Origin of "Viz."

1895

The contraction "viz" is a curious instance of the universality of arbitrary signs. There are few writers who do not appreciate the fact that the little contraction may be used in "good form" writing of all kinds, but there are probably even fewer persons who have any idea of its origin. It is a corruption of the word videlicet, the terminal letter of which was formerly made in the shape of a "z," but was never intended to represent that letter, being simply used as a mark or sign of abbreviation. It is now always written and expressed as "z" and will doubtless continue to be so used as long as written language exists. It is, however, as we have said, one of the many arbitrary modes of expression used by the masses, who never give a thought as to their origin. — St. Louis Republic.



His Bad Habit.

"He is a fine young man," said Mabel's father. "I am surprised that you treat him so harshly."
"Perhaps you don't know him as well as I do, father?"
"I know him pretty well. He has no bad habits at all."
"He has one of which I disapprove very much."
"He has?"
"Yes; I can't break him of proposing to me." — Washington Star.

Slang Words and Phrases

1895

The Origin of "Outsider," "You're a Daisy" and "Too Thin."

"Dun" is a word whose meaning is now known to every one who understands the English language. About the beginning of the century a constable in England named John Dun became celebrated as a first class collector of bad accounts. When others would fail to collect a bad debt, Dun would be sure to get it out of the debtor. It soon passed into a current phrase that when a person owed money and did not pay when asked he would have to be "dunned." Hence it soon became common in such cases to say, "You will have to dun So-and-so if you wish to collect your money."

Until the nomination of Franklin Pierce for the presidency the word "outsider" was unknown. The committee on credentials came to make its report and could not get into the hall because of the crowd of people who were not members of the convention. The chairman of the convention asked if the committee was ready to report, and the chairman of the committee answered, "Yes, Mr. Chairman, but the committee is unable to get inside on account of the crowd and pressure of the outsiders." The newspaper reporters took up the word and used it.

"You are a daisy" is used by Dickens in "David Copperfield" in the sense of calling a person a daisy in the way to express admiration and at the same time to laugh at one's credulity. Steerforth says to young Copperfield: "David, my daisy, you are so innocent of the world. Let me call you my daisy, as it is so refreshing to find one in these corrupt days so innocent and unsophisticated. My dear Copperfield, the daisies of the field are not fresher than you."

"Too thin" was given currency by Alexander H. Stephens of Georgia in the United States congress in 1870. Seine members had made a reply to Mr. Stephens, and the latter had his chair wheeled out in the aisle and said in that shrill, piping voice which always commanded silence: "Mr. Speaker, the gentleman's arguments are gratuitous assertions made up of whole cloth, and cloth, sir, so gauzy and thin that it will not hold water. It is entirely too thin, sir." — Boston Post.

A Double Paradox

1895

The capacity of the English language for the making of paradoxes or apparent but not real contradictions is almost unlimited.

Two men were riding in an electric car recently when it was stopped by a street blockade. As they were near their destination, they decided to get out and walk. The track was soon cleared, however, and the car overtook them.

"When we left the car," said one of them, "I thought that we should get on better by getting off. But, after all, we should have been better off if we had staid on." — Youth's Companion.


Priests and Beards

The beardless priest is only a matter of custom, there being no edict upon the subject. All of the popes from Adrian VI to Innocent XII and all the cardinals and other church clerics during the same period were bearded dignitaries. Ignatius Loyola, St. Francis Xavier, Francis de Sales, Vincent de Paul and the Cardinals Bellarmine and Richelieu all wore full beards. — St. Louis Republic.


Social Evolution

Miss De Fashion (a few years hence) — You are wanted at the telephone.
Mrs. De Fashion — Oh, dear! I presume it's Mrs. De Style to return my telephone call. I hope she won't talk long. — London Tit-Bits.

The Accent

1895

Mr. Story, the sculptor, who began life as a lawyer, tells a good story which illustrates the fact that the emphasis which punctuates has as much to do with determining the sense of a sentence as the meaning of the words.

Once, when he was called upon to defend a woman accused of murdering her husband, he adduced as one of the proofs of her innocence the fact of her having attended him on his deathbed and said to him when he was dying, "Good by, George!"

The counsel for the plaintiff declared that ought rather to be taken as a proof of her guilt, and that the words she had used were, "Good, by George!" — New York Dispatch.

Vocabularies

1895

Shakespeare's vocabulary is said to have been the largest used by any English writer, and he had not 25,000, but 15,000, and of these 500 were used only once. Milton's vocabulary comprised about 8,000 words. That of the average educated writer is said to include about 3,000 words, while the average business man uses only about 1,000 words. The average English laborer has about 400 words at his command. These estimates are of British origin and are not recent. We're inclined to think that the business man and the mechanic in this country have rather more extensive vocabularies than these estimates suggest. — New York Sun.


A Concert

Jobson — Hello, Dobson. See the piano factory fire last night?
Dobson — Yes. Firemen worked like beavers.
Jobson — No, they didn't. They had a regular concert.
Dobson —I don't see how you make that out.
Jobson — Weren't they playing on the pianos? — London Tit-Bits.

"Once" For "When Once"

1895

Within the last few years this misuse of the word "once" has become quite common. Is it a provincialism, which has gradually slipped into common use by mere unconscious imitation? I read, "Once he had crossed the river, his victory was certain." Of course "when once," or simply "when," is here the proper form of expression. — Notes and Queries.

The Turkish Language

1916

The Turkish language has been made obligatory by law for companies and corporations doing business in Turkey. For foreign companies this obligation is limited to their correspondence with the Turkish Government and to documents which they may use in dealing with the Turkish public. Companies are given until July, 1919, to comply with the new law.

—The Fryeburg Post, Fryeburg, Maine, Sept. 26, 1916, p. 6.

Jack's Account of It

1901

One of Uncle Sam's able seamen, who was in an "Owl" train that was wrecked, thus described his experience:

"It was a little after two bells this morning and I was smoking my pipe in the 'Owl's' stern galley. The first thing I knew of any happening was when I was thrown violently from my seat. After the pitching and jumping had stopped, I crawled out and saw that the steering gear of the 'Owl' had been carried away, causing her to part amidships. The after end listed badly to starboard and went aground, throwing all hands in a heap to the listed side. No lives were lost, however, though all were badly shaken up and somewhat damaged. One unlucky passenger bunted the glass out of a porthole, cutting her head and face quite badly. After wigwagging the craft coming up behind to change her course, the forward end of our craft picked up the passengers and crew and continued her voyage. As for me, I will be glad when I am safe aboard the Albatross again. This cruising overland is too rough and choppy for me." — Argonaut.

A Curious Coincidence

1901

The letters "O N" might be supposed to possess a mysterious charm, as they form the termination of many of the most distinguished names in history. No other letters of the alphabet will furnish so remarkable a coincidence as may be found in the following list made up from ancient and modern names: Aaron, Solomon, Agamemnon, Solon, Bion, Phocion, Bacon, Newton, Johnson, Addison, Crichton, Porson, Buffon, Montfaucon, Tillotson, Fenelon, Massillon, Warburton, Leighton, Lytton, Walton, Anacreon, Ben Jonson, Milton, Byron, Thomson, Tennyson, Anson, Washington, Napoleon, Wellington, etc.

A Greek scholar has called attention to a very curious coincidence about the name of Napoleon. If you take away the first letter of his name, you have "apoleon;" take away the first letter of that word, and you have "poleon;" do this successively down to the last syllable, and you have "leon," "eon," and "on." Put these several words together in this order, Napoleon on oleon leon eon apoleon poleon, and you have a Greek phrase the literal translation of which is "Napoleon, being the lion of peoples, went about destroying cities."

Jumbled English

1919

A school patron talking with a prominent educator the other day said that with all of the effort made in North Carolina schools to give the child a fair knowledge of the English language, he did not believe there was one child in a hundred in the schools of the State who could recite a sentence of twenty words in a clear, distinct and articulate tone of voice. The pity is that there is so much truth in the statement, comments the Raleigh News Observer.

Go into a classroom and hear the children read. Is it not the exception when a child knows how to pronounce its syllables distinctly? Syllables and letters both are too often wholly ignored. Words are jumbled together too frequently in incoherent fashion. Worst of all and at the bottom of the trouble is the fact that some of the teachers are less proficient than they should be in distinctness of speech, while others who are more precise themselves, pay insufficient attention to the pronunciation of the children.

The old-fashioned elocution class in which the children were taught to utter their syllables distinctly might very well come back in place of some of the things that are more pretentious, but have less value in the school.

As to Conversational Parrots

1902

Do parrots understand what they say? A correspondent writes that a friend with a fine Brazilian parrot has been staying with her. The parrot a fluent and accomplished speaker. A gray parrot was introduced one day, but the Brazilian haughtily declined to have anything to say to the gray. Then another friend, who had just been given a newly imported green Brazilian, brought the newcomer to call.

The moment the parrots caught sight of each other they broke into a torrent of apparently articulate language, consisting, as it seemed, of questions and answers, but what the language was no one present could tell. The owner of the first parrot had never during the years it had lived with her heard it speak this strange tongue. The two parrots talked to each other without ceasing all the time they were together, and a few days later, when they met again, exactly the same thing happened. Was the first parrot — long exiled from its native forests — asking eagerly for news of its people? — London Chronicle.

As Dr. Johnson Said It

1910

George Augustus Sala's eloquent testimony to the superiority of English viands reminds us of Dr. Johnson's outburst after examining a French menu.

"Sir," said he to the faithful Boswell, "my brain is obfuscated with the perusal of this heterogeneous conglomeration of bastard English ill spelt and a foreign tongue. Bid the rascals bring me a dish of hog's puddings, a slice or two from the upper cut of a well roasted sirloin and two apple dumplings."


National Traits

It takes one hour to know a Frenchman, one month to know a German, almost a lifetime to know an Englishman — well.

A Kettle of Fish

1904

The phrase "a kettle of fish," meaning an awkward entanglement, most probably has no connection with our word kettle, a vessel in which water is boiled. It has been with much reason derived from the word "kiddle," French "quidel," a stake fence set in a stream for catching fish. Inspector Walpole reminds us that this kidellus net, or kiddle, was mentioned in Magna Charta and in other early statutes. — London Standard.

Where Grammar Came From

1917

Barbarous Macedonian Held Responsible for Invention

The world reached its highest known stage of intelligence before grammar was even invented, much less studied, Ernest C. Moore writes in the Yale Review.

I have had some curiosity to find out where and how so great a blight upon young life first came into being, and why it ever became a school study, and I find that the Greeks knew it not; that their triumphant literature and their matchless oratory came to flower before grammar was dreamed of; that it was not in any sense one of the great arts which they wrought out and with which they armed the human race; that after Greece had declined, a barbarous Macedonian made himself owner of all Egypt, and in order to surround himself with the most spectacular form of ostentation of which his vain mind could conceive, he set to collecting not only all the rare and precious objects and books and manuscripts there were in the world, but he capped it all by making a collection of the living men of the world who had any reputation anywhere for knowing and thinking.

Taking them from their homes where they had some relation to the daily necessities of human beings, and had really been of some use, he shut them up for life in one of his palaces at Alexandria, which the folks were in the habit of calling "the hencoop of the muses;" and out of sheer desperation, since they could do nothing better to amuse themselves, they counted the words in the books which real men had written, and prepared tables of the forms and endings which the users of words employed. The lifeless dregs of books which their distilling left we now call grammar, and study instead of books and even speech itself. In their lowest depth of indifference to the moving, pulsing life of man, not even the Alexandrians sank so low as that.

Most Men Write Poor English

1905

An observant student of daily history as recorded in the newspapers takes now a kindlier view of errors in "newspaper English" than before the recent excitement concerning the vice crusade had arisen.

"I have heard all sorts of excuses about the occasional bad English one sees in newspapers, the hurry with which it is written, and that kind of thing," he says; "but I never gave the arguments much thought until I read the correspondence brought forth from men not hurried and of undoubted education, by the recent discussion. Some of the notes which have thus passed have been practically unintelligible in just these spots where a clear and ambiguous meaning was most vital to the point involved. These epistles must certainly have been studied by their writers — at least there must have been time for such study — but they read as though they were dashed off in a moment. In addition to actual errors, some of them fail utterly to establish their arguments because of the forceful way in which they are expressed."


Eat Meatless Meals

A prosperous physician was lunching at his club the other day at a table adjoining that at which sat one of his patients, says the Chicago Inter Ocean. He ordered English plum pudding as a finish to his meal, and remarked as he attacked it, that he would not eat it except at a noon meal, when he knew he would get no bad results from its richness.

The lady thought it a good time to secure information without the customary fee, and asked a few questions on food. "The habit of placing the heaviest meal of the day at its close is responsible for a deal of digestive trouble, with its train of disease," he said. "It may be old fashioned to dine at noon, but it is healthful, and that counts for everything. It is a practice among many physicians to have a midday dinner and a supper in which no meat figures, but stewed fruit is a feature."

Indians Believed to Be Syrians

1896

Canon J. D. Good, of British Columbia, tells a San Francisco Call reporter that his long residence among the Columbian Indians warrants him in saying that the latter are of Syrian origin, and are, in fact, Syrians now, having the customs and language. "I was astonished at the richness of this language." he said, "and its wonderful capacity for accurate expression.

"I found many pure Syrian words in it, as, for instance, Eneas and Solomon-Chute, among proper names. The words of the language are historical and traditional, and observe the same laws as those of the Syrian language. I think the language of the Thompson River Indians is one of the Toranian tongues. There are direct Syrian words in it.

"Then there are other evidences that these Indians are the Syrian descendants. Their medicine man is the same as the Syrian seer. The burial customs are to this day the same. Besides this there is the character of the people, who are Syrians in thought, habits of life, and general customs.

"When I first went among the Indians they had their war chiefs as well as their civil chiefs — the same as the Greeks. All I saw in every way convinced me, and I have during the ensuing years been very fully confirmed in my conviction that these Indians are Syrians."

Scotch Is Greek to Her

1900

An exchange quotes the following conversation between husband and wife. She suddenly addresses him: "What are you reading so absorbingly?"

"It's a new Scotch novel."

"Oh!" cries the wife, with enthusiasm. "I'm so fond of those dear dialect things! Do read me a little!"

"Can you understand it?"

"Can I understand it?" she repeats, loftily. "Well, I should hope anything you are reading need not be Greek to me!"

"No, but it might be Scotch."

"Well, go on, read just where you are."

"'Ye see, Elspie,' said Duncan, doucely, 'I might hae mair the matter wi' me than ye wad be spierin'. Aiblins ma een is a bit dazzlit, an' I'm hearin' the poolses thuddin' in ma ears, an' ma toongue is clavin' when it sud be gaein'; an' div ye no hear the dirlin' o' ma hairt, an' feel the shakin' o' ma hond this day gin I gat a glimpse o' ye, sair hirplin' like an auld mon? Div ye nae guess what's a' the steer, hinney, wi'out me gaein' it mair words?'"

"Stop! Stop! For goodness' sake! What in the world is the creature trying to say?"

-He's making a declaration of love."

"A declaration of love! I thought he was telling a lot of symptoms to his doctor!" — Youth's Companion.

She Teaches Correct Speech

1910

A woman of culture and travel has made a glorious success teaching correct speech. It is surprising how much incorrect speech there is among our educated people. They cling to provincialisms, incorrect pronunciations, wrong use of words and unmusical intonations. The southerner holds to the soft, r-less utterance of his "mammy" days; the middle westerner flattens all his vowels; the Bostonian throws his r's completely out of joint.

This woman undertook to correct such errors and teach a pure, perfect, English speech to a few young women. She became so successful that she was compelled to start a school of correct English which has grown to great proportions. This particularly promising field is open to every town in America. — Delineator


Good Advice

"And now, son," said the old rabbit, "here's a bit of advice. Always keep on the good side of a dog."

"But, pop," queried the youngster, who was about to go forth into the big world, "which is the good side of a dog?"

"The outside, son," answered the old rabbit, as he bit off another hunk of cabbage.


Tired

Some people are so tireless that they become positively tiresome.

Professor Pays Tribute to Newspaper English

1915

High Standard of Writing

"I well remember the pleasure with which, as a young man, I heard my venerable and practiced professor of rhetoric say that he supposed there was no work known to man more difficult than writing," said Prof. George H. Palmer, formerly of Harvard University. "Up to that time I had supposed its severities peculiar to myself." He goes on to recount the advantages which children of today enjoy over those of his own generation, and hopes that some of them will find the language he has used about the difficulty of writing extravagant. Then he says:

"Let me say, too, that since frequency has more to do with ease of writing than anything else, I count the newspaper men lucky because they are writing all the time, and I do not think so meanly of their product as the present popular disparagement would seem to require. It is hasty work, undoubtedly, and bears the marks of haste. But in my judgment in no period of the English language has there been so high an average of sensible, vivacious and informing sentences written as appears in our daily press.

"With both good and evil results, the distinction between book literature and speech literature is breaking down. Everybody is writing, apparently in verse and prose; and if the higher graces of style do not often appear, neither on the other hand do the ruder awkwardness and obscurities. A certain straightforward English is becoming established. A whole nation is learning the use of its mother tongue. Under such circumstances it is doubly necessary that anyone who is conscious of feebleness in his command of English should promptly and earnestly begin the cultivation of it."


Man and His Age

After a man reaches the age of fifty he begins to see insults in the newspapers to the effect that he is an old man. — Topeka Capital.

Art of the Etruscans

1907

Mysterious People Who Left Traces of a Remarkable Civilization

Why did the Etruscans devote their whole lives to the incessant making of pottery until it accumulated in such quantities that they were compelled to bury it in order to keep room for themselves in their streets and houses?

Then, again, there is the mystery of the Etruscan inscriptions. These inscriptions are fairly numerous, but hitherto they have proved to be utterly undecipherable. The Etruscan is the only dead language that has defied investigation. Considered as a language, nothing could seem more improbable than the hieroglyphics of the Egyptians, but Egyptologists can read them with such ease that almost any given series of hieroglyphics can be read in three or four ways by an equal number of rival Egyptologists. Any language more utterly impossible at first glance than the Assyrian arrowhead language could not well be imagined, but there are many learned men who can read, write and speak arrowhead with facility. And yet no man can make the least sense of the writings left by the Etruscans, although they are written in Roman characters.

All that we know of the Etruscans seems unreasonable and preposterous. Naturally this makes them fascinating to every one who delights in mystery and the solution of puzzles. — Putnam's Magazine.