THE CHINA MAIL, MAY 22, 1937.
Things That
That Make
Make You Blush
This extract from a letter illus- trates the point.
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[TS an odd thing (and one our wise your hair at your mispronuncia- rect pronounciation of Keijo. One wits about us, and that is generally men might look into a little tion, and your very stomach went said it was Keesho, the other said due to our being far too much wrap- more) that what makes us go hot all sideways. Yes, I think I may call it was Kayo.
ped up in ourselves and concerned over, and what-when we look back this kind of blunder a skid.
I went and fetched a Korean about the effect we're making. on it keeps us awake in the small There are skids of action, skids friend from near by and they asked If we would think more of others would hours of the morning, is not nearly of speech, and skids of sense, and him what the correct pronouncia- and less of ourselves as much our sins as our blunders. each is just a little worse than the tion was. He said it was Khaza- make many fewer and much less
what other two.
ciongszk. (or that was
it hair-raising skids. If we would be sounded like). Each exclaimed to content to be ourselves instead of "Leaving the hotel last summer I My own first and worst skid of the other, "There, what did I tell trying to present what we like to think is ourselves, we should all be gave what I had supposed was the action, or the first and worst I re- you!" head waiter a quite good tip. Even member, was while I was still at Since then I take leave to pro- far happier.
And as he took it, I thought by the look school.
nounce Keijo as I think fit.
This for the comfort of the skid- on his face there was something I had lately learned that on meet- you may take leave to pronounce & der. Nine times out of ten that aw-
Before we had got to the base your cap. Now, the
a young lady it was manners to good many strange words in your ful skid you worry about has left wrong. station I learned he wasn't the head
young own way or at any rate not feel no impression at all on those who waiter at all, but the proprietor of lady who was coming along that day abashed if you discover that some were present. Your shame and
Her one else 19 the hotel a wealthy man, and, still was no ordinary young lady.
pronouncing them confusion are entirely wasted. You worse, a man of good breeding and curls had a way of blowing about, otherwise.
are sure that everyone was aghast of high local standing. Even now, and she was so demure, except for The odds are he's just as wide at what you said. N
a bit of it. after nearly six months, I go all of the tiniest hint of a twinkle in her of the mark. And don't be
Most of them weren't listening— a tremble when I think of having eye. but you understand don't turbed to find that you have twists they were thinking of something given him those two half-crowns." you?
and turns of speech all your own: else-probably of what they would * *
Well, I saw her coming (she had If "he did it on purpose" comes say next-and those who were list- Yes, those are the things that a friend with her), and I was all more natural and effectual to you ening thought nothing of it. keep us awake at night. I've just aglow to show off this new accom- than "he did it purposely" --use it. self-torments are no more than the called them our "blunders," but plishment of mine. Alas! my left
If "I came all over drowsy like" measure of your own too acute self- blunder is too general a word.
By Professor John Hilton
per-
consciousness.
Your
Indeed, it's another odd thing that we have no word in the lan-
Skids are mere surface slips and guage for the kind of act or remark
slithers, There are worse things that makes us, if it dawns on us at
for those who are full of pretences. once what we have done, wish the
There are give-aways. You may floor would open and swallow us, hand was carrying a satchel and my is your natural idiom-use it. In have heard of the dignitary who, at or makes us, if it dawns on us later, right hand a scantily wrapped had the matter of speech the thing is to the breakfast table, sent for the writhe with shame and confusion. dock.
be true to your own place, your cook to complain of the bacon and For lack of a native term, we bor- If I had more practice and longer own people, your own feeling for said: "Look at the portion I have row, from the French, words we notice I would, of course,
have the turn of a phrase and the lilt of served to your mistress. Abomin- fondly imagine carry this precise managed all right. As it was I a sentence. True also to your own able! And this I have served to my- sense: gaffe and gaucherie, and raised my cap beautifully, but I culture.
self is hardly better." Ah, a give- faux pas.
raised the haddock, too. I will give Or if our leanings are more them credit for this: they did not
And once in the train from Dover classical, we talk of a "sole- try to laugh
Then those skids of tact and fact, a loud-checked man was roaring at cism"; therein generally blundering When I got home my mother Yes, I agree we should avoid them the attendant because there were again, for “solecism" "meant to the thought I was sickening for scarlet if we can. It has been said that a not two seats together for himself Greek a vulgarity or provincialism fever. It was a mysterious flush gentleman is one who
never and his lady. I offered to change of speech rather than a phrase or of the countenance that kept return intentionally gives offence and places so that they could be toge act that causes confusion în oneself Ing for days and days.
that's a good saying.
ther. He accepted, still fuming, and consternation in the company. Yes, my first and worst bad skid. Most of our skids of all kinds, and said, “Really, I don't know why And yet now I think it was a most and particularly those of fact and you should!” And he didn't! A give- So, lacking a word, we resort to original and charming thing to tact, are due to our not keeping our away! clumsy slang. We talk of "making raise to a young lady not only a capf
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a fearful bloomer," or "dropping an but a dried haddock. I dare say, if awful brick." Ungainly and ugly the truth were known, she almost expressions; but everyone knows, liked me for it. what we mean, and what we mean
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Clumsy and vulgar
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be-
is exactly what the lady did when Then skids of speed. Those odd she slipped two half-crowns into the twists and turns of phrase that be- hand of the hotel proprietor, and tray your plebeian origin. Those afterwards went all hot and cold at words you pronounce wrongly the very thought of it.
cause you've never heard them familiarly spoken or because you've expressions, never been abroad or because you so I'll coin a word (or restampa never had a "college education.” word) to take their place. Have That time when you read a paper you ever been in a skid?
on the Italian astronomer and phi- The car, instead of going where losopher Ga-LILL-eo (as you called you supposed you were steering, him throughout); and the first per- slithers sideways. You jam on, the son who spoke in a discussion a brake and make it worse. You manager's son who'd been to Cam- steer away from the direction of bridge called him Ga-li-LEE-o and the slip and the car goes back to you hardly knew where to look. front; into one gutter and across That time when the... candid to the other.
friend of your latest circle of ac- Ten to one there's no harm done, quaintances took you aside and fold
but you have an awful sinking you it was more correct to say "he
feeling, and for days after you may did it purposely than “he did it on wake up in the night with that skid purpose, or that it was a vulgar- sensation..
ism to say "I wanted my shoes Well, isn't that exactly what it brushing. felt like that afternoon when in z front of 20 people you began talk What about these verbal skids? ing to the Vicar's
wife
about Well, the longer I live the less sure stamps and telegrams, thinking she I am that there is any one correct was the postmistress.
way of saying or pronouncing any-
Or what it felt like that evening thing. when you were getting on rather The college young man who so well at the party and had spoken pointedly said Ga-li-LEE-o was no school about "night-club orgies" (pro- more right than the board nouncing it with a hard “g” as youth who thought the accent was though it were a first cousin of or- on "lill." It's an Italian name, and gans), and a moment after that tall, the Italians wouldn't have recognis- thin man said these so-called ed either.
“orgies" (Boft M
(soft "g" as in Georgy- - Once, in Keljo, capital of Korea, Porgy) were tame and dull affairs; I stood by while an American and renchman argued about the cor- and you blushed to the roots
of a
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away.
Cook
by
Gas