_S. P. E. _

_TRACT No. V_

THE ENGLISHING OF FRENCH WORDS

By Brander Matthews

THE DIALECTAL WORDS IN BLUNDEN'S POEMS

etc. By Robert Bridges

_At the Clarendon Press_ MDCCCCXXI

FRENCH WORDS IN THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE

I

The English language is an Inn of Strange Meetings where all sorts andconditions of words are assembled. Some are of the bluest blood and ofauthentic royal descent; and some are children of the gutter not wiseenough to know their own fathers. Some are natives whose ancestors wererooted in the soil since a day whereof the memory of man runneth not tothe contrary; and some are strangers of outlandish origin, coming to usfrom all the shores of all the Seven Seas either to tarry awhile andthen to depart for ever, unwelcome sojourners only, or to settle downat last and found a family soon asserting equality with the oldestinhabitants of the vocabulary. Seafaring terms came to us fromScandinavia and from the Low Countries. Words of warfare on land crossedthe channel, in exchange for words of warfare at sea which migrated fromEngland to France. Dead tongues, Greek and Latin, have been revived toreplenish our verbal population with the terms needed for the sciences;and Italy has sent us a host of words by the fine arts. 

The stream of immigrants from the French language has been for almost athousand years larger than that from any other tongue; and even to-dayit shows little sign of lessening. Of all the strangers within our gatesnone are more warmly received than those which come to us from acrossthe Straits of Dover. None are more swiftly able to make themselvesat home in our dictionaries and to pass themselves off as English. At least, this was the case until comparatively recently, when theprocess of adoption and assimilation became a little slower and morethan a little less satisfactory. Of late French words, even those longdomiciled in our lexicons, have been treated almost as if they werestill aliens, as if they were here on sufferance, so to speak, as ifthey had not become members of the commonwealth. They were allowed towork, no doubt, and sometimes even to be overworked; but they labouredas foreigners, perhaps even more eagerly employed by the snobbishbecause they were foreigners and yet held in disrepute by the morefastidious because they were not truly English. That is to say, Frenchwords are still as hospitably greeted as ever before, but they are nowoften ranked as guests only and not as members of the household. 

Perhaps this may seem to some a too fanciful presentation of the case. Perhaps it would be simpler to say that until comparatively recently aforeign word taken over into English was made over into an English word, whereas in the past two or three centuries there has been an evidenttendency to keep it French and to use it freely while retaining itsFrench pronunciation, its French accents, its French spelling, and itsFrench plural. This tendency is contrary to the former habits of ourlanguage. It is dangerous to the purity of English. It forces itselfon our attention and it demands serious consideration. 

II

In his brief critical biography of Rutebeuf, M. Clédat pointed out thatfor long years the only important literature in Europe was the French, and that the French language had on three several occasions almostestablished itself as the language of European civilization--once in thethirteenth century, again in the seventeenth, and finally when Napoleonhad made himself temporarily master of the Continent. The earlieruniversities of Europe were modelled on that of Paris, where Dante hadgone to study. Frederick the Great despised his native tongue, spoke itimperfectly, and wrote his unnecessary verses in French. Even now Frenchis only at last losing its status as the accredited tongue of diplomacy. 

The French made their language in their own image; and it is thereforelogical, orderly, and clear. Sainte-Beuve declared that a 'philosophicalthought has probably not attained all its sharpness and all itsillumination until it is expressed in French'. As the French are notedrather for their intelligence than for their imagination, they are theacknowledged masters of prose; and their achievement in poetry is moredisputable. As they are governed by the social instinct, their languageexhibits the varied refinements of a cultivated society whereconversation is held in honour as one of the arts. The English speech, like the English-speaking peoples, is bolder, more energetic, moresuggestive, and perhaps less precise. From no language could Englishborrow with more profit to itself than from French; and from no languagehas it borrowed more abundantly and more persistently. Many of theEnglish words which we can trace to Latin and through Latin to Greek, came to us, not direct from Rome and Athens, but indirectly from Paris. And native French words attain international acceptance almost as easilyas do scientific compounds from Greek and Latin. _Phonograph_ and_telephone_ were not more swiftly taken up than _chassis_ and _garage_. 

But _chassis_ and _garage_ still retain their French pronunciation, orperhaps it would be better to say they still receive a pronunciationwhich is as close an approximation to that of the French as ourunpractised tongues can compass. And in thus taking over these Frenchwords while striving to preserve their Frenchiness, we are neglectfulof our duty, we are imperilling the purity of our own language, and weare deserting the wholesome tradition of English--the tradition whichempowered us to take at our convenience but to refashion what we hadtaken to suit our own linguistic habits. 

'Speaking in general terms, ' Mr. Pearsall Smith writes, in his outlinehistory of the English language, 'we may say that down to about 1650 theFrench words that were borrowed were thoroughly naturalized in English, and were made sooner or later to conform to the rules of Englishpronunciation and accent; while in the later borrowings (unless theyhave become very popular) an attempt is made to pronounce them in theFrench fashion. ' From Mr. Smith's pages it would be easy to selectexamples of the complete assimilation which was attained centuries ago. _Caitiff, canker_, and _carrion_ came to us from the Norman dialect ofFrench; and from their present appearance no one but a linguistic expertwould suspect their exotic ancestry, _Jury, larceny, lease, embezzle, distress, _ and _improve_ have descended from the jargon of the lawyerswho went on thinking in French after they were supposed to be speakingand writing in English. Of equal historical significance are the twoseries of words which English acquired from the military vocabularyof the French, --the first containing _company, regiment, battalion, brigade, division_, and _army_; and the second consisting of _marshal, general, colonel, major, captain, lieutenant, sergeant_, and _corporal_. 

(Here I claim the privilege of a parenthesis to remark that in GreatBritain _lieutenant_ is generally pronounced _leftenant_, than which noanglicization could be more complete, whereas in the United States thisofficer is called the _lootenant_, which the privates of the AmericanExpeditionary Force in France habitually shortened to '_loot_'--except, of course, when they were actually addressing this superior. It may beuseful to note, moreover, that while 'colonel' has chosen the spellingof one French form, it has acquired the pronunciation of another. )

Dr. Henry Bradley in the _Making of English_ provides further evidenceof the aforetime primacy of the French in the military art. '_War_itself is a Norman-French word, and among the other French wordsbelonging to the same department which became English before the end ofthe thirteenth century' are _armour, assault, banner, battle, fortress, lance, siege, standard_, and _tower_--all of them made citizens of ourvocabulary, after having renounced their allegiance to their nativeland. Another quotation from Dr. Bradley imposes itself. He tells usthat the English writers of the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries feltthemselves at liberty to introduce a French word whenever they pleased. 'The innumerable words brought into the language in this way arenaturally of the most varied character with regard to meaning. Many ofthem, which supplied no permanent need of the language, have long beenobsolete. '

This second sentence may well give us heart of hope considering thehorde of French terms which invaded our tongue in the long years of theGreat War. If _camion_ and _avion, vrille_ and _escadrille_ supply nopermanent need of the language they may soon become obsolete, just as_mitrailleuse_ and _franc-tireur_ slipped out of sight soon after theend of the Franco-Prussian war of fifty years ago. A French modificationof the American 'gatling' was by them called a _mitrailleuse_;and nowadays we have settled down to the use of _machine-gun_. A _franc-tireur_ was an irregular volunteer often incompletelyuniformed; and when he was captured the Prussians shot him as aguerrilla. It will be a welcome relief if _camouflage_, as popular fiveyears ago as _fin-de-siècle_ twenty-five years ago, shall follow thatnow unfashionable vocable into what an American president once describedas 'innocuous desuetude'. Perhaps we may liken _mitrailleuse_ and_franc-tireur, vrille_ and _escadrille, brisance_ and _rafale_, to theforeign labourers who cross the frontier to aid in the harvest and whoreturn to their own country when the demand for their service is over. 

III

The principle which ought to govern can be stated simply. Englishshould be at liberty to help itself freely to every foreign word whichseems to fill a want in our own language. It ought to take these wordson probation, so to speak, keeping those which prove themselves useful, and casting out those which are idle or rebellious. And then those whichare retained ought to become completely English, in pronunciation, inaccent, in spelling, and in the formation of their plurals. No doubtthis is to-day a counsel of perfection; but it indicates the goal whichshould be strived for. It is what English was capable of accomplishingprior to the middle of the seventeenth century. It is what English maybe able to accomplish in the middle of the twentieth century, if we onceawaken to the danger of contaminating our speech with unassimilatedwords, and to the disgrace, which our stupidity or laziness must bringupon us, of addressing the world in a pudding-stone and piebaldlanguage. Dr. Bradley has warned us that 'the pedantry that would bidus reject the word fittest for our purpose because it is not of nativeorigin ought to be strenuously resisted'; and I am sure that he wouldadvocate an equally strenuous resistance to the pedantry which wouldimpose upon us words of alien tongue still clad in foreign uniform. 

Mark Twain once remarked that 'everybody talks about the weather andnobody does anything about it'. And many people think that we might aswell hope to direct the course of the winds as to order the evolutionof our speech. Some words have proved intractable. In the course of thepast two centuries and a half, scores and even hundreds of French wordshave domiciled themselves in English without relinquishing their Frenchcharacteristics. Consider the sad case of _élite_ (which Byron used ahundred years ago), of _encore_ (which Steele used two hundred yearsago) of _parvenu_ (which Gifford used in 1802), of _ennui_ (whichEvelyn used in 1667), and of _nuance_ (which Walpole used in 1781). 

No one hesitates to accept these words and to employ them frequently. _Ennui_ and _nuance_ are two words which cannot well be spared, butwhich we are unable to reproduce in our native vocalization. TheirFrench pronunciation is out of the question. What can be done? Cananything be done? We may at least look the facts in the face and governour own individual conduct by the results of this scrutiny. There is noreason why we should not accept what is a fact; and it is a fact that_ennui_ has been adopted. So long ago as 1805 Sidney Smith used it as averb and said that he had been _ennuied_. Why not therefore frankly andboldly pronounce it as English--_ennwee_? Why not forswear French againand pronounce _nuance_ without trying vainly to preserve the Gallicnasality of the second n--_newance_? And as for a third necessary word, _timbre_. I can only register here my complete concurrence with theopinion expressed in Tract No. 3 of the Society for Pure English--thatthe 'English form of the French sound of the word would be approximately_tamber_; and this would be not only a good English-sounding word, like_amber_ and _chamber_, but would be like our _tambour_, which is_tympanum_, which again is _timbre_'. 

Why should not _séance_ (which was used by Charles Lamb in 1803)drop its French accent and take an English pronunciation--_see-ance_?Why should not _garage_ and _barrage_ rhyme easily with _marriage_?_Marriage_ itself came to us from the French; and it sets a good exampleto these two latest importations. Logic would suggest this, of course;but then logic does not always guide our linguistic practices. And here, again, I am glad to accept another suggestion which I find in Tract No. 3, that _naivety_ be recognized and pronounced as an English word, andthat 'a useful word like _malaise_ could with advantage reassume theold form "malease" which it once possessed'. 

I have asked why these thoroughly acclimated French words should notbe made to wear our English livery; and to this question Dr. Bradleysupplied an answer when he declared that 'culture is one of theinfluences which retard the process of simplification'. A man of cultureis likely to be familiar with one or more foreign languages; and perhapshe may be a little vain of his intimacy with them. He prefers to givethe proper French pronunciation to the words which he recognizes asFrench; and moreover as the possession of culture, or even of education, does not imply any knowledge of the history of English or of theprinciples which govern its growth, the men of culture are ofteninclined to pride themselves on this pedantic procedure. 

It is, perhaps, because the men of culture in the United States arefewer in proportion to the population that American usage is a littlemore encouraging than the British. Just as we Americans have kept alivenot a few old words which have been allowed to drop out of the latervocabulary of the United Kingdom, so we have kept alive--at least to acertain extent--the power of complete assimilation. _Restaurant_, forexample, is generally pronounced as though its second syllable rhymedwith 'law', and its third with 'pant'. _Trait_ is pronounced inaccordance with its English spelling, and therefore very few Americanshave ever discovered the pun in the title of Dr. Doran's book, 'TableTraits, and something on them'. I think that most Americans rhyme_distrait_ to 'straight' and not to 'stray'. _Annexe_ has become_annex_; _programme_ has become _program_--although the longer formis still occasionally seen; and sometimes _coterie_ and _reverie_ are'cotery' and 'revery'--in accord with the principle which long agosimplified _phantasie_ to _fantasy_. _Charade_ like _marmalade_ rhymeswith _made_. _Brusk_ seems to be supplanting _brusque_ as _risky_ issupplanting _risqué_. _Elite_ is spelt without the accent; and it isfrequently pronounced _ell-leet_. _Clôture_ is rarely to be discoveredin American newspapers; _closure_ is not uncommon; but the term commonlyemployed is the purely English 'previous question'. 

In the final quarter of the nineteenth century an American adaptation ofa French comic opera, 'La Mascotte', was for two or three seasons verypopular. The heroine of its story was believed to have the gift ofbringing luck. So it is that Americans now call any animal which hasbeen adopted by a racing crew or by an athletic team (or even by aregiment) a _mascot_; and probably not one in ten thousand of those whouse the word have any knowledge of its French origin, or any suspicionthat it was transformed from the title of a musical play. 

I regret, however, to be forced to confess that I have lately beenshocked by a piece of petty pedantry which seems to show that weAmericans are falling from grace--at least so far as one word isconcerned. Probably because many of our architects and decorators havestudied in Paris there is a pernicious tendency to call a 'grill' a_grille_. And I have seen with my own eyes, painted on a door in anhotel _grille_-room; surely the ultimate abomination of verbaldesolation!

I may, however, record to our credit one righteous act--the perfectand satisfactory anglicizing of a Spanish word, whereby we have made'canyon' out of _cañon_. And I cannot forbear to adduce another word fora fish soup, _chowder_, which the early settlers derived from the Frenchname of the pot in which it was cooked, _chaudière_. [1]

[Footnote 1: No doubt all these variations of American from Britishusage will be duly discussed in Professor George Philip Krapp'sforthcoming _History of the English Language in America_. ]

IV

As the military vocabulary of English is testimony to the formerleadership of the French in the art of war, so the vocabulary of fashionand of gastronomy is evidence of the cosmopolitan primacy of Frenchmillinery and French cookery. But most of the military terms wereabsorbed before the middle of the seventeenth century and were thereforeassimilated, whereas the terms of the French dressmaker and of theFrench cook, chef, or _cordon bleu_, are being for ever multiplied inFrance and are very rarely being naturalized in English-speaking lands. So far as these two sets of words are concerned the case is probablyhopeless, because, if for no other reason, they are more or less in thedomain of the gentler sex and we all know that

 'A woman, convinced against her will, Is of the same opinion still. '

The terms of the motor-car, however, and those of the airplane, are inthe control of men; and there may be still a chance of bringing about abetter state of affairs than now exists. While the war correspondentswere actually in France, and while they were often forced to write attopmost speed, there was excuse for _avion_ and _camion, vrille_ and_escadrille_, and all the other French words which bespattered thecolumns of British and American, Canadian and Australian newspapers. I doubt if there was ever any necessity for _hangar_, the shed whichsheltered the airplane or the airship. _Hangar_ is simply the Frenchword for 'shed', no more and no less; it does not indicate specificallya shed for a flying-machine; and as we already had 'shed' we need nottake over _hangar_. 

When we turn from the gas-engine on wings to the gas-engine on wheels, we find a heterogeny of words in use which bear witness to the fact thatthe French were the first to develop the motor-car, and also to theearlier fact that they had long been renowned for their taste and theirskill as coach-builders. As the terminology of the railway in Englandis derived in part from that of the earlier stage-coach--in the UnitedStates, I may interject, it was derived in part from that of the earlierriver-steamboat--so the terminology of the motor-car in France wasderived in part from that of the pleasure-carriage. So we have the_landaulet_ and _limousine_ to designate different types of body. I think _landaulet_ had already acquired an English pronunciation; atleast I infer this because I cannot now recall that I ever heard it fallfrom the lips of an English-speaking person with its original Frenchpronunciation of the nasal _n_. And _limousine_, being without accentand without nasal _n_ can be trusted to take care of itself. 

There are other technical terms of the motor-car industry which presentmore difficult problems. _Tonneau_ is not troublesome, even if itsspelling is awkward. There is _chauffeur_ first of all; and I wish thatit might generally acquire the local pronunciation it is said to have inNorfolk--_shover_. Then there is _chassis_. Is this the exact equivalentof 'running gear'? Is there any available substitute for the Frenchword? And if _chassis_ is to impose itself from sheer necessity whatis to be done with it? Our forefathers boldly cut down _chaise_ to'shay'--at least my forefathers did it in New England, long beforeOliver Wendell Holmes commemorated their victory over the alien in the'Deacon's Masterpiece', more popularly known as the 'One Horse Shay'. And the men of old were even bolder when they curtailed _cabriolet_ to'cab', just as their children have more recently and with equal courageshortened 'taximeter vehicle' to 'taxi', and 'automobile' itself to'auto'. Unfortunately it is not possible to cut the tail off _chassis_, or even to cut the head off, as the men of old did with 'wig', originally 'periwig', which was itself only a daring and summaryanglicization of _peruke_. 

Due to the fact that the drama has been more continuously alive in theliterature of France than in that of any other country, and due also, it may be, to the associated fact that the French have been more loyallydevoted to the theatre than any other people, the vocabulary of theEnglish-speaking stage has probably more unassimilated French words thanwe can discover in the vocabulary of any of our other activities. We arenone of us surprised when we find in our newspaper criticisms _artiste, ballet, conservatoire, comédienne, costumier, danseuse, début, dénoûment, diseuse, encore, ingénue, mise-en-scène, perruquier, pianiste, première, répertoire, revue, rôle, tragédienne_--the cataloguestretches out to the crack of doom. 

Long as the list is, the words on it demand discussion. As to _rôle_ Ineed say nothing since it has been considered carefully in Tract No. 3;I may merely mention that it appeared in English at least as early as1606, so that it has had three centuries to make itself at home in ourtongue. _Conservatoire_ and _répertoire_ have seemingly driven out theEnglish words, which were long ago made out of them, 'conservatory'and 'repertory'. What is the accepted pronunciation of _ballet_? Is it_bal-lett_ or _ballay_ or _bally_? (If it is _bally_, it has a recentlyinvented cockney homophone. ) For _costumier_ and _perruquier_ I can seeno excuse whatever; although I have observed them frequently on Londonplay-bills, I am delighted to be able to say that they do not disgracethe New York programmes, which mention the 'costumer' and the'wigmaker'. 'Encore' was used by Steele in 1712; it was early made intoan English verb; and yet I have heard the verb pronounced with the nasal_n_ of the original French. Here is another instance of English takingover a French word and giving it a meaning not acceptable in Paris, where the playgoers do not _encore_, they _bis_. 

Why should we call a nondescript medley of dialogue and dance andsong a _revue_, when _revue_ in French is the exact equivalent of'review' in English? Why should we call an actress of comic charactersa _comédienne_ and an actress of tragic characters a _tragédienne_, when we do not call a comic actor a _comédien_ or a tragic actor a_tragédien_? Possibly it is because 'comedian' and 'tragedian' seemto be too exclusively masculine--so that a want is felt for words toindicate a female tragedian and a female comedian. Probably it is forthe same reason that a male dancer is not termed a _danseur_ whilea female dancer is termed a _danseuse_. Then there is _diseuse_, apparently reserved for the lady who recites verse, no name beingneeded apparently for the gentleman who recites verse--at least, I amreasonably certain that I have never seen _diseur_ applied to any malereciter. 

_Mise-en-scène_ is another of the French terms which has suffered aChannel-change. In Paris it means the arrangement of the stage-business, whereas in London and in New York it is employed rather to indicate theelaboration of the scenery and of the spectacular accessories. An evenmore extraordinary misadventure has befallen _pianiste_, in that it issometimes used as if it was to be applied only to a female performer. And this blunder is of long standing; but I remember as lately as fortyyears ago seeing an American advertisement of Teresa Carreño whichproclaimed her to be 'the greatest living _lady_ pianiste'. I havealso detected evidences of a startling belief of the illiterate that_artiste_ is the feminine of 'artist'. Nevertheless I found recently ina volume caricaturing the chief performers of the London music-halls afoot-note which explained that these celebrities were therein entitled_artistes_--because 'an artist creates, an _artiste_ performs'. 

Still to be analysed are _première_ for 'first performance' or 'openingnight' and _debut_ for 'first appearance'; and I fear that it is beyondexpectation that these alien words will speedily drop their alienaccents and their alien pronunciations. The same must be said also of_dénoûment_ and of _ingénue_--French words which really fill a gap inour vocabulary and which are none the less abhorrent to our speechhabits. The most that is likely to happen is that they may shed theiraccents and more or less approximate an English pronunciation, _dee-noo-meant_, perhaps, and _inn-je-new_, an approximation which willbe sternly resisted by the literate. I well remember one occasion when Ioverheard scorn poured upon a charming American actress who had happenedto mention the date of her own _deb-you_ in New York. 

V

_Encore_ and _mise-en-scène_ are only two of a dozen or a score ofFrench words not infrequently used in English and misused by beingcharged with meanings not strictly in accord with French usage. 'Levee'is one; the French say _lever_. _Nom de plume_ is another; the Frenchsay _nom de guerre_. _Musicale_ also is rarely, if ever, to be foundin French, at least I believe it to be the custom in Paris to callan 'evening with music' a _soirée musicale_. If _musicale_ is tooserviceable to demand banishment, why should it not drop the _e_ andbecome _musical_? When Theodore Roosevelt, always as exact as he wasvigorous in his use of language, was President of the United States, thecards of invitation which went out from the White House bore 'musical'in one of their lower corners; so that the word, if not the King'sEnglish, is the President's English. 

To offset this I must record with regret that the late Clyde Fitch oncewrote a one-act play about a manicurist, and as this operator on thefinger-nails was a woman he entitled his playlet, the _Manicuriste_; andhe did this in spite of the fact that, as a writer fairly familiar withFrench, he ought to have known the proper term--_manucure_. 

Then there is _double-entendre_, implying a secondary meaning ofdoubtful delicacy. Dryden used it in 1673, when it was apparentlygood French, although it has latterly been superseded in France by_double-entente_--which has not, however, the somewhat sinistersuggestion we attach to _double-entendre_. I noted it in Trench's'Calderon' (in the 1880 reprint); and also in Thackeray; and bothCalderon and Thackeray were competent French scholars. 

Perhaps this is as good a place as any to consider _née_, put after thename of a married woman and before the family name of her father. TheGermans have a corresponding usage, Frau Schmidt, _geboren_ Braun. Thereis no doubt that _née_ is convenient, and there is little doubt thatit would be difficult to persuade the men of culture to surrender itor even to translate it. To the literate 'Mrs. Smith, born Brown', might seem discourteously abrupt. But the French word is awkward, nevertheless, since the illiterate often take it as meaning only'formerly', writing 'Mrs. Smith, _née_ Mary Brown', which implies thatthis lady had been christened before she was born. And there is a taleof a profiteer's wife who wrote herself down as 'Mrs. John Smith, NewYork, _née_ Chicago'. 

Yet the French themselves are not always scrupulous to follow _née_ withonly the family name of the lady. No less a scholar than Gaston Parisdedicated his _Poètes et Penseurs_ to 'Madame James Darmesteter, _née_Mary Robinson'. Perhaps this is an instance of the modification of thestrict meaning of a word by convention because of its enlargedusefulness when so modified. 

Gaston Paris must be allowed all the rights and privileges of a masterof language; but his is a dangerous example for the unscholarly, who arecongenitally careless and who are responsible for _soubriquet_ insteadof _sobriquet_, for _à l'outrance_ instead of _à outrance_, and for _endéshabille_ instead of _en déshabillé_. The late Mrs. Oliphant in herlittle book on Sheridan credited him with _gaieté du coeur_. It waslong an American habit to term a railway station a _dépot_ (totallyanglicized in its pronunciation--_deep-oh)_; but _dépôt_ is in Frenchthe name for a storehouse, and it is not--or not customarily--the nameof a railway station. It was also a custom in American theatres to givethe name of _parquette_-seats to the chairs which are known in Englandas 'stalls'; and in village theatres _parquette_ was generallypronounced 'par-kay'. 

There are probably as many in Great Britain as in the United Stateswho speak the French which is not spoken by the French themselves. Affectation and pretentiousness and the desire to show off are abundantin all countries. They manifest themselves even in Paris, where I oncediscovered on a bill of fare at the Grand Hotel _Irisch-stew à lafrançaise_. This may be companioned by a bill of fare on a Cunardsteamer plying between Liverpool and New York, whereon I found myselfauthorized to order _tartletes_ and _cutletes_. When I called theattention of a neighbour to these outlandish vocables, the affablesteward bent forward to enlighten my ignorance. 'It's the French, sir, ' he explained; '_tartlete_ and _cutlete_ is French. '

That way danger lies; and when we are speaking or writing to those whohave English as their mother-tongue there are obvious advantages inspeaking and writing English, with no vain effort to capture Gallicgraces. Readers of Mark Twain's _Tramp Abroad_ will recall the scathingrebuke which the author administered to his agent, Harris, because areport which Harris had submitted was peppered, not only with French andGerman words, but also with savage plunder from Choctaw and Feejee andEskimo. Harris explained that he intruded these hostile verbs and nounsto adorn his page, and justified himself by saying that 'they all doit. Everybody that writes elegantly'. Whereupon Mark Twain, whose ownEnglish was as pure as it was rich and flexible, promptly read Harris aneeded lesson: 'A man who writes a book for the general public to readis not justified in disfiguring his pages with untranslated foreignexpressions. It is an insolence toward the majority of the purchasers, for it is a very frank and impudent way of saying, "Get the translationsmade yourselves if you want it--this book is not written for theignorant classes".... The writer would say that he uses the foreignlanguage where the delicacy of his point cannot be conveyed in English. Very well, then, he writes his best things for the tenth man, and heought to warn the other nine not to buy his book. '

The result of these straight-forward and out-spoken remarks is setforth by Mark Twain himself: 'When the musing spider steps upon thered-hot shovel, he first exhibits a wild surprise, then he shrivelsup. Similar was the effect of these blistering words upon the tranquiland unsuspecting agent. I can be dreadfully rough on a person when themood takes me. '

VI

This sermon might have been made even broader in its application. It isnot always only the ignorant who are discommoded by a misguided relianceon foreign words as bestowers of elegance; it is often the man ofculture, aware of the meaning of the alien vocable but none the lessjarred by its obtrusion on an English page. The man of culture may havehis attention disturbed even by a foreign word which has long beenacclimatized in English, if it still retains its unfriendly appearance. I suppose that _savan_ has established its citizenship in ourvocabulary; it is, at least, domiciled in our dictionaries[2]; but whenI found it repeated by Frederic Myers, in _Science and a Future Life_, to avoid the use of 'scientist', the French word forced itself on me, and I found myself reviving a boyish memory of a passage in Abbott's_Life of Napoleon_ dealing with Bonaparte's expedition to Egypt andnarrating the attacks of the Mamelukes, when the order was given toform squares with '_savans_ and asses in the center'. 

An otherwise fine passage of Ruskin's has always been spoilt for me bythe wilful incursion of two French words, which seem to me to break thecontinuity of the sentence: 'A well-educated gentleman may not know manylanguages; may not be able to speak any but his own; may have read veryfew books. But whatever language he knows, he knows precisely; whateverword he pronounces, he pronounces rightly; above all, he is learned inthe peerage of words; knows the words of true descent and ancient bloodat a glance from words of modern _canaille_; remembers all theirancestry, their intermarriages, distantest relationships, and the extentto which they were admitted, and offices they hold, among the national_noblesse_ of words, at any time and in any country. ' Are not _canaille_and _noblesse_ distracting? Do they not interrupt the flow? Do they notviolate what Herbert Spencer aptly called the Principle of Economy ofAttention, which he found to be the basis of all the rules of rhetoric?

Since I have made one quotation from Ruskin, I am emboldened to make twofrom Spencer, well known as his essay on 'Style' ought to be:--'A readeror listener has at each moment but a limited amount of mental poweravailable. To recognize and interpret the symbols presented to him, requires part of his power; to arrange and combine the images suggestedrequires a further part; and only that part which remains can be usedfor realizing the thought conveyed. Hence, the more time and attentionit takes to receive and understand each sentence, the less time andattention can be given to the contained idea; and the less vividly willthat idea be conceived. '--'Carrying out the metaphor that language isthe vehicle of thought, there seems reason to think that in all casesthe friction and inertia of the vehicle deduct from its efficiency; andthat in composition, the chief, if not the sole thing to be done, is toreduce this friction and inertia to the smallest possible amount. '

_Savan_ and _canaille_ and _noblesse_ may be English words; but theyhave not that appearance. They have not rooted themselves in Englishearth as _war_ has, for instance, and _cab_ and _wig_. To me, for one, they increase the friction and the inertia; and yet, of course, thewords themselves are not strange to me; they seem to me merely out ofplace and in the way. I can easily understand why Myers and Ruskinwanted them, even needed them. It was because they carried a meaning noteasily borne by more obvious and more hackneyed nouns. 'The words of ourmother tongue', said Lowell in his presidential address to the ModernLanguage Association of America, 'have been worn smooth by so oftenrubbing against our lips and our minds, while the alien word has all thesubtle emphasis and beauty of some new-minted coin of ancient Syracuse. In our critical estimates we should be on our guard against its charm. '

Since I have summoned myself as a witness I take the stand once more toconfess that Alan Seeger's lofty lyric, 'I have a rendezvous with Death'has a diminished appeal because of the foreign connotations of'rendezvous'. The French noun was adopted into English more than threecenturies ago; and it was used as a verb nearly three centuries ago; itdoes not interfere with the current of sympathy when I find it in theprose of Scott and of Mark Twain. Nevertheless, it appears to meunfortunate in Seeger's noble poem, where it forces me to taste itsforeign flavour. 

Another French word, _bouquet_, is indisputably English; and yet when Ifind it in Walt Whitman's heartfelt lament for Lincoln, 'O Captain, myCaptain', I cannot but feel it to be a blemish:--

 'For you _bouquets_ and ribbon'd wreaths--for you the shore's a-crowding, For you they call, the swaying mass, their eager faces turning. '

It may be hypercriticism on my part, but _bouquet_ strikes me as sadlyinfelicitous; and a large part of its infelicity is due to its havingkept its French spelling and its French pronunciation. It is not inkeeping; it diverts the flow of feeling; it is almost indecorous--muchas a quotation from Voltaire in the original might be indecorous in afuneral address delivered by an Anglican bishop in a cathedral. 

[Footnote 2: _Savan_ is quite obsolete in British use, and is not in the_Century Dictionary_ or in Webster, 1911. _Savant_ is common, and oftenwritten without italics, but the pronunciation is neveranglicized. --H. B. ]

VII

There are several questions which writers and speakers who give thoughtto their expressions will do well to ask themselves when they aretempted to employ a French word or indeed a word from any alien tongue. The first is the simplest: Is the foreign word really needed? Forexample, there is no benefit in borrowing _impasse_ when there existsalready in English its exact equivalent, 'blind-alley', which carriesthe meaning more effectively even to the small percentage of readers orlisteners who are familiar with French. Nor is there any gain in_résumé_ when 'summary' and 'synopsis' and 'abstract' are all available. 

The second question is perhaps not quite so simple: Is the French wordone which English has already accepted and made its own? We do notreally need _questionnaire_, since we have 'interrogatory', but if wewant it we can make shift with 'questionary'; and for _concessionnaire_we can put 'concessionary'. To balance 'employer' there is 'employee', better by far than _employé_, which insists on a French pronunciation. Matthew Arnold and Lowell, always apt and exact in their use of theirown tongue, were careful to prefer the English 'technic' to the French_technique_, which is not in harmony with the adjectives 'technical' and_polytechnic_. So 'clinic' seems at last to have vanquished its Frenchfather _clinique_, as 'fillet' has superseded _filet_; and now that'valet' has become a verb it has taken on an English pronunciation. 

Then there is _littérateur_. If a synonym for 'man of letters' isdemanded why not find it in 'literator', which Lockhart did nothesitate to employ in the _Life of Scott_. It is pleasant to believethat _communard_, which was prevalent fifty years ago after the burningof the Tuileries, has been succeeded by 'communist' and that itstwin-brother _dynamitard_ is now rarely seen and even more rarely heard. Perhaps some of the credit may be due to Stevenson, who entitled histale the _Dynamiter_ and appended a foot-note declaring that 'anywritard who writes _dynamitard_ shall find in me a never-restingfightard'. 

The third question may call for a little more consideration: Has theforeign word been employed so often that it has ceased to be foreigneven though it has not been satisfactorily anglicized in spelling andpronunciation? In the _Jungle Book_ Mr. Kipling introduces an officialwho is in charge of the 'reboisement' of India; and in view of theauthor's scrupulosity in dealing with professional vocabularies we mayassume that this word is a recognized technical term, equivalent to theolder word 'afforestation'. What is at once noteworthy and praiseworthyis that in Mr. Kipling's page it does not appear in italics. And inMr. Pearsall Smith's book on the English language one admiring readerwas pleased to find 'débris' also without italics, although with theretention of the French accent. Perhaps the time is not far distantwhen the best writers will cease to stigmatize a captured word withthe italics which are a badge of servitude and which proclaim that ithas not yet been enfranchised into our language. 

The fourth question is the most perplexing: If the formerly foreignword has been taken over and if it can therefore be utilized withouthesitancy, can it be made to form its plural in accord with the customsof English. Here those who seek to make the English language trulyEnglish and to keep it truly pure, will meet with sturdy resistance. It will not be easy to persuade the literate, the men of culture, torenounce the _x_ at the end of _beaux_ and _bureaux_ and to spell theseplurals 'beaus' and 'bureaus'. And yet no one doubts that 'beau' and'bureau' have both won the right to be regarded as having attained anhonourable standing in our language. 

VIII

'De Quincey once said that authors are a dangerous class for anylanguage'--so Professor Krapp has reminded us in his book on _ModernEnglish_, and he has explained that De Quincey meant 'that the literaryhabit of mind is likely to prove dangerous for a language ... Because itso often leads a speaker or writer to distrust natural and unconscioushabit, even when it is right, and to put in its stead some conscioustheory of literary propriety. Such a tendency, however, is directlyopposed to the true feeling for idiomatic English. It destroys the senseof security, the assurance of perfect congruity between thought andexpression, which the unliterary and unacademic speaker and writer oftenhas, and which, with both literary and unliterary, is the basis for allexpressive use of language'. 

And since I have borrowed the quotation from Professor Krapp I shallbring this rambling paper to an end by borrowing another, from the_Toxophilus_ of Roger Ascham (1545). 

'He that will wryte well in any tongue must folowe this council ofAristotle, to speake as the common people do, to think as wise men do. Many English writers have not done so, but using straunge wordes aslatin, french, and Italian, do make all things darke and harde. Once Icommuned with a man whiche reasoned the englyshe tongue to be enrychedand encreased thereby, sayinge--Who wyll not prayse that feaste where aman shall drinke at a diner bothe wyne, ale and beere? Truly, quod Ithey all be good, every one taken by hym selfe alone, but if you putMalmesye and sacke, read wine and whyte, ale and beere, and al in onepot, you shall make a drynke neyther easie to be knowen nor yet holsomfor the body. '

BRANDER MATTHEWS. 

NOTES

The word #laches#, which is not noticed in the above paper, is oneof a list of words sent to us by a correspondent who suggests thatit is the business of our society to direct the public as to theirpronunciation. Like other examples given by Mr. Matthews, _laches_ seemsto be at present in an uncertain condition; and as it is used only bylawyers they will be able to decide its future. What seems clear aboutit is that the two contending pronunciations are homophones, one with_latches_ the other with _lashes_. The A having been Englished itsclosing T seems natural; and _latches_ (from _lachesse_) is thus anexact parallel with _riches_ (from _richesse_). But there seems nopropriety in the SS being changed to Z. The pronunciation _látchess_would save it from its awkward and absurd homophone _latches_, and wouldbe in order with _prowess, largess, noblesse_, &c. Moreover, since_laches_ is used only as the name of a quality (= negligence) and never(like _riches_), as a plural, to connote special acts of negligence, thepronunciation _latchess_ would be correct as well as convenient; and theword would be better spelt with double S: _lachess_. 

Of the word #levee# the _O. E. D. _ says, 'All our verse quotationsplace the stress on the first syllable. In England this is the courtpronunciation, and prevails in educated use. The pronunciation' with theaccent on the second syllable 'which is given by Walker, is occasionallyheard in Great Britain, and appears to be generally preferred in theU. S. ', but the dictionary does not quote Burns

 'Guid-mornin' to your Majesty! May Heav'n augment your blisses, On ev'ry new birthday ye see, A humble poet wishes! My bardship here, at your levee, On sic a day as this is, Is sure an uncouth sight to see, Amang thae birthday dresses Sae fine this day. '

So that it would seem that the Scotch and American pronunciation of thisword is more thoroughly Englished than our own: and the prejudice whichopposes straightforward common-sense solutions, however desirable theymay be, is brought home to us by the fact that almost all Englishmenwould be equally shocked by the notion either of spelling this word asthey pronounce it, _levay_, or of pronouncing it, like Burns, as theyspell it, _levee_. 

ENGLISH WORDS IN FRENCH

It would be instructive if we could give a parallel account of what theFrench do when they adopt an English word into their language. _LeDictionnaire des Anglicismes_, lately published by Delagrave, has twohundred pages, and is much praised by a reviewer in the _Mercure deFrance_, Feb. 15, p. 246: but it does not give the current Frenchpronunciations of the English words. The reviewer writes: 'Ce qui megène bien davantage, c'est que M. Bonnaffé supprime, partout, avecrigueur, la façon française de prononcer le mot anglais. Était-ilsuperflu de dire comment nous articulons _shampooing_? Nous n'avons, jecrois, qu'une forme orale pour _boy_, petit domestique, parce qu'il estdû à l'oreille; mais nous sommes partagés quant à _boy-scout_, qui estarrivé par tracts et par journaux. L'anglais donne un mot _high-life_, le français en fait cinq: _haylayf, aïlaïf, ichlif, ijlif, iglif_. 'p. 247. It would seem from _high-life_ that English words in Frenchsometimes look as strange as French words do when represented inmake-shift English phonetics. On p. 228 of the same _Mercure_ there isnotice of 'un petit manuel de conversation' in which 'Toutes les nuancesde la "phonetic pronunciation" sont notées, à l'usage des Américainsdésireux de se faire comprendre en français. Cette notation (says thereviewer) m'a tellement amusé que je ne puis résister au plaisird'en citer quelques exemples: Av-nü' day Shawn Zay-lee-zay', Plass de la Kown-kord' to Plass der lay-twal. Fown-ten dayZeen-noh-sawn, --Oh-pay-râ Kum-meek, --Foh-lee Bair-zhair, --Bool-vârday Kâ-pu-seen, --Beeb-lee-oh-tech Sant Zhun-vee-ayv', --LayZan-vâ-leed, --May-zown' der Veck-tor' U-goh', --Hub-bay-leesk', --RüSan Tawn-twan, &c. , &c.... ' There would seem to be errors in this'citation'. Vecktor should be Veektor? and H looks like a misprintfor L in Hub-bay-leesk. -tech was probably -teck. Bonnaffé's bookis noticed in _The Modern Language Review_ of last January. 

ON THE DIALECTAL WORDS IN EDMUND BLUNDEN'S POEMS[3]

[Footnote 3: _The Waggoner and other Poems_, by Edmund Blunden, pp. 70. Sidgwick and Jackson. London, 1920. ]

In the original prospectus of the S. P. E. , reprinted in Tract I, andagain in III, p. 9, one of the objects of the Society is stated to bethe 'enrichment and what is called regeneration of the language from thepicturesque vocabularies of local vernaculars'. Since a young poet, Mr. Edmund Blunden, has lately published a volume in which this particularelement of dialectal and obsolescent words is very prominent, it will besuitable to our general purpose to consider it as a practical experimentand examine the results. The poetic diction and high standard of hisbest work give sufficient importance to this procedure; and though hemay seem to be somewhat extravagant in his predilection for unusualterms, yet his poetry cannot be imagined without them, and the strengthand beauty of the effects must be estimated in his successes and not inhis failures. 

In the following remarks no appreciation of the poetry will beattempted: our undertaking is merely to tabulate the 'new' words, and examine their fitness for their employment. The bracketed numbersfollowing the quotations give the page of the book where they occur. The initials _O. E. D. _ and _E. D. D. _ stand for the _Oxford EnglishDictionary_ and the _English Dialect Dictionary_ (Wright). 

 1. 'And churning owls and goistering daws'. (1)

Here _churning_ is a mistake; we are sorry to begin with ananimadversion, but the word should be _churring_. #Churr# is anecho-word, and though there may be examples of echo-words which havebeen bettered by losing all trace of their simple spontaneous origin, this is not one. It is like _burr, purr, _ and _whirr_; and these wordsare best spelt with double R and the R should be trilled. The absurdityof not trilling this final R is seen very plainly in _burr_, becausethat word's definition is 'a rough sounding of the letter R. ' This isnot represented by the pronunciation b[schwa]:. What that 'southernEnglish' pronunciation does indicate is the vulgarity and inconvenienceof its degradations. _Burr_ occurs in these poems:

 'There the live dimness burrs with droning glees'. (23)

#Burr# is, moreover, a bad homophone and cannot neglect possibledistinctions: the Oxford Dictionary has eight entries of substantivesunder _burr. _

Our author also uses _whirr_:

 'And the bleak garrets' crevices Like whirring distaffs utter dread', (26)

and again of the noise of wind in ivy, on p. 54, and

 'The damp gust makes the ivy whir', (48)

_whir_ rhyming here with _executioner_. 

Since _churring_ (in the first quotation) would automatically preserveits essential trill, the intruder _churning_ is the more obnoxious; andunless the R can be trilled it would seem better for poets to use onlythe inflected forms of these words, and prefer _churreth_ to _churrs_. 

If _churn_ is anywhere dialectal for _churr_, it must have come from thecommon mistake of substituting a familiar for an unknown word: and thisis the worst way of making homophones. 

 2. 'goistering daws'. 

#Goister# or #gauster# is a common dialect verb; the latterform seems the more common and is recognized in the Oxford Dictionary, where it is defined 'to behave in a noisy boisterous fashion ... In somelocalities to laugh noisily'. If jackdaws are to appropriate a word todescribe their behaviour, no word could be better than _goistering_, andwe prefer _goister_ to _gauster_. Its likeness to _boisterous_ willassist it, and we guess that it will be accepted. In the little glossaryat the end of the book _goistering_ is explained as _guffawing_. Thatword is not so descriptive of the jackdaw, since it suggests 'coarsebursts of laughter', and the coarseness is absent from the fussyvulgarity and mere needless jabber of the daw. 

 3. 'A dor flew by with crackling cry'. (7)

This to the ear is

 'A daw flew by with crackling cry';

and though our poet's glossary tells us that dor = dor-hawk or nightjar, it really is not so. A dor is a beetle so called from its making a_dorring_ noise, and the name, like _churr_ and _burr_, is better withits double R and trill. _Dor-hawk_ may be a name for the _nightjar_, butproperly _dorr_ is not; and if it were, it would be forbidden by _daw_so long as it neglected its trill. Note also the misfortune that fourlines below we read

 'The pigeons flaunted round his door', where the full correct pronunciation of _door_ (d[open o][schwa]) willnot quite protect it. The whole line quoted from p. 7 is obscure, because a nightjar would never be recognized by the description of abird that utters a crackling cry when flying. That it then makes a sounddifferent from its distinctive whirring note is recorded. T. A. Cowardwrites 'when on the wing it has a soft call co-ic, and a sharper andrepeated alarm quik, quik, quik. ' It is doubtful whether _crackling_ canbe accepted. 

 4. 'The grumping miller picked his way'. (8)

#Grumping# is a good word, which appears from the dictionaries tobe a common-speech term that is picking its way into literature. 

 5. 'The golden nobs and pippens swell'. (12)

#nob# is _knob_. Golden-nob is 'a variety of apple'; see _E. D. D. _:and as a special name, which the passage implies, it should be hyphened. 

 6. 'where the pollards frown, Notched, dumb, surly images of pain'. (13)

#Notched. # This word well describes the appearance of old pollardwillows after they have been cropped; but its full propriety may escapenotice. A very early use of the verb _to notch_ was to cut or crop thehair roughly, and _notched_ was so used. The Oxford Dictionary quotesLamb, 'a notched and cropt scrivener'. Then _pollard_ itself is from_poll_, and means an animal that has lost its horns as well as a treethat has been 'pollarded'. 

 7. 'In elver-peopled crevices'. (19)

We are grateful for #elver#. This form has carefully differentiateditself from _eel-fare_, which means the passage of the young eels up therivers, and has come to mean the _eel-fry_ themselves. 

 8. 'For Sussex cries from primrose lags and breaks'. (22)

_E. D. D. _, among many meanings of #lag#, explains this as a Sussexand Somerset term for 'a long marshy meadow usually by the side of astream'. Since the word seems as if it might be used for anythingsomewhere, we cannot question its title to these meadows, but we doubtits power to retain possession, except in some favoured locality. 

 9. 'And chancing lights on willowy waterbreaks'. (22)

We have to guess what a _waterbreak_ is, having found no other exampleof the word. 

 10. 'Of hobby-horses with their starting eyes'. (23)

#Hobby-horse# as a local or rustic name for dragon-fly can have noright to general acceptance. 

 11. 'Stolchy ploughlands hid in grief. ' (24)

#Stolchy# is so good a word that it does not need a dictionary. Wright gives only the verb _stolch_ 'to tread down, trample, to walk inthe dirt'. The adjective is therefore primarily applicable to wet landthat has become sodden and miry by being _poached_ by cattle, and thento any ground in a similar condition. Since _poach_ is a somewhatconfused homophone, its adjective _poachy_ has no chance against_stolchy_. 

 12. 'I whirry through the dark'. (24)

#Whirry# is another word that explains itself, and perhaps the morereadily for its confusion (in this sense) with _worry_, see _E. D. D. _where it is given as adjective and verb, the latter used by Scott in'Midlothian'. 'Her and the gude-man will be whirrying through theblue lift on a broom-shank. ' In the _Century Dictionary_, with itspronunciation hwér'i, it is described as dialectal form of _whirr_ orof _hurry_, to fly rapidly with noise, also transitive to hurry. 

 13. 'No hedger brished nor scythesman swung'. (25)

and

 'The morning hedger with his brishing-hook'. (62)

These two lines explain the word #brish#. _O. E. D. _ gives _brish_ asdialectal of _brush_, and so _E. D. D. _ has the verb _to brush_ as dialectfor trimming a tree or hedge. Brush is a difficult homophone, and itwould be useful to have one of its derivative meanings separated offas _brish_. 

 14. 'A hizzing dragonfly that daps Above his mudded pond'. (28)

#Hizzing# is an old word now neglected. Shakespeare has

 'To have a thousand with red burning spits Come hizzing in upon 'em'. --_Lear_, III. Vi. 17. 

and there are other quotations in _O. E. D. _

15. #Dap# is used again, 'the dapping moth'. (45. ) This word iswell known to fishermen and fowlers, meaning 'to dip lightly andsuddenly into water' but is uncommon in literature. 

 16. 'The glinzy ice grows thicker through'. (28)

Author's glossary explains #glinzy# as slippery. _E. D. D. _ givesthis word as _glincey_ and derives from French _glincer_ as _glisser_, to slide or glide. _Glinzy_ and _glincey_ carry unavoidable suggestionof _glint_. Compare the words in No. 19. _Glissery_ would be convincing. 

 17. 'The green east hagged with prowling storm'. (30)

In _O. E. D. _ #hagged# is given as monopolized by the sense of'bewitched', or of 'lean and gaunt', related to haggard. This does notsuit. The intention is probably an independent use of the p. P. Of thetransitive verb 'to hag'; defined as 'to torment or terrify as a hag, to trouble as the nightmare'. 

 18. 'where with the browsing thaive'. (31)

#Thaive# is a two-year-old ewe. Wright gives _theave_ or _theeve_as the commoner forms, and in the Paston letters it is _theyve_, whichperhaps confirms _thaive_, rhymed here with 'rave'. Certainly it is mostadvisable to avoid _thieves_, the plural of thief, although _O. E. D. _allows this pronunciation and indeed puts it first of the alternatives. 

 19. 'On the pathway side ... The glintering flint'. (32)

_O. E. D_. Gives #glinter# as a 'rare' word. We have _glinting, glistening, glittering_, and _glistering_, and Scotch _glisting_. 

 20. 'The wind tangs through the shattered pane'. (34)

Echo-words, like ting-tang, ding-dong, &c. , must have their liberty; butof #tang# it should be noted that, though the verb may raise noinconvenience, yet the substantive has a very old and well-establisheduse in the sense of a projecting point or barb (especially of metal), orsting, and that this demands respect and recognition. It is somethingless than prong, and is the proper word for the metal point that fixesthe strap of a buckle. The homophonic ambiguity is notorious inShakespeare's

 'She had a tongue with a tang', where, as the _O. E. D. _ suggests, the double sense of sting and ring wereperhaps intended. 

 21. 'The grutching pixies hedge me round'. (37)

_Grudge_ and #grutch# are the same word. The use of the obsoleteform would therefore be fanciful if there were no difference in thesense; but there is a useful distinction: because grudge has entirelylost its original sense of murmuring, making complaint, and is confinedto the consciousness and feeling of discontent, whereas _grutch_ isrecognized as carrying the old meaning of grumble. Thus Stevenson asquoted in _O. E. D. _, 'The rest is grunting and grutching'. It is a veryuseful word to restore, but it may, perhaps, at this particular timefind _grouse_ rather strongly entrenched. 

 22. 'Where the channering insect channels'. (46)

This is, of course, our old friend

 The cock doth craw, the day doth daw, The channerin' worm doth chide', and it looks like an attempt to define what is there meant, viz. Thatthe worm made a #channering# noise in burrowing through the wood. The notion is perhaps admissible, though we cannot believe the sound tobe audible. 

 23. 'The lispering aspens'. (53)

#Lispering. # We should be grateful for this word. _O. E. D. _ quotesit from Clare's poems. 

 24. 'Of shallows with the shealings chalky white'. (64)

#Sheal# is a homophone, 1. A shepherd's hut or shanty; 2. A peascodor seed-shell. Of the first, _shiel_ and _shieling_ are common forms;the second is dialectal; _E. D. D. _ gives #shealing# as the husk ofseeds. If this be the meaning in our quotation, the appearance describedis unrecognized by the present annotator. 

 25. 'Dull streams Flow flagging in the undescribed deep fourms Of creatures born the first of all, long dead'. (67)

#Fourm#, explained as a 'hare's lurking place', commonly called_form_, widely used and understood because the lair has the shape orform of the animal that lay in it. But perhaps it was originally onlythe animal's seat or form, as we use the word in schools. _Form_ has somany derivative senses that it would be an advantage to have this onethus differentiated both in spelling and sound. 

 26. 'Toadstools twired and hued fantastically'. (68)

Though the word #twired# is not explained in Mr. Blunden's glossaryand the meaning is not evident from the context, we guess that he isusing it here of shape, in the sense of 'contorted', which would rangewith the quotation from Burton (given in some dictionaries) 'No soonerdoth a young man see his sweetheart coming, but he ... Slickes hishaire, twires his beard [&c. ]'. Here _twires_, as latest edition of_O. E. D. _ suggests, may be a misprint for _twirls_. Older dictionariesgive wrong and misleading definitions of this word; and a spurious_twire_, to sing, was inferred from a misreading 'twierethe' for'twitereth' in Chaucer's _Boethius_, III m. 2. Modern authorities onlyallow _twire_, to peep, as in Shakespeare's 28th Sonnet, 'When sparkling stars twire not, thou gildst the even'

(whence some had foolishly supposed that _twire_ meant twinkle) and inBen Jonson, _Sad Shepherd_, II. 1, 'Which maids will twire at, 'tweentheir fingers'. The verb is still in dialectal use: _E. D. D. _ explains it'to gaze wistfully or beseechingly'. 

 27. 'The tiny frogs Go yerking'. (69)

#Yerk. # The intrans. Verb is to kick as a horse. The trans. Verb isquoted from Massinger, Herrick, and Burns, who has 'My fancy yerkit upsublime': i. E. Roused, lashed. 

 28. 'There seems no heart in wood or wide'. (8)

#Wide# as a subst. Is hardly recognized. Tennyson is quoted, 'Thewaste wide of that abyss', but as _waste_ is a recognized substantivethe authority is uncertain. 

In the above examples we have taken such words as best answered ourpurpose, neglecting many which have almost equal claims. The richness ofthe vocabulary in unusual words and in words carrying unusual meaningsforbids complete examination; as will be seen by a rough classificationof some of those which we have passed over. 

To begin with the words which our author uses well, we will quote as anexample all the passages in which #writhe# occurs. The transitiveverb which is perhaps in danger of neglect is very valuable, and it iswell employed. These passages will also fully exhibit the generalquality of Mr. Blunden's diction. 

 'But no one loves the aguish mist That writhes its way at eventide Along the copse's waterside'. (3)

 'But now the sower's hand is writhed In livid death '. (25)

 'To-morrow's brindled shouting storms with flood The purblind hollows with a leaden rain And flat the gleaning-fields to choking mud And writhe the groaning woods with bursts of pain'. (42)

 'The lispering aspens and the scarfed brook-grasses With wakened melancholy writhe the air'. (53)

#Dimpling# is well and poetically used in

 'While the woodlark's dimpling rings In the dim air climb'. (21)

and also _quag_ (verb) (2), _seething_ (3), _channelled_ (9), _bunch_(11), _jungled_ (11), _rout_ (verb) (12), _fluster_ (13), _byre_ (13), _plash_ (shallow water) (19), _tantalise_ (neut. V. ) (36), _hutched_(43), _flounce_ (44), _rootle_ (45), _shore_ (verb) (59). _Lair_ (verb)(43) does not seem a useful word. 

Next, words somewhat obscurely or fancifully used are _starving_ (1), _stark_ (10), _honeycomb_ (15), _cobbled_ (of pattens) (16), _lanterned_(24), _well_ (49), _bergomask_ (for village country dances?) (25), _belvedere_ (of the spider's watch tower) (26). 

While the following seem to us incorrectly used: _mumbling_ (23) used ofwings; the word is confined to the mouth whether as a manner of eatingor of speaking: _crunch_ (28) where the frosts crunch the grass: whereasthey only make it crunchable. _maligns_ (54) used as a neuter verbwithout precedent, _chinked_ (58) of light passing through a chink:and note the homophone chink, used of sound. And then the line

 'The blackthorns clung with heapen sloes' (55)

contains two reprehensible liberties, because _clung_ in itsoriginal proper sense means congealed or shrivelled; to _cling_ was anintransitive verb meaning to adhere together: its modern use is to stickfast [to something]--and secondly, _heapen_ is not a grammatical form;the p. P. Is _heaped_. 

Again, in the line

 'He well may come with baits and trolls', (11)

we do not know whether _trolls_ has something to do with pike-fishing, or merely means the reel on the rod. In that sense it lacksauthority(?), moreover it is a homophone, used by our poet in

 'And trolls and pixies unbeknown'. (18)

Finally, there are a good many English country names for common plants, for example, Esau's-hands, Rabbits'-meat, Bee's balsams, Pepper-gourds, Brandy-flowers, Flannel-weed, and Shepherd's rose; and some of these areexcellent, and we very much wish that more of our good Englishplant-names could be distinctively attached. 

We will not open the discussion here, except to say that the casualemployment of local names is of no service because so many of thesenames are common to so many different plants. Our author's#Rabbits'-meat#, for instance, is applied to _Anthriscussylvestris_, _Heracleum Spondylium_, _Oxalis Acetosella_ and _Lamiumpurpureum_; all of which may be suitable rabbits' food. But eachone of these plants has also a very wide choice of other names: thus_Anthriscus sylvestris_, besides being _Rabbits-meat_ may be familiarlyintroduced as Dill, Keck, Ha-ho, or Bun, and by some score of othernames showing it to be disputed for by the ass, cow, dog, pig and evenby the devil himself to make his oatmeal. 

_Heracleum Spondylium_, alias Old Rot or Lumper-scrump, providesprovender for cow, pig, swine, and hog, and also material for Bear'sbreeches. 

_Oxalis Acetosella_ is even richer in pet-names. After Rabbits'-meat, sheep-sorrel, cuckoo-spice, we find Hallelujah! Lady's cakes, and GodAlmighty's bread-and-cheese. These are selected from fifty names. 

_Lamium purpureum_ is not so polyonymous. With Tormentil, Archangel, and various forms of Dead-nettle, we find only Badman's Posies andRabbits'-meat. 

The worst perplexity is that well-known names, which one would thinkwere securely appropriated, are often common property. Our authority forthe above details--the _Dictionary of English Plant-names_, by JamesBritten and Robert Holland--tells us that _Orchis mascula_, the 'maleorchis', is also called Cowslip, Crowsfoot, Ragwort, and Cuckoo-flower. This plant, however, seems to have suggested to the rustic mind the mostvaried fancies, similitudes of all kinds from 'Aaron's beard' to'kettle-pad'. 

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