American Language (60 page)

122
Some Impressions of the United States; New York, 1888. The pertinent passages are reprinted in American Social History as Recorded by British Travelers, by Allan Nevins; New York, 1923, p. 481.

123
“Members of the United States Senate,” says an editorial in the Dayton (O.)
News
, Jan. 5, 1934, “largely address each other, in private at least, by their first names. The President of the United States, to hundreds of his friends, is simply
Frank.
”

124
Congressional Record
, May 16, 1918, p. 7147.

125
For the sake of the record I append a few examples. Clark Howell, editor of the Atlanta
Constitution
appears as
Hon
. in the
Record
for June 15 (all dates are 1935), p. 9811, and the chief editorial writer of another Southern paper on Sept. 10, p. 15335. Jeremiah T. Mahoney, president of the Athletic Union of the United States appears on Aug. 23, p. 14790; Norman Hapgood on May 23, p. 8405; Harry L. Hopkins on July 17, p. 11733; Rexford G. Tugwell on Sept. 10, p. 15253; Frederic A. Delano, President Roosevelt’s uncle, Aug. 21, p. 14439; Leo T. Crowley, chairman of the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation, on June 5, p. 9051; Chester C. Davis, administrator of the Agricultural Adjustment Act, on Aug. 14, p. 13618; Robert Fechner, director of Emergency Conservation Work, on Aug. 15, 13812; former Secretary of the Navy Charles Francis Adams on June 11, p. 9418; an ex-Assistant Postmaster-General on May 29, p. 8728; an Assistant Secretary of State on July 23, p. 12211; a former Attorney-General of Massachusetts on Aug. 6, p. 13061; the Attorney-General of Indiana on Aug. 16, p. 13980; Knud Wefald, a member of the Minnesota Railroad and Warehouse Commission, on Aug. 23, p. 14778; a special assistant to the Postmaster-General on June 21, p. 10298; a resident commissioner from the Philippines on July 17, p. 11805; a Works Progress director for Idaho on July 17, p. 11733; the solicitor of the Postoffice on July 11, p. 11493; and Frank De-laney, general counsel of Investors and Policyholders, Inc., on Aug. 19, p. 14213. I sometimes receive letters from members of Congress. Almost invariably they make me
Hon
. on the envelope. Some time ago I received an invitation from a Senator who was giving a luncheon to another Senator. It was in the third person, and both the host and the guest of honor appeared as
the Hon
.

126
Printed in
State Government
, the organ of the American Legislators’ Association, April, 1935, p. 89.

127
The proper use of titles in England is so complicated a matter that it has produced a large literature. Perhaps the best textbook is Titles and Forms of Address (anonymous); 2nd ed.; London, 1929.

128
In the Crown Colony of Hong Kong all members of the Legislative Council are
Hons
. and it is customary to add
Mr
. after the title, even when Christian names or initials follow. It is said to have been first inserted by order of Sir Matthew Nathan, a former Governor. See Marriage at 6
A.M.
, by Tom Clarke; London, 1934. I am indebted here to Mr. F. H. Tyson of Hong Kong.

129
1 An English friend tells me that he might, “without grievous solecism,” address his tailor as
Esq. —
on the ground that a tailor, like a lawyer, doctor or horse-dealer, renders his bill, not in pounds, but in guineas! In Etiquette, by Emily Post; New York, 1922, p. 459, we are told that “formal invitations are always addressed to
Mr
. Stanley Smith,” but that “all other personal letters may be addressed to Stanley Smith,
Esq.
”

130
I am indebted here to Dr. S. E. Morison.

131
I encountered this gem in
Public Health Reports
, a government publication, for April 26, 1918, p. 619.

132
For the
Record
see any issue. For the New International Encyclopaedia see the article on Brotherhood of Andrew and Philip. The grammar-book is Longman’s Briefer Grammar; New York, 1908, p. 160.

133
Good English; New York, 1867, P. 57.

134
Alabama Christian Advocate
(Birmingham), Nov. 7, 1929. The poem was clipped from the Richmond
Christian Advocate
, which had clipped it in turn from “an Atlanta church paper.” Its author was said to be “an Episcopal rector.”

135
Do You Speak English?, by Bishop John M. Moore,
Christian Index
(Jackson, Tenn.), Aug. 9, 1928. Dr. Moore is a Ph.D. of Yale, and also pursued ghostly studies at Leipzig and Heidelberg.

136
Dr. S. E. Morison tells me that the Mathers were probably the first American divines to call themselves
Rev
. Increase Mather seems to have picked up the title during his visit to England, 1688–92. Before that time American clergymen were simply
Mr.
, an abbreviation of
Master
. This was an indication that they were masters of arts. During the Middle Ages bachelors of arts were addressed as
Dominus
, which was Englished as
Sir
. That is why clergymen, in Shakespeare’s time, were often called
Sir
— always with their surnames, not with their given names, which last form distinguished knights. The usage crossed the Atlantic, and persisted at Harvard and Yale down to 1800 or thereabout. It explains the belief of many Americans of today that their colonial ancestors were knights. There were relatively few
D.D.’s
in America before 1800, for the degree was seldom given by the American universities. But any clergyman who had published an edifying work could obtain it from one of the Scottish universities on payment of a fee, and in the middle of the Eighteenth Century it was not unusual for an admiring congregation to pass the hat to help its shepherd obtain the degree.

137
See The Use of the Abbreviation
Rev
. in Modern English, by Edward C. Ehrensperger,
American Speech
, Oct., 1931.

138
This last seems to have been introduced by
Variety
, which has a magnificent disdain for all the ordinary usages of the language. In 1926 Thyra Samter Winslow printed a volume of short stories called
Show Business
, without the article.

139
The text is in the
Acta Apostolicæ Sedis
, Jan. 15, 1931.

140
Abbots are also
Right Rev
. but in the United States they are not monsignors.

141
See
Right Reverend
, by Prelatus Domesticus,
Commonweal
, Oct. 18, 1935.

142
I am indebted here to Major Vincent Cunningham, editor of the
War Cry
(Southern edition).

143
La Ross’s husband, the Hon. William B. Ross, died in office as Governor of Wyoming on Oct. 2, 1924, and she was elected his successor and went into office on Jan. 5, 1925. A few days before this another
Ma
, Ferguson by name, became Governor of Texas. Her husband, James E. Ferguson, had been impeached and removed from the governorship in 1917.

144
Private communication, Sept. 28, 1935.

145
Realtor: Its Meaning and Use; Chicago (National Association of Real Estate Boards), 1925.

146
Letter to W. A. Frisbie, editor of the Minneapolis
Daily News
. This was in 1922. The letter was subscribed “Yours
realtorially
.” A copy was sent to Mr. Lewis, who preserves it in his archives.

147
Private communication, Sept. 4, 1935.

148
Electragist, by Corneil Ridderhof,
American Speech
, Aug., 1927, p. 477. It means, according to Mr. Ridderhof, “a combined electrical dealer and contractor.”

149
I am indebted here to Mr. W. M. Krieger, executive secretary of the organization, the headquarters of which are in Chicago.

150
Casket
seems to have come in during the Civil War period. In 1863 Nathaniel Hawthorne denounced it in Our Old Home as “a vile modern phrase, which compels a person … to shrink … from the idea of being buried at all.” At the start it had a rival in
case
. The latter was used in the Richmond
Examiner’s
report of the funeral of Gen. J. E. B. Stuart, May 13, 1864. But the
Examiner
, in the same report, used
corpse
and
hearse
.

151
Mortuary Nomenclature,
Hygeia
, Nov., 1925, p. 651.

152
The
Mortician
, by Elmer Davis,
American Mercury
, May, 1927.

153
Editor and Publisher
, Jan. 30, 1932.

154
I proposed the use of
bootician
to designate a high-toned big-city bootlegger in the
American Mercury
, April, 1925, p. 450. The term met a crying need, and had considerable success. In March, 1927, the San José
Mercury-Herald
said: “Our bootleggers are now calling themselves
booticians
. It seems that
bootlegger
has some trace of odium about it, while
bootician
has none.” (Reprinted in the Baltimore
Evening Sun
, April 4, 1927.) On July 23, 1931, according to the Associated Press, a man arrested in Chicago, on being asked his profession, answered proudly that he was a
bootician
.

155
In 1924 representatives of 3000 of them met in Chicago, and voted for
chirotonsor
. See the
Commonweal
, Nov. 26, 1924, p. 58.

156
There is a
Shoe Rebuilders
’ Association in Baltimore. See the Baltimore
Evening Sun
, Oct. 17, 1935.

157
Hail, Columbia!; New York, 1921, pp. 92–3.

158
Many other varieties of engineers have been unearthed by other fanciers. On Oct. 19, 1935 the
New Yorker
announced the discovery of a
persuasion-e
. — “a man sent somewhere by his company to try and sell somebody an idea that would be of advantage to the company.” A few months before this the
Professional Engineer
found a
pajama-e
. in the
New Yorker’s
advertising columns. For this last I am indebted to Mr. M. E. Mclver, secretary of the American Association of Engineers. In
Popular Science
, Aug., 1935 a contributor called himself a
coffee-e
.

159
A curious anticipation of the American misuse of
engineer
, by an Englishman, is to be found in a memorandum submitted to Henry Dundas, first Viscount Melville, by Charles Stuart at the end of 1793. Dundas was Home Secretary from 1791 to 1794, and as such was in charge of the government’s relations with the press. “I firmly believe, without any vanity,” wrote Stuart, “that I know as much in the engineering of the press as any
press engineer
in Britain.” See The History of the
Times
; London, 1925, p. 66. But Stuart’s attempt to make the manipulation of the press a branch of engineering was not imitated, and there is no mention of pseudo-engineers in any of the English dictionaries.

160
See the issue for Jan. 15, 1925. Also, Some “Engineers” I Have Known, by a Civil Engineer,
Engineering News-Record
, April 19, 1923, p. 701. The engineers themselves have grossly misused the term designating them. In The Structure of the Engineering Profession, by Theodore J. Hoover, dean of the School of Engineering at Stanford University,
Journal of Engineering Education
, Jan., 1935, appears an exhaustive report upon what the 10,542 listed in “Who’s Who in Engineering” call themselves. Mr. Hoover finds 2518 different titles, including such absurdities as
sales-e., sales-promotion-e., promo-tion-e., application-e., college-e., social-e., technical-publicity-e
.,
bank-management-e
., and
export-e
. He advocates a complete reform of professional nomenclature, but when I last heard from him he didn’t seem to have much hope. On Feb. 21, 1935 the Associated Press reported that the National Society of Professional Engineers was trying to induce the American railroads to call their locomotive-engineers
enginemen
. The New York Central and the Pennsylvania, it was said, were already doing so.

161
See the
New Yorker
, Jan. 9, 1935, p. 74. The
New Yorker
expressed a waggish preference for
furnished-roomateria
.

162
United Press report, Nov. 13, 1928.

163
See
Studio
, by John T. Krumpel-mann,
American Speech
, Dec., 1926, p. 158.

164
A Limbo for Cruel Words,
Survey
, June 15, 1922.

165
Laws of 1925, Ch. 515, in force April 9, 1925. I have to thank Mr. Sylvan Baruch of the New York Bar for calling my attention to this statute.

166
March 29, 1935.

167
April 12, 1935, p. 6.

168
I am indebted for the following to Mr. James Bone, London editor of the Manchester
Guardian:
“When a Minister answers a question in the House he says
Yes, sir
or
No, sir
, whether the question is asked by a man or a woman M.P. The reason is that he is supposed to be addressing the Speaker. There was some laughter among young members when a Minister replied
Yes, sir
to a question by Lady Astor, but elderly members wrote to the papers at once, rebuking them and explaining the procedure.” Some time ago I heard the trial of a case in one of the London Law Courts, with the Lord Chief Justice of England, Lord Hewart, on the bench. There were two women on the jury, but when they finished their labors he said “Thank you,
gentlemen
”

169
Frog
was picked up by the American troops during the World War, and is occasionally heard in the United States. Its origin is uncertain. Farmer and Henley say that it comes from the French, and formerly meant a Parisian, “the shield of whose city bore three toads, while the quaggy state of the streets gave point to a jest common at Versailles before 1791: Qu’en disent les grenouilles?
i.e.
, What do the
Frogs
(the people of Paris) say?” But this seems fanciful. In most Englishmen’s minds, I believe, the term is connected with the fact that the French eat frogs, which are regarded as inedible in England, or, at all events, are not commonly eaten. The Oxford Dictionary shows that it was applied to Jesuits in 1626 and to Dutchmen in 1652, and Farmer and Henley that it was applied to policemen during the 80’s of the last century.