PASSING NOTES

Otago Daily Times, Issue 21982, 17 June 1933, Page 6

PASSING NOTES

Had the World Economic Conference been the first international conference of post-war days instead of the twenty-fifth —in fact, had the League of Nations and its annual Assembly not inured us to the thrill of such convocations—the scene would be “ a spectacle unto the world and to angels." The cable agent has done his excellent best to excite our imaginations with a few stray picturesque details, all too meagre. Amid many dry-as-dust economic pronouncements, emphatic commonplaces, and eloquent whipping of dead horses, we have here and there a miniature picture that leaps to the eyes. Grey skies on the opening day brought gtoom to the chamber, the cable tells us. And the gloom of the sombre morning coats was broken only by a triple gleam of two Arab sheiks in flowing white robes and “ the inescapable heliotrope creation of General gmuts’s woman secretary.” The minx! —to be thus mixed up with two sheiks when a pre-war flapper was more than content with one. An ardent smoker is the man who cabled to us that

fruitful work in the _ chamber is rendered extremely difficult by the prohibition of smoking, the delegates spending most of the time in the lobbies, where they are able to exchange ideas in friendly confidence. And a glow of enthusiasm, all afire with an ancient grudge, lights up the message that Londoners, whose own drinking hours are restricted, are particularly interested in the long bar at which every drink in the world will be available at any hour. The barmen BP ea k six languages, and they can serve r.ny drink from the arack of Arabia and the vodka of Russia to the homely ale.

The personal touches, tantalising in their meagreness, almost reconcile us to their many omissions. M. Daladicr, nuggety, full of Gallic fire and Breton caution, spoko from manuscript yet seldom referred to it. Facile journalese is ; it to sny that a Breton Celt is' cautious and a Gallic Celt is fiery—but everything helps. Signor Jung—an Italian with the most German of German names —sported a Fascist emblem in his button hole and spoke for Mussolini. He is a thick-set, medium-statured sexagenarian, with a perfect English accent. M. Litvinoff spoke for Stalin in jerky English, though most other Communists have a spate of words. He is quite at home in England and in English, and has no need of jerks. And Dr Dolfuss, momentarily the world’s champion against the Nazis;

Most glamour centred in the diminutive, boyish figure of the Austrian Chancellor, who is beset with an antiNazi situation at home, and for whom an aeroplane was waiting at Croydon to whisk him back to Vienna. From the reception banquet Mr de Valera was absent. But the Scot was to the fore, as is customary. For five of Sir lan Hamilton’s Highlapd pipers invaded the hall—probably when no speech was in progress—and tramped round the 50 tables.

A new book on an old theme is always welcome. Welcome therefore is W. J. M’Kenzie’s work on “ The Cream of Scottish Humour.” When a Scotsman with a gift of humour writes a book on such a subject, the twinkle in Ills' eye indicates that he hopes to raise a debate on the whole subject. Significant is it that no book is ever written on Scottish wit; for there isn’t any. Wit is not humour, nor is humour wit, and the distinction which Hazlitt made years ago between the two in his “Essay on Wit and Humour ” is too often ignored. Among nations of the world wit and humour arc variously and unequally distributed. Wit is bestowed on the French and the Irish, humour on the Spanish and Scotch. In England there is a mixture of both, with a predominance of humour. That is, humour is the heritage of the more serious nations of the world, while wit falls to the lot of the gay and lively. “ Humour,” says Hazlitt, “ is the growth of nature and accident, wit is the product of art and fancy.” Wit therefore is bright and sparkling, humour may be solemn, sober and gentle. Laughter is the associate of wit. A slow, appreciative smile, or even tears, may bo the accompaniment of humour. Humour is far the deeper of the two, dependent as it is on a right feeling for values and a sense of proportion. The “ Vicar of Wakefield” is full of humour from cover to cover, but has no wit. Likewise “ Don Quixote.” The French, with all their wit, have no word in their language for humour as we know it. Says Mr M'Kenzie:

Scottish humour is the spontaneous outflow of the detached philosopher —the man who does not know he is a philosopher nor a humorist, who does not mean to be funny, but unconsciously gives utterance to observations that are natural, shrewd or sly, and which often require to be thought over before they can be fully appreciated. The man who searches for wit in humour, or humour in wit, will often search in vain. Sydney Smith’s famous conjunction of a Scotsman, a joke and a surgical operation, admits of three explanations. What really did Sydney Smith say? Lady Holland in her memoir of him is responsible for the accepted version: ‘“lt requires,’ he used to say, 1 n surgical operation to get a joke into Scotch understanding’.” Quite different, how-, ever, were his actual words: Dr William Chambers, founder of Chambers's Journal, challenged the Dean of St. Paul's to deny that the Scotch were a humorous race, and got the reply, “ Oh, by all mean 9 you are an immensely funny people, but you need a little operating on to let the fun out. I know no instrument so effectual as the corkscrew." Not to let the joke in, but to entice it out, was the real purpose of the suggested operation. The retort of a Scot to an Englishman who had twitted him on the old lines suggests a second explanation of the traditional version: Said the Scot, “Hush! You should never repeat that story. Don’t you see that it is against yourself? Sydney Smith meant to refer to an English joke.” For a third explanation you have only to reflect upon the distinction between humour and wit and all its bearings.

This humour of “ the detached philosopher” appears in such examples as the following: — A grocer who bought eggs and butter from country wives and sold them his tea complained to one of them that on the last occasion her butter was short weight. “ Noo that’s funny,” said she, “ I lost my pun wecht and I weighed the butter wi’ your pun o’ tea.” An old Scot, smoking meditatively in a railway waiting-room, was checked by a porter who said to him, “ Don’t you see that notice on the wall—'No Smoking Allowed’?” “Yes, 1 do,” he answered quietly. "But how can I keep all your rules? There’s another one over there: ‘Wear Spirella’s Corsets’.” A weaver, visiting the Channel Fleet, off Greenock, sought to board a man-of-war, but found it was then closed to inspection. Disappointed, he turned to the quarter-master and said, “Aweel, then, ye micht let the captain ken aw’ve been here.” “ Who shall I say called?” “Ane o’ the owners.” A Scots crofter was grumbling to the minister about the heaviness of land dues and taxes. " Och,” said he, " the laird’s charges are ower heavy, and I fear I canna pay them muckle longer.” "Never mind, Wullie,” said the minister, “ remem*

ber the Lord will provide.” “Aye, said Wullie, “ Och aye. The Lord giveth and the laird taketh away.” A dour old Scottish minister had been reproving a youth for doing some work on the Sabbath. To which the youth replied that the Lord Himself had plucked corn on that day. “ Wee], that may be, but we think none the mair o’ ' Him for that," was the rejoinder. Dear “Civis,” —May I have your ear and your compassion for a moment in the matter of the misrelnted participle? I have recently been reading “ The Lake of Wine,” Bernard Capes, in whicli every infinitive is split. Personally, I do not split my infinitives, but I am prepared to accept the postulate that the split infinitive is a permissible foible. But Mr Capes has no right to mi&relate his participles, because a misrelated participle begets ambiguity, and it is the first desideratum that a writer should make his meaning clear. Will you shudder to be told that George Moore was capable of misrelating his participles? Here is an example from “The Brook Kerith”: “ At six in the morning, sleep seemed to him better than Arimathea, but once awake, Rachel could not hand him his clothes fast enough.” I have constituted myself a kind of watch dog in the interests of the participle, and I have a very sad tale to tell. If I were to give you the names of the distinguished writers whOj to quote from “ An Inland Voyage,” have committed this dirtiness, you would be astonished and a little saddened.—Yours obediently, Disoiplicds

With “ Disciplicus ” I agree—on both counts. Two classes of writer irritate. One class misrelates its participles, leaving them unattached or wrongly attached. The other, running to death a good and well-founded grammatical rule, places the splitting of an infinitive in that list of unpardonable crimes which includes the eating of peas with a knife,. A wrongly attached participle sins against clarity, and therefore is to be condemned. Such a sentence as “ Cycling down High street one day my friend saw me come a cropper ” leaves both the participle and the accident obscurely attached. We may make a shot at the correct sense, but good style should have higher ideals than that. Considerations of clarity likewise compel us to view the rule for the non-splitting of an infinitive not as a servant but as a master. Who but a mechanical antisplitting follower of school-book rules would refuse to split his infinitive in, “ This regulation will tend to better equip candidates for the ministry”? If the infinitive be left unsplit, we should be left to understand either that “the regulation will tend better,” or that it may “ equip bettor candidates.” Better split your infinitives than land yourself in ambiguity. If the anti-splitter still clings to his dogmatism, let Mm read what Fowler says in his “Modern English Usage,” and face this bogy intelligently. ' CIYIS.