American Language (54 page)

George might have unearthed some even stranger magnificoes in other playhouses. I once knew an ancient bill-sticker, attached to a Baltimore theatre, who boasted the sonorous title of
chief lithographer
. Today, in all probability, he would be called a
lithographic-engineer
. For a number of years the
Engineering News-Record
, the organ of the legitimate engineers, used to devote a column every week to just such uninvited invaders of the craft, and some of the species it unearthed were so fantastic that it was constrained to reproduce their business cards photographically in order to convince its readers that it was not spoofing. One of its favorite exhibits was a bedding manufacturer who first became a
mattress-engineer
and then promoted himself to the lofty dignity of
sleep-engineer
. No doubt he would have called himself a
morphician
if he had thought of it. Another exhilarating specimen was a tractor-driver who advertised for a job as a
caterpillar-engineer
. A third was a beautician who burst out as an
appearance-engineer
. In an Atlanta department-store the
News-Record
found an
engineer of good taste
— a young woman employed to advise newly-married couples patronizing the furniture department, and elsewhere it unearthed
display-engineers
who had been lowly window-dressers until some visionary among them made the great leap,
demolition-engineers
who were once content to be house-wreckers, and
sanitary-engineers
who had an earlier incarnation as garbage-men. The
wedding-engineer
is a technician employed
by florists to dress churches for hymeneal orgies. The
commencement-e
. arranges college and high-school commencements; he has lists of clergymen who may be trusted to pray briefly, and some sort of fire-alarm connection, I suppose, with the office of Dr. John H. Finley, the champion commencement orator of this or any other age. The
packing-e
. is a scientist who crates clocks, radios and china-ware for shipment. The
correspondence-e
. writes selling-letters guaranteed to pull. The
income-e
. is an insurance solicitor in a new false-face. The
dwelling-e
. replaces lost keys, repairs leaky roofs, and plugs up rat-holes in the cellar. The
vision-e
. supplies spectacles at cut rates. The
dehorning-e
. attends to bulls who grow too frisky. The
Engineering News-Record
also discovered a
printing-e.
, a
furniture-e., a photographic-e.
, a
financial-e
. (a stock-market tipster), a
paint-e.
, a
clothing-e.
, a
wrapping-e
. (a dealer in wrapping-paper), a
matrimonial-e
. (a psychoanalyst specializing in advice to the lovelorn), a
box-e
. (the
packing-e
. under another name), an
automotive-painting-e.
, a
blasting-e.
, a
dry-cleaning-e.
, a
container-e.
, a
furnish-ing-e.
, a
socio-religious-e
. (an uplifter), a
social-e
. (the same), a
feed-plant-e.
, a
milk-e.
, a
surface-protection-e.
, an
analyzation-e.
, a
fiction-e.
, a
psychological-e
. (another kind of psychoanalyst), a
casement-njoindow-e.
, a
shingle-e.
, a
fumigating-e.,
a
laminated-wood-e.,zpackage-e
. (the
packing-e
. again), a
horse-e.
, a
pediatric-e
. (a corn-doctor), an
ice-e.
, a
recreation-e.
, a
tire-e.
, a
paint-maintenance-e.
, a
space-saving-e.
, a
film-e
. (or
filmgineer
), a
criminal-e
. (a criminologist), a
diet-kitchen-e.
, a
patent-e.
, an
equipment-e.
, a
floor-covering-e.
, a
society-e.,
a
window-cleaning-e.
, a
dust-e.
, a
hospitalization-e.
, a
baking-e.
, a
directory-e.
, an
advertising-e.
, a
golf-e
. (a designer of golf-courses), a
human-e
. (another variety of psychoanalyst), an
amusement-e.
) an
electric-sign-e.
, a
household-e.
, a
pageant-e.
, an
idea-e.
, a
ballistics-e.
, a
lace-e
. and a
sign-e
.
¹⁵⁸
Perhaps the prize should go to the
dansant-e
. (an agent supplying dancers and musicians to night-clubs), or to the
hot-dog-e
.
¹⁵⁹
The
exterminating-engineers
have a solemn national association and wear a distinguishing pin; whether or not they have tried to restrain non-member rat-catchers from calling themselves
engineers
I do not know. In 1923 the
Engineering News-Record
printed a final blast against all the pseudo-engineers then extant, and urged its engineer readers to boycott them. But this boycott apparently came to nothing, and soon thereafter it abated its indignation and resorted to laughter.
¹⁶⁰
Next to
engineer, expert
seems to be the favorite talisman of Americans eager to augment their estate and dignity in this world. Very often it is hitched to an explanatory prefix,
e.g., housing-, planning-, hog-, erosion-, marketing-, boll-weevil-
, or
sheep-dip-
, but sometimes the simple adjective
trained-
suffices. When the Brain Trust came into power in Washington, the town began to swarm with such quacks, most of them recent graduates of the far-flung colleges of the land. One day a humorous member of Congress printed an immense list of them in the
Congressional Record
, with their salaries and academic dignities. He found at least one whose expertness was acquired in a seminary for chiropractors. During the John Purroy Mitchel “reform” administration in New York City (1914–18) so many bogus
experts
were put upon the pay-roll that special designations
for them ran out, and in prodding through the Mitchel records later on Bird S. Coler discovered that a number had been carried on the books as
general experts
.

Euphemisms for things are almost as common in the United States as euphemisms for avocations. Dozens of forlorn little fresh-water colleges are called
universities
, and almost all
pawn-shops
are
loan-offices
. When
movie-cathedral
came in a few scoffers snickered, but by the generality of fans it was received gravely.
City
, in England, used to be confined to the seats of bishops, and even today it is applied only to considerable places, but in the United States it is commonly assumed by any town with paved streets, and in the statistical publications of the Federal government it is applied to all places of 8000 or more population. The American use of
store
for
shop
, like that of
help
for
servant
, is probably the product of an early effort at magnification. Before Prohibition saloons used to be
sample-rooms, buffets, exchanges, cafés
and
restaurants
; now they are
taverns, cocktail-rooms, taprooms, American-bars, stubes
and what not. Not long ago the
Furnished-Room Guide
undertook to substitute
hotelette
for
rooming-house
,
¹⁶¹
and in 1928 President E. L. Robins of the National
Fertilizer
Association proposed that the name of that organization be changed to the National Association of
Plant Food
Manufacturers or the American
Plant Food
Association.
¹⁶²
In Pasadena the public garbage-wagons bear the legend:
Table-Waste Disposal Department
. The word
studio
is heavily overworked; there are
billiard-studios, tonsorial-studios, candy-studios
, and even
shoe-studios
.
¹⁶³
Nor is this reaching out for sweet and disarming words confined to the lowly. Some time ago, in the
Survey
, the trade journal of the American uplifters, Dr. Thomas Dawes Eliot, associate professor of sociology in Northwestern University, printed a solemn argument in favor of abandoning all such harsh terms as
reformatory, house of refuge, reform school
and
jail
. “Each time a new phrase is developed,” he said, “it seems to bring with it, or at least to be accompanied by, some measure of permanent gain, in standards or in viewpoint, even though much of the old may continue to masquerade as the new. The series,
alms, philanthropy, relief, rehabilitation, case work, family welfare
, shows such a progression from cruder to
more refined levels of charity.” Among the substitutions proposed by the learned professor were
habit-disease
for
vice, psycho-neurosis
for
sin, failure to compensate
for
disease, treatment
for
punishment, delinquent
for
criminal, unmarried mother
for
illegitimate mother, out of wedlock
for
bastard, behavior problem
for
prostitute, colony
for
penitentiary, school
for
reformatory, psychopathic hospital
for
insane asylum
, and
house of detention
for
jail
.
¹⁶⁴
Many of these terms (or others like them) have been actually adopted. Practically all American insane asylums are now simple
hospitals
, many reformatories and houses of correction have been converted into
homes
or
schools
, all
almshouses
are now
infirmaries, county-farms
or
county-homes
, and most of the more advanced American penologists now speak of criminals as
psychopathic personalities
. By a law of New York it is provided that “in any local law, ordinance or resolution, or in any public or judicial proceeding, or in any process, notice, order, decree, judgment, record or other public document or paper, the term
bastard
or
illegitimate child
shall not be used, but the term
child born out of wedlock
shall be used in substitution therefor, and with the same force and effect.”
¹⁶⁵
Meanwhile, such harsh terms as
second-hand
and
ready-made
disappear from the American vocabulary. For the former the automobile dealers, who are ardent euphe-mists, have substituted
reconditioned, rebuilt, repossessed
and
used
, and for the latter department-stores offer
ready-tailored, ready-to-wear
and
ready-to-put-on
. For
shop-worn
two of the current euphemisms are
store-used
and
slightly-second
.

The English euphemism-of-all-work used to be
lady
. Back in the Seventeenth Century the court-poet Edmund Waller thought it quite proper to speak of actresses, then a novelty on the English stage, as
lady-actors
, and even today the English newspapers frequently refer to
lady-secretaries, lady-doctors, lady-inspectors, lady-golfers
and
lady-champions. Women’s wear
, in most English shops, is
ladies’ wear
. But this excessive use of lady seems to be going out, and I note
women’s singles
and
women’s ice hockey
on the sports pages of the London
Daily Telegraph
.
¹⁶⁶
The
Times
inclines the same way, but I observe that it still uses
Ladies’ International
to designate a golf tournament,
ladies’ round
and
ladies’ championship
(golf and
fencing).
¹⁶⁷
In the United States
lady
is definitely out of favor. The
salesladies
of yesteryear are now all
saleswomen
or
salesgirls
, and the female superintendent of a hospital is not the
lady-superintendent
, but simply the
superintendent
. When women were first elected to Congress, the question as to how they should be referred to in debate engaged the leaders of the House of Representatives. For a while the phrase used was “the
lady
from So-and-so,” but soon “the
gentlewoman
” was substituted, and this is now employed almost invariably. Its invention is commonly ascribed to the late Nicholas Longworth; if he actually proposed it, it was probably jocosely, for
gentlewoman
is clumsy, and in some cases, as clearly inaccurate as
lady
. The English get round the difficulty by using
the hon. member
in speaking of women M.P.’s, though sometimes
the hon. lady
is used.
¹⁶⁸
A member who happens to be a military or naval officer is always, by the way,
the hon. and gallant member
, and a legal officer, say the Attorney-General or Solicitor-General, or a lawyer member in active practise, is
the hon. and learned member
. The English use
gentleman
much more carefully than we do, and much more carefully than they themselves use
lady
.
Gentleman-author
or
gentleman-clerk
would make them howl, but they commonly employ
gentleman-rider
and
gentleman-player
in place of our
amateur
, though
amateur
seems to be gaining favor. Here the man referred to is always actually a gentleman by their standards.