The American Language
seen, in a different sense. /Quite rich/, in American, [Pg117] means
tolerably rich, richer than most; /quite so/, in English, is identical
in meaning with /exactly so/. In American /just/ is almost equivalent
to the English /quite/, as in /just lovely/. Thornton shows that this
use of /just/ goes back to 1794. The word is also used in place of
/exactly/ in other ways, as in /just in time/, /just how many/ and
/just what do you mean?/
§ 3
/Honorifics/--Among the honorifics and euphemisms in everyday use one
finds many notable divergences between the two languages. On the one
hand the English are almost as diligent as the Germans in bestowing
titles of honor upon their men of mark, and on the other hand they are
very careful to withhold such titles from men who do not legally bear
them. In America every practitioner of any branch of the healing art,
even a chiropodist or an osteopath, is a doctor /ipso facto/, but in
England, as we have seen, a good many surgeons lack the title and it
is not common in the lesser ranks. Even graduate physicians may not
have it, but here there is a yielding of the usual meticulous
exactness, and it is customary to address a physician in the second
person as /Doctor/, though his card may show that he is only
/Medicinae Baccalaureus/, a degree quite unknown in America. Thus an
Englishman, when he is ill, always sends for the /doctor/, as we do.
But a surgeon is usually plain /Mr./[20] An English veterinarian or
dentist or druggist or masseur is never /Dr./
Nor /Professor/. In all save a few large cities of America every male
pedagogue is a professor, and so is every band leader, dancing master
and medical consultant. But in England the title is very rigidly
restricted to men who hold chairs in the universities, a necessarily
small body. Even here a superior title [Pg118] always takes
precedence. Thus, it used to be /Professor/ Almroth Wright, but now it
is always /Sir/ Almroth Wright. Huxley was always called /Professor/
Huxley until he was appointed to the Privy Council. This appointment
gave him the right to have /Right Honourable/ put before his name, and
thereafter it was customary to call him simply /Mr./ Huxley, with the
/Right Honourable/, so to speak, floating in the air. The combination,
to an Englishman, was more flattering than /Professor/, for the
English always esteem political dignities far more than the dignities
of learning. This explains, perhaps, why their universities distribute
so few honorary degrees. In the United States every respectable
Protestant clergyman is a D.D., and it is almost impossible for a man
to get into the papers without becoming an LL.D.,[21] but in England
such honors are granted only grudgingly. So with military titles. To
promote a war veteran from sergeant to colonel by acclamation, as is
often done in the United States, is unknown over there. The English
have nothing equivalent to the gaudy tin soldiers of our governors'
staffs, nor to the bespangled colonels and generals of the Knights
Templar and Patriarchs Militant, nor to the nondescript captains and
majors of our country towns. An English railroad conductor (/railway
guard/) is never /Captain/, as he always is in the United States. Nor
are military titles used by the police. Nor is it the custom to make
every newspaper editor a colonel, as is done south of the Potomac. Nor
is an attorney-general or postmaster-general called /General/. Nor are
the glories of public office, after they have officially come to an
end, embalmed in such clumsy quasi-titles as /ex-United States
Senator/, /ex-Judge of the Circuit Court of Appeals/, /ex-Federal
Trade Commissioner/ and /former Chief of the Fire Department/.
But perhaps the greatest difference between English and American usage
is presented by /the Honorable/. In the United States the title is
applied loosely to all public officials of apparent respectability,
from senators and ambassadors to the mayors of [Pg119] fifth-rate
cities and the members of state legislatures, and with some show of
official sanction to many of them, especially congressmen. But it is
questionable whether this application has any actual legal standing,
save perhaps in the case of certain judges. Even the President of the
United States, by law, is not /the Honorable/, but simply /the
President/. In the First Congress the matter of his title was
exhaustively debated; some members wanted to call him /the Honorable/
and others proposed /His Excellency/ and even /His Highness/. But the
two Houses finally decided that it was "not proper to annex any style
or title other than that expressed by the Constitution." Congressmen
themselves are not /Honorables/. True enough, the /Congressional
Record/, in printing a set speech, calls it "Speech of /Hon./ John
Jones" (without the /the/ before the /Hon./--a characteristic
Americanism), but in reporting the ordinary remarks of a member it
always calls him plain /Mr./ Nevertheless, a country congressman would
be offended if his partisans, in announcing his appearance on the
stump, did not prefix /Hon./ to his name. So would a state senator. So
would a mayor or governor. I have seen the sergeant-at-arms of the
United States Senate referred to as /Hon./ in the records of that
body.[22] More, the prefix is actually usurped by the Superintendent
of State Prisons of New York.[23]
In England the thing is more carefully ordered, and bogus /Hons./ are
unknown. The prefix is applied to both sexes and belongs by law,
/inter alia/, to all present or past maids of honor, to all justices
of the High Court during their terms of office, to the Scotch Lords of
Session, to the sons and daughters of viscounts and barons, to the
younger sons and all daughters of earls, and to the members of the
legislative and executive councils of the colonies. But /not/ to
members of Parliament, though each is, in debate, an /hon. gentleman/.
Even a member of the cabinet is not an /Hon./, though he is a /Right
Hon./ by virtue of membership in the Privy Council, of which the
Cabinet is legally merely a committee. This last honorific belongs,
not only to [Pg120] privy councillors, but also to all peers lower
than marquesses (those above are /Most Hon./), to Lord Mayors during
their terms of office, to the Lord Advocate and to the Lord Provosts
of Edinburgh and Glasgow. Moreover, a peeress whose husband is a
/Right Hon./ is a /Right Hon./ herself.
The British colonies follow the jealous usage of the mother-country.
Even in Canada the lawless American example is not imitated. I have
before me a "Table of Titles to be Used in Canada," laid down by royal
warrant, which lists those who are /Hons./ and those who are not
/Hons./ in the utmost detail. Only privy councillors of Canada (not to
be confused with imperial privy councillors) are permitted to retain
the prefix after going out of office, though ancients who were
legislative councillors at the time of the union, July 1, 1867, may
still use it by a sort of courtesy, and former speakers of the
Dominion Senate and House of Commons and various retired judges may do
so on application to the King, countersigned by the governor-general.
The following are lawfully /the Hon./, but only during their tenure of
office: the solicitor-general, the speaker of the House of Commons,
the presidents and speakers of the provincial legislatures, members of
the executive councils of the provinces, the chief justice, the judges
of the Supreme and Exchequer Courts, the judges of the Supreme Courts
of Ontario, Nova Scotia, New Brunswick, British Columbia, Prince
Edward Island, Saskatchewan and Alberta, the judges of the Courts of
Appeal of Manitoba and British Columbia, the Chancery Court of Prince
Edward Island, and the Circuit Court of Montreal--these, and no more.
A lieutenant-governor of a province is not /the Hon./, but /His
Honor/. The governor-general is /His Excellency/, and so is his wife,
but in practise they usually have superior honorifics, and do not
forget to demand their use.
But though an Englishman, and, following him, a colonial, is thus very
careful to restrict /the Hon./ to proper uses, he always insists, when
he serves without pay as an officer of any organization, to indicate
his volunteer character by writing /Hon./ before the name of his
office. If he leaves it off it is a sign that he is a hireling. Thus,
the agent of the New Zealand [Pg121] government in London, a paid
officer, is simply the /agent/, but the agents at Brisbane and
Adelaide, in Australia, who serve for the glory of it, are /hon.
agents/. In writing to a Briton one must be careful to put /Esq./,
behind his name, and not /Mr./, before it. The English make a clear
distinction between the two forms. /Mr./, on an envelope, indicates
that the sender holds the receiver to be his inferior; one writes to
/Mr./ John Jackson, one's green-grocer, but to James Thompson, /Esq./,
one's neighbor. Any man who is entitled to the /Esq./ is a
/gentleman/, by which an Englishman means a man of sound connections
and dignified occupation--in brief, of ponderable social position.
Thus a dentist, a shop-keeper or a clerk can never be a gentleman in
England, even by courtesy, and the qualifications of an author, a
musical conductor, a physician, or even a member of Parliament have to
be established. But though he is thus enormously watchful of masculine
dignity, an Englishman is quite careless in the use of /lady/. He
speaks glibly of /lady-clerks/, /lady-typists/, /lady-doctors/ and
/lady-inspectors/. In America there is a strong disposition to use the
word less and less, as is revealed by the substitution of /saleswoman/
and /salesgirl/ for the /saleslady/ of yesteryear. But in England
/lady/ is still invariably used instead of woman in such compounds as
/lady-golfer/, /lady-secretary/ and /lady-champion/. The /women's
singles/, in England tennis, are always /ladies' singles/; /women's
wear/, in English shops, is always /ladies' wear/. Perhaps the cause
of this distinction between /lady/ and /gentleman/ has been explained
by Price Collier in "England and the English." In England, according
to Collier, the male is always first. His comfort goes before his
wife's comfort, and maybe his dignity also. /Gentleman-clerk/ or
/gentleman-author/ would make an Englishman howl, though he uses
/gentleman-rider/. So would the growing American custom of designating
the successive heirs of a private family by the numerals proper to
royalty. John Smith /3rd/ and William Simpson /IV/ are gravely
received at Harvard; at Oxford they would be ragged unmercifully.
An Englishman, in speaking or writing of public officials, avoids
those long and clumsy combinations of title and name [Pg122] which
figure so copiously in American newspapers. Such locutions as
/Assistant Secretary of the Interior/ Jones, /Fourth Assistant
Postmaster-General/ Brown, /Inspector of Boilers/ Smith, /Judge of the
Appeal Tax Court/ Robinson, /Chief Clerk of the Treasury/ Williams and
/Collaborating Epidermologist/ White[24] are quite unknown to him.
When he mentions a high official, such as the Secretary for Foreign
Affairs, he does not think it necessary to add the man's name; he
simply says "the Secretary for Foreign Affairs" or "the Foreign
Secretary." And so with the Lord Chancellor, the Chief Justice, the
Prime Minister, the Bishop of Carlisle, the Chief Rabbi, the First
Lord (of the Admiralty), the Master of Pembroke (College), the Italian
Ambassador, and so on. Certain ecclesiastical titles are sometimes
coupled to surnames in the American manner, as in /Dean Stanley/, and
/Canon Wilberforce/, but /Prime Minister Lloyd-George/ would seem
heavy and absurd. But in other directions the Englishman has certain
clumsinesses of his own. Thus, in writing a letter to a relative