The Washington times., 1931-08-14


of it.
The Wrong Picture
The harm these big announcements about national
character do that they create Interchangeable pic
ture in our minds we shocked when meet the
reality of Frenchman who is not excitabe, Ger
man who is. The moment get into difficulties
act not the facts but the false impression that
the Republican party means" prosperity, that
dollar bill is worth dollar.
The business of creating these images still goes
On one side we led to believe that "he French"
are, at the moment graspng cruel and short-sighted
in their relations with Germany, which true of
the French Foreign Office and bankers, but may not
be true of horse dealer in the Vosges a milkman
in the Ardennes. And on the other side, so skiful
and intelligent writer Andre Mauros declares that
the French have passionate regard for the sacred
of the written contract and that, therefore, the
French shocked at the mere idea of discarding
certain sections of the Treaty of Versailles Ny
meager experience of the French corroborates the
first part of the statement; they always sending
out for sheet of "papier tmbre"-officiay stamped
paper which apparently gives to anything written the
Banctity of OATH But if the written contract is
sacred 50 unchangeable what about the contract to
repay certain moneys at specified rates of interest to
the United States? Are "the French equally keen on
that?
"Strong, Silent Men,
The headline which started off referred to
ference at the Institute of Politics at Wilamsown and
the sketch which broke down my resistance made
by Prof T. E. Gregory, of Manchester University Right
at the start he exploded the false figure of the strong
silent Engishman" ascribing it to the public school
code invented in the last so years. He quoted Winston
Churchill who said that the of this type strong
only because he was silent and silent because he had
ability, good Englishmen the ha-ha of the
stage and the inexpensive tall foxhunters of current
English fction-and Pickwick and Fastaf neither
strong silent.
A few years ago a song nearly drove America mad,
and an alert English correspondent reported the sua
f1Nnf tn fhp SNnU WoS
We Have No Bananas" and here is the commentary,
which is really priceless, old thing:
Reverse English on Bananas
The phrase originated in the fruit shops kept. in
New York by Greeks, Italians and Jews These ancient
to the New World for profit and like
to turn customer away So they have evolved Curl
GUS positive and negative for the sentence Why
the slang-makers hit bananas has not been dscOv-
cred 1t might well have been any other commodity.
But the phrase means that one having asked for
bananas in a fruit shop where there are none the
anxious proprietor answers Yes we have no bananas
ThereupOn he may seek to sell cabbage bunch
of beets instead since most fruit shops in New York
vegetable establishments WELL
'The phrase is tribute to the optimism of the newly
arrived immigrant to his earnest fight to master the
language. and somehow is supposed to take the
American characteristic of getting there though
by way of affirmative in a negative sentence"
do not know where so much msinformation has been
packed into little space before after The report
is masterpiece but outside of noting that the phrase
invented by the lamened T. A. Dorgan (TAD, whose
Indoor Sports are masterpieces both in words and nes)
the of fact need not be stressed 1t the
in national psychology which absurd The baffled
reporter, insisting that the affirmative in negative
sentence" typically American typical of ener
getc insistence getting there and making profit,
completely forgot that of the most characteristic
ironc remarks of the London cockney has exactly the
same qualities.
Say to taxi driver that gasoline is coming down in
price and he will answer Eyes, don't think" Say to
waitress that wages going up and she will answer,
eyes don't think" Next to mot 'arf" it is the
monest phrase of the common language.
The Crying Admiral
Even Prof Gregory suspicious of generazations, falls
into one himself He says that the Englishman is gen.
orally unwilling to talk about his emotions to anybody
Perhaps this true in the decade before the 1t
was not true of all Englishmen during and after the
war; and it was not true of all EngIishmen century
and more ago. Nelson Englshman who spoke
and wrote freely of his love for the strange Lady Emma
Hamilton and when Nelson lay fatally wounded the
deck of the Victory, at Trafalgar, his last words
MKiss me Hardy" They NAV have been had form hit