Part 10 (1/2)

Let me note a few of the Americanisms, good, bad, and indifferent, which specially struck me, whether in talk or in books, during my recent visit to the United States. I call them Americanisms without inquiring into their history. Some of them may be of English origin; but for practical purposes an Americanism may be taken to mean an expression commonly used in America and not commonly used in England.

I had not been three hours on American soil before I heard a charming young lady remark, ”Oh, it was bully!” I gathered that this expression is considered admissible, in the conversation of grown-up people, only in and about New York. I often heard it there, and never anywhere else.

A very distinguished officer, who served as a volunteer in Cuba, was asked to state his impressions of war. ”War,” he said, ”is a terrible thing. You can't exaggerate its horrors. When you sit in your tent the night before the battle, and think of home and your wife and children, you feel pretty sick and downhearted. But,” he added, ”next day, when you're in it, oh, it _is_ bully!”

The general use of picturesque metaphor is of course a striking feature of American conversation. Many of these expressions have taken firm root in England, such as ”to have no use for” a man, or ”to take no stock in”

a theory. But fresh inventions crop up on every hand in America. For instance, where an English theatrical manager would say, ”We must get this play well talked about and paragraphed in advance,” an American manager puts the whole thing much more briefly and forcibly in the phrase, ”We don't want this piece to come in on rubbers.” Metaphor apart, many Americans have a gift of fantastic extravagance of phrase which often produces an irresistible effect. A gentleman in high political office had one day to receive a deputation with whose objects he had no sympathy. He listened for some time to the spokesman of the party, and then, at a pause, broke in with the remark: ”Gentlemen, you need proceed no further. I am not an entirely dishevelled jacka.s.s!” One would give something for a snapshot photograph of the faces of that deputation.

Small differences of expression (other than those with which every one is familiar--such as ”elevator,” ”baggage,” ”depot,” &c.)--strike one in daily life. The American for ”To let” is ”For rent;” a ”thing one would wish to have expressed otherwise” is, more briefly, ”a bad break;”

instead of ”He married money” an American will say ”He married rich;”

but this, I take it, is a vulgarism--as, indeed, is the English expression. I find that in the modern American novel, setting forth the sayings and doings of more or less educated people, there are apt to be, on an average, about half a dozen words and phrases at which the English reader stumbles for a moment. Mr. Howells, a master of English, may be taken as a faithful reporter of the colloquial speech of Boston and New York. In one of his comediettas, he makes Willis Campbell say, ”Let me turn out my sister's cup” (pour her a cup of tea). Mrs. Roberts, in another of these delightful little pieces, says, ”I'll smash off a note,” where an English Mrs. Roberts would say ”dash off ”; and where an English Mrs. Roberts would ring the bell, her American namesake ”touches the annunciator.” It is commonly believed in England that there is no such thing as a ”servant” in America, but only ”hired girls” and ”helps.” This is certainly not so in New York. I once ”rang up” a friend's house by telephone, and, on asking who was speaking to me, received the answer, in a feminine voice, ”I'm one of Mr. So-and-so's servants.”

The heroine of _The Story of a Play_ says to her husband, ”Are you still thinking of our sc.r.a.p of this morning?” ”Sc.r.a.p,” in the sense of ”quarrel,” is one of the few exceedingly common American expressions which, have as yet taken little hold in England.[V] Admiral Dewey, for instance, is admired as a ”sc.r.a.pper,” or, as we should phrase it, a fighting Admiral. Mr. Henry Fuller, of Chicago, in his powerful novel _The Cliff Dwellers_, uses a still less elegant synonym for ”sc.r.a.p”--he talks of a ”connubial spat.” In the same book I note the phrases ”He teetered back and forth on his toes,” ”He was a stocky young man,” ”One of his brief noonings,” ”That's right, Claudia--score the profession.”

”Score,” as used in America, does not mean ”score off,” but rather, I take it, ”attack and leave your mark upon.” It is very common in this sense. For instance, I note among the headlines of a New York paper, ”Mr. So-and-so scores Yellow Journalism.” Talking of Yellow Journalism, by the way, the expressions ”a beat,” and ”a scoop,” for what we in England call an ”exclusive” item of news, were unknown to me until I went to America. I was a little bewildered, too, when I was told of a family which ”lived on air-tights.” Their diet consisted of canned (or, as we should say, tinned) provisions.

The most popular slang expression of the day is ”to rubberneck,” or, more concisely, ”to rubber.” Its primary meaning is to crane the neck in curiosity, to pry round the corner, as it were.[W] But it has numerous and surprising extensions of meaning. It appears to be one of the laws of slang that when a phrase strikes the popular fancy, it is pressed into service on every possible or impossible occasion. Another favourite expression is ”That cuts no ice with me.”[X] I was unable to ascertain either its origin or its precise significance. On the other hand, a piece of slang which supplies a ”felt want,” and will one day, I believe, pa.s.s into the literary language, is ”the limit” in the sense of ”le comble.” A theatrical poster, widely displayed in New York while I was there, bore this alluring inscription:

THE LIMIT AT LAST!

”THE MORMON SENATOR AND THE MERMAID”

JAGS OF JOY FOR JADED JOHNNIES.

A ”jag,” be it known, means primarily a load, secondarily a ”load,” or ”package,” of alcohol.

Collectors of slang will find many priceless gems in two recent books which I commend to their notice: _Chimmie Fadden_, by Mr. E.W. Townsend, and _Artie_, by Mr. George Ade. _Chimmie Fadden_ gives us the dialect of the New York Bowery Boy, or ”tough,” in which the most notable feature is the subst.i.tution either of ”d” or ”t” for ”th.” Is this, I wonder, a spontaneous corruption, or is it due to German and Yiddish influence?

When Chimmie wants to express his admiration for a young lady, he says: ”Well, say, she's a torrowbred, an' dat goes.” When the young lady's father comes to thank him for championing her, this is how Chimmie describes the visit: ”Den he gives me a song an' dance about me being a brave young man for tumping de mug what insulted his daughter,” ”Mug,”

the Bowery term for ”fellow” or ”man,” in Chicago finds its equivalent in ”guy.” Mr. Ade's Artie is a Chicago clerk, and his dialect is of the most delectable. In comparison with him, Mr. Dooley is a well of English undefiled. Here again we find traces of the influence of polyglot immigration. ”Kopecks” for ”money” evidently comes from the Russian Jew; ”girlerino,” as a term of endearment, from the ”Dago” of the sunny south; and ”spiel,” meaning practically anything you please, from the Fatherland. When Artie goes to a wedding, he records that ”there was a long spiel by the high guy in the pulpit.” After describing the embarra.s.sments of a country cousin in the city, Artie proceeds, ”Down at the farm, he was the wise guy and I was the soft mark.” ”Mark” in the sense of ”b.u.t.t” or ”gull” is one of the commonest of slang words. When Artie has cut out all rivals in the good graces of his Mamie, he puts it thus, ”There ain't n.o.body else in the one-two-sevens. They ain't even in the 'also rans.'” When they have a lovers' quarrel he remarks, ”Well, I s'pose the other boy's fillin' all my dates.” When he is asked whether Mamie cycles, he replies, ”Does she? She's a scorchalorum!” When he disapproves of another young gentleman, this is how ”he puts him next”

to the fact, as he himself would say--

”You're nothin' but a two-spot. You're the smallest thing in the deck.... Chee-e-ese it! You can't do nothin' like that to me and then come around afterwards and jolly me. Not in a million! I tell you you're a two spot, and if you come into the same part o' the town with me I'll change your face. There's only one way to get back at you people.... If he don't keep off o' my route, there'll be people walkin' slow behind him one o' these days.... But this same two-spot's got a sister that can have my seat in the car any time she comes in.”

I plead guilty to an unholy relish for Chimmie's and Artie's racy metaphors from the music-hall, the poker-table, and the ”grip-car.”[Y]

But it is to be noted that both these profound students of slang, Mr.