s _fairing
up_ now,” he was at first inclined to think that he had captured an
Americanism hitherto unknown and delightfully fresh; but he consulted
the Century Dictionary, only to find that it was a Scoticism,--there
was even a quotation from Stevenson’s ‘Inland Voyage,’--and that it was
not uncommon in the southwestern states. And when Captain Mahan brought
out the difference between _preparation_ for war and _preparedness_
for war, this friend was ready to credit the naval historian with the
devising not only of a most valuable distinction but also of a most
useful word; but a dip into the Century Dictionary again revealed that
a Scotchman had not waited for an American to use the word, and that it
had been employed by Bain, not even as tho it was a novelty.
Once in the pages of Hawthorne, who was affluent in words and
artistically adroit in his management of them, I met a phrase
that pleased me mightily, “a _heterogeny_ of things”; and I find
_heterogeny_ duly collected in the Century Dictionary but without
any quotation from Hawthorne. Another word of Hawthorne’s in the
‘Blithedale Romance’ is _improvability_: “In my own behalf, I rejoice
that I could once think better of the world’s _improvability_ than it
deserved.” This I fancy may be Hawthorne’s very own; but it is in the
Century Dictionary, all the same, and without any indication of its
origin. Quite possibly the New England romancer disinterred it from
some forgotten tome of the “somniferous school of literature,” as he
had humorously entitled the writings of his theological ancestors.
There is a word of Abraham Lincoln’s that I long for the right to use.
Mr. Noah Brooks has recorded that he once heard the President speak of
a certain man as _interruptious_. This adjective conveys a delicate
shade of meaning not discoverable in any other; it may not be inscribed
in the bead-roll of the King’s English, but it was a specimen of the
President’s English; and has any Speech from the Throne in this century
really rivaled the force and felicity of the Second Inaugural?
It was not the liberator of the negro but one of the freedmen
themselves who made offhand use of a delicious word, for which it is
probably hopeless for us to expect acceptance, however useful the new
term might prove. During a debate in the legislature of South Carolina
in the Reconstruction days, a sable ally of the carpet-baggers rose
to repel the taunts of his opponents, declaring energetically that he
hurled back with scorn all their _insinuendos_. The word holds a middle
ground between _insinuation_ and _innuendo_; and between the two it has
scant chance of survival. But it is an amusing attempt, for all its
failure; and it would have given pleasure to the author of ‘Alice in
Wonderland.’ And how many of Lewis Carroll’s own verbal innovations,
wantonly manufactured for his sport, are likely to get themselves
admitted into the language of literature? _Chortle_ stands the best
chance of them all, I think; and I believe that many a man has said
that he _chortled_, with no thought of the British bard who ingeniously
devised the quaint vocable.
So Mr. W. S. Gilbert’s _burgle_ seems to be winning its way into
general use. At first those who employed it followed the example of
the comic lyrist, and did so with humorous intent; but of late it
is beginning to serve those who are wholly devoid of humor. Perhaps
the verb _to burgle_ (from the noun _burglar_) supplied the analogy
on which was made the verb _to ush_ (from the noun _usher_). With my
own ears I once heard a well-known clergyman in New York express the
thanks of the congregation to “the gentlemen who _ush_ for us.”
It is well that strange uses like these do not win early acceptance
into our speech--that there should be alert challengers at the portal
to cry “Halt!” and to examine a newcomer’s credentials. It is well also
that the stranger should have leave to prove his usefulness and so in
time gain admittance even to the inner sanctuary of the language. John
Dryden discussed the reception into English of new words and phrases
with the sturdy common sense which was one of the characteristics
most endearing him to us as a true type of the man of letters who was
also a man of the world. “It is obvious,” he wrote in his ‘Defense of
the Epilog,’ “that we have admitted many, some of which we wanted,
and therefore our language is the richer for them, as it would be by
importation of bullion; others are rather ornamental than necessary;
yet by their admission the language is become more courtly and our
thoughts are better dressed.”
Historians of the language have had no difficulty in bringing together
a mass of quotations from the British writers of the eighteenth century
to show that they were then possessed of the belief that it was
feasible and necessary to set bounds to the growth of English. They
were afraid that the changes going on in the language would make it
“impossible for succeeding ages to read or appreciate the literature
produced.” In his interesting and instructive lecture on the ‘Evolution
of English Lexicography,’ Dr. Murray remarks that “to us of a later
age, with our fuller knowledge of the history of language, and our
wider experience of its fortunes, when it has to be applied to entirely
new fields of knowledge, such as have been opened to us since the birth
of modern science, this notion seems childlike and pathetic. But it was
eminently characteristic of the eighteenth century.”
It is small wonder therefore that this absurd notion infected two of
the most characteristic figures of the eighteenth century--Johnson and
Franklin. Dr. Johnson set forth in the plan of his dictionary that
“one great end of this undertaking is to fix the English language.”
Even so shrewd a student of all things as was Franklin seems to have
accepted this current fallacy. When he acknowledged the dedication of
Noah Webster’s ‘Dissertations on the English Language,’ he declared
that he could not “but applaud your zeal for preserving the purity of
our language, both in its expressions and pronunciation.” Then, as tho
to prove to us, once for all, the futility of all efforts to “fix the
language” and to “preserve its purity,” Franklin picks out half a dozen
novelties of phrase and begs that Webster will use his “authority in
reprobating them.” Among these innovations that Franklin disapproved of
are _improved_, _noticed_, _advocated_, _progressed_, and _opposed_.
This letter to Webster was written in 1789; and already in 1760
Franklin had yielded to certain of David Hume’s criticisms upon his
parts of speech: “I thank you for your friendly admonition relating to
some unusual words in the pamphlet. It will be of service to me. The
_pejorate_ and the _colonize_, since they are not in common use here, I
give up as bad; for certainly in writings intended for persuasion and
for general information, one cannot be too clear; and every expression
in the least obscure is a fault. The _unshakable_, too, tho clear, I
give up as rather low. The introducing new words, where we are already
possessed of old ones sufficiently expressive, I confess must be
generally wrong, as it tends to change the language.”
With all his intellect and all his insight and all his common
sense--and with this most precious quality Franklin was better
furnished than either Johnson or Dryden--he could not foresee that
_to notice_ and _to advocate_ and _to colonize_ were words without
which the English language could not do its work in the world. And
when he gives up _unshakable_ “as rather low” he stands confessed
as a contemporary of the men whom Fielding and Goldsmith girded
at. In spite of the example of Steele and Addison, in spite of his
own vigorous directness in ‘Poor Richard’ and in all his political
pamphlets, Franklin feels that there is and that there ought to be
a wide gap between the English that is spoken and the English that
is written. He did not perceive that spoken English, with all its
hazardous expressions, its clipped words, its violent metaphors, its
picturesque slang, its slovenly clumsiness, is none the less the
proving-ground of the literary vocabulary, which is forever tending to
self-exhaustion.