WITHOUT PREJUDICE

Dominion, Volume 21, Issue 110, 7 February 1928, Page 8

WITHOUT PREJUDICE

NOTES AT RANDOM [During the absence on holiday of “T.D.H.,” “Notes at Random” will be contributed by “Wi/’J The family circle is now a steeringwheel. It is considered that the Russian Soviet would have better trade relations with the outside world if it had lewer betrayed relations. Life is a game of bridge, I say, With simple honours, and An inclination day by day To overbid your hand. In Big Bill Thompson’s Chicago recently there was a parade through the city of 109 per cent. American garbage wagons, celebrating the opening of a new incinerator, considered to be the most noteworthy result of Mr. Thompson’s campaign to clean up the town./ Notwithstanding the objections of the American Flag Association, the national banner floated from each wagon, Mayor Thompson having decided that "the prompt disposal of garbage and the elimination of pestilence might well be celebrated through use of the American flag.” After the parade the flags were furled until another kindred occasion—the retirement of Mr. Thompson, for example. Of all the sad words of tongue or pen, the saddest are these: “Where have you been?” Westminster Abbey, at present in- the public eye in connection with the ceremonial obsequies of the late FieldMarshal Earl Haig, was a national institution as far back as 616. It was built in honour of St. I’eter, by the Anglo-Saxon King Sebert. When this church was destroyed by the Danes it was reconstructed by King Edgar in 985. Edward the Confessor built a great abbey here between the years 1049 and 1065. The present structure was erected in the latter half of the 13th century. * * * Though the English people have used the Abbey as a Hall of Fame for Britain’s great, the courtesy of the nation has occasionally been extended to foreigners, notably citizens of the United States. The most recent case is that of Walter Hines Page, to whom a tablet is erected just outside the chaptei house, and it reads: To the glory of God and in memory > of Walter Hines Page 1855-1918 Ambassador of the United States of America to the Court of St. James 1913-1918, The Friend of Britain in her sorest need.

Above this memorial to Walter Hines Page is the James Russell Lowell memorial. It is interesting to note that Lowell, like Page, is remembered because he, too, was an ambassador to the Court of St. Janies and not ; articuiarlv because he was a great American poet. In addition to the Lowell tablet there is a memorial window. The inscription reads: This tablet and the window above were placed here in memory of Janies Russell Lowell United States Minister at the Court of St. Janies from 1880 to 1885, By his English friends.

The other two memorials to Americans are those to Henry Wadsworth Longfellow and George Peabody-, philanthropist, who did much in England to help the poor.

Out of a recent Anglo-American de bate over the solecisms of the languag there was a falling out over the e: pression “It’s me.” Two hundred au twenty-two American authors, editor business men, and teachers assumed stiff, upright position and cried “It’s I. One might ask how many of these, woul so answer a sudden challenge of “Who there?” There are two ways of defening “It’s me.” One is to point or: (says an English critic) that “me” he: is not the accusative “me,” but th equivalent, and probably a survival f the French “moi.” Just as the Freni do not say “C'est je” or, in answer o a question, simply “Je!” so we —unhs we are ultra-particular—do not say “Is I” or simply “II” We say “It’s mt or “Mel’ and we do it for the sale leason and the same justification, he. other way of defending it is, to renirk that language preceded grammarias, and stili takes precedence of thm. The business of the grammarian is toibserve, perhaps to explain, accomplised tacts But the facts themselves are utside his power. ... If a change inthe use of words leads to no confusiot of meaning, we mav well leave it to ake care of itself. If it is of God, it will grow: if it is in accordance with the genius of the language it will gait fin* establishment. If not, it will witter. Then there is the word “Ain’t.’ Keplving to a discourse by Mr. Mallace Rice on fne word “Ain’t,” Mr. St John Ervine observed- “Mr. Rice omts to mention an alternative, and, n my opinion, more accurate and ciijnopn-us contraction for ‘am not.’ He pleads, and very ablv, for a revival c am t, and is properly contemptuou o the Briticism ‘aren’t,’ which is lopelessly inaccurate when used, as it on 1 } 110 *' 1 ? is, with the singular pronoui “ have only to reverse 'aren’t I’atd make it ‘I aren't,’ or T are not’ to realise what a shockingly vulgar eip’essiotii it is But I suggest to Mr. Rc< that the contraction, common in Vise', . ’™" L , s better than ‘ain’t’ It i< strictly _ accurate, and causes no conftson between ‘am not’ and ‘have not.’ ” • * r Manv people in New sav “Amn’t I?” as often s Arent I. and ceitainly quite as often as Amt I?” ' The phrase “humbl pie” isto have originated fpm the custom of baking the leavings from the E „ masters’ tables mtea Pie for the ser cants, or humbles, .s they were called. A spinster livim in a suburb was shocked at ne language used by two men repairin' to her home SR "rote to Ihe com P an -' following way- e . “““ T weather were on tins job. I "as up the telegraphP°l e - an< l accidentally let the hot Tadfall on Bill’s neex. Ihtn he said. ‘Yo reallv must be more careful, Harry.”’ POEM. I'm lookie for a fellow- Fan Who’s nrtlv goat and mostly man, And s,-’-built mv cottage here To hear him piping in the weir, - To lien- him humming in the bees, And liar "'hisner in the trees. O nca e immeasurable that sings Tn th--- great soul of simple things! One -inmilse from a vernal wood— To f and here where a deer has stood To irink at dawn! To hear the fall Of -veiling dewing over all! To watch the distant nlanets move! hear birds roosting chirp of love! T, watch the fiddlin'- Summer si-dr-T, Autumn, and to hear the stride if thundering Winter, and in rain l'o feel the Spring come back agaiti! —Chard Powers Smith ifl ’ “ll*