Life on the Mississippi - Mark Twain [139]
But there are some infelicities. Such as “like” for “as,” and the addition of an “at” where it isn’t needed. I heard an educated gentleman say, “Like the flag officer did.” His cook or his butler would have said, “Like the flag officer done.” You hear gentlemen say, “Where have you been at?” And here is the aggravated form—heard a ragged street Arab say it to a comrade: “I was a-ask’n Tom whah you was a-sett’n at.” The very elect carelessly say “will” when they mean “shall”; and many of them say, “I didn’t go to do it,” meaning “I didn’t mean to do it.” The Northern word “guess”—imported from England, where it used to be common, and now regarded by satirical Englishmen as a Yankee original—is but little used among Southerners. They say “reckon.” They haven’t any “doesn’t” in their language; they say “don’t” instead. The unpolished often use “went” for “gone.” It is nearly as bad as the Northern “hadn’t ought.” This reminds me that a remark of a very peculiar nature was made here in my neighborhood (in the North) a few days ago; “He hadn’t ought to have went.” How is that? Isn’t that a good deal of a triumph? One knows the orders combined in this half-breed’s architecture without inquiring: one parent Northern, the other Southern. Today I heard a schoolmistress ask, “Where is John gone?” This form is so common—so nearly universal, in fact—that if she had said “whither” instead of “where,” I think it would have sounded like an affectation.
We picked up one excellent word—a word worth traveling to New Orleans to get; a nice limber, expressive, handy word—“lagniappe.” They pronounce it lanny-yap. It is Spanish—so they said. We discovered it at the head of a column of odds and ends in the Picayune, the first day; heard twenty people use it the second; inquired what it meant the third; adopted it and got facility in swinging it the fourth. It has a restricted meaning, but I think the people spread it out a little when they choose. It is the equivalent of the thirteenth roll in a “baker’s dozen.” It is something thrown in, gratis, for good measure. The custom originated in the Spanish quarter of the city. When a child or a servant buys something in a shop—or even the mayor or the governor, for aught I know—he finishes the operation by saying—
“Give me something for lagniappe.”
The shopman always responds; gives the child a bit of licorice root, gives the servant a cheap cigar or a spool of thread, gives the governor—I don’t know what he gives the governor; support, likely.
When you are invited to drink—and this does occur now and then in New Orleans—and you say, “What, again?—no, I’ve had enough”; the other party says, “But just this one time more—this is for lagniappe.” When, the beau perceives that he is stacking his compliments a trifle too high, and sees by the young lady’s countenance that the edifice would have been better with the top compliment left off, he puts his “I beg pardon— no harm intended,” into the briefer from of “Oh, that’s for lagniappe.” If the waiter in the restaurant stumbles and spills a gill of coffee down the back of your neck, he says, “For lagniappe, sah,” and gets you another cup without extra charge.
CHAPTER XLV
Southern Sports
In the North one hears the war mentioned, in social conversation, once a month; sometimes as often as once a week; but as a distinct subject for talk, it has long ago been relieved of duty. There are sufficient reasons for this. Given a dinner company of six gentlemen today, it can easily happen that four of them—and possibly five—were not in the field at all. So the chances are four to two, or five to one, that the war will at no time during the evening become the topic of conversation; and the chances are still greater that if it become the topic it will remain so but a little while. If you add six ladies to the company, you have added six people who saw so little of the dread realities of the war that they ran out of talk concerning them years ago, and now would soon weary of the war topic if you brought it up.
The case is very different