New-York tribune., 1905-06-18
MISTER AND EQUIVALENTS.
Americans Use Monsieur, Signor, Sem,
and Herr

Our English use OF the title ..Sfistere n ,,,,.
ton to men OF foreign nationality is oceasiao,r..
marked BY inconsistencies. We have no hard -
fast rule. but in common usage the practice a. a.
Piled TO four Of the leading nationalities fs f., -.
ploy the equivalent title in their respective ,.-
guages. and in the case OF all other iane,,agAs ..
use the corresponding French title For jnsts,a
We call the President Of France N Ioufet- v-a 81,
the Italian composer Signor Mascagnf; we eau t,o
Spanish dramatist Sefor Echegaray: We cau e.
German dramatist Herr Sudcrnann. In the tire.
Latin tongues we use the respective abb-eyia+ior,
for Monsieur" "Signor'' and ''Senyor" In ,bs
absence Of the Spanish letter "enye' from an F,,
lsh font Of type it has TO be expressed by It's Dso
netic equivalents N.Y. But in the German Herr,
is not abbreviated, we spell Il out To be coo
sistent we should designate Russian as Cos
pod Gospod de Witte, for instance We ought IN
say and we should seek out the equivalents in Hun
garian, Dutch, Danish. Norwegian Swedish Portu
guese (SenhOr), Turkish and the like and aupv
them with corresponding accuracy. But k1owledgs
fails in most Of these tongues 50 we compromise
on French 1t would seem little ridiculous and
possibly it might be offensive, 20 give the French
handle TO q German naIne-'.M- Liebkaecht" for in
stance-though when a German narae gets into
France by way Of AIsace-as those OF 50 many hun
dreds OF eminent Frenchnasn have (Harce1 Schwob
with the "a" changed 10 % the "" makes a
proper handle. But we insist upon the Herr for
the German at the risk Of speaking ii ike her. as
most OF as 90 IN '5eLIn1n' no"ever' Il would O
thicker in Germany than coIoneIs are in Kentacky
Nearly every educated German is a doctor OF s0nie
sort or anOtheri should We happen to address any-
body Herr Doctor who was not it would
merely give DiSasure as harmless compliment
just as any non-:niHtary Kentuekian is pleased to
be taken for colonel.
To use 'C5ospod" in addressing or designating a
Russian might inconvenently add TO the very full
verbal mOuIhfuls that the average Russian names
make for There many German names
among those high in authority in Russia that the
German title might not seem out Of place Herr
Won Wtte would appear perfectly natural. but u
de Witte is almost invariably used Probably one
reason why we have adopted French in such cases
is that, French having long been the worlds po-
lite language we have copied its uSages. just as
unfortunately have in SO many geographical
names like The Hague. Prague. and in SAKE for
saxon as in Sake -Weimar French seems strik-
ingIy incongruous when applied by US to Eor-
wegian Swedish nameS-"M BjoeTnson NJ
Ibsen'' for instance CuTiously We do not think OF
giving Japanese a French handle to his name
rather significantly we make him one OF ourselves;
Mr. Asakawa Mr.. Kakuzo, we say. English speak-
ing people are alone in attempting 10 use the ieS
of other languages rather than their own IN desIs-
mating foreigners. 1t would be simpler and more
consistent to use own, just as IN otner ial-
guages they do Fortunately there Is grown;
Tendency in that direction among US: II IS recos-
nized as quite proper to say MI Saraou. iT-
Hauptmann. Mr.. Galdos, just as We would say -Ai'
Meredith-(Boston Herald