Part 27

In this formation of the plural, as elsewhere, English regards the precedents and American makes new ones. All the English authorities that I have had access to advocate retaining the foreign plurals of most of the foreign words in daily use, /e. g./, /sanatoria/, /appendices/, /virtuosi/, /formulae/ and /libretti/. But American usage favors plurals of native cut, and the /Journal/ of the American Medical Association goes so far as to approve /curriculums/ and /septums/. /Banditti/, in place of /bandits/, would seem an affectation in America, and so would /soprani/ for /sopranos/ [Pg266] and /soli/ for /solos/.[36] The last two are common in England. Both English and American labor under the lack of native plurals for the two everyday titles, /Mister/ and /Missus/. In the written speech, and in the more exact forms of the spoken speech, the French plurals, /Messieurs/ and /Mesdames/, are used, but in the ordinary spoken speech, at least in America, they are avoided by circumlocution. When /Messieurs/ has to be spoken it is almost invariably pronounced /messers/, and in the same way /Mesdames/ becomes /mez-dames/, with the first syllable rhyming with /sez/ and the second, which bears the accent, with /games/. In place of /Mesdames/ a more natural form, /Madames/, seems to be gaining ground in America. Thus, I lately found /Dames du Sacré Coeur/ translated as /Madames of the Sacred Heart/ in a Catholic paper of wide circulation,[37] and the form is apparently used by American members of the community.

In capitalization the English are a good deal more conservative than we are. They invariably capitalize such terms as /Government/, /Prime Minister/ and /Society/, when used as proper nouns; they capitalize /Press/, /Pulpit/, /Bar/, etc., almost as often. In America a movement against this use of capitals appeared during the latter part of the eighteenth century. In Jefferson's first draft of the Declaration of Independence /nature/ and /creator/, and even /god/ are in lower case.[38] During the 20's and 30's of the succeeding century, probably as a result of French influence, the disdain of capitals went so far that the days of the week were often spelled with small initial letters, and even /Mr./ became /mr/. Curiously enough, the most striking exhibition of this tendency of late years is offered by an English work of the highest scholarship, the Cambridge History of English Literature. It uses the lower case for all titles, even /baron/ and /colonel/ before proper names, and also avoids capitals in such [Pg267] words as /presbyterian/, /catholic/ and /christian/, and in the second parts of such terms as Westminster /abbey/ and Atlantic /ocean/.

Finally, there are certain differences in punctuation. The English, as everyone knows, put a comma after the street number of a house, making it, for example, /34, St. James street/. They usually insert a comma instead of a period after the hour when giving the time in figures, /e. g./, /9,27/, and omit the /0/ when indicating less than 10 minutes, /e. g./, /8,7/ instead of /8.07/. They do not use the period as the mark of the decimal, but employ a dot at the level of the upper dot of a colon, as in /3·1416/. They cling to the hyphen in such words as /to-day/ and /to-night/; it begins to disappear in America. They use /an/ before /hotel/ and /historical/; Kipling has even used it before /hydraulic/;[39] American usage prefers /a/. But these small differences need not be pursued further.

FOOTNOTES:

[1] Fowler & Fowler, in The King's English, p. 23, say that "when it was proposed to borrow from France what we [/i. e./, the English] now know as the /closure/, it seemed certain for some time that with the thing we should borrow the name, /clôture/; a press campaign resulted in /closure/." But in the /Congressional Record/ it is still /cloture/, though with the loss of the circumflex accent, and this form is generally retained by American newspapers.

[2] Richard P. Read: The American Language, /New York Sun/, March 7, 1918.

[3] /To shew/ has completely disappeared from American, but it still survives in English usage. /Cf./ The /Shewing/-Up of Blanco Posnet, by George Bernard Shaw. The word, of course, is pronounced /show/, not /shoe/. /Shrew/, a cognate word, still retains the early pronunciation of /shrow/ in English, but is now phonetic in American.

[4] /Cf./ Lounsbury; English Spelling and Spelling Reform; p. 209 /et seq./ Johnson even advocated /translatour/, /emperour/, /oratour/ and /horrour/. But, like most other lexicographers, he was often inconsistent, and the conflict between /interiour/ and /exterior/, and /anteriour/ and /posterior/, in his dictionary, laid him open to much mocking criticism.

[5] In a letter to Miss Stephenson, Sept. 20, 1768, he exhibited the use of his new alphabet. The letter is to be found in most editions of his writings.

[6] R. C. Williams: Our Dictionaries; New York, 1890, p. 30.

[7] Nomenclature of Diseases and Condition, prepared by direction of the Surgeon General; Washington, 1916.

[8] American Medical Association Style Book; Chicago, 1915.

[9] /Democratic Review/, March, 1856.

[10] /Vide/ English Spelling and Spelling Reform, p. 229.

[11] A Critical Review of the Orthography of Dr. Webster's Series of Books ...; New York, 1831.

[12] Good English; p. 137 /et seq./

[13] Studies in English; pp. 64-5.

[14] Americanisms and Briticisms; New York, 1892, p. 37.

[15] Authors' & Printers' Dictionary ... an attempt to codify the best typographical practices of the present day, by F. Howard Collins; 4th ed., revised by Horace Hart; London, 1912.

[16] Horace Hart: Rules for Compositors and Readers at the University Press, Oxford: 23rd ed.; London, 1914. I am informed by Mr. Humphrey Davy, of the /London Times/, that, with one or two minor exceptions, the /Times/ observes the rules laid down in this book.

[17] Cassell's English Dictionary, ed. by John Williams, 37th thousand: London, 1908. This work is based upon the larger Encyclopaedic Dictionary, also edited by Williams.

[18] /Caliber/ is now the official spelling of the United States Army. /Cf./ Description and Rules for the Management of the U. S. Rifle, /Caliber/ .30 Model of 1903; Washington, 1915. But /calibre/ is still official in England as appears by the Field Service Pocket-Book used in the European war (London, 1914, p. viii.)

[19] Even worse inconsistencies are often encountered. Thus /enquiry/ appears on p. 3 of the Dardanelles Commission's First Report; London, 1917; but /inquiring/ is on p. 1.

[20] Mere stupid copying may perhaps be added. An example of it appears on a map printed with a pamphlet entitled Conquest and Kultur, compiled by two college professors and issued by the Creel press bureau (Washington, 1918). On this map, borrowed from an English periodical called /New Europe/ without correction, /annex/ is spelled /annexe/. In the same way English spellings often appear in paragraphs reprinted from the English newspapers. As compensation in the case of /annexe/ I find /annex/ on pages 11 and 23 of A Report on the Treatment by the Enemy of British Prisoners of War Behind the Firing Lines in France and Belgium; Miscellaneous No. 7 (1918). When used as a verb the English always spell the word /annex/. /Annexe/ is only the noun form.

[21] /Vide/ Matthews: Americanisms and Briticisms, pp. 33-34.

[22] Handbook of Style in Use at the Riverside Press, Cambridge, Mass.; Boston, 1913.

[23] Notes for the Guidance of Authors; New York, 1918.

[24] Preparation of Manuscript, Proof Reading, and Office Style at J. S. Cushing Company's; Norwood, Mass., n. d.

[25] Style Book, a Compilation of Rules Governing Executive, Congressional and Departmental Printing, Including the /Congressional Record/, ed. of Feb., 1917; Washington, 1917. A copy of this style book is in the proof-room of nearly every American daily newspaper and its rules are generally observed.

[26] Accounts of earlier proposals of reform in English spelling are to be found in Sayce's Introduction to the Science of Language, vol. i, p. 330 /et seq./, and White's Everyday English, p. 152 /et seq./ The best general treatment of the subject is in Lounsbury's English Spelling and Spelling Reform; New York, 1909.

[27] Its second list was published on January 28, 1908, its third on January 25, 1909, and its fourth on March 24, 1913, and since then there have been several others. But most of its literature is devoted to the 12 words and to certain reformed spellings of Webster, already in general use.

[28] The /Literary Digest/ is perhaps the most important. Its usage is shown by the Funk & Wagnalls Company Style Card; New York, 1914.

[29] /Tyre/ was still in use in America in the 70's. It will be found on p. 150 of Mark Twain's Roughing It; Hartford, 1872.

[30] /Vide/ the /Congressional Record/ for March 26, 1918, p. 4374. It is curious to note that the French themselves are having difficulties with this and the cognate words. The final /e/ has been dropped from /biplan/, /monoplan/ and /hydroplan/, but they seem to be unable to dispense with it in /aéroplane/.

[31] For example, in Teepee Neighbors, by Grace Coolidge; Boston, 1917, p. 220; Duty and Other Irish Comedies, by Seumas O'Brien; New York, 1916, p. 52; Salt, by Charles G. Norris; New York, 1918, p. 135, and The Ideal Guest, by Wyndham Lewis, /Little Review/, May, 1918, p. 3. O'Brien is an Irishman and Lewis an Englishman, but the printer in each case was American. I find /allright/, as one word but with two /ll's/, in Diplomatic Correspondence With Belligerent Governments, etc., European War, No. 4; Washington, 1918, p. 214.

[32] /Vide/ How to Lengthen Our Ears, by Viscount Harberton; London, 1917, p. 28.

[33] Krapp: Modern English, p. 181.

[34] Why Not Speak Your Own Language? in /Delineator/, Nov., 1917, p. 12.

[35] I once noted an extreme form of this naturalization in a leading Southern newspaper, the /Baltimore Sun/. In an announcement of the death of an American artist it reported that he had studied at the /Bozart/ in Paris. In New York I have also encountered /chaufer/.

[36] Now and then, of course, a contrary tendency asserts itself. For example, the plural of /medium/, in the sense of advertising medium, is sometimes made /media/ by advertising men. /Vide/ the /Editor and Publisher/, May 11, 1918.

[37] /Irish World/, June 26, 1918.

[38] /Vide/ The Declaration of Independence, by Herbert Friedenwald, New York, 1904, p. 262 /et seq./

[39] Now and then the English flirt with the American usage. Hart says, for example, that "originally the cover of the large Oxford Dictionary had '/a/ historical.'" But "/an/ historical" now appears there.

[Pg268]

VIII

Proper Names in America

§ 1

/Surnames/--A glance at any American city directory is sufficient to show that, despite the continued political and cultural preponderance of the original English strain, the American people have quite ceased to be authentically English in race, or even authentically British. The blood in their arteries is inordinately various and inextricably mixed, but yet not mixed enough to run a clear stream. A touch of foreignness still lingers about millions of them, even in the country of their birth. They show their alien origin in their speech, in their domestic customs, in their habits of mind, and in their very names. Just as the Scotch and the Welsh have invaded England, elbowing out the actual English to make room for themselves, so the Irish, the Germans, the Italians, the Scandinavians and the Jews of Eastern Europe, and in some areas, the French, the Slavs and the hybrid-Spaniards have elbowed out the descendants of the first colonists. It is not exaggerating, indeed, to say that wherever the old stock comes into direct and unrestrained conflict with one of these new stocks, it tends to succumb, or, at all events, to give up the battle. The Irish, in the big cities of the East, attained to a truly impressive political power long before the first native-born generation of them had grown up.[1] The Germans, following the limestone belt of the Alleghany foothills, pre-empted the best lands East of the mountains before the new [Pg269] republic was born.[2] And so, in our own time, we have seen the Swedes and Norwegians shouldering the native from the wheat lands of the Northwest, and the Italians driving the decadent New Englanders from their farms, and the Jews gobbling New York, and the Slavs getting a firm foothold in the mining regions, and the French Canadians penetrating New Hampshire and Vermont, and the Japanese and Portuguese menacing Hawaii, and the awakened negroes gradually ousting the whites from the farms of the South.[3] The birth-rate among all these foreign stocks is enormously greater than among the older stock, and though the death-rate is also high, the net increase remains relatively formidable. Even without the aid of immigration it is probable that they would continue to rise in numbers faster than the original English and so-called Scotch-Irish.[4]

Turn to the letter /z/ in the New York telephone directory and you will find a truly astonishing array of foreign names, some of them in process of anglicization, but many of them still arrestingly outlandish. The only Anglo-Saxon surname beginning with /z/ is /Zacharias/,[5] and even that was originally borrowed from the Greek. To this the Norman invasion seems to have added only /Zouchy/. But in Manhattan and the Bronx, even among the necessarily limited class of telephone subscribers, there are nearly 1500 persons whose names begin with the letter, and among them one finds fully 150 different surnames. The German /Zimmermann/, with either one /n/ or two, is naturally the most numerous single name, and following close upon it are its derivatives, /Zimmer/ and /Zimmern/. With them are many more German names: /Zahn/, /Zechendorf/, /Zeffert/, /Zeitler/, /Zeller/, /Zellner/, /Zeltmacher/, /Zepp/, /Ziegfeld/, /Zabel/, /Zucker/, /Zuckermann/, /Ziegler/, /Zillman/, /Zinser/ and so on. They are all represented heavily, but they indicate neither the earliest nor the most formidable accretion, for underlying them are many Dutch [Pg270] names, /e. g./, /Zeeman/ and /Zuurmond/, and over them are a large number of Slavic, Italian and Jewish names. Among the first I note /Zabludosky/, /Zabriskie/, /Zachczynski/, /Zapinkow/, /Zaretsky/, /Zechnowitz/, /Zenzalsky/ and /Zywachevsky/; among the second, /Zaccardi/, /Zaccarini/, /Zaccaro/, /Zapparano/, /Zanelli/, /Zicarelli/ and /Zucca/; among the third, /Zukor/, /Zipkin/ and /Ziskind/. There are, too, various Spanish names: /Zelaya/, /Zingaro/, etc. And Greek: /Zapeion/, /Zervakos/ and /Zouvelekis/. And Armenian: /Zaloom/, /Zaron/ and /Zatmajian/. And Hungarian: /Zadek/, /Zagor/ and /Zichy/. And Swedish: /Zetterholm/ and /Zetterlund/. And a number that defy placing: /Zrike/, /Zvan/, /Zwipf/, /Zula/, /Zur/ and /Zeve/.

Any other American telephone directory will show the same extraordinary multiplication of exotic patronymics. I choose, at random, that of Pittsburgh, and confine myself to the saloon-keepers and clergymen. Among the former I find a great many German names: /Artz/, /Bartels/, /Blum/, /Gaertner/, /Dittmer/, /Hahn/, /Pfeil/, /Schuman/, /Schlegel/, /von Hedemann/, /Weiss/ and so on. And Slavic names: /Blaszkiewicz/, /Bukosky/, /Puwalowski/, /Krzykolski/, /Tuladziecke/ and /Stratkiewicz/. And Greek and Italian names: /Markopoulos/, /Martinelli/, /Foglia/, /Gigliotti/ and /Karabinos/. And names beyond my determination: /Tyburski/, /Volongiatica/, /Herisko/ and /Hajduk/. Very few Anglo-Saxon names are on the list; the continental foreigner seems to be driving out the native, and even the Irishman, from the saloon business. Among the clerics, naturally enough, there are more men of English surname, but even here I find such strange names as /Auroroff/, /Ashinsky/, /Bourajanis/, /Duic/, /Cillo/, /Mazure/, /Przvblski/, /Pniak/, /Bazilevich/, /Smelsz/ and /Vrhunec/. But Pittsburgh and New York, it may be argued, are scarcely American; unrestricted immigration has swamped them; the newcomers crowd into the cities. Well, examine the roster of the national House of Representatives, which surely represents the whole country. On it I find /Bacharach/, /Dupré/, /Esch/, /Estopinal/, /Focht/, /Heintz/, /Kahn/, /Kiess/, /Kreider/, /La Guardia/, /Kraus/, /Lazaro/, /Lehbach/, /Romjue/, /Siegel/ and /Zihlman/, not to mention the insular delegates, /Kalanianole/, [Pg271] /de Veyra/, /Davila/ and /Yangko/, and enough Irishmen to organize a parliament at Dublin.

In the New York city directory the fourth most common name is now /Murphy/, an Irish name, and the fifth most common is /Meyer/, which is German and chiefly Jewish. The /Meyers/ are the /Smiths/ of Austria, and of most of Germany. They outnumber all other clans. After them come the /Schultzes/ and /Krauses/, just as the /Joneses/ and /Williamses/ follow the /Smiths/ in Great Britain. /Schultze/ and /Kraus/ do not seem to be very common names in New York, but /Schmidt/, /Muller/, /Schneider/ and /Klein/ appear among the fifty commonest.[6] /Cohen/ and /Levy/ rank eighth and ninth, and are both ahead of /Jones/, which is second in England, and /Williams/, which is third. /Taylor/, a highly typical British name, ranking fourth in England and Wales, is twenty-third in New York. Ahead of it, beside /Murphy/, /Meyer/, /Cohen/ and /Levy/, are /Schmidt/, /Ryan/, /O'Brien/, /Kelly/ and /Sullivan/. /Robinson/, which is twelfth in England, is thirty-ninth in New York; even /Schneider/ and /Muller/ are ahead of it. In Chicago /Olson/, /Schmidt/, /Meyer/, /Hansen/ and /Larsen/ are ahead of /Taylor/, and /Hoffman/ and /Becker/ are ahead of /Ward/; in Boston /Sullivan/ and /Murphy/ are ahead of any English name save /Smith/; in Philadelphia /Myers/ is just below /Robinson/. Nor, as I have said, is this large proliferation of foreign surnames confined to the large cities. There are whole regions in the Southwest in which /López/ and /Gonzales/ are far commoner names than /Smith/, /Brown/ or /Jones/, and whole regions in the Middle West wherein /Olson/ is commoner than either /Taylor/ or /Williams/, and places both North and South where /Duval/ is at least as common as /Brown/.

Moreover, the true proportions of this admixture of foreign blood are partly concealed by a wholesale anglicization of surnames, sometimes deliberate and sometimes the fruit of mere confusion. That /Smith/, /Brown/ and /Miller/ remain in first, second and third places among the surnames of New York is surely no sound evidence of Anglo-Saxon survival. The German and [Pg272] Scandinavian /Schmidt/ has undoubtedly contributed many a /Smith/, and /Braun/ many a /Brown/, and /Müller/ many a /Miller/. In the same way /Johnson/, which holds first place among Chicago surnames, and /Anderson/, which holds third, are plainly reinforced from Scandinavian sources, and the former may also owe something to the Russian /Ivanof/. /Miller/ is a relatively rare name in England; it is not among the fifty most common. But it stands thirtieth in Boston, fourth in New York and Baltimore, and second in Philadelphia.[7] In the last-named city the influence of /Müller/, probably borrowed from the Pennsylvania Dutch, is plainly indicated, and in Chicago it is likely that there are also contributions from the Scandinavian /Möller/, the Polish /Jannszewski/ and the Bohemian /Mlinár/. /Myers/, as we have seen, is a common surname in Philadelphia. So are /Fox/ and /Snyder/. In some part, at least, they have been reinforced by the Pennsylvania Dutch /Meyer/, /Fuchs/ and /Schneider/. Sometimes /Müller/ changes to /Miller/, sometimes to /Muller/, and sometimes it remains unchanged, but with the spelling made /Mueller/. /Muller/ and /Mueller/ do not appear among the commoner names in Philadelphia; all the /Müllers/ seem to have become /Millers/, thus putting /Miller/ in second place. But in Chicago, with /Miller/ in fourth place, there is also /Mueller/ in thirty-first place, and in New York, with /Miller/ in third place, there is also /Muller/ in twenty-fourth place.

Such changes, chiefly based upon transliterations, are met with in all countries. The name of /Taaffe/, familiar in Austrian history, had an Irish prototype, probably /Taft/. General /Demikof/, one of the Russian commanders at the battle of Zorndorf, in 1758, was a Swede born /Themicoud/. Franz Maria von /Thugut/, the Austrian diplomatist, was a member of an Italian Tyrolese family named /Tunicotto/. This became /Thunichgut/ (=/do no good/) in Austria, and was changed to /Thugut/ (=/do good/) to bring it into greater accord with its possessor's deserts.[8] In [Pg273] /Bonaparte/ the Italian /buon(o)/ became the French /bon/. Many English surnames are decayed forms of Norman-French names, for example, /Sidney/ from /St. Denis/, /Divver/ from /De Vere/, /Bridgewater/ from /Burgh de Walter/, /Montgomery/ from /de Mungumeri/, /Garnett/ from /Guarinot/, and /Seymour/ from /Saint-Maure/. A large number of so-called Irish names are the products of rough-and-ready transliterations of Gaelic patronymics, for example, /Findlay/ from /Fionnlagh/, /Dermott/ from /Diarmuid/, and /McLane/ from /Mac Illeathiain/. In the same way the name of /Phoenix/ Park, in Dublin, came from /Fion Uisg/ (=/fine water/). Of late some of the more ardent Irish authors and politicians have sought to return to the originals. Thus, /O'Sullivan/ has become /O Suilleabháin/, /Pearse/ has become /Piarais/, /Mac Sweeney/ has become /Mac Suibhne/, and /Patrick/ has suffered a widespread transformation to /Padraic/. But in America, with a language of peculiar vowel-sounds and even consonant-sounds struggling against a foreign invasion unmatched for strength and variety, such changes have been far more numerous than across the ocean, and the legal rule of /idem sonans/ is of much wider utility than anywhere else in the world. If it were not for that rule there would be endless difficulties for the /Wises/ whose grandfathers were /Weisses/, and the /Leonards/ born /Leonhards/, /Leonhardts/ or /Lehnerts/, and the /Manneys/ who descend and inherit from /Le Maines/.

"A crude popular etymology," says a leading authority on surnames,[9] "often begins to play upon a name that is no longer significant to the many. So the /Thurgods/ have become /Thoroughgoods/, and the /Todenackers/ have become the Pennsylvania Dutch /Toothakers/, much as /asparagus/ has become /sparrow-grass/." So, too, the /Wittnachts/ of Boyle county, Kentucky, descendants of a Hollander, have become /Whitenecks/, and the /Lehns/ of lower Pennsylvania, descendants of some far-off German, have become /Lanes/.[10] Edgar Allan /Poe/ was a member of a family long settled in Western Maryland, the founder being one /Poh/ or /Pfau/, a native of the Palatinate. Major George [Pg274] /Armistead/, who defended Fort McHenry in 1814, when Francis Scott Key wrote "The Star-Spangled Banner," was the descendant of an /Armstädt/ who came to Virginia from Hesse-Darmstadt. General George A. /Custer/, the Indian fighter, was the great-grandson of one /Küster/, a Hessian soldier paroled after Burgoyne's surrender. William /Wirt/, anti-Masonic candidate for the presidency in 1832, was the son of one /Wörth/. William /Paca/, a signer of the Declaration of Independence, was the great-grandson of a Bohemian named /Paka/. General W. S. /Rosecrans/ was really a /Rosenkrantz/. Even the surname of Abraham /Lincoln/, according to some authorities, was an anglicized form of /Linkhorn/.[11]