American Language (52 page)
Authors: H.L. Mencken
But perhaps the greatest difference between English and American usage is presented by
the Honorable
. In the United States the title is applied loosely to all public officials of any apparent respectability, and with some show of official sanction to many of them, especially Congressmen, but it is questionable whether this application has any actual legal standing, save perhaps in the case of certain judges, who are referred to as
the Hon
. in their own court records. Even the President of the United States, by law, is not
the Honorable
, but simply
the President
. In the First Congress the matter of his title was exhaustively debated; some members wanted to call him
the Honorable
and others proposed
His Excellency
and even
His Highness
. But the two Houses finally decided that it was “not proper to annex any style or title other than that expressed by the Constitution.” Congressmen themselves are not
Honorables
. True enough, the
Congressional Record
, in printing a set speech, calls it “Speech of
Hon
. John Jones” (without the
the
before the
Hon
. — a characteristic Americanism), but in reporting the ordinary remarks of a member it always calls him plain
Mr
. Nevertheless, a country Congressman would be offended if his partisans, in announcing his appearance on the stump, did not prefix
Hon
. to his name. So would a State Senator. So would a Mayor or Governor. I have seen the sergeant-at-arms of the United States Senate referred to as
Hon
. in the records of that body,
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and the title is also accorded there to all former members of either House, to State Governors, to Ambassadors, to members of the Cabinet, past or present, and all their principal assistants, to all State officials of any dignity, and to a miscellaneous
rabble of other notables, including newspaper editors.
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In February, 1935, an Interstate Assembly of various State officials was held at Washington. In the official report of it,
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the following functionaries, among others, were set down as
Hons.:
State tax commissioners and assessors, State treasurers, comptrollers and auditors, the deputies and assistants of all these, and all members of State Legislatures.
In England the thing is more carefully ordered, and bogus
Hons
. are unknown. The prefix is applied to both sexes and belongs by law,
inter alia
, to all present or past maids of honor, to all justices of the High Court during their term of office, to the Scotch Lords of Session, to the sons and daughters of viscounts and barons, to the younger sons of earls, and to the members of the legislative and executive councils of the colonies. But
not
to members of Parliament, though each is, in debate, the
hon. member
, or the
hon. gentleman
. Even a member of the cabinet is not an
Hon.
, though he is a
Right Hon
. by virtue of membership in the Privy Council, of which the Cabinet is legally merely a committee. This last honorific belongs
, not only to privy councillors, but also to all peers lower than marquesses (those above are
Most Hon.
), to Lord Mayors during their terms of office, to the Lord Advocate and to the Lord Provosts of Edinburgh and Glasgow. Moreover, a peeress whose husband is a
Right Hon
. is a
Right Hon
. herself.
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The British colonies follow the jealous usage of the mother-country. Even in Canada the lawless American example is not imitated. I have before me a “Table of Titles to be Used in Canada,” laid down by royal warrant, which lists those who are
Hons
. and those who are not
Hons
. in the utmost detail. Only privy councillors of Canada (not to be confused with imperial privy councillors) are permitted to retain the prefix after going out of office, though ancients who were legislative councillors at the time of the union, July 1, 1867, if any survive, may still use it by sort of courtesy, and former Speakers of the Dominion Senate and House of Commons and various retired judges may do so on application to the King, countersigned by the Governor-General. The following are lawfully
the Hon.
, but only during their tenure of office: the Solicitor-General, the Speaker of the House of Commons, the Presidents and Speakers of the provincial Legislatures, members of the executive councils of the Provinces, the Chief Justice, the judges of the Supreme Courts of Ontario, Nova Scotia, New Brunswick, British Columbia, Prince Edward Island, Saskatchewan and Alberta, the judges of the Courts of Appeal of Manitoba and British Columbia, the Chancery Court of Prince Edward Island, and the Circuit Court of Montreal — these, and no more. A Lieutenant-Governor of a Province is not
the Hon.
, but
His Honor
. The Governor-General is
His Excellency
, and his wife is
Her Excellency
, but in practise they usually have superior honorifics, and do not forget to demand their use. In Australia, it would seem,
the Hon
. is extended to members of the Federal Parliament; at least one of them, to my personal knowledge, has the title engraved upon his visiting-card.
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But though an Englishman, and, following him, a colonial, is thus very careful to restrict
the Hon
. to its legal uses, he always insists, when he serves without pay as an officer of any organization, upon indicating his volunteer character by writing
hon
. meaning
honorary
, before the name of his office. If he leaves it off it is a sign that he is a hireling. Thus, the agent of the New Zealand government in London, a paid officer, is simply the
agent
, but the agents at Brisbane and Adelaide, in Australia, who serve for the glory of it, are
hon. agents
. In writing to a Briton of condition one had better be careful to put
Esq
. behind his name, and not
Mr
. before it. The English have long made a distinction between the two forms.
Mr.
, on an envelope, indicates that the sender holds the receiver to be his inferior; one writes to
Mr
. John Jackson, one’s green-grocer, but to James Thompson,
Esq.
, one’s neighbor. But if one encloses an envelope for a reply, addressed to one’s self, one’s name on it must be preceded by
Mr.
, not followed by
Esq
. Any man who is entitled to the
Esq
. is a gentleman, by which an Englishman means a man of sound connections and what is regarded as dignified occupation — in brief, of ponderable social position. But in late years these distinctions have been losing force.
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In colonial America
Esq
. seems to have been confined to justices of the peace, who acquired thereby the informal title of
Squire
, but inasmuch as every lawyer of any dignity became a justice almost automatically it was eventually applied to most members of the bar.
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It is common to so apply it to this day. Lawyers, like judges, are often designated
Esq
. in court papers, and when one of them appears on a list of speakers at a political meeting he is usually distinguished from the general, especially in the South, by adding
Esq
. to his name.
The English in speaking or writing of public officials, avoid those long and clumsy combinations of title and name which figure so copiously in American newspapers. Such locutions as
Assistant Secretary of the Interior
Jones,
Fourth Assistant Postmaster-General
Brown,
Inspector of Boilers
Smith,
Judge of the Appeal Tax Court
Robinson,
Chief Clerk of the Treasury
Williams and
Collaborating Epidemiologist
White
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are quite unknown to him. When an Englishman mentions a high official, such as the Secretary for Foreign Affairs, he does not think it necessary to add the man’s name; he simply says
the Secretary for Foreign Affairs
or
the Foreign Secretary
. And so with the Lord Chancellor, the Chief Justice, the Prime Minister, the Bishop of Carlisle, the Chief Rabbi, the First Lord (of the Admiralty), the Master of Pembroke (College), the Italian Ambassador, and so on. But certain ecclesiastical titles are sometimes coupled to surnames in the American manner, as in
Dean
Inge and
Canon
Wilberforce.
A lawyer appearing in court before a judge of the English higher courts addresses him as
My Lord
, and speaks of him in his presence as
His Lordship
. In the United States the form is
Your Honor
, which is also proper for county judges in England. A letter to an English high court judge is superscribed
The Hon. Mr. Justice—
. In America, in speaking to a judge outside his court, it is customary to say simply
Judge
—, or, if he is a member of the Supreme Court of the United States (or of one or two other courts)
Mr. Justice
without the surname, or
Mr. Chief Justice
. A justice of the peace in England is
His Worship
, and so is a Mayor, and the latter is
the Right Worshipful
on an envelope. In the United States a Mayor is sometimes called
His Honor
, but the form seems to have no warrant in law. The Governors of Massachusetts and New Hampshire are
Your Excellency
by statute. In England an Ambassador is
His Excellency
, and so are colonial Governors. But the intricacies of British titles are so vast that I can’t go into them here.
I have spoken of the American custom of dropping the definite article before
Hon
. It extends to
Rev
. and the like, and has the authority of very respectable usage behind it. The opening sentence of the
Congressional Record
is always: “The Chaplain,
Rev
. —, D.D., offered the following prayer.” When chaplains for the Army or Navy are confirmed by the Senate they always appear in the
Record
as
Revs.
, never as
the Revs
. I also find the honorific without the article in the New International Encyclopaedia, in a widely-popular American grammar-book, and in the catalogue of Groton, the fashionable prep-school, whose headmaster must always be
a clergyman of the Protestant Episcopal Church.
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So long ago as 1867, Edward S. Gould protested against this elision as barbarous and idiotic, and drew up the following
reductio ad absurdum:
At the last annual meeting of Black Book Society, honorable John Smith took the chair, assisted by reverend John Brown and venerable John White. The office of secretary would have been filled by late John Green, but for his decease, which rendered him ineligible. His place was supplied by inevitable John Black. In the course of the evening eulogiums were pronounced on distinguished John Gray and notorious Joseph Brown. Marked compliment was also paid to able historian Joseph White, discriminating philosopher Joseph Green, and learned professor Joseph Black. But conspicuous speech of the evening was witty Joseph Bray’s apostrophe to eminent astronomer Jacob Brown, subtle logician Jacob White, etc., etc.
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This
reductio ad absurdum
(which sounds curiously like an extract from the
Time
of today) was ratified by Richard Grant White in “Words and Their Uses” (1870), and William Cullen Bryant included the omission of the article in his
Index Expurgatorius
, but their anathemas were as ineffective as Gould’s irony. The Episcopalians in the United States, at least those of the High Church variety, usually insert the
the
, but the rest of the Protestants omit it, and so do the Catholics; as for the Jews, they get rid of it by calling their rabbis
Dr
. Now and then some evangelical purist tries to induce the Methodists and Baptists to adopt the
the
, but always in vain. Throughout rural America it is common to address an ecclesiastic
viva voce
as
Reverend
. This custom is also denounced by the more delicate clergy, but equally without effect upon the prevailing speech habit. Some years ago one of the suffering brethren was thus moved to protest in verse:
Call me
Brother
, if you will;
Call me
Parson
— better still.
Or if, perchance, the Catholic frill
Doth your heart with longing fill —
Though plain
Mister
fills the bill,
Then even
Father
brings no chill
Of hurt or rancor or ill-will.
To no D.D. do I pretend,
Though
Doctor
doth some honor lend,
Preacher, Pastor, Rector, Friend
,
Titles almost without end
Never grate and ne’er offend;
A loving ear to all I bend.
But how the man my heart doth rend.
Who blithely calls me
Reverend!
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To which may be added a denunciation of
Reverend
in direct address which shows, incidentally, that the author, a Methodist bishop, does not object to the omission of the
the
in writing:
She was well dressed. Her manner was womanly. Her voice was gende. She seemed intelligent and cultured. She approached me and said, “Is this Rev. Moore?” I was amazed at such a transgression against good usage. Anyone should know better than to say
Rev
. Moore or
Rev
. Smith. That word
Rev
. cannot be attached in speech or writing to a surname; it can be used only with the given name, or the initials, or with some title such as
Mister, Doctor, Professor
or
Bishop
. One may say
Rev. Mr
. Smith, or
Rev. Dr
. Smith, or
Rev. Prof
. Smith, or
Rev. G. W
. Smith, but never
Rev
. Smith. It is discreditable to transgress such usage.
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