AMERICAN LIFE.

Auckland Star, Volume LXVI, Issue 230, 28 September 1935, Page 1 (Supplement)

AMERICAN LIFE.

LANGUAGE DIFFERENCES.

•A BOOK FOR THE BRITISH. (By CYRANO.) A wise Englishman has said of AngloAmerican relations that they would be improved if the words "This is a Foreign Country" were posted up before the eyes of arrivals at Southampton and New York. On an historic occasion blood was declared to be thicker than water; a downright character in Irish fiction added, "And a good deal nastier." It is admitted that staying with relations is attended with its own difficulties. Strangers are strangers, and are treated and treat you as such; relations presume and criticise. There seems still to be a type of Englishman who has not quite shed the idea that the 120,000,000 people of the United States are merely colonists who have successfully rebelled. He dislikes American institutions and resents the "liberties" Americans have taken with his language. Americans are not good form. His ignorance of America is sometimes astonishing. Even Cecil Rhodes was under the impression that there were still only thirteen American States —the number of the rebellious colonies —whereas there were over forty; hence the provision he made for American Rhodes Scholars. And during the World War a prominent Englishwoman said to the American Ambassador, "Who is your President?"

The Little Things. The book before me* is written to make it easier for English people to understand the United States not American policy and destiny, but American ways of everyday life. It is little things that irritate, especially among relations—ways of speech, ways of eating, daily habits. . There are British people who are annoyed because Americans call a shop a store and rarely know how to make tea. Americans resent the British absence of central heating and the presence of British coffee. Mr. Mitchell has written a shrewd and readable book, the product of three years' sojourn there, on American ways, and the unprejudiced Briton can learn a good deal from it. Of course if you are like the Englishwoman who, travelling on the Continent, complained about foreign ways, and on being politely reminded that in her surroundings she was the ..foreigner, replied, "Oh, no, I am English, you are foreigners"—if you are like her, you will be unteachable. Then there is the Englishman Mr. Mitchell cites who said decidedly that nothing was better in America than in England. Mr. Mitchell mentioned ice-cream. "I don't like ice-cream," said the other, and that was the end of it. But. they manage a good many things better in the United States, and you will learn about some of them in this lively book. Different Words.

Language differences one should accept quite philosophically. The American people could not be expected to go on using the same words as the English. Mr. Mitchell's advice to visitors is not to adopt an American accent and to avoid American slang, but to speak distinctly and without affectation, and to be aware of some of the more vital differences in pronunciation and usage. What, for example, are the American

equivalents of "luggage," "jug," "tramcar," "promenade," "angry," "tap,' "shell-fish," "stud," "biscuit," and "assistant?" It is interesting to note that "guess" in tho American sense — the word lias a respectable English pedigree —can be over-used. I am reminded that "begorrah," a favourite word with the stage Irishman, is never found in such authoritative works as the Somerville-Ross stories, though the shortened form "begor" occurs. There are many pitfalls in the American language, and some of them, as Mr. Mitchell says plainly, have sharp spikes at the bottom. An Englishman who quite innocently told a waitress in New York that she looked very fresh was astonished when the girl took this as a grave insult. A New Zealand officer who was sent to the United States on special service just after the Americans entered, the war, made an appalling blunder in addressing a large and representative public meeting. His first use of a word that in our language is perfectly innocent produced a horrified silence; his repetition of it sent the crowd into hysterics. Not until afterwards did he realise that the common American meaning was Rabelaisian. A blunder of the opposite kind came under my own notice. A distinguished old boy of my old school, visiting New Zealand after many years residence in America, was asked to speak to the boys. In his excellent address he used, also quite innocently, a word that is not spoken in our polite society, not even by advanced young people. The party on the platform looked at their boots or the ceiling, but there was not a titter in the hall. The discipline of the boys was admirable. The fact is that American shows signs of becoming—to us —a foreign language, especially if its slang is included. American Habits.

Of the habits of Americans Mr. Mitchell is discursively interesting. He is impressed by their cleanliness and the variety of their food. It might be said that they have revolutionised eating, with their home refrigeration, their likino- for salads, and their grape-fruit habit 3 . "The Americans are cleaner, inside and out, than the British. plumbing is more advanced, they bathe more frequently, and they study their diet. They drink water (ice water) at almost every meal, adults drink quantities of milk and orange juice, and they eat plenty of salads and fruit. Is there anything to show that the average of health is better? Mitchell notes how few town Americans walk. It is always the street car or the automobile. An American will ask you if you mind walking four or five blocks. Mr. Mitchell knew a girl who waited for a week to be driven down town because it was too far to walk. "Down town is just a quarter or half a mile away and across a pleasant college campus and a New England town green. ... . I have actually been with Americans who have walked farther and wasted more time coing t0 a P arketl car - driving three blocks and then finding difficulty in parking again, than the distance and time involved in walking three blocks and back.". This suggests the contention that American hustle as a means of putting things done, is considerably over-rated. There are some passages in the book reminiscent of English and American satires of American life, such as the pictures of Middle-west towns and villages, and the description of the passengers in the Los Angeles-New York line" who "seemed bewildered and a little frightened when they had a few hours on shore," did what everybody else did, and returned on board laden

with "junk." (Not that British travellers don't sometimes behave much like this.) Sauk Centre, the birthplace of Sinclair Lewis, is said to be the original of "Gopher Prairie," the town in "Main Street," and is proud of having been the object of his satire! Mr. Mitchell is struck by the uniformity among Americans. The average undergraduate, a pleasant young man, is happiest when he is sinking his individuality with "a bunch of good fellows," and men who admit to an interest in the arts are apt to be barred from these bunches. Young women are more advanced intellectually than young men; "A young Vassar woman of seventeen told me that she and her friends invariably found it necessary to talk down to men two or three years their senior, and this seemed to me no exaggeration." The friendliness and democracy of American life he found very agreeable. A judge saw nothing out of the way in going to a dance with his handsome young Scandinavian cook.

Youth and Maturity. The main difference between Americans and English is one of temperament. The Englishman is reserved, and has to be drawn out. Gilbert's joke of the two shipwrecked men who found themselves alone on an island but could not speak to each other because they had not been introduced is an exaggeration of a national trait. The American is much more approachable and self-expressive. "Their faults arc the faults of youth; reckless optimism, enthusiasm, vitality, sentimentality, sensuality, mimicry and impatience of restraint are among their qualities. Criticism they welcome. They are naively honest. . . They enjoy life, and like happy children look forward to the morrow. It is the difference between a younger civilisation and one to which longer experience has brought a greater measure of caution and disillusionment. There is every reason why theiy should try to understand each other. •"America, a Practical Handbook." by Ronald EHvy Mitchell (Hamlsh Hamilton).