1936-07-02 — Page 6

THE HONGKONG Telegraph, THURSDAY, JULY 2, 1936.

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BOLONEY!

THE first Englishman to A writer recently said "I loathe

notice an Americanism

sneered at it aloofly, thus American slang

setting a fashion that many

of

his countrymen have

been following ever since.

He was one Francis Moore, a

MENCKEN, historian

H.

of

ruffian who came out to Georgia American language, claims

with Oglethorpe in 1735, and the word that upset him was bluff, in

the sense of "a cliff, or headlend the language of the future,

with a broad precipitous face.'

place, and otherwise insulted with blasphemics picked up from American movies;

"O-yeahs," he said, “are fre- quent in answer to charges, and we are promised shoots-up in the burg and threatened to be

bumped off." Half the amateur

publicists who took a hand in the

L. discussion which followed ad-

vocated using the cat on the offenders, and the other half the demanded that American movies be barred from England as in- tolerable menaces,

that eattle infected with foot-and-

and

He did not deign to argue indeed of the present, is American,

against it; he simply dismissed it---

"barbarous;" apparently assuming that all Englishmen of decent instincts would agree. with him.

of which English is

mouth disense.

Even before the chief cons

tle of Wallasey, sounded his

cry of "Wolf!" a right reverend father in God had been charged before the Farnham (Surrey) magistrates with applying speed- cop on a public rond to a mem- mere ber of the mobile police.

For nearly a century they dialect. Here are some of his reasons. mando, "Are you a speed-cop?"

seem to have done so, and bluft lingered sadly below the salt.- When it was printed at all in colonial times, and for more than Great Britain it was set off by a century past in constantly in sanitary quotation marks, or creasing volume, but I can't re- accompanied by other hints of call one that didn't have to run depreciation, as rubber-neck, hot a gauntlet of opposition. in the spot, and nerts are accompanied motherland, at times verging to-day.

Overhauled in his car, so the testimony went, he had de-

His lordship denied with some

lation than all the English hent that he had used the term, writers since Carlyle, and they or anything else so unseemly, were much better oues. The but the magistrates apparently ideal in England to-day is not concluded that he must have let and exhilarating it slip, for they took a serious picturesque utterance, but correct and re- view of his very modest adven upon the frantic.

assuring utterance and one of its ture in speeding, fined him £10, Even the most serious writers inevitable fruits is that bow-bow and suspended his driving licence But then, in 1830, the eminent

Jefferson's Jargon which Sir Arthur Quiller for three months. their share. Sir Charles Lyell used it shume-

I give his name and dignities lessly in the first volume of his crime was that he had invented Couch described in "On the Art

the verb to belittle. It was, one of Writing" as "the medium as a warning to lesser evildoers. monumental

which boards "Principles' ol

of He was the Right Reverend Geology," and from that day to may argue plausibly, a very through

councils, Cyril Henry Golding-Bird, this it has been a perfectly re- logical, useful, and perhaps even government,

years later the prissy Anthony word in England, with a place in Trollops was employing it with every dictionary,

και

Hongkong Telegraph. spectable if somewhat unfamiliar nifty word. and seventy-five syndicates, committees, conmer- (Oxon), Assistant Bino D.Dr

THURSDAY, JULY 2, 1936.

THE PALESTINE DISORDERS

*** Its history is the history of almost countless other American- isms.

NOTES OF THE DAY

MING

out apology.

But when Jefferson ventured to use it in his "Notes on Virginia". (1787) the London Reviem tossed and raged in a manner befitting the discovery of a brace of duelling pistols be neath the cope of the Archbishop of Canterbury.

"What an expression!" roared the London. "It may be an elegant oné in Virginia, but for our part, all we can do is to guess at its meaning. shame, Mr. Jefferson!"

For

county dial firms, express the processes Guildford and Archdeacon of as well as the conclusions of their Dorking, and a man previously thought, and so voice the reason unknown to the police. of their being.".

*

It is, at its worst, at least in

Whatever is strange and up- accord with what are taken to be the principles of English gram- setting is put down, in England, of course, mar, and at its best it shows to the hellish ingenuity of Americanisms excellent manners and even a Amerleans-save, kind of mellifluous elegance; in- when genuine

are claimed as really English, deed, the English, taking. one with another, may be suld to write much better than we do at all events by the standards of the schoolmaster.

+

some

They have been edging their The factors behind the con-way into English since carly tinued unrest in Palestine 'arè

This last happens often becoming so obscured by the

enough to give what may be nctual disorders that it will be

called a cock-eyed aspect to the informative to state, briefly, the

perennial pother. In 1934 even MING.............. MING three main objectives of the

Owing to the short distances

But what they write is seldom the learned Dr. C. T. Onions, one Arabs. They are (1) the stop between the centres of industry

animated by anything properly of the editors of the great Ox- describable as bounce. It lacks ford Dictionary, succumbed to page of Jewish immigration; (2) and commerce, Inland air traffle

novelty, variety, audacity. There the madness by offering to find the stoppage of land sales to has developed slowly in Great

The under-scoring of guess is little juice in it. The reader in the dictionary any alleged Jews; and (3) the establishment Britain. But now business men of a national constitutional Gov have become more "air-minded" was a fling in passing at another confronted by it is treated Amerlcanisms that a reporter

foul Americanism. It was the politely and lulled pleasantly, but could name. ernment.

The reporter began discreetly On the first of these and new lines are developing.belief of most Englishmen then, he seldom enjoys the enchant-

with fresh (in the sense of points, it is contended that the Further, private flying has become as it is today, that the use of ment of surprise. country cannot stand any more more popular, and with this the the verb in the sense of to sup

"When we want to freshen our saucy), to figure (in the sense immigrants and that Jewish number of people who are prepose or assume originated in speech," Mrs. Virginia Woolf of to believe or conclude), and to grill (in the sense of to ques- was lately saying, "we borrow penetration threatens the Arabs Pared to fly even short distances America.

It is actually to be found, in from American poppycock, tion), and Dr. Onions duly foundi of Palestine with annihilation, when going on holiday has inj

menning precisely, in rambunctious, flip-flop, booster, them all. In support of this view, it is creased. Various companies have that

consequently been formed to cater "Measure for Measure" and good mixer. All the expressive. But when the reporter pro- pointed out that in 1918 the for this public, and air travel in "Henry VI."; nay; in Chaucer, ugly, vigorous slang which, ceeded to bunkum, the learned Arabe constituted 93 per cent of the British Isles in rapidly becom- Wycliffe, and Gower. But such creeps into use among us, first in editor had to forget conveniently that its progenitor was' 'the' historical considerations have talk, later in writing, comes S. MOUTRIE & Co., Ltd. The population, while at presenting-commonplace.

thoroughly American buncómbe, they are hardly 70 per cent., the According to now tables of ser- never daunted the more ardent from across the Atlantic."-

when rake-off followed he had to of the King's remainder being Jews. In 1922, vices recently published, the preservers

admit that the earliest example But whether slang or the Jews numbered 83,000; in "Railway. Air Services" will be English. When a word acquires

in the dictionary was from an an American flavour it becomes

American en-

work, und when 1931 the total had grown to flying more than one million miles anathema to them, even though thing better, it always 175,000; and now there are some on inland als routes this summer; it may go back to Boadicea.

-counters opposition-sometimes boloney and nerts were hurled at

merely sullen, but at other times hiin he blew up with a bang. 400,000 Jews in the country. On whereas only two years ago the

***

extremely violent.

Here, of course, Dr. Onions the question of land tenure, it is number of miles flown was appro-

There seems to be, in the One. such sharpening of and his interlocutor ended on the argued that large areas of the ximately 600.000. Extended and most fertile land have passed into accelerated services are to be pro- modern Englishman, very little activity was loosed early in level of slang, but there is no ylded, covering practically the of that ecstasy in word-making 1933, when the chief constable telling where they would be if Jewish hands, and that the pro-whole country. New fast air-which so prodigiously engrossed of Wallasey, a suburb of Liver. they could be translated to the. Boloncy, like to cess is still continuing, to the deinera will be employed, and sixty-his Elizabethan forebears.

pool, reported in alarm that his year 2036. triment of the Arabs. Regard-two regular services will be oper-

Shakespeare alone probably policemen were being called cops belittle, has the imprimatur of ing the constitutional reform de-ated, the aircraft on the various put more new words into circu- by the tougher youngsters of the an eminent tribune of the American people, and is quitè as mand, the Arabs ask that a routes flying a total of 12,000 miles

respectable, philologically speak- Government be established which a day. Visitors from abroad will

ing, as buncombe, gerrymander, or on the fence. shall represent all sections of the certainly appreciate the improved population in equal proportion to facilities offered. Meanwhile Bri- their numbers. But first and tish aircraft continue to develop. foremost, the Arabs want a Seventeen years ago the first cessation of further Jewish immachine carrying an official air- mail load on the Paris route was Įmigration, and they contend that

if this demand were granted im-driven by a single 360 horse-power motor, and flew at about eighty mediately, it would facilitate the miles an hour. Now Empire fly- task of the Royal Commission ing-boats which are being built for which is being appointed to study Imperial Alewaya will be driven by the whole problem. The trouble, four, motors developing 3,000 unhappily, is not confined to horse-power and capable of flying Palestine, for the Arabs are also 200 miles an hour. up in arms in Syria, Iraq, Egypt

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and Trans-Jordan; ; in most ment demands a cessation of the centres accompanied by boycotts disorders before it undertakes to of Jowish goods, and in others by investigate the grievances. It strikes. The danger, of course, has, however, not yet been estab- is that the trouble may spread to lished that the Jewish settlers the whole Moslem world, in which dispossess the Arabs; indeed, it is connection it is pertinent to re-stated that not only has the Arab member that in the British Em-population/swarmed and expand-. pire there are altogether somoted around all the Jewish colonies, one hundred million Arabs and but Palestine has been free from Moslems. For these people, who unemployment during the long are anxious to preserve their years of depression, whilst Arab friendship with Britain, the wages have risen to three times Palestine dispute is proving a their level in neighbouring coun- barrier to mutual concord. It is tries. Actually, the dispute is not, of course, to be argued that the old story of conflict between tlie Arabs have no caso; they a progressive people and a people obviously haye genumo griev- fettered to tradition. The pro- ances, which need adjusting. pased Royal Commission may not But there are constitutional wholly 'settle a question such as this, but it may let light in on the maans of attaining the desired situation and pave the way to an ends, and resort to violence is not agreement which the disputants, amethod which can be tolerated: left to themselves, could not hope That is why the British Govern- to reach.

SIDE GLANCES

By George Clark

The neighbors have been too mooty lo call on us, fuit

their children urt over here consti

As for nerts, it seems to be but one more member of an endless dynasty of euphemisms, beginning with zounds and com. ing down to son-of-a-gun, gee, und darn.

Darn, like nerts, is an Ameri- canism, and Dr. Louise Pound has demonstrated that it de-. scends from eternal, which first turned into tarnal and then lost its tall and borrowed the head of dụmn..

***

Down to 1820, according to Sir William Craigle, the Trans- atlantic trade in neologisms ran mainly westward, but then it. began to shift, and to-day it is very heavily eastward.

It would be difficult to recali a dozen British inventions that have entered the

common

American vocabulary since the. world war, but the number of Americanlems taken into Eng. lish must run to hundreds, and perhaps even to thousands.

The American movie and talkie, of course, have been res- ponsible for the introduction of many of them, but there is something beyond that, and something more fundamental,"

They are adopted in England simply because England has nothing to offer fa competition with them that is, nothing so aptor pungent, nothing so good.

W

HL Mencken.