The times., 1899-03-20
scotch md English.

One Mr.. James Colville has recent y
written an article on the beauties and man
ifold uses of Scotch vernacular. Some of
us have thought that We knew someth ng
about Scotch. through several years IA
miliarity with the works of Ian Mac,aren,
J. NJ. Barrie, S. r. Crockett, and others of
the kailyard school, to say nothing CT those
cider favorites. Walter Scott Robert
Burns, William Black, and Dr. John
Brown. But after reading this article OF
Mr.. Colville the most enthusiastic golf
player and Maclaren worshiper will be
Obliged to confess that he knows nothing
at all about it.
''Hoot, mon," is not the only exclama-
mand, nor is bonnie" his only adjective
for pretty woman. He has a whole Ian
guage of his own, and, according to this
admirer. II is so rich and so varied that
one may wonder why the Lowlander ever
condescends to speak English at all. Lis
ten to this now:
Can We improve ON such expressive epi;hets
as blate. gleg. dweeble, dowie. fkie. furthe.
couthie. fashtss, wersh, bauch croose; describe
negative qualities better than feckiess fushonless,
menshless, thowless waiFdless, taebetless? Could
tenderness surI,ass dawtie hinny doo or con
temp; be more whitening than gswpus, gomeriI.
ta~ple, sumph. opprobrium arm itself with Sc
yerer epithets than bosom, limmer randy?
This list of words will leave the ordinary
| reader gasping. dumb, and bewildered.
Undoubtedly they are very good words, but
we can hardly tell whether or not we could
improve on them till we know what they
mean. If one were to tell an ordinary
American that he was 'furthie" or fash
iss," or ''croose," he would net know
whether he ought to take off his hat or roll
up his sleeves. A more ineffective term OF
endearment for an American girl than
"dawtie." "hinny.' or .'doo,' could hardly
be devised, and If man were to call his
opponent in business or politics a "gaw-
pus'' he might as well call him a Solidago
Canadensis for all that the man would
understand.
The truth of 1t is, of course, as Mr.
James Colville would know II he were no,
patrioticaily insane. that the beauty of a
language consists rather in the way il is
used than in the intrinsic beauty of the
words themselves There are some words
which express onomatopoeticaliy sound
idea, and there are others which are pleas
ant because musical or disagreebale be-
| cause harsh. That is all.
The English, being composed of the best
| elements Of three or four different tongues
is a wonderfully flexible language. and
probably expresses a greater variety OF
| ideas than any other in the world The
| ideality of the Celi, the subtlety and q .ac
| of the Gaul, the ruggedness of the Ger
man, the picturesqueness of the Sect, the
primitive strength OF the original Briton
| stems. the sonorousness of the Latin. and
to some extent the music of the Italian and
| Spanish, and the spiritual quality of the
Greek, are all blended into one speech ami
| the result is that almost any sort of idea
can be fittingly expressed in it. Here, for
instance, is the famous old line In praise of
Italian. which is almost as musical as Ital-
ian itself:
love the language, that soft bastard Latin,
And the concluding lines OF the same pas
sage, which describe the common English:
Our harsh. wlistling, gnIn;ing northern cultural
Which we're Obliged TO hiss and spit and sputteI
all.
The two quotations are almost as different
| as lines from alien languages. Contrast
Poe's Bells" with some OF Whitman s
poems. Contrast Lanier's verse with Pope.
And, coming down to the speech of the
common people. where is there greater
difference than that between the plantation
dialect Of the South. with fits soft eiision
of the ''r" and the burr of the Northwest?
Each province which speaks the English