PARISIAN ENGLISH ENTENTE CORDIALE EFFECT

Evening Post, Volume LXXXVII, Issue 74, 28 March 1914, Page 13

PARISIAN ENGLISH ENTENTE CORDIALE EFFECT

ENRICHING THE LANGUAGE. Dr. Arthur Lynch, M.J?., in an article on the spread of the English tongue in Paris and of the fruits of L'Entente Cordiale, gives some amusing instances in the Chronicle of the Parisians' endeavour to be English. He was surprised when at Juvisy, when Chevillard was giving his nights, to hear: — " 'Ello' Jeckie," were the words that fell on my ear. "Good day, is it not?" And the reply came, "Ver' well." This was at Juvisy, when Chevillard was giving his flights. It' is not unusual to hear English in France, and American, Canadian, Australian, and cognate accents may be discovered on the Boulevard. But here was something new. I turned round and beheld a Peruvian (says Dr. Lynch). This was a symptom of the Anglicisation. Since then I have taken notes of the process. Yes, the Entente Cordiale is bearing it* fruit. The signs in the streets give evidence. We always had "Old England," "The Hole in the Wall," "The 'American Bar," and of late years, also, thriving establishmente displaying the legend "Afternoon Tea." But Paris is getting beyond these tentative efforts. We have "The Piccadilly," "The Sport," and the "Five o'clock Lunch." Within a stone's throw from the centre of the Grand Boulevard I could find the "Express Bar," the "Chop Bar,", the "American Drinks," and the "Royal Palace Hotel." There is a street near the Opera bearing the title of the Rue Edouard VII., and also a well-appointed Hotel Edouard VII. Lately there has been added a Theatre Edouard VII., but near the Gare Montparnasse, and therefore somewhat out of the beaten track of the tourist, a Boniface has allowed his love of England to outrun his respect for history. He ' calls his place the Hotel Edouard VI. In the workmen's quarter of the Fau-bourg-du-Temple one may read the at--, tractive legend over a haberdasher's shop :«— Fashionable House. And inside the shop-window will be found a suit of clothes labelled : Complete, 19frs 90. Thus fashion becomes accessible to all purses:- At the opposite side of Paris, but in a still more plebeian district, at Levallois-Perret, an establishment erects the proud sign : — Hotel dcs Select's. But it does not on that account overcharge you; the best room in the house may be had for less than a, shilling a night. , Near by the creature wants of man are provided under the title : — . Drink's and Tobacco. Yet, after all, it is in the aristocratic, and particularly the sporting classes — becoming every day more extensive — that the cult for things English nourishes most. The English tailor has an exceptional position in Paris. For feminine modes the world looks up to the Gay City. In masculine attire' the artistic genius of the French has failed, possibly because it is too artistic, for even in their sincere desire to copy the "correction Britannique " they produce some fantastic results. The peg-top trousers and the tall hat with the flat brim were the jovj, of the caricaturists of a past generation. THE STAGE ENGLISHMAN. It must be remembered that the French in laudable endeavours to be English havo a complicated and difficult task. Ona wonders what sort of Englishmen they have under their eyes ; the favourite picture is that of a thin man with big nose, long teeth, red side whiskers, and check trousers. Recently Dr. Lynch saw a representation of English sailors at a theatre designed to attract the Britisher. Every sailor wore a long fringe of beard under the, chin, and, while smoking a churchwarden pipe upside down, danced what was possibly a hornpipe, but which looked very like a can-can. The result was " funny without being vulgar." One quality the Frenchman has learned to admire in the Englishman, and that is what he calls his phlegmatic air. To gesticulate is so natural to the French. But with the present fashion stolidity is the tone to be imitated. Now, if an Englishman looks phlegmatic, it is because he is phlegmatic. But a phlegmatic Frenchman is a work of art. Yet even more than the Piccadilly tailors or the "gentleman's parlour" — which is what we used to call a barber's shop— the world of English sport has left its impress on modern French. A French writer recently gave an account of the day of a typical young "Milord" —Freddy Almeric Reginald Thomas Nelson, Lord Peacock. Freddy drinks an undue amount of port and whisky, but, as beseems the elegant "swag" to which he belongs, he spends much time with his tailors and hatters, and he patronises sport. He loses on FlibbyBug, it is true, and most of his information is derived from the "barman" of the Junior Carlton, but .he gives the tone. This tone has reverberated in Paris. x Any schoolboy is capable of giving a "tip" of a likely "ootsidare" (outsider) at Auteuil, and golf, and tennis, and cricket, and football— it is something to be called a "dribbleur" of quite first rank — have all enriched the French language. Wrestling, also, has been very popular here of late, and fashionable Paris talks learnedly of half-Nelsons, cross-buttocks, the " armlock informal," of Myake, and the other holds of catch-as-catch-can! In boxing, however, the luxuriance of strange expressions runs riot. At the encounter between Sam Langford and Jbe Jeanliette the spectators were supplied with a glossary of terms, just as at a' Yankee play in London. It "poses" a young Frenchman when he can say, " Billy was knockoute by a jab in a clinch." Some ,of the old school hold up their hands in horror at this invasion of barbaric words, but the Frenchman is beginning to learn that "times is money," and Paris must "go ahead." Besides, after all, "knoekoute by a hook on the point" is more graphic and more rapid than " mis hors de combat par un coup de poing en crochet bien dirige au menton." Besides, the mode is there. The French are all alive in welcome to " comingmen '' and coming words. The English influence has . been salutary on the young generation. A race of strenuous young athletes is growing up, and I cannot find that there is any falling off in intellectual power. The French young girl also seems to be growing taller and stronger of late, and a large and increasing proportion speak English. Of course, there are ways of speaking it. The other day n, Frenchman, in the course of a narrative, remarked : "Ant all'de vile I vos, vis 'er, se sot I vos an Angleesh !" and then I saw that both sides had been working hard at the Entente Cordiale.

Sir Joseph Ward is not the only telegraph messenger to reach eminence in the Post, and Telegraph Service of his country. Mr. E. L King twenty years ago was a telegraph messenger for the Southern Pacific Railway Company m California He ha* just been made tupei'intcmUnt vf that wiiipmi/'a vfoutnc