The morning news. [volume] (Savannah, Ga.) 1887-1900, 1893-04-30

nese English, and of late have been made
acquainted with the attempts of the
Japanese to master the intricacies of En-
glish, some of which, by the way, are
very amusing. The Japanese, it is to be
noted, are uniformly polite letter-writers,
the kitchen boy who desires leave of abb
sence or an increase in his wages APP
preaching the subject with a lavishness
of compliment and an extent of circumlO-
cution which would do honor to a trained
diplomatist.
India. however, if we may judge from a
number of recent publications on the sub
iect of bobu English, as 1t is commonly
known will have to be awarded the palm
for queer English. The East Indian is
ambitious and is diligent student, but
in many cases he becomes enamored,
seemingly of verbal forms and niceties,
and uses words to the detriment Of ideas.
For example. student during an eXami-
nation was required to write an essay
upon the horse, which he did in the fol-
lowing summary fashion,: The horse IS
very noble animal, but when 1rrltated
he ceases to do So" Henry George S
progress and Poverty was boiled down
by another essayist in this way: The
rich man welters on crimson velvet, while
the poor man sports on flint"
The book of all East Indian books for
extraordinary English is the memoir OF
Onoocool Chunder Mookeriee, Judge of the
high court of India, published by his
nephew shortly after the death OF ms
uncle. We can select only few gems
here and there to show the character and
stvIe OF this remarkable literary produc-
ton. The learned Judge was stricken
with illness while on the bench, and his
biooraDher saws; "All the well-known
doctors of Calcutta did what they could
with their puissance and knack of medical
knowledge, but it proved after all as II TO
milk the ram His wife and children had
not the mournful consolation TO near ms
last words; he remained sOtto yoce for
few hours and then went 10 Gou dO auouC
O'Clock p. m"
Such distinguished man was naturally
charitable, and this is the way his euloglst
sums up that side of his character: Inc
Hon'bl Mookerjee did bleed freely, but
he was not leyiathan on the ocean OF
liberality: the mode of assignment OF ms
charities was to such men as we truly
wish and recommend and exsuscitate en-
Enthusiastically. He used to give monthly
to many relics who had no hobbadoy-hoy
even to support them, and had no other
source of sustenance left to them by their
consort"
These are samples of queer English, but
they are all honest English-that IS, the
writers were trying in good faith 70 con-
vey their ideas to their hearers ana read
ers, and with very little study every
illustration given may be made into GOOD
plain English But what criticism IS TO
be passed on writers whose mother tongue
is English, but who write queer Englsh
lust for the sake of queerness and to show
their superiority to the rest of the mass
of mankind Juggling is amusing TO the
spectator, but Juggling with words can
serve no more useful purpose than Jug
Cling with knives or potatoes or cups ana
saucers. or whatever the prestidigitateur
NAV choose to employ.
It is not hard to forgive foreigner for
his misuse of the English language, for
much NAV be pardoned to his ignorance,
but no English-speaking writer, whether
he be Robert Browning or another, can be
excused for the use Of archaic, obsolete
and Anticipated words or forms of express
sions when he has at his command the
greatest, richest, most flexible and most
expressive language the world has ever
known. not excepting even the ancient
Greek or the modern German. In the
present condition of English, the use OF
archaisms is an exhibition not of superior
wisdom, but of a self-complacent pedantry
and of a desire to shine by reflected luster
instead of by native ability and talent.