There are several questions which writers and speakers who give thought
to their expressions will do well to ask themselves when they are
tempted to employ a French word or indeed a word from any alien tongue.
The first is the simplest: Is the foreign word really needed? For
example, there is no benefit in borrowing _impasse_ when there exists
already in English its exact equivalent, 'blind-alley', which carries
the meaning more effectively even to the small percentage of readers or
listeners who are familiar with French. Nor is there any gain in
_résumé_ when 'summary' and 'synopsis' and 'abstract' are all available.
The second question is perhaps not quite so simple: Is the French word
one which English has already accepted and made its own? We do not
really need _questionnaire_, since we have 'interrogatory', but if we
want it we can make shift with 'questionary'; and for _concessionnaire_
we can put 'concessionary'. To balance 'employer' there is 'employee',
better by far than _employé_, which insists on a French pronunciation.
Matthew Arnold and Lowell, always apt and exact in their use of their
own tongue, were careful to prefer the English 'technic' to the French
_technique_, which is not in harmony with the adjectives 'technical' and
_polytechnic_. So 'clinic' seems at last to have vanquished its French
father _clinique_, as 'fillet' has superseded _filet_; and now that
'valet' has become a verb it has taken on an English pronunciation.
Then there is _littérateur_. If a synonym for 'man of letters' is
demanded why not find it in 'literator', which Lockhart did not
hesitate to employ in the _Life of Scott_. It is pleasant to believe
that _communard_, which was prevalent fifty years ago after the burning
of the Tuileries, has been succeeded by 'communist' and that its
twin-brother _dynamitard_ is now rarely seen and even more rarely heard.
Perhaps some of the credit may be due to Stevenson, who entitled his
tale the _Dynamiter_ and appended a foot-note declaring that 'any
writard who writes _dynamitard_ shall find in me a never-resting
fightard'.
The third question may call for a little more consideration: Has the
foreign word been employed so often that it has ceased to be foreign
even though it has not been satisfactorily anglicized in spelling and
pronunciation? In the _Jungle Book_ Mr. Kipling introduces an official
who is in charge of the 'reboisement' of India; and in view of the
author's scrupulosity in dealing with professional vocabularies we may
assume that this word is a recognized technical term, equivalent to the
older word 'afforestation'. What is at once noteworthy and praiseworthy
is that in Mr. Kipling's page it does not appear in italics. And in
Mr. Pearsall Smith's book on the English language one admiring reader
was pleased to find 'débris' also without italics, although with the
retention of the French accent. Perhaps the time is not far distant
when the best writers will cease to stigmatize a captured word with
the italics which are a badge of servitude and which proclaim that it
has not yet been enfranchised into our language.
The fourth question is the most perplexing: If the formerly foreign
word has been taken over and if it can therefore be utilized without
hesitancy, can it be made to form its plural in accord with the customs
of English. Here those who seek to make the English language truly
English and to keep it truly pure, will meet with sturdy resistance.
It will not be easy to persuade the literate, the men of culture, to
renounce the _x_ at the end of _beaux_ and _bureaux_ and to spell these
plurals 'beaus' and 'bureaus'. And yet no one doubts that 'beau' and
'bureau' have both won the right to be regarded as having attained an
honourable standing in our language.