t.i.tle: Society for Pure English, Tract 5 The Englishing of French Words; The Dialectal Words in Blunden's Poems

Author: Society for Pure English

FRENCH WORDS IN THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE

I

The English language is an Inn of Strange Meetings where all sorts and conditions of words are a.s.sembled. Some are of the bluest blood and of authentic royal descent; and some are children of the gutter not wise enough to know their own fathers. Some are natives whose ancestors were rooted in the soil since a day whereof the memory of man runneth not to the contrary; and some are strangers of outlandish origin, coming to us from all the sh.o.r.es of all the Seven Seas either to tarry awhile and then to depart for ever, unwelcome sojourners only, or to settle down at last and found a family soon a.s.serting equality with the oldest inhabitants of the vocabulary. Seafaring terms came to us from Scandinavia and from the Low Countries. Words of warfare on land crossed the channel, in exchange for words of warfare at sea which migrated from England to France. Dead tongues, Greek and Latin, have been revived to replenish 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 a thousand years larger than that from any other tongue; and even to-day it shows little sign of lessening. Of all the strangers within our gates none are more warmly received than those which come to us from across the Straits of Dover. None are more swiftly able to make themselves at home in our dictionaries and to pa.s.s themselves off as English.

At least, this was the case until comparatively recently, when the process of adoption and a.s.similation became a little slower and more than a little less satisfactory. Of late French words, even those long domiciled in our lexicons, have been treated almost as if they were still aliens, as if they were here on sufferance, so to speak, as if they had not become members of the commonwealth. They were allowed to work, no doubt, and sometimes even to be overworked; but they laboured as foreigners, perhaps even more eagerly employed by the sn.o.bbish because they were foreigners and yet held in disrepute by the more fastidious because they were not truly English. That is to say, French words are still as hospitably greeted as ever before, but they are now often 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 a foreign word taken over into English was made over into an English word, whereas in the past two or three centuries there has been an evident tendency to keep it French and to use it freely while retaining its French p.r.o.nunciation, its French accents, its French spelling, and its French plural. This tendency is contrary to the former habits of our language. It is dangerous to the purity of English. It forces itself on our attention and it demands serious consideration.

II

In his brief critical biography of Rutebeuf, M. Cledat pointed out that for long years the only important literature in Europe was the French, and that the French language had on three several occasions almost established itself as the language of European civilization--once in the thirteenth century, again in the seventeenth, and finally when Napoleon had made himself temporarily master of the Continent. The earlier universities of Europe were modelled on that of Paris, where Dante had gone to study. Frederick the Great despised his native tongue, spoke it imperfectly, and wrote his unnecessary verses in French. Even now French is only at last losing its status as the accredited tongue of diplomacy.

The French made their language in their own image; and it is therefore logical, orderly, and clear. Sainte-Beuve declared that a 'philosophical thought has probably not attained all its sharpness and all its illumination until it is expressed in French'. As the French are noted rather for their intelligence than for their imagination, they are the acknowledged masters of prose; and their achievement in poetry is more disputable. As they are governed by the social instinct, their language exhibits the varied refinements of a cultivated society where conversation is held in honour as one of the arts. The English speech, like the English-speaking peoples, is bolder, more energetic, more suggestive, and perhaps less precise. From no language could English borrow with more profit to itself than from French; and from no language has it borrowed more abundantly and more persistently. Many of the English 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 easily as do scientific compounds from Greek and Latin. _Phonograph_ and _telephone_ were not more swiftly taken up than _cha.s.sis_ and _garage_.

But _cha.s.sis_ and _garage_ still retain their French p.r.o.nunciation, or perhaps it would be better to say they still receive a p.r.o.nunciation which is as close an approximation to that of the French as our unpractised tongues can compa.s.s. And in thus taking over these French words while striving to preserve their Frenchiness, we are neglectful of our duty, we are imperilling the purity of our own language, and we are deserting the wholesome tradition of English--the tradition which empowered us to take at our convenience but to refashion what we had taken to suit our own linguistic habits.

'Speaking in general terms,' Mr. Pearsall Smith writes, in his outline history of the English language, 'we may say that down to about 1650 the French words that were borrowed were thoroughly naturalized in English, and were made sooner or later to conform to the rules of English p.r.o.nunciation and accent; while in the later borrowings (unless they have become very popular) an attempt is made to p.r.o.nounce them in the French fashion.' From Mr. Smith's pages it would be easy to select examples of the complete a.s.similation which was attained centuries ago.

_Caitiff, canker_, and _carrion_ came to us from the Norman dialect of French; and from their present appearance no one but a linguistic expert would suspect their exotic ancestry, _Jury, larceny, lease, embezzle, distress,_ and _improve_ have descended from the jargon of the lawyers who went on thinking in French after they were supposed to be speaking and writing in English. Of equal historical significance are the two series of words which English acquired from the military vocabulary of 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 Great Britain _lieutenant_ is generally p.r.o.nounced _leftenant_, than which no anglicization could be more complete, whereas in the United States this officer is called the _lootenant_, which the privates of the American Expeditionary Force in France habitually shortened to '_loot_'--except, of course, when they were actually addressing this superior. It may be useful to note, moreover, that while 'colonel' has chosen the spelling of one French form, it has acquired the p.r.o.nunciation of another.)

Dr. Henry Bradley in the _Making of English_ provides further evidence of the aforetime primacy of the French in the military art. '_War_ itself is a Norman-French word, and among the other French words belonging to the same department which became English before the end of the thirteenth century' are _armour, a.s.sault, banner, battle, fortress, lance, siege, standard_, and _tower_--all of them made citizens of our vocabulary, after having renounced their allegiance to their native land. Another quotation from Dr. Bradley imposes itself. He tells us that the English writers of the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries felt themselves at liberty to introduce a French word whenever they pleased.

'The innumerable words brought into the language in this way are naturally of the most varied character with regard to meaning. Many of them, which supplied no permanent need of the language, have long been obsolete.'

This second sentence may well give us heart of hope considering the horde of French terms which invaded our tongue in the long years of the Great War. If _camion_ and _avion, vrille_ and _escadrille_ supply no permanent need of the language they may soon become obsolete, just as _mitrailleuse_ and _franc-tireur_ slipped out of sight soon after the end of the Franco-Prussian war of fifty years ago. A French modification of 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 incompletely uniformed; and when he was captured the Prussians shot him as a guerrilla. It will be a welcome relief if _camouflage_, as popular five years ago as _fin-de-siecle_ twenty-five years ago, shall follow that now unfashionable vocable into what an American president once described as 'innocuous desuetude'. Perhaps we may liken _mitrailleuse_ and _franc-tireur, vrille_ and _escadrille, brisance_ and _rafale_, to the foreign labourers who cross the frontier to aid in the harvest and who return to their own country when the demand for their service is over.

III

The principle which ought to govern can be stated simply. English should be at liberty to help itself freely to every foreign word which seems to fill a want in our own language. It ought to take these words on probation, so to speak, keeping those which prove themselves useful, and casting out those which are idle or rebellious. And then those which are retained ought to become completely English, in p.r.o.nunciation, in accent, in spelling, and in the formation of their plurals. No doubt this is to-day a counsel of perfection; but it indicates the goal which should be strived for. It is what English was capable of accomplishing prior to the middle of the seventeenth century. It is what English may be able to accomplish in the middle of the twentieth century, if we once awaken to the danger of contaminating our speech with una.s.similated words, and to the disgrace, which our stupidity or laziness must bring upon us, of addressing the world in a pudding-stone and piebald language. Dr. Bradley has warned us that 'the pedantry that would bid us reject the word fittest for our purpose because it is not of native origin ought to be strenuously resisted'; and I am sure that he would advocate an equally strenuous resistance to the pedantry which would impose upon us words of alien tongue still clad in foreign uniform.

Mark Twain once remarked that 'everybody talks about the weather and n.o.body does anything about it'. And many people think that we might as well hope to direct the course of the winds as to order the evolution of our speech. Some words have proved intractable. In the course of the past two centuries and a half, scores and even hundreds of French words have domiciled themselves in English without relinquishing their French characteristics. Consider the sad case of _elite_ (which Byron used a hundred years ago), of _encore_ (which Steele used two hundred years ago) of _parvenu_ (which Gifford used in 1802), of _ennui_ (which Evelyn 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, but which we are unable to reproduce in our native vocalization. Their French p.r.o.nunciation is out of the question. What can be done? Can anything be done? We may at least look the facts in the face and govern our own individual conduct by the results of this scrutiny. There is no reason 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 a verb and said that he had been _ennuied_. Why not therefore frankly and boldly p.r.o.nounce it as English--_ennwee_? Why not forswear French again and p.r.o.nounce _nuance_ without trying vainly to preserve the Gallic nasality of the second n--_newance_? And as for a third necessary word, _timbre_. I can only register here my complete concurrence with the opinion expressed in Tract No. 3 of the Society for Pure English--that the '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 _seance_ (which was used by Charles Lamb in 1803) drop its French accent and take an English p.r.o.nunciation--_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 example to 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 p.r.o.nounced as an English word, and that 'a useful word like _malaise_ could with advantage rea.s.sume the old form "malease" which it once possessed'.

I have asked why these thoroughly acclimated French words should not be made to wear our English livery; and to this question Dr. Bradley supplied an answer when he declared that 'culture is one of the influences which r.e.t.a.r.d the process of simplification'. A man of culture is likely to be familiar with one or more foreign languages; and perhaps he may be a little vain of his intimacy with them. He prefers to give the proper French p.r.o.nunciation to the words which he recognizes as French; and moreover as the possession of culture, or even of education, does not imply any knowledge of the history of English or of the principles which govern its growth, the men of culture are often inclined to pride themselves on this pedantic procedure.

It is, perhaps, because the men of culture in the United States are fewer in proportion to the population that American usage is a little more encouraging than the British. Just as we Americans have kept alive not a few old words which have been allowed to drop out of the later vocabulary of the United Kingdom, so we have kept alive--at least to a certain extent--the power of complete a.s.similation. _Restaurant_, for example, is generally p.r.o.nounced as though its second syllable rhymed with 'law', and its third with 'pant'. _Trait_ is p.r.o.nounced in accordance with its English spelling, and therefore very few Americans have ever discovered the pun in the t.i.tle of Dr. Doran's book, 'Table Traits, 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 form is still occasionally seen; and sometimes _coterie_ and _reverie_ are 'cotery' and 'revery'--in accord with the principle which long ago simplified _phantasie_ to _fantasy_. _Charade_ like _marmalade_ rhymes with _made_. _Brusk_ seems to be supplanting _brusque_ as _risky_ is supplanting _risque_. _Elite_ is spelt without the accent; and it is frequently p.r.o.nounced _ell-leet_. _Cloture_ is rarely to be discovered in American newspapers; _closure_ is not uncommon; but the term commonly employed is the purely English 'previous question'.

In the final quarter of the nineteenth century an American adaptation of a French comic opera, 'La Mascotte', was for two or three seasons very popular. The heroine of its story was believed to have the gift of bringing luck. So it is that Americans now call any animal which has been adopted by a racing crew or by an athletic team (or even by a regiment) a _mascot_; and probably not one in ten thousand of those who use the word have any knowledge of its French origin, or any suspicion that it was transformed from the t.i.tle of a musical play.

I regret, however, to be forced to confess that I have lately been shocked by a piece of petty pedantry which seems to show that we Americans are falling from grace--at least so far as one word is concerned. Probably because many of our architects and decorators have studied 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 an hotel _grille_-room; surely the ultimate abomination of verbal desolation!

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

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

IV

As the military vocabulary of English is testimony to the former leadership of the French in the art of war, so the vocabulary of fashion and of gastronomy is evidence of the cosmopolitan primacy of French millinery and French cookery. But most of the military terms were absorbed before the middle of the seventeenth century and were therefore a.s.similated, whereas the terms of the French dressmaker and of the French cook, chef, or _cordon bleu_, are being for ever multiplied in France and are very rarely being naturalized in English-speaking lands.

So far as these two sets of words are concerned the case is probably hopeless, because, if for no other reason, they are more or less in the domain of the gentler s.e.x 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 in the control of men; and there may be still a chance of bringing about a better state of affairs than now exists. While the war correspondents were actually in France, and while they were often forced to write at topmost speed, there was excuse for _avion_ and _camion, vrille_ and _escadrille_, and all the other French words which bespattered the columns of British and American, Canadian and Australian newspapers.

I doubt if there was ever any necessity for _hangar_, the shed which sheltered the airplane or the airship. _Hangar_ is simply the French word for 'shed', no more and no less; it does not indicate specifically a shed for a flying-machine; and as we already had 'shed' we need not take 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 that the French were the first to develop the motor-car, and also to the earlier fact that they had long been renowned for their taste and their skill as coach-builders. As the terminology of the railway in England is derived in part from that of the earlier stage-coach--in the United States, I may interject, it was derived in part from that of the earlier river-steamboat--so the terminology of the motor-car in France was derived 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 p.r.o.nunciation; at least I infer this because I cannot now recall that I ever heard it fall from the lips of an English-speaking person with its original French p.r.o.nunciation of the nasal _n_. And _limousine_, being without accent and without nasal _n_ can be trusted to take care of itself.

There are other technical terms of the motor-car industry which present more difficult problems. _Tonneau_ is not troublesome, even if its spelling is awkward. There is _chauffeur_ first of all; and I wish that it might generally acquire the local p.r.o.nunciation it is said to have in Norfolk--_shover_. Then there is _cha.s.sis_. Is this the exact equivalent of 'running gear'? Is there any available subst.i.tute for the French word? And if _cha.s.sis_ is to impose itself from sheer necessity what is to be done with it? Our forefathers boldly cut down _chaise_ to 'shay'--at least my forefathers did it in New England, long before Oliver 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 courage shortened 'taximeter vehicle' to 'taxi', and 'automobile' itself to 'auto'. Unfortunately it is not possible to cut the tail off _cha.s.sis_, or even to cut the head off, as the men of old did with 'wig', originally 'periwig', which was itself only a daring and summary anglicization of _peruke_.

Due to the fact that the drama has been more continuously alive in the literature of France than in that of any other country, and due also, it may be, to the a.s.sociated fact that the French have been more loyally devoted to the theatre than any other people, the vocabulary of the English-speaking stage has probably more una.s.similated French words than we can discover in the vocabulary of any of our other activities. We are none of us surprised when we find in our newspaper criticisms _artiste, ballet, conservatoire, comedienne, costumier, danseuse, debut, denoument, diseuse, encore, ingenue, mise-en-scene, perruquier, pianiste, premiere, repertoire, revue, role, tragedienne_--the catalogue stretches out to the crack of doom.

Long as the list is, the words on it demand discussion. As to _role_ I need 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 as 1606, so that it has had three centuries to make itself at home in our tongue. _Conservatoire_ and _repertoire_ have seemingly driven out the English words, which were long ago made out of them, 'conservatory'

and 'repertory'. What is the accepted p.r.o.nunciation of _ballet_? Is it _bal-lett_ or _ballay_ or _bally_? (If it is _bally_, it has a recently invented c.o.c.kney h.o.m.ophone.) For _costumier_ and _perruquier_ I can see no excuse whatever; although I have observed them frequently on London play-bills, I am delighted to be able to say that they do not disgrace the New York programmes, which mention the 'costumer' and the 'wigmaker'. 'Encore' was used by Steele in 1712; it was early made into an English verb; and yet I have heard the verb p.r.o.nounced with the nasal _n_ of the original French. Here is another instance of English taking over 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 and song a _revue_, when _revue_ in French is the exact equivalent of 'review' in English? Why should we call an actress of comic characters a _comedienne_ and an actress of tragic characters a _tragedienne_, when we do not call a comic actor a _comedien_ or a tragic actor a _tragedien_? Possibly it is because 'comedian' and 'tragedian' seem to be too exclusively masculine--so that a want is felt for words to indicate a female tragedian and a female comedian. Probably it is for the same reason that a male dancer is not termed a _danseur_ while a female dancer is termed a _danseuse_. Then there is _diseuse_, apparently reserved for the lady who recites verse, no name being needed apparently for the gentleman who recites verse--at least, I am reasonably certain that I have never seen _diseur_ applied to any male reciter.