A Straight Deal [51]
those words which both peoples use alike, but with different meanings. I shall spin no list of these either; one example there is which I cannot name, of two words constantly used in both countries, each word quite proper in one country, while in the other it is more than improper. Thirty years ago I explained this one evening to a young Englishman who was here for a while. Two or three days later, he thanked me fervently for the warning: it had saved him, during a game of tennis, from a frightful shock, when his partner, a charming girl, meaning to tell him to cheer up, had used the word that is so harmless with us and in England so far beyond the pale of polite society.
Quite as much as words, accent also leads to dissension. I have heard many an American speak of the English accent as "affected"; and our accent displeases the English. Now what Englishman, or what American, ever criticizes a Frenchman for not pronouncing our language as we do? His tongue has a different mother!
I know not how in the course of the years all these divergences should have come about, and none of us need care. There they are. As a matter of fact, both England and America are mottled with varying accents literate and illiterate; equally true it is that each nation has its notion of the other's way of speaking--we're known by our shrill nasal twang, they by their broad vowels and hesitation; and quite as true is it that not all Americans and not all English do in their enunciation conform to these types.
One May afternoon in 1919 I stopped at Salisbury to see that beautiful cathedral and its serene and gracious close. "Star-scattered on the grass," and beneath the noble trees, lay New Zealand soldiers, solitary or in little groups, gazing, drowsing, talking at ease. Later, at the inn I was shown to a small table, where sat already a young Englishman in evening dress, at his dinner. As I sat down opposite him, I bowed, and he returned it. Presently we were talking. When I said that I was stopping expressly to see the cathedral, and how like a trance it was to find a scene so utterly English full of New Zealanders lying all about, he looked puzzled. It was at this, or immediately after this, that I explained to him my nationality.
"I shouldn't have known it," he remarked, after an instant's pause.
I pressed him for his reason, which he gave; somewhat reluctantly, I think, but with excellent good-will. Of course it was the same old mother-tongue!
"You mean," I said, "that I haven't happened to say 'I guess,' and that I don't, perhaps, talk through my nose? But we don't all do that. We do all sorts of things."
He stuck to it. "You talk like us."
"Well, I'm sure I don't mean to talk like anybody!" I sighed.
This diverted him, and brought us closer.
"And see here," I continued, "I knew you were English, although you've not dropped a single h."
"Oh, but," he said, "dropping h's--that's--that's not--"
"I know it isn't," I said. "Neither is talking through your nose. And we don't all say 'Amurrican.'"
But he stuck to it. "All the same there is an American voice. The train yesterday was full of it. Officers. Unmistakable." And he shook his head.
After this we got on better than ever; and as he went his way, he gave me some advice about the hotel. I should do well to avoid the reading room. The hotel went in rather too much for being old-fashioned. Ran it into the ground. Tiresome. Good-night.
Presently I shall disclose more plainly to you the moral of my Salisbury anecdote.
Is it their discretion, do you think, that closes the lips of the French when they visit our shores? Not from the French do you hear prompt aspersions as to our differences from them. They observe that proverb about being in Rome: they may not be able to do as Rome does, but they do not inquire why Rome isn't like Paris. If you ask them how they like our hotels or our trains, they may possibly reply that they prefer their own, but they will hardly volunteer this opinion. But the American in England and the Englishman in America go about
Quite as much as words, accent also leads to dissension. I have heard many an American speak of the English accent as "affected"; and our accent displeases the English. Now what Englishman, or what American, ever criticizes a Frenchman for not pronouncing our language as we do? His tongue has a different mother!
I know not how in the course of the years all these divergences should have come about, and none of us need care. There they are. As a matter of fact, both England and America are mottled with varying accents literate and illiterate; equally true it is that each nation has its notion of the other's way of speaking--we're known by our shrill nasal twang, they by their broad vowels and hesitation; and quite as true is it that not all Americans and not all English do in their enunciation conform to these types.
One May afternoon in 1919 I stopped at Salisbury to see that beautiful cathedral and its serene and gracious close. "Star-scattered on the grass," and beneath the noble trees, lay New Zealand soldiers, solitary or in little groups, gazing, drowsing, talking at ease. Later, at the inn I was shown to a small table, where sat already a young Englishman in evening dress, at his dinner. As I sat down opposite him, I bowed, and he returned it. Presently we were talking. When I said that I was stopping expressly to see the cathedral, and how like a trance it was to find a scene so utterly English full of New Zealanders lying all about, he looked puzzled. It was at this, or immediately after this, that I explained to him my nationality.
"I shouldn't have known it," he remarked, after an instant's pause.
I pressed him for his reason, which he gave; somewhat reluctantly, I think, but with excellent good-will. Of course it was the same old mother-tongue!
"You mean," I said, "that I haven't happened to say 'I guess,' and that I don't, perhaps, talk through my nose? But we don't all do that. We do all sorts of things."
He stuck to it. "You talk like us."
"Well, I'm sure I don't mean to talk like anybody!" I sighed.
This diverted him, and brought us closer.
"And see here," I continued, "I knew you were English, although you've not dropped a single h."
"Oh, but," he said, "dropping h's--that's--that's not--"
"I know it isn't," I said. "Neither is talking through your nose. And we don't all say 'Amurrican.'"
But he stuck to it. "All the same there is an American voice. The train yesterday was full of it. Officers. Unmistakable." And he shook his head.
After this we got on better than ever; and as he went his way, he gave me some advice about the hotel. I should do well to avoid the reading room. The hotel went in rather too much for being old-fashioned. Ran it into the ground. Tiresome. Good-night.
Presently I shall disclose more plainly to you the moral of my Salisbury anecdote.
Is it their discretion, do you think, that closes the lips of the French when they visit our shores? Not from the French do you hear prompt aspersions as to our differences from them. They observe that proverb about being in Rome: they may not be able to do as Rome does, but they do not inquire why Rome isn't like Paris. If you ask them how they like our hotels or our trains, they may possibly reply that they prefer their own, but they will hardly volunteer this opinion. But the American in England and the Englishman in America go about