Vol IV, No 4 [September 1977]

Regional Report No. 1 —The Bay Area

Jean Montgomery, Mill Valley, California

In San Francisco and its suburbs, a whole generation has grown up giving voice to a kind of English that is, if not broken, at least oddly bent. In the Bay Area, the farmer ‘tills at the soil,’ our country is the ‘most favorite nation’ and we have ‘no truck for other countries.’ A real estate dealer is a ‘realator,’ and et cetera becomes ‘essetera.’ ‘Dippity,’ we say, and ‘Klu Kluck Klan.’ ‘In view of becomes ‘in lieu of,’ and an action may not resound to someone’s credit. Sure turns into ‘sheer,’ and actually becomes ‘acksh’lly,’ in a nasal rasp that could drill through plate steel. Common usage gives us ‘deteriate,’ and ‘high arky’ (as contrasted, presumably, with ‘low arky’ and an ‘arky’ in between). ‘Respitory’ ailments often keep company with a fever, which is shown by the ‘merkurry’ rising in the ‘thermomaner.’ To ‘hannel’ a high ‘tempature,’ doctors ‘avocate’ bed rest and ‘aspirn.’ Essettera.

To be ‘bummed out’ is to be discouraged. But around here, someone who is ‘bummed all the way out’ heads for the railing of the Golden Gate bridge.

Part of the responsibility for our bent language rests with the print media. Our newspapers carry ads for raincoats “dry cleaned and repelled” and for a detergent that comes in a “mini-giant” box. A politician’s former wife is quoted by one newspaper as saying, “I loved my husband very much and wanted to accommodate. After a while I realized I was chasing a windmill.” The Chronicle reports that the San Francisco Police Department is revising its manual because the old rule book has become too “large and topsy.” A splendid new category of crime is cited by one paper: the “ultra-heinous crime— a fatal arson attack”; another reports that privacy is “trounced upon” when telephone lines are tapped.

Some newspaper columnists run on and on and on. This haunting thought appeared in a column in the weekly Mill Valley Record: “You should never look over your shoulder or somebody may be gaining on you if you don’t tow the line.” The county daily, Independent Journal, not to be outdone, offers headlines such as HARMONY PERVADES AT DEBATES FOR CANDIDATES, and THEATER GROUP BATTLES SURVIVAL.

A movie reviewer in the Journal’s Sunday supplement merits special attention. Recently, he wrote that a film had a “series of mishaps upon the like of which many a petard had been hoist.” The actors failed to sparkle in the clutches. Even worse, they turned the playwright’s “Saroyanesque flibberty-gibbeting in a mundaneity that is almost tragic.”

We are equally innovative in our oral communication, supported and proclaimed by the broadcast media. It is from radio that one can learn about the gentleman who has been “laid low by prostrate trouble” and the car driver who unintentionally” stepped on the exhilarator.” Talk show guests have referred to “unwrinkable garments” and “recycable articles.” Unruffled by the pitfalls of her subject, one guest hastens to explain why people are unable to make their meanings clear when they “commucate together”: “It’s the ambigitty of language,” she says. A Berkeley school teacher has another explanation: “Nobody talks to each other any more.”

In the ambigitty of talk-show conversation, one can hear about “wheel chairs and other types of illnesses”; of “back-watering” when a boat’s course is reversed; of a suicide that was “self-inflicted”; of an event that “really irates” the speaker and gets his “dandruff up”; and of a bird with its wings akimbo. [The meaning of akimbo is probably lost forever. The caption that accompanied a recently published newspaper photograph of a parachutist floating down in an awkward position said that he had “both arms and legs akimbo.”]

Some talk-show ambiguities are sheer (not ‘sure’) delight:

“It’s easier than shooting a barrel of monkeys”; “He cooked the golden goose”; “Why hang yourself by shooting in the dark?”: and “It happened kind of out of a bolt of blue.”

A newscast commucator reports that Oakland has been given the anchor of the carrier Oriskany as a “massive momentum” of that city’s favorite ship. A trial lawyer, it is said, kept his client off the witness stand so that the client “would not be pillaged by his enemies.” Nor is the Reverend Mr. Spooner without his followers. A “keace-peeping” force soon showed up to prevent the pillaging. Once, when a cabinet officer resigned, we heard that in his job he had been the eye of many a storm. And one newsman, in particular, appeared to be especially well satisfied with the quelling of a recent high school disturbance: it had been, he smirked, “nipped on the vine.”

In electronic adland a clothing store burbles about a bargain “so fantastic it’s unreal.” “Glad is what happens” on another commercial. The ad itself, though, has turned into a this. Now ‘this.’ More news after ‘this.’ Listen to ‘this.’

Verbosity and pretentiousness abound. The University of California at Berkeley, for instance, announces the hours during which its business office “may be accessed.” A teacher in Mill Valley has drawn up a “prioritized list of all components of the school program.” Our people are busy critiqueing, leafleting, scapegoating, conferencing, and pickpocketing. One San Francisco appliance dealer boasts of a stove which will not only roast and broil, it will also rotisse!

Conversely, our most banal remarks are tagged with cringing little pleas for encouragement: “Hospitals are for sick people, right?” and “Like, I’m into macramé, okay?”

We ‘relate’ to steaks and ‘munch out’ on sandwiches. We enjoy “authentic early-English pizza.” And after dinner, lolling about on a ‘chase-lounge’ and enjoying the euphoria that accompanies a full stomach, any one of us like feels majoo-berized (majooberized is a nonce word used in these parts for ‘pleasantly relaxed’).

The San Francisco police have just announced a new program for “carrying out crime and punishment.” Rather than be caught up in critiqueing that one, I shall join the others in the country whom “apathy has by the throat.” That means, I’m into believing this piece is finished. I mean, it’s the end, right?

How to Turn a Baseball Phrase

Jack Luzzatto, Bronx, New York

When I read John O. Herbold II’s article on baseball “To Understand America (and Americans)” [IV, 1], it sped me on to do my own pet thing on baseball. The locutions of the game announcers are little short of entrancing (at least, the first time around). Here are a few I have collected.

The impetus for this collection was supplied by Ralph Kiner, who, along with Lindsey Nelson and Bob Murphy, is a Mets broadcaster. I love them all dearly, but that doesn’t prevent me from being amused at what they say. Ralph’s gem came when he described a first baseman holding a position different from normal when holding a runner on first base and still being ready to field a ball. He said, “There are quite a few innovations that have come out of baseball, some of them old and some of them new.”

However, my point is that if anyone wants to announce baseball games, he needs a stock of phrases. If a batter hits safely between the shortstop and second, or second and first, the announcer will call that “a seeing-eye base hit.” If the outfielder can throw a “strike” from far away to any base or home plate to nail a runner, he has “a howitzer of an arm.” A hitter who can send that ball out of the park, like Willie Stargell, Greg Luzinski, etc., has “awesome power.” A baseball that is pitched and almost catches the batter full in the guts is said to be “in his kitchen.” Base-stealing speedsters are characterized by the words “he can fly,” or “he has a world of speed.”

A ballplayer who is not an infielder, outfielder, or pitcher, and is thus doomed to be a catcher, wears “the tools of ignorance,” catcher’s gear. (If it starts to rain, the crowd dons “foul-weather gear.”)

Batters inspire various locutions. If a hitter at the plate is given to lashing his bat in circles while waiting for the pitch he is “cowtailing his bat around.” If he is at bat during a long “dry spell,” waiting to get a hit, the sportscaster may say “he comes up wearing a size 19 collar,” meaning he has failed till now and may be about to fail for the 20th time. If the batter gets a little foul ball to preserve his turn at bat on the third strike, then he “got a piece of it.” But if Lady Luck smiles and he hits a homerun, then he “got all of it.” One of my favorites is the phrase for a towering pop fly that shoots straight up to the sky and comes down in the same area, usually caught by the catcher. The announcer says, “He could have hit that ball in a silo.” A homerun that becomes a well-traveled ball, going some 500 feet or more, is called “a tape-measure homerun.”

Pitchers also inspire the poets of the mike. One like Nolan Ryan, who can throw a baseball at 100mph-plus, is said to be “throwing smoke.” When his fastball gets a third strike that catches the hitter “looking,” then “he blew it right by him with a blazing fastball.” Sometimes a pitcher, who has been victimized by a hitter who scored a homerun his last time up, resents it bitterly. This pitcher is not squeamish about firing a fast one right at the batter’s body, anywhere— arm, leg, torso, or head. About such a pitcher the man at the mike may say, “He’d hit his own grandmother if she was up there with a hot bat.” When a relief pitcher comes in because the starter is beginning “to dig a big hole for himself” (putting men on base with walks and hits), he is called a fireman who must “put out the fire” his predecessor started. Sometimes this will result in a mixed metaphor. The announcer may say the reliefer fireman “came in and slammed the door,” that is, he got the necessary third out and prevented any scoring. Of course, just the opposite may happen. He may be unfortunate enough to release a “nice fat pitch, right over the heart of the plate,” thus giving the batter a chance to get it all. If a homerun results, this is called “a gopher pitch,” because the batter surely can go for it. When a strikeout occurs, usually on a perfect pitch that the batter does not go for, this pitch is said to be “right down the pipe.”

Some phrases belong to individual players, as with the Willie Mays “basket catch,” a method of snagging fly balls by holding the glove and ungloved hand to form a basket low and in front of one’s body. And Brooks Robinson, Oriole third baseman, earned the sobriquet of “the vacuum cleaner” because he sucked in everything that came his way. We all know that Babe Ruth was “the Sultan of Swat,” and Jimmy Wynn, a more or less diminutive hitter with homerun potential, is called “the toy cannon.”

Umpires earn vituperation simply because no decision can please both sides. When members of the team at bat, who are sitting in the dugout, grow vociferous about balls being called strikes against their teammate, they may hoot and holler at the umpire, implying he is blind, biased, or unfit for his job. This is called “heat from the dugout.” If the umpire can’t take it anymore, he may approach the chief offender and tell him to shut up. Further offense may make the umpire flare up enough to eject the culprit summarily from the game. Such an umpire is said to have “a short fuse.”

There are many more colorful locutions, of course. I do want to say that all the above are superior to a cry of “Holy cow!” On that note, I’ll be “Going, going, gone,” as I run all the way home.

Moribund Metaphors Rise Against

Sam Hinton, La Jolla, California

Though language has been described as “a cemetery of dead metaphors,” many of the corpses are still used in what was once a secondary sense, their metaphoric context forgotten. The earlier figure of speech was often in a language not understood by present speakers, and only by patient research—or by consulting the results of such research in an etymological dictionary—can the nature of the original metaphor be known. Nevertheless, today’s users of a language frequently invent new words or phrases in which they unconsciously repeat the hidden comparison.

There are many reasons for creating a new expression— to make the language more vivid, to signify a concept not adequately described by an older term, to disassociate an expression from undesirable connotation, to provide an ingroup recognition signal, and so on. Neologisms are always current among young people, as one manifestation of the revolt that is necessary if the young are to accede to their culture’s dominant positions. With equal universality the elders resist being deposed, and one manifestation of this resistance is their anguished cry that their language is being polluted, degraded, bastardized. The elders of my generation have come up with a metaphor of their own to express the terrible danger they see: “The English language is an endangered species!”

A typical example of this attitude appeared in “Curmudgeon-at-Large,” Cleveland Amory’s regular column in Saturday Review (2 Oct. 1976, p. 51), although Mr. Amory was more restrained and more humorous than many writers on the same subject. “Young people nowadays,” we are told, “intend to go through life using only five expressions,” which are “ ‘Right on,’ ‘With it,’ ‘Far out,’ ‘Get it all together,’ and ‘Let it all hang out.’ ” He then goes on to say that he has conducted a small poll and concludes that to these young persons “ ‘Right on’ means ‘With it,’ ‘With it’ means ‘Far out,’ ‘Far out’ means ‘Get it all together,’ and ‘Get it all together’ means ‘Let it all hang out.’ ” There is no doubt that some young folk don’t always express themselves very clearly to us elders, but even a confessed curmudgeon might find some surprisingly pleasant affinities with his youthful informants if he would listen to how they really use their terms. He might even realize that they are working under the same traditions that shaped the “standard” language, and that he and they—and their common remote ancestors—are pretty much the same sorts of people.

Right on is most often heard as an exclamation of hearty agreement, used as a Member of Parliament would use “Hear! Hear!” The same metaphor, using a precise spatial location to represent verbal accuracy, is found in older expressions, such as “Very much to the point!” or even “You’ve hit the nail right on the head!” A statement that is right on in a clever way is officially known as an epigram from Greek -gram ‘writing’ plus epi- ‘on.’ (Please, may I say “write on?”)

With it has several meanings and is by no means new. I heard it in the 1930s when working for a carnival; a person who was with it was a fellow-carny, a compeer—which comes from an earlier word for with—Latin com ‘with’ plus par ‘equal.’ The ‘with’ roots are widely used in a figurative way, as in sympathize (‘suffer with’) and compatible (‘endure with’). The most usual use of with it is in application to a person who is deeply immersed in some activity, and an expert in it; our ancestors had a very similar metaphor in mind when they coined the word accomplished—‘filled with.’

Far out, like right on, often occurs as an exclamation of approval and could be replaced by any number of standard words with the same idea of being “outside” of ordinary experience. Extraordinary can be analyzed as ‘beyond that which is ordinary’; the roots of exceptional mean ‘taken out,’ and exquisite comes from ‘seek out.’ Superior and superb also denote something that is far out, this time in an upward direction, while delightful uses not ‘out’ but the similar ‘away,’ and means ‘enticed away.’

To get it all together is to attain a state of composure, and composure is from French words having the sense of ‘put together.’ The person who has got it all together is collected (‘gathered together’), and not distraught (‘pulled apart’). This term more often refers to someone who is operating at peak efficiency—that is, who is coordinated (‘arranged together’) and competent (‘together in seeking’). When applied to the head—“I’ve got to get my head together”—the expression indicates a desirable state of mental integrity (‘entireness’) and health (from a Germanic root meaning ‘wholeness’). All these carry the same implication of ‘being together’ in one piece—the opposite of unhealthy schizophrenia, or ‘split mind.’

Someone with a real mental problem is said to be off his rocker, which is not very different from the literal meaning of delirium—‘out of the furrow.’

Let it all hang out is an admonishment to be natural, uninhibited—which itself means ‘not held in.’ Unconstrained (‘not bound together’) and unconfined (‘not imprisoned’) are in the same family of metaphors. To let it all hang out can also mean to be forthright, to be explicit—‘folded out.’ This usage also implies honesty—a word having the same meaning in Latin and said to have been derived from the name of a plant whose transparent seed-pods disclosed the seeds within.

There are many other interesting words in the bright lexicon of youth. One is the adjective cool as applied to someone displaying sang-froid (‘cool blood,’ of course) or non-chalance, which is literally ‘not hot’—in other words, cool!

At the other end of the temperature scale, young people are likely to feel burned up where one of their elders would be incensed, from Latin incendere, ‘to set on fire.’ Another word relating to fire can signify delight, as in the phrase “That just stokes me out of my gourd!” Without using slang, this could be rephrased as “That kindles in me a feeling of ecstasy!” Kindles is obviously related to stokes, while ecstasy (‘standing outside of myself’) is not very different from the rest of the phrase. The word gourd is a synecdochic use of a metaphor for the human head, which has cognates in a good many languages. Early Latin had the word testa ‘a jug’ which became a Roman slang word for ‘the head’ and eventually the standard word for the organ in several Romance tongues. The German kopf probably arose in the same way.

Sometimes a new term is created to replace an old one whose literal meaning is implied too faintly. Goodbye has become an automatic expression indicating the end of a human contact, and can be used peremptorily or angrily, its original derivation from ‘God be with you’ completely forgotten. Many young people have therefore discarded it, preferring have a nice day as possessing a conscious context of well-wishing. And even the not-so-young may be heard to say bye-bye, which no modification of tone or emphasis can render unfriendly.

One sad thing about the language of youth is the rapidity with which a good expression becomes obsolete. At one time the Haight-Ashbury population used to run with ‘to understand and agree’ to be au courant (‘running with’) with someone. I think it a pity that so vivid a term is no longer used. Do you concur? (Latin con ‘with’ plus currere ‘run.')

Bleep That Slur!

Andrew E. Beresky, New York, New York

Within the past few years, several American dictionaries have found fit to squeeze in a new derogatory entry which has no place in lexicons already crowded with derogatory terms. The word is honky, the latest of ethnic slurs which won its quick acceptance mainly through the medium of television.

On practically every TV situation comedy, crime series, and talk show, as well as on news shows, the discriminatory term has been bandied about indiscriminately to apply to all white people. Even so-called liberal whites have cutely picked it up to show that they are “right-on” with the cause and are “telling it like it is.” This is simply not the correct usage of my personal pet derogation. Not every white person can qualify as a honky.

I, for instance, am a honky by nature of birth, albeit second and one-half generation. But not by the wildest stretch of the imagination could I consider President Carter to be one. Henry Kissinger need only utter a few words to be dubbed, rather erroneously, as a honky. Meanwhile, former special Watergate prosecutor Leon Jaworski may not sound like one, but the mere signing of an autograph is a dead giveaway.

Ace TV crime fighter Karl Maiden and band leader Lawrence Welk both look like honkies—and are. On the other hand, Boris Karloff had the distinctive air of a grand honky—but wasn’t, though his fellow bogeymen Peter Lorre and Bela Lugosi were.

It is believed that honky was started on its way to biased faddism several years ago when Rap Brown used the term in front of TV news cameras. Mr. Brown may have been an astute political activist, but he hadn’t learned his prejudices well. Or perhaps he learned them too well. It’s highly implausible that the word, as used by Brown then and by all others now, stemmed from honky-tonk which my dictionary describes as ‘a cheap, sordid saloon, cabaret, etc.’ Heaven knows, every race and ethnic group has its share of honky-tonks.

No, I maintain that honky was, and is a deliberate mispronunciation of hunky, one of white Anglo-Saxon America’s most popular ethnic (but not racial) slurs that gained wide usage during the era of this country’s most impressive growth and development. Of the latest dictionary editions that list honky for the first time, only Funk & Wagnall’s Standard College Dictionary (1974) apparently agrees. It states, parenthetically, that the word is “possibly derived from hunky.”

The Random House College Dictionary (1975) merely states “origin uncertain.” Curiously, while neither Webster’s New 20th Century Unabridged (1976) nor Webster’s New World Dictionary of the English Language (1972) makes any mention of the term, Webster’s New Collegiate (1976) lists two alternate spellings—honkie and honkey—but offers no etymology except to say that it is “usually used disparagingly.”

Most dictionaries are in accord that hunky is used to describe ‘an unskilled or semi-skilled workman of foreign birth; especially a Hungarian.’ True, the word may have its roots in the application by white Anglo-Saxon Americans to immigrant Hungarians. But in fact it was also applied to those foreign-born, regardless of skill or profession, coming from other middle and eastern European countries, especially Poland, Russia, Czechoslovakia, Lithuania, Yugoslavia, and so on. Foreigners with other accents or heritage, such as Germans, Italians, Jews, Scots, Swedes, etc., could not earn that distinction. They inherited their own ethnic slurs. But whatever the accent of the non-honky, he quickly learned to apply the term.

My maternal grandfather, for instance, often told the story of his working as a water boy for a work crew building a railroad near Pittsburgh shortly after he came to this country as a youngster from Czechoslovakia, more than a century ago. On the job, he befriended a Scottish-born timekeeper who delighted in applying a double epithet to my grandfather. In a strong, inherited burr, the timekeeper would call my grandfather, rather redundantly, “my little gr-r-reenhor-r-rn hunky.” Perhaps what delighted my grandfather most in retelling the story was the fact that the young Scot was Andrew Carnegie.

Before a new TV season is upon us, I personally hope that honky will not again be inserted in scripts as freely as whitey and Mr. Charlie were tossed about a few years back. But at least these terms were original, not borrowed from other derogations. To borrow the discriminatory term of honky to denote any white person is a cop-out on discrimination.

Diplophrasis

Philip E. Hager, University of Puget Sound

My letter in the February 1976 VERBATIM, listing phrases in our language in which synonyms are joined by and (aches and pains, alas and alack, bits and pieces) and other examples of hendiadys and merism elicited many additions from readers. These contributions, and examples which have subsequently surfaced in my casual reading, appear in the list below. Many similar phrases permeate the Bible, legal documents, and the ritual language of Freemasonry.

Collectors of these “binomial” phrases have given them fond names, such as “tandems,” “so and so’s,” “twofers,” “sandwiches,” and “double-deckers”; the second edition of Henry Fowler’s A Dictionary of Modern English labels them “Siamese twins.”

As acknowledgment of the interest of several correspondents who collect “threesomes,” I append a few examples of “trinomials” at the end of my list.

aches and pains
act and deed
aid and abet
alas and alack
all and sundry
assault and battery
bag and baggage
beck and call
before and after
betwixt and between
bib and tucker
bill and coo
bits and pieces
body and soul
bound and determined
bow and scrape
bread and butter
bright and early
by and by
cease and desist
coming and going
cut and thrust
day and night
decline and fall
ditch and delve
down and out
dribs (drips) and drabs
each and every
east and west
ebb and flow
ever and ever
fair and just
fair and square
far and near
fast and furious
fast and loose
fear and trembling
fine and dandy
fire and brimstone
first and last
fits and starts
flotsam and jetsam
free and easy
friend and foe
frills and furbelows
fun and frolic
fun and games
fuss and fume
gall and wormwood
good and thick
good and tight
grace and favor
grand and glorious
great and small
grunt and groan
hale and hearty
hard and fast
head and heels
head and shoulders
heart and soul
heaven and earth
heirs and assigns
hem and haw
here and now
high and low
high and mighty
hither and thither
hook and crook
hoot and holler
hot and heavy
hot and strong
house and home
hue and cry
huff and puff
hustle and bustle
in and out
ins and outs
intents and purposes
jot and tittle
kit and caboodle
kith and kin
law and order
leaps and bounds
length and breadth
lewd and lascivious
lo and behold
long and endless
long and short
look and see
might and main
mix and match
moan and groan
near and far
nerve and fiber
new and different
nice and cozy
nice and soft
nice and warm
nip and tuck
nook and cranny
north and south
now and then
null and void
odds and ends
on and on
one and all
over and over
p’s and q’s
part and parcel
peace and quiet
pick and choose
pride and joy
pure and simple
quick and easy
rags and tatters
rank and file
rant and rave
rich(er) and poor(er)
right and left
right and proper
root and branch
rough and ready
rough and tumble
rules and regulations
sackcloth and ashes
sere and yellow
sit and wait
sixes and sevens
so and so
so and so’s
sound and fury
spick and span
spit and image
stand and deliver
stress and strain
stuff and nonsense
tattered and torn
thick and fast
thick and thin
time and tide
to and fro
toil and moil
toss and turn
town and gown
tried and true
trials and tribulations
twists and turns
up and around
up and down
up and up
use and wont
various and sundry
vim and vigor
waifs and strays
ways and means
wear and tear
weep and wail
well and good
whims and caprices
whys and wherefores
widows and orphans
wine and dine
wit and wisdom
withered and died
[w]rack and ruin
young and old

Examples of “trinomials”:
bell, book, and candle
cool, calm, and collected
deaf, dumb, and blind
dwindle, peak, and pine
eat, drink, and be merry
fair, fat, and forty
hook, line, and sinker
man, woman, and child
signed, sealed, and delivered
sugar and spice and everything nice
vim, vigor, and vitality
world, flesh, and the devil

EPISTOLA {Karl F. Heumann}

I raise the ante in the freight train (or boxcar) competition with this fragment that Fineman says he kept out of The Physical Review (but published in Science):

…the rare-earth local moment-free electron-like conduction electron exchange integral compling…

He goes on to say that “Hyphens are generally avoided in the freight train construction except where they add significantly to the confusion.”

As long as I have the editor’s attention I will ask if readers know of another word, besides ‘mantissa’ (or mantisa), that is believed to derive from both Welsh and Etruscan? [Karl F. Heumann, Bethesda, Maryland].

OBITER DICTA: What Emerges in an Emergency?

Robert A. Fowkes, New York University

To some of us who dabble in etymology the field is an intriguing, if perilous study. It seems to undergo alternating periods of approbation and condemnation. But unawareness of etymology is, perhaps, in the main, more of a blessing than a bane. Relatively few people bother to ask themselves what the segments of words like emergency, constitution, or challenge mean. And it is just as well, or language might cease to function altogether. Still, an occasional curious cove may wonder what emerges in an emergency, while most of his fellow creatures treat it as an approximate synonym of crisis or danger or the like, and for them it remains just as opaque in formation as, say, sycamore, identity, or carburetor.

But emergency is obviously somehow derived from emergence (which has the same termination as that seen in difference, continence, reticence), ultimately from a Latin present participle of ēmergō, -ere ‘come forth, rise up.’ Whether this derivation occurred in old French or in learned Latin (*emergentia?) or both is not too clear or too relevant here. Yet ēmergō = ē‘out of’ + mergō‘immerse, dip, sink, plunge,’ and ēmergere means ‘rise up (like some sea monster?) out of (the deep?).’ A merg-anser is a diving bird (literally a ‘plunging goose’). The present meaning of emergency did not emerge or crop up until the seventeenth century, and Samuel Johnson was still condemning it a century later as “a sense not proper” (cf. E.L. McAdam, Jr. and George Milne, Johnson’s Dictionary, A Modern Selection. New York: Pantheon Books, 1963, p. 165). It would be rash to venture a guess that the rhyme with urgency helped to promote the present meaning.

What happens in a merger? One firm or organization often becomes swallowed up (or down) and loses its identity. Yet we often act as if merge meant ‘blend, join together, enter into a union on more or less equal terms.’ Some linguists— not all—speak of mergers as if they were the equivalent of blends. In old legal terminology, however, the English translation of French merger (infinitive) was often ‘drown.’ Not long ago two colleges in our vast university were ‘merged.’ The undersigned, a member of the smaller and better one, mumbled in a faculty meeting, “Etymologically, yes,” whereupon the presiding dean asked, “What was that?” and received the reply in simplified English translation, “We’re being submerged !” We were, and most of us regarded it as an outrage.

Where is the rage in outrage? Nowhere, etymologically, and the same holds true for the out. For, although we may be “put out” and feel intense rage at what we regard as an outrage, the word itself contains neither of the two elements of which it might seem to consist. For it is from French outrage, cf. Old French oltrage, ultrage (cf. also Italian oltraggio, which may or may not be independent of the French). The source, then, is Latin ultra ‘beyond’ plus a suffix -age, reflecting possibly a Latin ending -¯ticum. The formation is therefore not unlike that of the neologism outage heard so frequently during recent power failures. This may have been modeled on some such word as shortage, with overtones of wattage, voltage, etc., but its formation is very similar to that of outrage, and there is scant cause for outrage at the upstart. It is, of course, hard to believe that there is no association, by popular or unpopular etymology, with rage, and rage is certainly reflected in reaction to outrages like outages. The pronunciation of the second element also attests to some such association (the word rhymes with spout age rather than with *sproutidge). An elementary school teacher of mine over five decades ago said, “When rage gets into us, we are enraged; when it comes out, we are outraged.” She vouchsafed much interesting misinformation (e.g., “A.D. = ‘after death’ ”) and may have kindled the spark of my interest in etymology, thus contributing to the delinquency of a minor.

It may be somewhat discomforting to be discomfited and also to find out that the words are not related, except in their prefixes. A glance at an etymological dictionary will reveal their actual sources. A bold knight once demeaned himself bravely in combat, discomfiting all he encountered, in fact. I think of a page in Chrétien’s Lancelot where the two words occur in close proximity, and the English translator used demeaned and discomfited as their equivalents. But the analogy of debase has probably caused demean (cf. its derivative de- meanor) to assume the sense of de- plus mean ‘base.’ Hence apparent etymological transparency results in new semantic directions with usurpation and replacement of the old. This does not always happen, of course. For, although the clan may seem destined to hold clandestine sessions, no etymological connection between that word and clan or destine can be made, nor does a fancied one impart any new sense to signifier or signified.

Sometimes old folk-etymological association prevails, and its venerability lends an acceptance long after the process is forgotten. Obliterate once meant to wipe out a letter (litera); but association with two unrelated words oblitum ‘blotted over’ and oblītum ‘forgotten’ has extended the meaning in such a way that a merger has obliterated the “real” etymology and relegated it to oblivion. In examples like aggravate, transpire, lackadaisical (and maybe the wretched viable—for I seem to share some of Edwin Newman’s prejudices) similar processes no doubt occurred. When we are old enough to have witnessed the processes, we feel revulsion—once a mistake for repulsion, perhaps. When they happened ages ago, we bow in veneration, blissfully aware that veneration has some connection with Venus, but not pedantic enough to confine it to one deity.

If we were not endowed with etymological oblivion, we could never (etymo)logically board a train, or sail on a steamer, or play a silver woodwind in a dilapidated wooden hut, experiences we might not want to miss. Or would we?

EPISTOLA {Jacques C. Richardson}

Willard Espy wonders [IV, 2] at the inability of Frenchmen to bend over backwards. The equivalent expression in French is se mettre en quatre (pour)…. It means, literally, ‘to transform oneself into four parts,’ and is used typically as follows: Je me suis mis en quartre pour lui faire plaisir ‘I bent over backwards in order to please him.’ [Jacques C. Richardson, Paris].

---

Similarly, from Viviane de Charrière, Paris; Joseph G. Foster, McKeesport, Pennsylvania; Donald E. Schlesinger, Bronx, New York.

EPISTOLA {Martin H. Slobodkin}

Since writing [my letter] [IV, 2], I have received a number of ingenious suggestions for “wishwords,” or words that we regret not having said at the party we just left.

The best suggestion by far was relayed to me by Mr. Daniel Pomerantz of Lexington, Massachusetts, who told me that his mother had heard the late great Dorothy Parker use departee for ‘staircase wit.’ [Martin H. Slobodkin, Cambridge, Massachusetts].

EPISTOLA {John W.P. O’Brien}

…I have used departee. The name of its originator, alas, can no longer be recalled. [John W.P. O’Brien, Flushing, New York].

EPISTOLA {Bill Solomon}

…I’m inept at repartee but good at departee… It appeared some years ago in Saturday Review (Goodman Ace, maybe?).[Bill Solomon, Shawnee Mission, Kansas].

EPISTOLA {Mrs. D.C. Mullery}

…I suggest postpartee. Many years ago, The New Yorker contained a witty article in which the author composed prepartee before a social event. Of course, the necessary remarks were never made, leaving him bereft of repartee and frustrated by postpartee afterward. [Mrs. D.C. Mullery, San Mateo, California].

EPISTOLA {Philip Arthur Walles}

…In England a person who has failed in this way often confesses to being after-witted. [Philip Arthur Walles, Mawgan Porth, Cornwall].

EPISTOLA {J. Gombinski}

I have one or two suggestions….

1. Treppe equals ‘stairs/staircase’ not ‘steps’

2. The French say l’esprit d’escalier not “les paroles d’escalier.” [J. Gombinski, London].

EPISTOLA {Alden Stahr}

…How about post-riposte? [Alden Stahr, Columbia, New Jersey].

EPISTOLA {Virgil Quinlisk}

…From the late 1920s or early 1930s, I have known that as cab wit…. My guess is that it came out of the Round Table at the Algonquin. If that guess is correct, then I also guess that Winchell gave it currency. [Virgil Quinlisk, Wichita, Kansas].

EPISTOLA {Virgil Quinlisk}

Similarly, from Pyke Johnson, Jr., Old Greenwich, Connecticut

An English equivalent might well be after words or afterword. [Virgil Quinlisk, Santa Barbara, California].

EPISTOLA {Alden Stah}

…An obvious [suggestion]… is whistler. I offer this based on the story, possibly apocryphal, that tells of Oscar Wilde’s admiring a mot of Whistler’s: “I wish I had said that,” said Wilde. “You will, Oscar. You will.” [Alden Stahr, Columbia, New Jersey].

Unconsciously Appropriate and Inappropriate Metaphors

Donald Hawes, North Wembly, Middlesex

Mixed metaphors have often been collected and commented upon, as in Eric Partridge’s Usage and Abusage. “Little warning,” wrote Fowler in Modern English Usage, “is needed against [mixed metaphor]; it is so conspicuous as seldom to get into speech or print undetected.” But what has less frequently been observed is the unconsciously appropriate or inappropriate metaphor, which has a certain affinity with the “Freudian slip.” Here are a few examples of what I mean.

The artist has allowed his imagination to run riot.

[Caption to a picture of the Gordon Riots in London, in The Open University Course A202, Unit 2, p. 69]

If, to broaden the canal to take, say, twenty per cent more traffic, it’s necessary to halve the dividend, this will gain little favour with shareholders—that is, until such time as a rival appears, and then shareholders may prefer to ditch the canal and buy the rival’s shares. [The Open University Course A202, Units 5 and 6, p. 60]

She has even taken a look at Boulez’s music; but in charity I will not dwell on the mess of inaccurate facts and insensitive comments she produces on that score. [Book review in The Times, 25 August 1977]

Fine weather brought out the traffic in the South-east yesterday as many people drove to the coast. Heavy traffic started in mid-morning. An RAC patrolman said: “It was as though the floodgates had been opened.” [The Times, 30 August 1977]

She has been “deliberately resting” while the surgeon has sorted out her knee. “You don’t want to make a great song and dance about it, though, people think you’re falling to pieces,” she says…. [The Observer, 28 August 1977]

…the establishment of Ruskin College began (though surely to a smaller degree than he suggests) to change things for those like Jude. [The Times Literary Supplement, 9 September 1977, p. 1070]

I have noticed many more in recent years, but unfortunately I have not made a note of them. Their prevalence can be estimated by the fact I collected four of the above examples in two weeks’ normal reading of periodicals. Perhaps correspondents to VERBATIM will be able to supply more and better examples. I would call this usage as much a fault as using a mixed metaphor, since it usually has a paradoxical effect of incongruity. On the other hand, I must admit that I sometimes welcome the amusement it gives me, especially when I find it in a tedious or grandiose piece of writing.

ADDENDA

Deborah Storms, Evanston, Illinois

I enjoyed Clair Schulz’s whimsical article, “We Shall Know Them by Their Roots” [Verbatim, IV, 2]. However, my roots in the youth culture demand that I point out three inaccuracies in Mr. Schulz’s classifications.

First, I suggest that The Beatles properly belongs in the category of band names inspired by music itself, not by insects. Second, the group name Ars Nova is not a reference to a type of star, but rather, to the style of music composition characteristic of the fourteenth century in France and Italy. This group’s music had a decided medieval flair. Finally, the name Procul Harum certainly does not refer to a variety of living quarters for women (in which case the latter word would have been spelled harem), but instead consists of two Latin words. These two words translated mean “at a great distance/of these”: a mysterious name for a group whose music was considered by some teenagers back in the sixties to be of the “mind-bending” variety.

EPISTOLA {Elizabeth Johnson Tsang}

…Some of the names were rumored to have secret meanings. For example, Three Dog Night was supposed to be an Eskimo expression: the coldness of the night was measured by how many dogs were needed to keep warm. Lovin’ Spoonful was usually explained as a junkie term for heroin heated in a spoon before being injected. Moby Grape was the punch line to an old riddle, “What’s big and purple and swims in the ocean?” In the category of suggestive names, I would place Wild Cherry, Queen, Kinks, Kiss (The Seat of Affections), Hot Tuna, Soft White Underbelly, Cream, The Tubes, and Badfinger. Punning names include Harper’s Bizarre and Mothers of Invention. Among my favorites are It’s a Beautiful Day, Commander Cody and the Lost Planet Airmen, Prairie Oyster, Steppenwolf, and Buffalo Springfield. [Elizabeth Johnson Tsang, Oakham, Massachusetts].

EPISTOLA {Ken Smith}

Clair Schulz’s article reminded me that I used to be heartened when teaching in Liverpool during the ’50s by the puns which appeared in pop groups' names. Apart from the Beatles, there were the Fourmost and a variety of more or less erudite groups like Troy Dante and the Infernos, Johnnie Kidd and the Pirates, Mark Antony and the Avengers, Dave Sherwood and the Foresters, Bee Bumble and the Stingers, and Peter Jay and the Walkers… [Ken Smith, Lydney, Gloucestershire].

EPISTOLA {Stefan M. Silverston}

Since the article “The Seat of Our Affections” in VERBATIM [IV, 1] cites one allusion to the nose, I thought I should mention that the customary expression for “X became angry at Y” in Old Testament Hebrew is, literally, “X’s nose burned at Y.” For example, in Genesis xxx 2, And Jacob’s anger was kindled against Rachel…, and in many other places. [Stefan M. Silverston, Nashua, New Hampshire].

(Note the correct usage of “literally.”)

BIBLIOGRAPHIA: Lexicon of Black English and Talkin and Testifyin: The Language of Black America

J. C. Dillard, (Seabury Press, New York, 1977), xiv + 199 pp. and Geneva Smitherman, (Houghton Mifflin Company, Boston, 1977). 291 pp.

Despite major differences in focus and approach, these two recent additions to the ever-growing literature on Black English share certain basic assumptions about that much-debated dialect. In terms of its historical development, both authors hold to (indeed Dillard is identified with) the Creolist theory, which traces the present-day Black English vernacular to a Plantation Creole, to a plantation-maritime pidgin, to an African origin. Both consequently also refute and attack the positions of those who hold that language borrowings and influences moved only in one direction—from the dominant to the suppressed culture; and both are eager to cite words in the White English lexicon whose not merely Black but African origins have been well documented, primarily through the work of David Dalby (e.g., okay, hip, cat, badmouth).

More significantly perhaps, particularly in the case of Dillard, is their insistence on the importance of dealing with Black English within the context of Black social and cultural life. Dillard organizes his work around “sociolinguistic domains” and stresses the importance of discourse over sentence as the primary carrier of meaning. Smitherman calls “style” that whole dimension of communication beyond syntax that conveys the message. Each believes that the main source of communication dysfunction between Blacks and Whites lies not in a difference of syntax nor in a difference of lexicon (though these differences are real) but in a difference of discourse style—those patterns of personal linguistic interaction integral to Black life but foreign, frequently unsettling, and sometimes frightening to Whites. The simplest example of this style is the sometimes spontaneous, sometimes formulaic or ritualistic interaction between listners and speaker that is characteristic of Black discourse. Most White speakers would be insulted and distracted by precisely the behavior that tells the Black speaker his hearers are really with him—shouts, calls, interjections—all manifestations of confirming or condemning comment, some linguistic, some kinesic.

Thirdly, both Dillard and Smitherman condemn those “remedial programs” based on the assumption that Blacks are “linguistically deprived.” The notion that Black children suffer from a paucity of verbal interaction they see as patent nonsense. Blacks come rather from a culture rich in oral tradition, one that uses that tradition as a continuing acculturating medium whose wide store of tales and folk heroes is still known to most Black children (tales whose African and Caribbean analogues Dillard cites). Each sees Black English as richly metaphoric and imagistic, its speakers adept at creative compounds and the double entendre, frequently extraordinarily skilled in traditional verbal battles and games which are integral to their world, a world in which the baddest dude is often the one with the best rap. (A word, by the way, whose meaning in Black English differs from the meaning it took on when assimilated into White English.)

Having said all that, it remains to be said that these two books are radically different and that none of the above constitutes the main argument of either.

J. C. Dillard’s Lexicon of Black English is not the inventory of words and definitions the title might suggest, but rather an apologia for a lexicon, an attempt to justify the need for and the legitimacy of such a compilation, yet to be made. It is at the same time an implicit presentation of guidelines, clues, and caveats for the would-be researchers and compilers.

Arguing that vocabulary differences will be greatest where cultural differences are greatest, Dillard places heavy emphasis on the significance of conjure and root-work in the Black experience, noting its pervasive manifestations in blues lyrics and in folk trickster tales. Though linguistic transfer is greatest in areas with a high degree of interracial contact, such as prostitution, narcotics traffic, and music, he warns against and laments previous over-emphasis on these areas where the yield of words of demonstrable Black (i.e., Afro-Creole) origin is small. Too much study has focused on inner-city “jive talk,” ignoring the reality that great numbers of Black English speakers do not know the hustlers' terminology.

In his own research for this preliminary lexicon Dillard relies heavily on early blues lyrics, on the work of folklorists and anthropologists, and on unpublished materials of the Louisiana WPA project. The writings of Black authors are naturally of particular interest; their comparative reliability is assessed for the future lexicon-makers (with Richard Wright coming out on top). Dillard’s direction is always toward the roots of the Black experience and away from the cultural crossover points.

These roots he finds in the sociolinguistic domains of conjure, religion, folk tales, sexual practices, and music, each of which he focuses on separately, while carefully noting ties among them. In each he finds a significant number of words pecuilar to the Black lexicon. These may be words unknown to White English, or shared words whose meaning or usage differs in Black English. Of more than passing cultural interest is his finding that numerous sexual terms which White English reserves for the male, Black English applies indiscriminately to male or female (e.g., nut, grind, grinder, rider, getting one’s ashes hauled).

The work is of value for those interested not only in language, but in culture—of any color. It succeeds in being both readable and scholarly—no mean feat, particularly in the field of linguistics. Documentation is thorough and accessible, hypotheses clearly stated as such, and even those presentations which do get a bit convoluted for purposes of proving his point manage to contain nuggets that make the meandering worthwhile. You don’t have to buy the whole argument or be a linguist to enjoy the book.

Geneva Smitherman’s Talkin and Testifyin: The Language of Black America suffers from several serious weaknesses, chief among them a lack of focus and direction. Its attempts to cover everything about Black English from history to syntax, to lexicon, to its reflection of the “African world view,” to discourse modes, to the identity crises and cultural conflicts of its speakers, to teaching techniques in inner-city schools make for much superficiality and little substance. Moreover, although there is no indication that any of its chapters appear elsewhere previously, the book reads like a hastily pieced-together pastiche of parts of earlier essays: it is marked by overlapping, repetition, shifts in tone and style, lack of coherence, and failure to develop any central argument.

Despite these drawbacks, it might provide the novice a good introductory survey to the subject, were it not for other failings. Ms. Smitherman digresses to the point of distraction on subjects whose relevance to Black English is never made clear. Her tone varies from an emotional, attacking one to a condescending cutesy one, with a bit of textbook chattiness (“Now let’s look at,” “Check it closely”) thrown in for good measure. Frequent incorporations of Black English into her expository style usually fall flat. And she asks us to take a great deal on faith. Each chapter has footnotes, but specific statements do not. Trying to pinpoint the source for great numbers of her claims regarding a Black or African origin for words and phrases is maddening (and also, I think, impossible). Often her implicit criterion seems to be that she’s heard an expression all her life among Black people: hardly different from the attitude of Whites who reject out of hand African origins of what appear to be Americanisms of long standing.

Illustrative support is amply provided but it is frequently too weak to support her argument, valid though that argument might be. She tells us, for example, that many Black speakers are verbally clever and linguistically creative; most language-sensitive people who have frequent contact with Blacks would agree. Then in support she offers prosaic, trite sayings, retorts, and sallies that don’t begin to do justice to the vitality of Black English. No nonbeliever will be led to the linguistic light through her preaching.

Ms. Smitherman is at her best in the book’s final chapters, when she deals with language attitudes and the role of the schools. She exposes the horror of the “educationally patronizing and linguistically stultifying” drill exercises being foisted on Black children in the name of providing them with the dominant dialect so they can “get ahead.” She does a good job of taking language teachers to task for their obsession with correctness and unconcern with effectiveness. She’s right on target with: “The public school is the main institution that continues to perpetuate myths and inaccuracies about language” [p. 191], myths that linguistics research has long ago exploded. Educators and language teachers might well attend to her comments on the problems inherent in bi-dialectalism and to her suggestions regarding primary-level reading instruction.

Overall, however, the book remains disappointing. It looks distressingly like an attempt to cash in on a burgeoning market. Black English and its speakers deserve better.

[Nancy LaRoche, Hartford, Connecticut]

EPISTOLA {Michael Berry, New York, New York}

I’ve always been curious about the origin of the goodby wave Toodle-oo.

Now I know. The other day I heard an English friend say, À tout à I’heure! It came out, Toodle-oo!

Humpty Dumpty’s World

Francis Griffith, Port Washington, New York

Until a few years ago eggs were graded as small, medium, and large. Today, search as you will, you won’t find small eggs in any supermarket.

Small and medium are pejoratives in the lexicon of advertising agencies. Giant, monster, and mammoth have taken their place. The small tube of toothpaste is now the giant economy size, a community gathering is a monster rally, and a garage sale is a mammoth event. Hens now lay only medium, large, extra-large, and jumbo eggs.

Porno movies intended for emotionally and intellectually stunted adolescents are labeled “for mature audiences.” Permanent means ‘temporary,’ as in permanent wave. Comic strips are dull, sadistic, or just plain stupid, but comic they are not. Ginger ale, once a tawny liquid with a taste of ginger so sharp it made your eyes water, is now a pale insipid mixer which contains about as much ginger as a welsh rabbit contains a rabbit.

Sex, once the property of living things only, is now ascribed to inanimate objects. A car is advertised as a sexy import, a shaving cream is described as masculine, and perfume as intensely feminine.

Builders who invade a pleasant countryside, bulldoze its trees and shrubs, cart away its topsoil, construct hundreds of jerry-built look-alike homes, smear the earth with blacktop, and erect garish billboards advertising their depredations are called developers and the scarred landscape they leave behind is called a development.

Liberal once meant ‘humane’ as opposed to ‘doctrinaire.’ A liberal was one who espoused the rights of the weak, defenseless, and poor who were incapable of speaking for themselves. In today’s world a liberal is one who advocates the destruction of the unborn, the senile, and the incurably ill because they are in the way.

Totalitarian oligarchies officially call themselves democracies as, for example, the Democratic Republic of East Germany or the People’s Republic of China. A terrorist is a freedom fighter if we agree with his aims. Bombing civilian populations is called pacification.

Gay is another word whose pristine meaning has been reversed. Once a synonym for innocent joy, it now connotes the morose homosexuals who, humorless and tense, gather in sleazy bars and other public places in a mood anything but joyful and innocent. It has taken on such a homosexual connotation that teachers avoid it in their classrooms. Wordsworth’s “A poet could not but be gay in such a jocund company” causes today’s kids to hoot and holler.

Even the BBC avoids gay. When the British ambassador to Ireland was assassinated a couple of years ago, his friend Sir Christopher Soames paid a spontaneous radio tribute to him. “He was gay…” said Sir Christopher in innocence and truth. The broadcasting officials were stunned and dropped the awkward word when the tribute was rebroadcast.

The long-haired young people who proclaim that they are doing their own thing are doing everybody else’s. Fearing to be different, they dress alike, think alike, speak alike, act alike. Their common uniform is a pair of ragged denims, a soiled T-shirt, and shabby sneakers, and they wouldn’t be found dead wearing a clean shirt, necktie, or bra. They all listen to the incessant pounding of the same rock bands and the nasal shrieking of the same vocalists, and they hold the same opinions on every subject from abortion to Zen.

Every language changes as time marches on. Words are created, acquire new meanings, thrive by use, and die from disuse. A linguistic system perishes when it no longer helps us to see the world around us as it really is.

Many of the verbal changes occurring today obscure reality. Unlike those that have gone before, they are planned, the result of a conscious effort by an individual or group to manipulate attitudes and beliefs. They are calculated perversions of truth, intended to mislead and deceive. Old words are clothed with new and entirely opposite meanings, as in the nazi and fascist national anthems which extolled liberty and justice.

During the course of centuries some words have taken on antithetical meanings. Let, for instance. Hamlet’s threat when Marcellus and Horatio try to prevent him from following his father’s spirit, “By heaven, I’ll make a ghost of him that lets me,” is meaningless unless we understand that in Shakespeare’s time let meant ‘prevent,’ the opposite of what it means today except in the restricted tennis sense of let ball, which the naive believe to be an illiterate corruption of net ball, a variant.

Another example is fast, a word which is a bundle of contradictions. A man is fast if he is tied to a stake and unable to move, and he is fast if he runs a hundred yards in ten seconds. No matter whether he is a tightwad or a spendthrift, he is fast. If he abstains from eating and drinking, he is said to fast, and if he eats and drinks to excess he is said to be leading a fast life.

But the forces which brought about the semantic alterations of let and fast over the years are not the same as those that have reversed the meanings of so many words today. Let ‘to hinder’ has a different etymological origin from let ‘to permit.’ Fast developed new meanings gradually without conscious effort on anyone’s part, following a natural order. Its original meaning was ‘firm,’ which suggested strength and persistence in movement. This led into ‘to run fast’, that is, to run without slackening, which in turn introduced the notion of rapidity. ‘Living too fast,’ a later development, followed almost logically from the preceding meanings. The resulting contradictory significances were unplanned and normally developed.

But many of today’s reversals are deliberately contrived. In advertisements, editorials, headlines, and in fact in any place where language is used to influence opinions and actions, instances can be found without too much effort. When large means ‘small’; economy ‘waste’; mature ‘immature’; permanent ‘temporary’; develop ‘destroy’; democratic ‘totalitarian’; gay ‘glum’; liberal ‘inhumane’; doing your own thing ‘following the crowd,’ our language is setting the world on its ear. The mind reels at such semantic reversals.

We are living in a Lewis Carroll topsy-turvydom, an environment in which language does not always correspond with reality and where things are not always what they seem to be.

If our image of the world is sometimes like a distorted image in a wavy mirror, the fault, dear Brutus, is not in our stars but in our language.

BIBLIOGRAPHIA: The Way Women Write

Mary Hiatt, (Teachers College Press, 1977), vii + 152 pp.

[Available directly from the publisher: 1234 Amsterdam Avenue, New York, N.Y. 10027.]

This is an important, informative book that reports on the results of the author’s systematic investigation of 50 books written by women and 50 written by men. The conclusions, stated in the briefest way, are that women’s writing is different from men’s, but not for the reasons commonly adduced (i.e., word selection and tone). As readers of VERBATIM may already be aware, I am more concerned with style and appropriateness of language than with “correctness,” and T3W provides an excellent, readily understandable example of stylistic analysis that ranges from the study of such features as sentence length, choice of adverbs, adjectives, verbs, etc., to that of more subtle characteristics like structural balance, rhetorical effectiveness, and use of similes.

The book is important because of its conclusions and informative because in its exemplary analysis of style it is a paragon of clarity and organization. The analysis of style is not a simple subject, and I know only of Louis T. Milic as the leading academic researcher in the field. Professor Hiatt, author of Artful Balance: The Parallel Structures of Style (Teachers College Press, 1975), which is not familiar to me, has provided not only a study that is revealing but a readable introduction for any who are interested in how style can be analyzed: I have not seen such a clear exposition of polysyndeton, asyndeton, and other rhetorical devices since reading Barr’s Introduction to my textbook copy of The Orations of Cicero (where all the examples are, of course, in Latin).

T3W makes a substantial contribution to the subject of male/female differences (Vive!)—if that is, indeed, a “subject” —and to language analysis, both of which are often approached by either stodgy or hysterical investigators. The only other sane approach I have seen is Words and Women, by Casey Miller and Kate Swift [reviewed: III,2,9]. Now I must read Artful Balance.

[L. U.]

EPISTOLA {K.B. Weatherals}

I was amused by Gary Felton’s article in the May edition, and should like to contribute some of my favourites to the codified, and sometimes indistinctly perceived, laws to which we are subject, and against which we sometimes stub our toes:

Cook’s constant (my version)—a variable by which an experimental datum has to be multiplied to result in an answer acceptably close to the theoretical.

A glitch—is an inherent, built-in, organic fallibility in a design, plan, equipment or any human contrivance.

Finagle’s laws: First—The likelihood of a thing happening is inversely proportional to its desirability.

Second—Once a job is fouled up, anything done to improve it only makes it worse.

Murphy’s first law(corollaries)—

(1.) It is impossible to make anything foolproof because fools are so ingenious.

(2.) Any wire or tube cut to length will be too short.

(3.) After any machine or unit has been completely assembled, extra components will be found on the bench.

(4.) After the last sixteen mounting screws have been removed from an access plate, it will be discovered that the wrong access plate has been removed.

Lowery’s law—If it jams, force it. If it breaks, it needed replacing anyway.

Zumwalt’s first law—The probability of failure is directly proportional to the number and importance of the people watching the test.

Dobbins’s law—When in doubt, use a bigger hammer.

Everitt’s form of the second law of thermodynamics— Confusion (entropy) is always increasing in society. Only if someone or something works extremely hard can this confusion be reduced to order in a limited region. Nevertheless, this effort will still result in an increase in the total confusion of society at large.

Jone’s law—The man who can smile when things go wrong has thought of someone he can blame it on.

Matsch’s maxim—A fool in a high station is like a man at the top of a high mountain—everything appears small to him and he appears small to everybody.

Apart from my personal contribution, all the other laws, etc., are quoted from Malice in Blunderland of which the name of the author and publisher escape me.

[K.B. Weatherals, London, England].

EPISTOLA {David L. Gold}

To Elaine Von Bruns' “Illicit Threesomes” can be added Gaza Stripper inhabitant of the Gaza Strip. [Haifa, Israel, Haifa, Israel].

EPISTOLA {Calvin K. Towle}

Elaine Von Bruns’s “Illicit Threesomes” [IV,1] were not only amusing but pregnant. As I looked at them, they gave birth to others, right in front of my tongue:

down and outspoken recommended dress for Plain Janes
world warpaint general international mobilization
to hell and gonorrhea last stage of Byronism
tertiary stagecoach third one of the day
venerable sagebrush old bushes
snail’s pacemaker yet another triumph of medical science
horsehide and seek minor league baseball

Also, like political opinions when closely examined, some of Ms. Von B’s originals changed form as they coupled and tripled, producing new variations. I hope the lady won’t mind these changes, which are not necessarily improvements:

bottlenecktie worn by St. Bernards in the Alps
bird in the handshake an unsigned agreement
scotch on the bedrocks alcoholic refreshment during a marital quarrel
draw and quarterdeck stacked cards
threadbare knuckles John L. Sullivan in old age

More examples could be given, of course, such being the agglutinative nature of the language. I shall stop here, however, lest someone accuse me of being a wordplayboy. [Calvin K. Towle, W.W. Norton & Company, Inc.]

EPISTOLA {Josef Brand}

I found Elaine Von Bruns' “Illicit Threesomes” addictive. Because I couldn’t dropkick the habit, I’m sending along the following:

Hero and Leander sandwich snack for passengers crossing the Hellespont
hot dog in the manger food given grudgingly to members of the Holy Family
quid pro quo vadis answering a question with a question
fife and humdrum uninspired music
Koechel listing to the portside playing Mozart while the ship goes down
income-uppance tax penalty for not paying the tax in the first place
with might and Main Street movie about a small-town librarian who enlists in the Marines
the Infra-red Army Soviet spy system
three-quarter time and tide a waltz that waits for no man
pen and inkling a written hint

[Josef Brand, Brooklyn, New York].

CORRIGENDA

Volume IV, Number 2, “We Shall Know Them by Their Roots”:

1. Taj Mahal is a person, not a group.

2. Runaways is not “an all-female band” (unless the drummer has been to a Danish surgeon lately).

3. Booker T. and the M.G.’s bears no reference to automobiles since T. is Booker T. Washington’s middle initial and M.G.’s are members of the Memphis Group.

4. Fleetwood Mac is not a Cadillac on a hamburger but a hybrid name taken from the band’s rhythm section, drummer Mick Fleetwood and bassist John McVie.

[Joe Fusco, Menlo Park, California]

The Sopwith Camel rock group is named after a World War I biplane, and should be listed among the methods of travel rather than among the wildlife.

[Victoria Nowell, Chilliwack, British Columbia]

Mr. Schulz had better brush up on his Latin if he thinks the name Ars Nova an astronomical reference. It means, quite simply, ‘New Art.’

[Andrew Baird, Princeton, New Jersey]

Schweppes, le ‘drink’ des gens raffinés

Myrna Knepler, Chicago, Illinois

Why is it that a high priced condominium is advertised in American newspapers as a de luxe apartment while French magazines try to sell their more affluent readers appartements de grand standing? Madison Avenue, when constructing ads for high priced non-necessary items, may use French phrases to suggest to readers that they are identified as super-sophisticated, subtly sexy, and privy to the secrets of old world charm and tradition. In recent years French magazines aimed at an increasingly affluent public have made equally canny use of borrowed English words to sell their wares.

The advertising pages of the New Yorker and the more elegant fashion and home decorating magazines often depend on blatant flattery of the reader’s sense of exclusiveness. Time and time again the reader is told “only you are elegant, sophisticated, discriminating and rich enough to use this product.” Of course the “you” must encompass a large enough group to insure adequate sales. Foreign words, particularly prestigious French words, may be used to reinforce this selling message.

French magazines often use English words in their advertising to suggest to potential consumers a slightly different but equally flattering self-image. The reader is pictured as someone in touch with new ideas from home and abroad who has not forgotten the traditional French arts of living, but is modern enough to approach them in a completely up-to-date and casual manner.

Of course, each language has borrowed words from the other which have, over the course of time, been completely assimilated. It is not these that the advertiser exploits but rather words that are foreign enough to evoke appealing images of an exotic culture. When the French reader is urged to try “Schweppes, le ‘drink’ des gens raffinés” or an American consumer is told that a certain manufacturer has “the savoir faire to design la crème de la crème of luxurious silky knits,” the foreign words do not say anything that could not be as easily said by native ones. What they do convey is something else. They invite the reader to share in the prestige of the foreign language and the power of the images associated with that language’s country of origin.

In each country a knowledge of the other’s language is an important sign of cultivation. Today, English is the language studied by an overwhelming majority of French students, and the ability to speak it well is increasingly valued as a symbol of prestige as well as a marketable skill. Despite the decrease in foreign language study in the United States, French has maintained its reputation as a language people ought to know. Adding a few obviously foreign words from the prestige language not only increases the prestige of the product itself but also flatters the reader by reminding him that he has enough linguistic talent to understand what is being said. As in the “only-you-are-elegant, -sophisticated, -discriminating-and-rich-enough” appeal, the advertiser must be careful not to exclude too many potential customers, and the foreign expressions are usually transparent cognates or easily understood words. A French reader may be urged to buy cigarettes by being told that “partout dans le monde c’est YES à Benson and Hedges” while the New Yorker reader can consider a vacation on “an island [off the coast of South Carolina] where change hasn’t meant commercialism, and tranquillity still comes au naturelle.”

Even monolinguals are not excluded from this flattery. The word can be given in the foreign language and then translated; the reader is still in on the secret: “ ‘goût’ is the French word for taste and Christolfe is the universal word for taste in vases.”

The prestige of a foreign term and its possible ambiguity for the reader may serve to disguise a negative fact about the product. A necklace of Perle de Mer advertised in an American magazine is not composed of real pearls made by nature in the sea but of simulated pearls produced by a large American manufacturer. By the same token, when a French advertisement for a packaged tour offers “aller et retour en classe coach” the prestige of the English word coach disguises the fact that it is the less luxurious form of airline transportation that is being offered.

But the most important function of borrowed words in advertising is to project an image of their country of origin in order to create for the reader the illusion that the product, and by implication its user, will share in the good things suggested by that image. French names like Grand Prix, Coupe De Ville, and Monte Carlo attached to American car models help the advertiser to get across the message that the car is luxurious, sophisticated, and elegantly appointed and that driving such an automobile reflects positively on the taste of its potential owner. In almost all cases French names are reserved for the more expensive models while American words are favored for small meat-and-potatoes cars like Charger, Maverick, Pinto and Bronco. Similarly, the French reader is likely to encounter a large number of American technical terms in ads for appliances, radio and television equipment, cameras, and “gadgets de luxe,” since the manufacturer benefits by associating American mechanical skill with his products. An advertisement for French-made hi-fi equipment appearing in a French magazine spoke of the product’s “push-pull ultra linéaire, 6 haut-parleurs, 2 elliptiques et 4 tweeters … montés sur baffle.”

Images, which are used again and again, are often based on myths of the other country’s culture. Words like tomahawk and trading posts are used in French advertisements to evoke images of a western-movie America of naturalness, freedom, and adventure in order to sell products like “Chemise de ‘cow girl,’ ” “bottes Far West,” and vests in the style of “Arizona Bill,” irrespective of the real West that is or was. The name Monte Carlo attached to an American-made car trades on the American consumer’s image of a once-exclusive vacation spot, now available as part of low-cost travel packages. Thus the name Monte Carlo can convey to an automobile a prestige that the real trip to Monte Carlo has long since lost.

Those images that are not completely mythic are usually gross stereotypes of the other country’s culture. Few Americans would recognize the image of American life presented in French advertising—a new world filled with eternally youthful, glamourously casual, up-to-date men and women devoted to consuming the products of their advanced technology. Similarly, few French men and women would recognize the nation of elegant and knowing consumers of food, wine, and sophisticated sex pictured in American ads.

The image of France as a nation of lovers, bold yet unusually subtle in their relations with the opposite sex, is often called upon to sell perfume and cosmetics, sometimes of French origin but packaged and advertised specifically for the American market. An ad which appeared several years ago in the New Yorker showed a bottle of perfume labeled “voulez-vous” implanted next to a closeup of a sexy and elegant woman, her face shadowed by a male hand lighting her cigarette. The text: “The spark that starts the fire. Voulez-vous a new perfume.” Audace, Robe d’un Soir, and Je Reviens are other perfumes advertised in American magazines with pictures and copy that reinforce the sexual suggestiveness of the prominently featured French name on the label.

It may be surprising for Americans to learn that English names are given to perfumes sold in France to enhance their romantic image. My Love, Partner, and Shocking are some examples. Advertisements for French-made men’s cosmetics in French magazines may refer to products such as l’aftershave and le pre-shave. Givenchy’s Gentleman is advertised to Frenchmen as an eau de toilette for the man who dares to appear at business lunches in a turtleneck sweater and has the courage to treat love in a casual manner.

The recent swelling of the list of Americanisms used in French advertising and in French speech has pained many Frenchmen and has even caused the government to take action. For a number of years the leader in this “war against anglicisms” has been René Etiemble, a professor at the Sorbonne. Etiemble, through magazine articles, radio and television appearances and his widely read book, Parlez-vous franglais?, struggles vehemently against what he most often refers to as an “invasion” of American terms. He does little to disguise his strong anti-American sentiments. American words are rejected as agents of a vulgar American culture and both are seen as threats to the French way of life. According to Etiemble “[the] heritage of words [is the] heritage of ideas: with le twist and la ségrégation, la civilisation cocol-coolique, the American manner of not living will disturb and contaminate all that remains of your cuisine, wines, love and free thought.” It would be difficult to find a stronger believer in the power of words than Etiemble.

In response to the concerns of Etiemble and others, a series of committees composed of highly placed French scientists and language experts were charged with the task of finding Gallic equivalents for such popular terms as le meeting, le marketing, le management, and le know-how. The recommended replacements are: la réunion, la commercialisation, la direction, and, of course, le savoir faire. The replacements do not seem to have taken root.

At the end of 1975 a more radical step was taken. The French National Assembly passed a law banning the use of all foreign words in advertising in those cases in which a native alternative has been officially suggested, and instituting a fine against violators.

Both Etiemble and the government purists rely strongly on the “logical” argument that most loan words are not needed because there already exists a native equivalent with exactly the same meaning. Yet a look at the advertising pages of French and American magazines will show that borrowed words are used again and again when there are obvious native equivalents. Certainly the English words in “c’est YES à Benson and Hedges” and “Le ‘drink’ des gens raffinés” could be translated without loss of literal meaning—but they are not.

It is precisely because of the connotations associated with the culture of its country of origin, not its denotations, that advertisers find the borrowed word attractive.

OBITER DICTA: Public Servants

Noel Perrin, Darthmouth College

The names of our governmental institutions are too opaque. Almost every one of them is Latin in origin, the real meaning hidden in that utterly alien speech. This gives them a false grandeur. We have a president. What’s that? The first man of a company, a college, the country. But where does it come from? From sideo, sidere ‘to sit,’ and pre- ‘in front.’ We really have a Sits-in-Front. Just another chairperson.

We have a city of Washington, where he does his ruling. This city is known to everyone who presides over a TV set as The Nation’s Capital. A resounding phrase, and meant to be. But what’s its origin? Nation: from natus ‘to be born, to be a native.’ Capital: from caput ‘a human head.’ The Headplace of the Natives. Just what explorers were constantly finding in nineteenth-century Africa.

One day a year, to keep our leaders modest, all governmental names should be rendered into English. Then we would remember that a senator is nothing but a senex ‘an old man’ —and Congress itself just a bunch of old folks shuffling along. Con ‘with’ and gradi, gressus ‘step.’ The 95th Step-Together. An ambassador, for all his diplomatic immunity and social pretension, we would recognize as own brother to the butler. The word comes eventually from Gothic andbahti ‘service’ cognate with Gallo-Latin ambactus ‘a servant or vassal.’

Most of all, we could reflect on the FBI. Federal, from foedus, a league or treaty. Bureau from French bureau now meaning an ‘office’ but once meaning an ‘office desk,’ and before that a ‘cloth to be spread on a desk.’ It in turn from Old French burel ‘woolen cloth,’ and that from Latin burra ‘a shaggy garment, sheep shearings, coarse hair for stuffing.’ Investigation, from vestigare ‘to track.’ (Vestigium means a ‘footprint.') The League of Desk Cloths Used for Tracking Down.

My Grandmother’s “Spaghetta”

Charles L. Todd, Hamilton College

My Grandmother Todd, who died at ninety-one in 1944, was no bigot, but like many Yankees who settled in New York State’s westernmost county, Chautauqua, she was uncomfortable with words and proper names that sounded “foreign” to her, especially when they originated with the Italians and Poles who settled in that rich grapegrowing area. For instance, words ending in the short Italianate “i” she would “prettify” with a broad “a.” Whenever she cooked up a “mess” of spaghetti or macaroni, it immediately became “spaghetta” and “macarona” (that word “mess,” by the way, was usually associated with the bullheads I brought in from the Cassadage lakes, or the dandelion and cowslip greens I picked in the early spring). Oddly enough, the nearby towns of Laona and Fredonia, became “Lay-ony” and “Free-dony,” just as Cousin Sarah and Aunt Louisa became “Sary” and “Louisy.” I have long pondered these little linguistic aberrations of my grandmother, and I finally, somehow, reached the conclusion that those broad “a’s” she reserved for the foreign words and names were part of the ethnocentricity which often crops up in rural (especially Yankee) America— an attempt to elevate the speech of the newcomers. While Benito Mussolini was making Italian trains run on time and seemed like a respectable, though noisy, fellow, he was “Mr. Mussolina” to Grandmother, but when he began to act up in Ethiopia, and became a pal of that man Hitler, she went back to “Mussolini” —hitting hard on the “eenie.” We had a young “Eye-talian” boy, named Luigi Petronelli who used to help out during the haying season. He was a good hand at “mowing away,” and Grandmother always had a glass of ice cold, pure Concord grape juice waiting for us between loads. Luigi, however, would retire to his old Model A where he had stashed away a bottle of wine. Having a keen sense of smell, Grandmother soon caught on, and would go to the back door and call out “Luiga Petronella—you come in here and drink what’s good for you!” Luigi never tried to straighten her out about his name, but he was adamant about the unfermented grape juice. Grandmother was very fond of the “Opry” programs which came to us via radio on Saturday afternoons, and one of her favorite singers was “Giovanna Martinella.” Not even the mellifluent Milton Cross, whose Italian came so trippingly off the tongue, had any effect on her determination to make those “Eye-talian” names more elegant.

The same treatment was accorded the Polish people who moved into nearby Dunkirk to work in the steel mills, and who occasionally went into vegetable farming in Chautauqua County. She liked the morning polka hour on Buffalo’s radio station, WGR, sponsored by Dom Polski (a national Polish group), but Dom Polski invariably became “Dom Polska.” I might add that she was delighted to learn that Polaski, N.Y., where Cousin Sary lived was prounounced Polas-sky, “the way it should be.” My friend, Ed Roski, whose father was injured in the steel mill, became “that poor Rosk-eye boy.”

We had few people of French descent in the area, but they had long accepted the fact that all “er” endings, as far as Grandmother and her fellow Yankees were concerned, sounded just like that—and nothing more. “Neighbor Bellanger,” for example, tried hard for a few years to hang on to “Bellan-jay,” but it was no use. The same thing happened, of course, to that “Frenchy” actor Charles Boyer, whom Grandmother used to see occasionally on the movie screen in Fredonia, and also to that other Frenchy, “Morris Chevaleer,” of whom she disapproved. Some of her Fredonia friends had been to “gay Paree” and knew better—but Grandmother said they were “putting on airs.” All this made life difficult for me when I returned from my college French classes and told her her new silk crepe scarf that she wore over her hat was not called “Georgietta,” but rather “Georgette.” She would immediately remonstrate that “Georgietta” was the more elegant way of saying it, and it often reminded me of the way in which she crooked her little finger when she lifted up her cup of tea. I am told by one of my linguist friends that this might be called “hyperurbanism,” but I’m not sure that it isn’t simply linguistic ethnocentricity, or perhaps even a form of xenophobia. I strongly suspect that native Cape Codders and Nantucketers are similarly affected when the mainlander folks stream in during the summer months. I also recall vividly the nudging and grinning that went on when I spoke in the Morganville, Kansas, town hall one night and came out with “to-mah-to” instead of “ta-mayta,” and got equally careless with my “eithers” and “neithers.” I should have been more careful since the chairman of that meeting had informed me previously that the town was founded by one Morgan, Captain of a Yankee Clipper, who chose his future residence because it was “the futhest place in the good old U.S.A. away from both the oceans.”

I think what actually got me started on all this is my name “Lafe,” pronounced as in “safe.” Most of the letters I get from strangers who don’t know any better are addressed to “Lief” Todd, indicating sound Nordic origins. But, alas, this isn’t true, for “Lafe” is what my Yankee forefathers contrived out of Lafayette, who visited Fredonia, New York, during his triumphal tour of the Eastern states in 1825. My grandmother’s mother was invited onto the platform after he spoke; managed a graceful curtsey, and had her hand kissed by the gallant Frenchman. Great-grandfather, I am told, got the giggles and kidded her about it for years, but Greatgrandmother was overwhelmed, and named her first boy child after the General—a name inherited by my father and myself and several others in the family. Naturally, Lafayette, as a “Frenchy” would pronounce it, couldn’t survive in Yankeeland, so it became “Lay-fay-ette”—with, thank heaven, no final broad “a” as in “Georgetta.” But that final “ette” sounded too feminine for a boy-child, so it was quickly reduced to “Lafe.” The same vowel transformation took place in most small villages named after the great Frenchman, though oddly enough most big city streets and hotels bearing the name went unscathed. Try asking a Throughway attendant how to get to “Fye-etteville” in New York State! It has always been a great boon to me incidentally to know that the State of Arkansas boasts a town named “Lafe,” but I am less happy when I read regional novels, mostly about the southwestern mountain country, and find the village idiot named “Lafe.” Why not Zeke, or Luke?

The city-bred mother of a great-uncle of mine went the whole hog, as Grandmother put it, and named a son, “Marquis de Lafayette Todd,” with all the right sounds in it. Years later, however, he was reminded by his congressman out in California that titles of nobility are not used in democratic America. My great-uncle, totally unperturbed, went to court and had his name changed to Marcus de Lafayette, frequently shortened to “M.D.L.” Todd. But Grandmother taught me to call him “Uncle Lafe,” and I did.

I once got up the courage to ask Grandmother why she said “spaghetta” and “macarona.” She looked puzzled for a moment, and then exclaimed, “Why, Land o’ Goshen, I guess I just spleen against eating those Eye-talian sounding things!” As for “Georgietta” she simply allowed it sounded silkier and prettier that way! I must have been at least ten years old, by the way, before I learned that her favorite expletive wasn’t “Atlantic Ocean!”

Cheers & JEERS

Have you noticed how advertising copywriters have recently been attracted to the “clever” use of double entendre? Some of the visual and textual puns are apt, others emerge as what we must call “bent metaphors.” To wit:

‘Who could make light of themselves better?” [Benson & Hedges 100’s Lights.]

“Get a leg up.” [Time; accompanying a picture of flamingos, one with its leg tucked up.]

“Get the Big Apple and the Big Avocado in one bite.” [New York/New West; no amount of research has turned up any evidence that California is ever referred to as “the Big Avocado.”]

Christmas jeer: “In the holiday spirit of giving, Barney’s is happy to give you Sundays ‘til Christmas to shop.” [Advt. in N.Y. Times.]

“Custom Calibration—exclusive technological breakthrough enables the wearer to personally accurize the watch to one’s own unique lifestyle to an accuracy of less than 10 seconds per year … without the use of tools or the need to open the case.” [Advt. in Wall St. Journal by Hammacher Schlemmer for a solar-powered watch; that is, if your lifestyle calls for getting up an hour after you should, arrive 45 minutes late for appointments and 15 minutes early for cocktails. —Daniel James, Ivoryton, Ct.]

EPISTOLA {Walter Newman}

Eric Partridge is doubly mistaken in his “A Dictionary Of Catch Phrases” [IV, 3].

The correct wording of the catch phrase is not “After you, my dear Alphonse —no, after you, Gaston.” It is “After you, my dear Alphonse—no, after you, my dear Gaston.”

It is not Canadian in origin. It originated in a Hearst (King Features) comic strip called, “Happy Hooligan.” The cartoonist was F. Opper. It appeared all through the 1920s and into the 1930s.

Alphonse and Gaston were two supporting players in the strip’s cast of characters. They were very dapper Frenchmen (top hats, frock coats, moustaches and imperials like Napoleon III). So courteous were they that in moments of extreme danger to themselves they would forgo escape in order to invite each other to go first.

Opper originated another phrase that had a short vogue just before the 1920s: “And her name was Maude.” Maude was a mule in one of his strips.

And you, I regret to say, are mistaken in calling Where was Moses when the lights went out? an early 20c. riddle. It can be found in “Huckleberry Finn” by Mark Twain (Chapter XVII), a novel copyrighted in 1884. And it reads as though it had originated long before that. [Walter Newman, Sherman Oaks, California].

EPISTOLA {Raymond S. Brown, M.D.}

In Eastern Virginia, in Mobjack Bay country near Williamsburg, where the York River meets the Chesapeake Bay, is a small band of folk known as Guineamen who speak a dialect that is said to be similar to Elizabethan English. The legend is that these people are descendents of deserters from Cornwallis’ army at the time of the surrender. H.L. Mencken, in The American Language, Supplement Two, gives a similar explanation (p. 224). The difficulty with this theory is that there are no Hessian or German names in the community, as would be expected if the persons who came to Guinea were the rank and file of Cornwallis’ army, who were mercenaries from Hesse.

In Michael Pearson’s book Those Damned Rebels, a history of the Revolutionary War from the point of view of the British, an interesting fact was noted (p. 397). When Cornwallis found that help was not going to arrive because the French fleet under DeGrasse had barricaded the British from rescuing him and his army, he decided to make a forced march north to join up with other British troops. He assembled boats and his choice of the assembled troops, and the assumption here is that the troops chosen to accompany him would be primarily British. They attempted on October 16, 1781, to cross the York River to Gloucester to head north but “a York River storm came up” [having been in several York River storms, I know that they can be devastating] and many of the boats were blown down the river to the area that is now Guinea. The men in these boats would have been British and would have had a community of interests to hold them together.

Cornwallis sued for surrender the next day. The troops at Yorktown were soon moved to Williamsburg and subsequently west into the Valley of Virginia, where the security seems to have become lax. Many of these troops remained in the valley, especially in the Charlottesville area, and there we do find some German dialects and many German and Hessian names.

The British soldiers who landed at what is now Jenkins' Neck, in Guinea, had no difficulty in settling down. Having a common background, similar interests, and a probable fear of being taken as prisoners of war, they are assumed to have remained in the area and to have maintained in this isolated part of the country their dialect, which they brought from England. As the country government became more organized and was able to demand payment of taxes from these people, they paid them in the coin with which they had been paid by Cornwallis: guineas; hence they became “Guineamen.”

The principal surnames of those who still speak this dialect are Brown, Smith, West, Jenkins, Hall, Robins, Rowe, Belvin and Shackelford. With the advent of the central school system, radio, and television, the dialect is fast disappearing and probably not more than two or three hundred people speak it today. [Raymond S. Brown, M.D., Gloucester, Virginia]

Internet Archive copy of this issue