Alonzo Fitz and Other Stories
M >> Mark Twain (Samuel Clemens) >> Alonzo Fitz and Other Stories
CONCERNING THE AMERICAN LANGUAGE
--[Being part of a chapter which was crowded out of "A Tramp Abroad."--
M.T.]
There was as Englishman in our compartment, and he complimented me on
--on what? But you would never guess. He complimented me on my English.
He said Americans in general did not speak the English language as
correctly as I did. I said I was obliged to him for his compliment,
since I knew he meant it for one, but that I was not fairly entitled to
it, for I did not speak English at all--I only spoke American.
He laughed, and said it was a distinction without a difference. I said
no, the difference was not prodigious, but still it was considerable.
We fell into a friendly dispute over the matter. I put my case as well
as I could, and said:
"The languages were identical several generations ago, but our changed
conditions and the spread of our people far to the south and far to the
west have made many alterations in our pronunciation, and have introduced
new words among us and changed the meanings of many old ones. English
people talk through their noses; we do not. We say know, English people
say nao; we say cow, the Briton says kaow; we--"
"Oh, come! that is pure Yankee; everybody knows that."
"Yes, it is pure Yankee; that is true. One cannot hear it in America
outside of the little corner called New England, which is Yankee land.
The English themselves planted it there, two hundred and fifty years ago,
and there it remains; it has never spread. But England talks through her
nose yet; the Londoner and the backwoods New-Englander pronounce 'know'
and 'cow' alike, and then the Briton unconsciously satirizes himself by
making fun of the Yankee's pronunciation."
We argued this point at some length; nobody won; but no matter, the fact
remains Englishmen say nao and kaow for "know" and "cow," and that is
what the rustic inhabitant of a very small section of America does.
"You conferred your 'a' upon New England, too, and there it remains; it
has not traveled out of the narrow limits of those six little states in
all these two hundred and fifty years. All England uses it, New
England's small population--say four millions--use it, but we have
forty-five millions who do not use it. You say 'glahs of wawtah,' so
does New England; at least, New England says 'glahs.' America at large
flattens the 'a', and says 'glass of water.' These sounds are pleasanter
than yours; you may think they are not right--well, in English they are
not right, but 'American' they are. You say 'flahsk' and 'bahsket,' and
'jackahss'; we say 'flask,' 'basket,' 'jackass'--sounding the 'a' as it
is in 'tallow,' 'fallow,' and so on. Up to as late as 1847 Mr. Webster's
Dictionary had the impudence to still pronounce 'basket' bahsket, when he
knew that outside of his little New England all America shortened the 'a'
and paid no attention to his English broadening of it. However, it called
itself an English Dictionary, so it was proper enough that it should
stick to English forms, perhaps. It still calls itself an English
Dictionary today, but it has quietly ceased to pronounce 'basket' as if
it were spelt 'bahsket.' In the American language the 'h' is respected;
the 'h' is not dropped or added improperly."
"The same is the case in England--I mean among the educated classes, of
course."
"Yes, that is true; but a nation's language is a very large matter.
It is not simply a manner of speech obtaining among the educated handful;
the manner obtaining among the vast uneducated multitude must be
considered also. Your uneducated masses speak English, you will not deny
that; our uneducated masses speak American it won't be fair for you to
deny that, for you can see, yourself, that when your stable-boy says,
'It isn't the 'unting that 'urts the 'orse, but the 'ammer, 'ammer,
'ammer on the 'ard 'ighway,' and our stable-boy makes the same remark
without suffocating a single h, these two people are manifestly talking
two different languages. But if the signs are to be trusted, even your
educated classes used to drop the 'h.' They say humble, now, and heroic,
and historic etc., but I judge that they used to drop those h's because
your writers still keep up the fashion of patting an before those words
instead of a. This is what Mr. Darwin might call a 'rudimentary' sign
that as an was justifiable once, and useful when your educated classes
used to say 'umble, and 'eroic, and 'istorical. Correct writers of the
American language do not put an before three words."
The English gentleman had something to say upon this matter, but never
mind what he said--I'm not arguing his case. I have him at a
disadvantage, now. I proceeded:
"In England you encourage an orator by exclaiming, 'H'yaah! 'yaah!'
We pronounce it heer in some sections, 'h'yer' in others, and so on; but
our whites do not say 'h'yaah,' pronouncing the a's like the a in ah.
I have heard English ladies say 'don't you'--making two separate and
distinct words of it; your Mr. Burnand has satirized it. But we always
say 'dontchu.' This is much better. Your ladies say, 'Oh, it's oful
nice!' Ours say, 'Oh, it's awful nice!' We say, 'Four hundred,' you say
'For'--as in the word or. Your clergymen speak of 'the Lawd,' ours of
'the Lord'; yours speak of 'the gawds of the heathen,' ours of 'the gods
of the heathen.' When you are exhausted, you say you are 'knocked up.'
We don't. When you say you will do a thing 'directly,' you mean
'immediately'; in the American language--generally speaking--the word
signifies 'after a little.' When you say 'clever,' you mean 'capable';
with us the word used to mean 'accommodating,' but I don't know what it
means now. Your word 'stout' means 'fleshy'; our word 'stout' usually
means 'strong.' Your words 'gentleman' and 'lady' have a very restricted
meaning; with us they include the barmaid, butcher, burglar, harlot, and
horse-thief. You say, 'I haven't got any stockings on,' 'I haven't got
any memory,' 'I haven't got any money in my purse; we usually say, 'I
haven't any stockings on,' 'I haven't any memory!' 'I haven't any money
in my purse.' You say 'out of window'; we always put in a the. If one
asks 'How old is that man?' the Briton answers, 'He will be about forty';
in the American language we should say, 'He is about forty.' However,
I won't tire you, sir; but if I wanted to, I could pile up differences
here until I not only convinced you that English and American are
separate languages, but that when I speak my native tongue in its utmost
purity an Englishman can't understand me at all."
"I don't wish to flatter you, but it is about all I can do to understand
you now."
That was a very pretty compliment, and it put us on the pleasantest terms
directly--I use the word in the English sense.
[Later--1882. Esthetes in many of our schools are now beginning to teach
the pupils to broaden the 'a,' and to say "don't you," in the elegant
foreign way.]
ROGERS
This Man Rogers happened upon me and introduced himself at the town
of -----, in the South of England, where I stayed awhile. His stepfather
had married a distant relative of mine who was afterward hanged; and so
he seemed to think a blood relationship existed between us. He came in
every day and sat down and talked. Of all the bland, serene human
curiosities I ever saw, I think he was the chiefest. He desired to look
at my new chimney-pot hat. I was very willing, for I thought he would
notice the name of the great Oxford Street hatter in it, and respect me
accordingly. But he turned it about with a sort of grave compassion,
pointed out two or three blemishes, and said that I, being so recently
arrived, could not be expected to know where to supply myself. Said he
would send me the address of his hatter. Then he said, "Pardon me," and
proceeded to cut a neat circle of red tissue paper; daintily notched the
edges of it; took the mucilage and pasted it in my hat so as to cover the
manufacturer's name. He said, "No one will know now where you got it.
I will send you a hat-tip of my hatter, and you can paste it over this
tissue circle." It was the calmest, coolest thing--I never admired a man
so much in my life. Mind, he did this while his own hat sat offensively
near our noses, on the table--an ancient extinguisher of the "slouch"
pattern, limp and shapeless with age, discolored by vicissitudes of the
weather, and banded by an equator of bear's grease that had stewed
through.
Another time he examined my coat. I had no terrors, for over my tailor's
door was the legend, "By Special Appointment Tailor to H. R. H. the
Prince of Wales," etc. I did not know at the time that the most of the
tailor shops had the same sign out, and that whereas it takes nine
tailors to make an ordinary man, it takes a hundred and fifty to make a
prince. He was full of compassion for my coat. Wrote down the address
of his tailor for me. Did not tell me to mention my nom de plume and the
tailor would put his best work on my garment, as complimentary people
sometimes do, but said his tailor would hardly trouble himself for an
unknown person (unknown person, when I thought I was so celebrated in
England!--that was the cruelest cut), but cautioned me to mention his
name, and it would be all right. Thinking to be facetious, I said:
"But he might sit up all night and injure his health."
"Well, let him," said Rogers; "I've done enough for him, for him to show
some appreciation of it."
I might as well have tried to disconcert a mummy with my facetiousness.
Said Rogers: "I get all my coats there--they're the only coats fit to be
seen in."
I made one more attempt. I said, "I wish you had brought one with you
--I would like to look at it."
"Bless your heart, haven't I got one on?--this article is Morgan's make."
I examined it. The coat had been bought ready-made, of a Chatham Street
Jew, without any question--about 1848. It probably cost four dollars
when it was new. It was ripped, it was frayed, it was napless and
greasy. I could not resist showing him where it was ripped. It so
affected him that I was almost sorry I had done it. First he seemed
plunged into a bottomless abyss of grief. Then he roused himself, made
a feint with his hands as if waving off the pity of a nation, and said
--with what seemed to me a manufactured emotion--"No matter; no matter;
don't mind me; do not bother about it. I can get another."
When he was thoroughly restored, so that he could examine the rip and
command his feelings, he said, ah, now he understood it--his servant must
have done it while dressing him that morning.
His servant! There was something awe-inspiring in effrontery like this.
Nearly every day he interested himself in some article of my clothing.
One would hardly have expected this sort of infatuation in a man who
always wore the same suit, and it a suit that seemed coeval with the
Conquest.
It was an unworthy ambition, perhaps, but I did wish I could make this
man admire something about me or something I did--you would have felt the
same way. I saw my opportunity: I was about to return to London, and had
"listed" my soiled linen for the wash. It made quite an imposing
mountain in the corner of the room--fifty-four pieces. I hoped he would
fancy it was the accumulation of a single week. I took up the wash-list,
as if to see that it was all right, and then tossed it on the table, with
pretended forgetfulness. Sure enough, he took it up and ran his eye
along down to the grand total. Then he said, "You get off easy," and
laid it down again.
His gloves were the saddest ruin, but he told me where I could get some
like them. His shoes would hardly hold walnuts without leaking, but he
liked to put his feet up on the mantelpiece and contemplate them.
He wore a dim glass breastpin, which he called a "morphylitic diamond"
--whatever that may mean--and said only two of them had ever been found
--the Emperor of China had the other one.
Afterward, in London, it was a pleasure to me to see this fantastic
vagabond come marching into the lobby of the hotel in his grand-ducal
way, for he always had some new imaginary grandeur to develop--there was
nothing stale about him but his clothes. If he addressed me when
strangers were about, he always raised his voice a little and called me
"Sir Richard," or "General," or "Your Lordship"--and when people began to
stare and look deferential, he would fall to inquiring in a casual way
why I disappointed the Duke of Argyll the night before; and then remind
me of our engagement at the Duke of Westminster's for the following day.
I think that for the time being these things were realities to him. He
once came and invited me to go with him and spend the evening with the
Earl of Warwick at his town house. I said I had received no formal
invitation. He said that that was of no consequence, the Earl had no
formalities for him or his friends. I asked if I could go just as I was.
He said no, that would hardly do; evening dress was requisite at night in
any gentleman's house. He said he would wait while I dressed, and then
we would go to his apartments and I could take a bottle of champagne and
a cigar while he dressed. I was very willing to see how this enterprise
would turn out, so I dressed, and we started to his lodgings. He said if
I didn't mind we would walk. So we tramped some four miles through the
mud and fog, and finally found his "apartments"; they consisted of a
single room over a barber's shop in a back street. Two chairs, a small
table, an ancient valise, a wash-basin and pitcher (both on the floor
in a corner), an unmade bed, a fragment of a looking-glass, and a
flower-pot, with a perishing little rose geranium in it, which he called
a century plant, and said it had not bloomed now for upward of two
centuries--given to him by the late Lord Palmerston (been offered a
prodigious sum for it)--these were the contents of the room. Also a
brass candlestick and a part of a candle. Rogers lit the candle, and
told me to sit down and make myself at home. He said he hoped I was
thirsty, because he would surprise my palate with an article of champagne
that seldom got into a commoner's system; or would I prefer sherry, or
port? Said he had port in bottles that were swathed in stratified
cobwebs, every stratum representing a generation. And as for his
cigars--well, I should judge of them myself. Then he put his head out
at the door and called:
"Sackville!" No answer.
"Hi-Sackville!" No answer.
"Now what the devil can have become of that butler? I never allow a
servant to--Oh, confound that idiot, he's got the keys. Can't get into
the other rooms without the keys."
(I was just wondering at his intrepidity in still keeping up the delusion
of the champagne, and trying to imagine how he was going to get out of
the difficulty.)
Now he stopped calling Sackville and began to call "Anglesy." But
Anglesy didn't come. He said, "This is the second time that that equerry
has been absent without leave. To-morrow I'll discharge him." Now he
began to whoop for "Thomas," but Thomas didn't answer. Then for
"Theodore," but no Theodore replied.
"Well, I give it up," said Rogers. "The servants never expect me at this
hour, and so they're all off on a lark. Might get along without the
equerry and the page, but can't have any wine or cigars without the
butler, and can't dress without my valet."
I offered to help him dress, but he would not hear of it; and besides, he
said he would not feel comfortable unless dressed by a practised hand.
However, he finally concluded that he was such old friends with the Earl
that it would not make any difference how he was dressed. So we took a
cab, he gave the driver some directions, and we started. By and by we
stopped before a large house and got out. I never had seen this man with
a collar on. He now stepped under a lamp and got a venerable paper
collar out of his coat pocket, along with a hoary cravat, and put them
on. He ascended the stoop, and entered. Presently he reappeared,
descended rapidly, and said:
"Come--quick!"
We hurried away, and turned the corner.
"Now we're safe," he said, and took off his collar and cravat and
returned them to his pocket.
"Made a mighty narrow escape," said he.
"How?" said I.
"B' George, the Countess was there!"
"Well, what of that?--don't she know you?"
"Know me? Absolutely worships me. I just did happen to catch a glimpse
of her before she saw me--and out I shot. Haven't seen her for two
months--to rush in on her without any warning might have been fatal.
She could not have stood it. I didn't know she was in town--thought she
was at the castle. Let me lean on you--just a moment--there; now I am
better--thank you; thank you ever so much. Lord bless me, what an
escape!"
So I never got to call on the Earl, after all. But I marked the house
for future reference. It proved to be an ordinary family hotel, with
about a thousand plebeians roosting in it.
In most things Rogers was by no means a fool. In some things it was
plain enough that he was a fool, but he certainly did not know it.
He was in the "deadest" earnest in these matters. He died at sea, last
summer, as the "Earl of Ramsgate."