Out, Damned Out!

Press, Volume CIII, Issue 30478, 27 June 1964, Page 4

Out, Damned Out!

[A fourth Leader in “The Times”]

“Justice wins out,” wrote a critic in reference to a film the other day and it is no mere spirit of misguided pedantry which finds the phrase outrageous. Indeed those whose way with the language smacks of a jolly, piratical licence, who would willingly see Fowler walk the plank and who share Belloc’s robust views on the vices of an excessive correctitude, of an extreme grammatical purity, will perhaps be most incensed at the intrusion of that, in this particular context and others like it, abominable little adverb “out.”. Why in the name of all good, sensible English cannot justice be satisfied to win? Certainly she always used to be, just as people, when a benevolent mood was on them, were prepared to help

neighbours, or forwards to drop back and provide the same service for a hardpressed defence. Now they “help out”; and a nasty verbal convention takes the place of a plain word—soon unfortunates tapped on the roof- of a blazing building will be yelling “help out! help out!” to the crowds below them In the street. Irate bosses confronted with employees who were consistently late or incorrigibly inefficient could once relieve their feelings by roaring the classic phrase. “You’re fired.” There is a beautiful simplicity about it which “you’re fired out.” with its confusing suggestion of the human cannon-ball act as performed in the old musichalls, canno't begin to match. “Out,” of course, used as an unnecessary auxiliary comes into this country from the United States, and, while we have been benefited much linguistically and otherwise from the flow of imports from that country, this is one immigrant we can dispense with. “I saw that the word ‘plough’ was mis-spelt," remarked Watson in referring to the word rendered “plow” in the advertisement that figures in the story “The Three Garridebs,” and Holmes replied, “Come, Watson, you improve all the time. Yes, it was bad English, but good American.” And that may serve as the epitaph on “justice wins out” and all its numerous and displeasing brood of relatives.