Read American Language Supplement 2 Online
Authors: H.L. Mencken
American Language Supplement 2 (66 page)
when they were widely used. In the days when all type was set by hand, perhaps no great delay was occasioned by this practice, but when the type-setting machines came into general use, not to mention typewriters, both italics and accents were for the most part placed on the shelf. It would seem no possible benefit can be derived from reviving or expanding the use of accents. Few American readers will know the significance, whether it is attached to a place name or some common word in French, Spanish or whatever.
3
I should add that this iconoclasm, while general, is by no means universal. The Baltimore
Sunpapers
, at least in theory, use the proper diacritical marks on all accented foreign words that have not been naturalized,
4
and the New York
Herald Tribune
uses them in “art, dramatic, editorial, literary and musical copy, and the Sunday fashion page.”
5
Even the Chicago
Tribune
, despite its long-continued attempts to inflict simplified spelling on its readers, is orthodox when it comes to foreign words, and instructs its copy-readers (with what success I do not know) to put accents on
fête, façade, confrère, cortège, entrée, männerchor, portière, garçon, Maréchal Niel, Théâtre Français, Honoré
and
Götterdämmerung
.
6
The Government Printing Office favors naturalizing loans as soon as possible, and thus ordains
blase, boutonniere, brassiere, cafe, crepe, debut, decollete,
entree, facade, fete, melee, naive, nee, role
and
roue
, but it still uses accents on
abbé, attaché, canapé, chargé d’affaires, communiqué, déjeuner, étude, fiancée, mañana, métier, pâté, précis, résumé, risqué, señor
and
vis-à-vis
.
1
The State Department, having a great deal of correspondence with foreigners, puts accents on all of these and also on
naïve
.
2
It uses
visa
instead of
visé
, which lingers on in England, but the French themselves have made the same change.
3
In England, as I have indicated, accents are used more frequently than in the United States, but even there a movement against them is visible. So long ago as November, 1923, the Society for Pure English prepared a list of foreign words that seemed ripe for complete naturalization, and it was adopted by the London
Times
, the London
Mercury
and other high-toned publications. It included
confrere, depot, levee, role
and
seance
.
4
Of these
levee
appeared without accents in Noah Webster’s first dictionary in 1806, and
depot
and
seance
in his American Dictionary of 1828.
412. [Dr. Louise Pound notes that a number of Latin plurals tend to become singular nouns in colloquial American.] They are to be found plentifully, in fact, upon higher levels. I have encountered
data
in the singular in the
Congressional Record
,
5
in the
Saturday Review of Literature
,
6
and in a headline in the New York
Herald Tribune
.
7
In the
Editor & Publisher
I have found
media
used to designate one newspaper;
8
in the
Étude
, the Bible of all small-town music teachers, I have found
tympani
used for one drum;
9
and in
Life
I once found
Americana
used as a singular by the late William Allen White.
10
Dr. Pound long ago reported that
dicta, insignia, strata, criteria, curricula
and
phenomena
were coming into use as singulars
among Americans of some education,
1
and since then she has added
emporia, memoranda, ganglia, stimuli, literati
and
alumni
,
2
and other pathologists of speech have added
propaganda
,
3
,
agenda, arcana, nebulœ, meninges, bacilli, bacteria, automata, candelabra
and
sanitaria
. As for
data
it is so widespread that even Webster 1934 recognizes it, saying “although plural in form it is not infrequently used as a singular, as, This
data
has been furnished for study and decision.” In compensation for these barbarities there is an occasional resort to a pseudo-Latin plural, as in
prospecti
and
octopi
.
4
The tendency to replace all non-English plurals with indigenous forms is not recent, but goes back many years. When
halo
came in during the Sixteenth Century the Latin plural
halones
was used, but by 1603 it had become
haloes
and by 1646
halos
. Many respectable authorities argue that most of the surviving Latin plurals had better be dropped. In 1925, for example, Robert Bridges declared for
nebulas
in place of
nebulœ, vortexes
for
vortices, gymnasiums
for
gynmasia
and
dillettantes
for
dilettanti
, though allowing that
automata
and
memoranda
had better be retained, and
forci, formulœ
and
indices
“in their scientific sense.”
5
In 1938 Carleton R. Ball
6
proposed a sweep of all the surviving Latin plurals, both in scientific terminology and everyday speech, on the ground that
Learning is unlimited. Time and talent are limited. Whatever uses time and ability unnecessarily is wasteful and should be avoided. Avoidable irregularity and diversity in the construction of a language make demands on time and talent that might be employed more profitably.
Some of the plurals he advocated were
abscissas, antennas, lacunas, nebulas, mammas
(for
mammœ
),
diplomas
(for the technical
diplomata
),
sarcomas, traumas, lumens
(for
lumina
),
analysises, axises
,
parenthesises, thesises, apexes, matrixes, testatrixes, vortexes, crisises, bacteriums, honorariums, criterions, agendums, erratums,
1
stratums, bacilluses, funguses, polypuses, genuses, femurs, coccuses, focuses
and
colossuses
.
2
He was unable to find plausible English plurals for
caput, os, vas
and
corpus
, and some of his inventions,
e.g., synthesises
and
nympbeums
, were somewhat clumsy, but he was confident that he was on the right track. “Let us take these logical steps,” he concluded, “in simplifying our English construction of plural nouns, and encourage others to take them. The gain will be great.” The editors of the
Journal of the American Medical Association
, two years later, hinted that something of the sort was afoot in their art and mystery. “The most unpopular plural for a medical writer to accept at the hands of a manuscript editor,” they said, “is the plural of
epididymis
, which is not
epididymes
but
epididymides
. Authors are so grudging, so reluctant, to accept this form that it betrays a bias in favor of the shorter spelling.”
3
But the editors held out for
epididymides
, and in the same note declared that the true plural of
appendicitis
is
appendicitides
, and of
bronchitis bronchitides
. In their style book
4
they permit
appendixes, enemas, fibromas, gummas, spirochetes, serums
and
traumas
, but insist on
bronchi, criteria, foci, protozoa, sequele, stigmata
and
uertebre
. Every now and then someone starts a crusade against loan-words that seem to be unnecessary,
e.g., questionnaire, per
instead of
a
in
per year
, etc.,
5
but it seldom comes to anything. The changes undergone in the process of naturalization are often curious. The case of
smearcase
(Ger.
schmierkiise)
is familiar. In a travel article published in 1876 the Japanese
jinricksha
appears as
djinricbia, geisha
is
guecba
and
samurai
is
samourai
.
6
4
On English Homophones, p. 43.
5
Shop Talk at Thirty, April 22, 1939, p. 84. See also Foreign Words, by H. L. Mencken, San Francisco
Examiner
, Dec. 3, 1934.
6
German Papers Near 4 Million, Sept. 28, 1946, p. 54.
1
S. J. P.’s Ilks, by Phil Stong, Sept. 21, 1946, p. 23.
2
Scully’s Scrapbook, by Frank Scully, Jan. 17, 1945, p. 2. This article includes some interesting contributions to the history of
vaudeville
.
3
Rome (N.Y.)
Sentinel
, editorial, June 21, 1944.
4
The necessary linotype matrices were laid in by the
Evening Sun
in 1914 or thereabout. I was at that time a member of the editorial staff of the paper, and had been carrying on an intra-office campaign for their purchase since 1910. It took about five years to induce the copy-desk and proof-room to use them. The morning
Sun
followed ten or eleven years later. It was a long and bitter battle, and left me pretty well exhausted.
5
Style Book of the New York
Herald Tribune
, 1929, p. 2. On Dec. 25, 1938 it printed a Christmas editorial in which the following words all had accents:
marzipän, turrón, pfeffernüsse, gemüthlichkeit, crèche, Père Noël
and
Nürnberg
. This probably broke all American newspaper records. I am indebted here to Mr. Valdemar Viking, of Red Bank, N. J.
6
Chicago
Tribune
Rules of Composition, 1934, pp. 8–9.
1
United States Government Printing Office Style Manual, revised edition, Jan., 1945, p. 49.
2
Style Manual of the Department of State, by Margaret M. Hanna and Alice M. Ball; Washington, 1937, p. 113.
3
Cassell’s New French-English English-French Dictionary, edited by Ernest A. Barker; New York, 1930, p. 563.
4
S.P.E. Tract No. XXII
, 1925, p. 65.
5
Extension of Remarks of Hon. Francis Case, of South Dakota, Nov. 23, 1945, p. A5440.
6
Two examples are on p. 9, Aug. 7, 1937, and a third is noted in Latin Plurals, by Mamie Meredith,
American Speech
, Oct., 1937, p. 178.
7
The headline was: Delay in Arms Merger Decision is Urged Until More Data is In. Someone must have squawked in the office, for in later editions this was changed to the equivocal Delay in Arms Merger Decision Urged Until There is More Data. I am indebted here to Mr. Alexander Kadison.
8
Censor’s Office Discusses Rules of Advertising, March 7, 1942, p. 8.
9
Drum Hunt, Jan., 1944, p. 10.
10
The Hulls of Tennessee, April 8, 1940: “I have never seen a better
Americana
.”
1
The Pluralization of Latin Loan-Words in Present-Day American Speech,
Classical Journal
, Dec., 1919, pp. 163–68.
2
Plural Singulars From Latin Neuters,
American Speech
, Oct., 1927, pp. 26–27.
3
Latin Plurals, by Mamie Meredith,
American Speech
, Oct., 1937, p. 178.
4
I take the former from Dozen Periodicals Fold,
Variety
, June 23, 1937; the latter is ascribed to John Steinbeck in
Minimum? Minimis? Minima?
, by Ernest Fuld,
Saturday Review of Literature
, Jan. 20, 1945, p. 23. The true Latin plural of
prospectus
is the singular unchanged, and the plural of
octopus
, according to Dr. Fuld, is
octopodes
.
5
S.P.E. Tract No. XXII
, pp. 66–67.
6
Dr. Ball is a distinguished botanist. He was attached to the Bureau of Plant Industry of the Department of Agriculture in 1928. In 1931 he went to the University of California. He has been editor for agronomy of
Biological Abstracts
since 1926.
1
Why not
errors?
2
English or Latin Plurals for Anglicized Latin Nouns?,
American Speech
, April, 1928, pp. 291–325.
3
Plurals of Nouns Ending in
-itis
, July 26, 1930, p. 287.
4
Suggestions to Medical Authors; Chicago, 1919, p. 32.
5
In 1944 the Archbishop of Armagh wrote to the London
Times
denouncing
questionnaire
and proposed
questionary
in its place.
Questionnaire
, Liverpool
Daily Post
, July 1, 1944.
6
The Japanese Stage,
Galaxy
, Jan., 1876, pp. 76, 78 and 79 respectively.
413. [In the first draft of the Declaration of Independence
nature
and
creator
, and even
god
are in lower case.] Sometimes, indeed,
small letters appear at the beginning of sentences and even paragraphs.
1
But Franklin, a conservative in this field as in so many others, stuck to capitals for all nouns, whether proper or common, to the end of his days, and wrote to Noah Webster from his deathbed, in 1789, protesting against the growing use of small letters. He said:
In examining the English Books that were printed between the Restoration and the Accession of George the 2nd
2
we may observe that all Substantives were begun with a capital, in which we imitated our Mother Tongue, the German. This was more particularly useful to those who were not well acquainted with the English, there being such a prodigious Number of Words that are both Verbs and Substantives and spelt in the same manner, tho’ often accented differently in Pronunciation. This Method has, by the Fancy of Printers, of late Years been laid aside, from an Idea that suppressing the Capitals shows the Character to greater Advantage, those Letters prominent above the Line disturbing its even regular Appearance.
3