Whereas an Englishman's idea of slinging slang is to scoop
up at random some inoffensive and well-meaning word that never did
him any harm and apply it in the place of some other word, to which
the first word is not related, even by marriage. And look how
they deliberately mispronounce proper names. Everybody knows about
Cholmondeley and St. John. But take the Scandinavian word fjord.
Why, I ask you, should the English insist on pronouncing it Ferguson?
At Oxford, the seat of learning, Magdalen is pronounced Maudlin,
probably in subtle tribute to the condition of the person who first
pronounced it so. General-admission day is not the day you enter,
but the day you leave. Full term means three-quarters of a term.
An ordinary degree is a degree obtained by a special examination.
An inspector of arts does not mean an inspector of arts, but a
student; and from this point they go right ahead, getting worse
all the time. The droll creature who compiled the Oxford glossary
was a true Englishman.
When an Englishman undertakes to wrestle with American slang he
makes a fearful hash of it. In an English magazine I read a
short story, written by an Englishman who is regarded by a good
many persons, competent to judge, as being the cleverest writer
of English alive today. The story was beautifully done from the
standpoint of composition; it bristled with flashing metaphors and
whimsical phrasing.
Pages:
266
267
268
269
270
271
272
273
274
275
276
277
278
279
280
281
282
283
284
285
286
287
288
289
290