Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1906-04-08
q AMERICAN ENGLISH"
MEN OF UNITED STATES TREAS
URE sHAKEsPEARE's WORDS.
A Criticism of the Language in Eng
land, Apropos Of Henry James
Remarks.

Iheodore DAME In the LONDON MAIL
Mr.. Henry James has been complaining
of the sloveniy way In which English is
spoken in the United States. There are
millions of homes he said, sin which peo-
pie, calling themselves educated talk about
vaniler eyescream,' the other feller,' 'Por-
tor Ricor.' 'Cubar' dorgs,' " &c.
Before any of us complain of the eccen-
tricities of American speech we should make
sure that we adequately versed in our
own. Coloauial English, or kings English,
has a great deal to answer for. 1t shocks
the purist at every street corner. 1t makes
one shudder in the shop and in the market
it irritates one in the drawing room, and
makes one despair in descending to the
kitchen. 1t is often appalling in the
printed book. Possibly 50 per cent of Eng
lishmen do not speak English if'the pure
Anglo-SaXon is TO be the test. Probably
not one in q hundred write it, and in mo-
ments of extreme candor the journalist will
whisper that only compositors can spell it.
If English is to be the standard by which
to judge the American tongue, may 1 most
respectfully and humbly ask, Whose Eng
ltshY / hone not my own. | hope not the
Scotchman's English, or the Irishmans
English, or The WelShman's English. Not,
l trust. the English of Dorset, or the Eng
lish of Yorkshire. or the English of Devon
shire, or the English of Northumbria.
Above all, ] pray you. not the English of
Dorset probably guard the Anglo-Saxon
better than oxford or Cambridge but in
ina gfnatton | hear the ShriekS of hor-
ror arising In West End drawing rooms on
the advent of tutors from these counties
engaged by parliament to teach their Lam
guage to those who sit in the seat of the
scornful.
Which of rs would make solemn affidavit
under penalty of 9100 if we were fore
sworn, that we speak English? / meet say
Lady GWendoine Freshpey, and she is kind
enough to say that she is awfuIly glad to
see me. | at once respond that | am lust
as aWfully glad to see her. and that I trust
she had Jolly good time at the ball last
night In the society. columns OF the news
papers sometimes read of a great function
and the assurance is given that no end of
smart people were there Even such a mas
ter OF nervous English style as Mr.. Holm
Morley is not shocked in editing volume
in which. his contributor confuses like"
with as" while Sir Charles Dixie is nm
able to distinguish between without and
unless"
From the Wild West.
Rich and poor. educated and ill-educated.
Se English people do not fnvariabIe speak
and write our own tongue. We use slang
matter of habit. We talk loosely and
Se write loosely. Our speech and writing
are riot even dis1gured by what is not
Anglo-Saxon, but by what Is not even
a shop window in Regent street or
Bond street, or, if you please, a crowd inside
the shop, provides startling revelations in
the elasticity of English as she Is smoke
when elevated TO the heights of the ecstatic
1t really will not do to complain too
loudly even of the wild and woolly west
Our statesmen and politicians and forceful
writers owe something to the red Indian
They, like him, are after scalps They go
on the warpath They bury the Ratchet
They smoke the pipe of peace. Il Will not
do to turn up Pecksniffian English nose al
the American who guesses, and ''eaicu-
lates and 'reckons, and allows" They
good Saxon words. good enough for our
Shakespeare and other English writers,
often III the sense in which they are used
They are words upon which the Englshman
has turned his back, and which the Ameri-
can has treasured. Slang American apart
for you do not judge the American language
by its slang any more than you Judge En-
glish by its slang-numbe words ana
phrases common to American speech and
writing are the survivals OF words once so
common in England years agone.
The marvel is not that American and En-
glish differ SO much, but that they differ so
little When you consider that the two ma
tons have been severed for nearly a CEN
fury and half; that they are divided by
thousands of leagues of sea: that Ameri-
cans have built up new national life with
new necessities, new aspirations, new pur-
poses that they are a poiyglot people draw
ing immigrants from all the nations of the
earth: taat the negro is still with them: that
the native Indian III not yet passed away.
and that the Chinanian has come to stay. II
seems almost a miracle that the English we
love has come out of the fire of the uni
versal babel as well as 1t has Done
Let me confess. however, l do marvel al
the accent. l do often stand in awe of the
pronunciation. 1t Is nothing that people In
America may be born on one side of a river
and raised on the other. sidewalks for
pavemerts, elevators for lifts, stem winders
fp, Ace afHfrn
ers for biscuits and biscuits for breakfast
rolls do not disturb me. / am not shocked
that the American guesses he will 70 in TO
dinner; lie reckons 1t Is time for lunch, and
calculates he will get there. He cannot dis
tress mt by shipping goods by rail- and
boarding the street car. He may pick I'D a
time table, call 1t schedule, or even q she'd
die IL he be In a hurry. He may figure that
the ches; of drawers In his bed room is a
bureau He may go out to enjoy himself
and return with the news that he has had
an elegant time He may come to London
in the sumner and depart for the fall 1t
is his why. He is welcome to it I wish
him joy tf 1t.
But win he please tell me where and
bnuv no rot hat