OUR MOTHER TONGUE

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXXVI, Issue 23339, 6 May 1939, Page 4 (Supplement)

OUR MOTHER TONGUE

Random Notes and Little Problems

By PROFESSOR ARNOLD WALL

Queen victoria on a famous occasion complained to Mr. Gladstone that he addressed her as if she were a public meeting. There are people among us who seem to want us all to talk like that. They take their language seriously and without humour; say "figewcr"; pronounce "medicine" in three syllables; and shudder if we say "tuppence" or call a shilling "a bob." They expect us to choose our words, on the most trivial occasions, as if we were choosing from the litter the puppy that we mean to buy. "Quite a Few" It must be one of these pernicketty folk who scolds a valued correspondent of mine for saying "quite a few" when he means "a good many." My friend asks whether the defence has a ease. In my opinion there is a perfectly good defence, for the phrase is plainly "ironical" and falls well within the dictionary definition of "irony"—"expression of one's meaning by language of opposite or different tendency." And irony is a very respectable figure of speech. "Olleiulorf." One who is puzzled by the expression "unmitigated Ollendorf" occurring in Fowler's English Usage writes to ask about it. The reference is to the various handbooks for foreign languages compiled by Ollendorf which long held that field and became proverbially notorious for the stiffness and unreality of the conversational diree-' tions, of the type of "No, but I have seen the penknife of the gardener's aunt."

"Agricu!tur(al)ist." It is pointed out to me that the longer form of the two alternatives "agriculturalist" and "agriculturist" is generally preferred in New Zealand and I am asked which of the two is preferable. Both are correct according to the best authorities, and 1 agree with Fowler in thinking thnt unless there,is some definite advantage in the forin with-"al" the shorter should be preferred. But I do not think that "educationist" has a chance against his more pretentious rival "educationalist.'' Anyhow I detest them both. In a Crisis My attention is drawn to the familiar expression "to keep one's feet" for "not to fall," and I am invited to say something about it; .not, of course, to condemn it. It is, I should say an excellent example of what we mean by "idiom." When we say it we manage to say something while seeming to say something else, for if wo

take the words at their face value thov moan that our feet have been saved after being threatened with removal, as if some enthusiastic surgeon had wished to amputate them. Similarly we "keep our heads" (or lose them) in a crisis.

Am I justified in saying that I took a sum of money "off" a friend as a result of a bet? A critic remarks that lie, in such a case, would say that he took it "from," not "off" his friend. | 1 should justify the expression, while admitting that it is colloquial (nothing I worse), by saying that to take money I "from" a person implies something different. The footpad takes inoney "from" his victim; I take money "off" mv friend. I am asked why, if we say "misfortune," we say "unfortunate," not "misfortunate." I fear that I can offer no clear explanation. The reason why we prefer this or that form when there are two or more alternatives seems often to lie below the level of our consciousness. As "un" is properly a verbal prefix, also of course attached to verbal nouns, it is, I suppose, less proper than "mis" in "unfortunate." We formerly had the word "misfortunate" and 1 can see no clear reason why we should have discarded it in favour of its rival. Sin in Good Company "Hyperion." A correspondent asks if this Greek name should not be stressed 011 the i rather than on "per" —the usual English pronunciation. It seems that our stressing is certainly not in accordance with the Greek, and that it would be "correct" to stress the i as we do in "Orion." But, for 110 reason that 1 can see, we have always used that improper stress. Both Shakespeare and Keats did it, so we sin in good company. People.who are not classical scholars are spared a lot of pain. "Gringo." This South American term for a foreigner, especially an AngloAmerican, is brought to my notice by a former resident who was told that! it derives from the words "green grow," tho opening words of the song, "Green grow the rushes 0," which is said to have been the favourite song of the sailors 011 British vessels in the early days of Buenos Aires. Concerning the real origin of the word I can only say that it is given as "Mexican-Spanish." The ingenious story is perfectly typical of a large class of conjectural "derivations," some of which have been dealt with in these notes. There is no law to prevent the citizen from believing them. "£7 per centum." The inclusion of the sign £ in this very common commercial expression seems to a correspondent ridiculous. "Interest at tho rate of £7 per centum" is the full form to which objection is taken. Certainly the £ is unnecessary and -superfluous. "