The Best of L Sprague De Camp Part 2

Mag:Doh like ya attude, pridna. Try to be feh, huh woh tollay dispecfa attude. Iss a majrace coh, ya know.

Hero:You mean, this is a magistrate's court? I don't mean to be disrespectful, but- Mag:Weh, maybe in yooh faw. Eeah ya fahna, aw nah righ melly. Sodge, lock im up. Gah geh mel zannas dow ih, to zam is satty.

Hero:But look here, I don't need a mental examiner to examine my sanity-I'm all right mentally- It seems our time-traveling hero may be reduced to the device adopted by a man I once knew who made a trip to Germany. Entering a hotel with a companion, he asked, in what he thought was German, for two rooms and bath. The clerk looked blank, then replied in something that was evidently intended to be English, but which conveyed no sense whatever to the American. After some futile vocalization of this sort, the clerk had an inspiration: he got out a pad and wrote in the plainest of English, "WThat do you gentlemen want?" The American took the pad and wrote "Two rooms and bath," after which there was no more difficulty.

However, it's unsafe to say that English as a whole will take any particular course, merely because one of its many dialects shows signs of doing so. A phoneme may reverse its direction of change repeatedly: in King Alfred's time the first vowel in after was about that of modem cat; by 1400 it had moved down and back to the vowel of modern calm; by i6oo it had moved back to the cat position, where it still is with the great majority of Americans (don't let the dictionaries fool you with their "intermediate 'a'"). Finally in modern Southern British it has moved back down into the calm position again. This sort of thing can go on indefinitely.

Sounds that have been dropped can be restored by the influence of spelling. An example is the "t" in often, which was dropped long ago with the "t's" in soften, listen, castle, but which has been revived by a few speakers, including President Franklin D. Roosevelt. Such an addition of a sound to a word is called a spelling p.r.o.nunciation and is considered incorrect when first introduced. But sometimes one takes hold and becomes universal, after which it is "correct." Examples are the "h" in hospital and the "1" in fault, which originally (when the words were taken over from French) weren't sounded at all.

We might here dispose of the illusion that there is an absolute standard of "correctness" to which we can refer. There are no tablets of stone stating once and for all what is and isn't correct, and dictionaries are compiled by fallible human beings and often disagree. The only real standard, aside from individual prejudices, is the actual usage of educated people. The fact is not that we use p.r.o.nunciations because they're correct, but that they're correct because we-or a large number of us-use them. If a hundred million people p.r.o.nounce after with the vowel of cat, that's correct by definition, even though not the only correct form, dictionaries to the contrary notwithstanding.

The rate of change of p.r.o.nunciation is probably dependent, to some extent, on the state of a civilization, and changes should take place more rapidly in periods when illiteracy is high, and schools and spelling have less braking effect. A collapse of civilization in the English-speaking world would make another vowel s.h.i.+ft more likely, and result in more dropping and a.s.similation of sounds. If our hero knows this, he might be able to make a shrewd guess at the vicissitudes through which the world has pa.s.sed even before he learns its actual history since his time.

English has numerous dialects, some being beyond the range of mutual intelligibility. A Scotchman I once knew would testify to this: he spent an unhappy afternoon trying to find Myrtle Avenue, Brooklyn. After asking innumerable Brooklynites how to get to "Mair-rrtle Ahvenfl," one of them finally caught on and said, "Oh, you mean Moitle Ehvenya!"

But which dialect most resembles the English of the future? North America has four major dialects: those of New England, New York City, the South, and General American, which includes everything else. The British Isles have a much bigger variety; that of London and vicinity has, by virtue of London's being the capital and the commercial metropolis of Great Britain, acquired the prestige of a standard. Hence Londoners are wont to say that they speak true English, and anything else is a "bahb'rous dahlect." Often they argue that their form of speech is the "most beautiful," but that merely means that they're accustomed to it and so like it best. One feature of Southern British (the speech of educated Londoners and ruling-cla.s.s Englishmen generally), the loss of "r" sounds except when a vowel follows, is also heard in New England, New York City and the South: others, such as the use of "ah" in half, last, dance, and about i ~o similar words, occur in New England but are rare elsewhere in North America.

These dialects tend to evolve in different directions, like species. Unlike species, they also merge into intermediate forms. Right now, the forces tending to merge and h.o.m.ogenize them (radio, etc.) are much stronger than those tending to separate and diversify them. Given our mechanical culture, this is likely to continue until they have all been pretty well leveled. What will the result be?

The prestige of Southern British is high; European schools teach it. Many actors and radio announcers in this country imitate it- though the result is often more funny than impressive. But as a result of economic forces, the commercial and intellectual center of gravity of the English-speaking world seems to be s.h.i.+fting to this side of the Atlantic, which phenomenon should cause a decline in the prestige of Southern British. As this happens, some form of American speech will become a "world standard." - The dialects with the best chance of doing this are probably New York speech and General American. The former has the advantage of being the speech of the country's greatest metropolis and its cultural center. The latter has the advantage of numbers: about as many people speak it (90 or ioo million) as speak all the other kinds of English combined. It conforms more closely to the spelling, so that it is easier for foreigners to learn. My money would go on General American-but then, like most people, I'm probably prejudiced in favor of my native tongue. Very likely the final result will combine features of both dialects.

Our grammar has been simplified about as much as it can be, so that only limited changes are to be looked for therein. We still have some irregular plurals, such as child:children, mouse:mice, deeT:deer; these are hangovers from Anglo-Saxon, which had several declensions of nouns forming the plural differently.* Given enough time, they will probably be cleaned up: brethren, for instance, has been displaced by the regular brot hens. Our irregular verbs, such as take :took, drink:drank, put:put are more numerous and will be harder to get rid of.

Idiomatic word combinations such as make at, make away with, make bold, make good, make light of, make off, make off with, make out, make sure, make sure of, make up, make up to, make up with are the despair of foreigners learning English, as their meanings cannot be derived from a consideration of their component words separately. The makingof these combinations goes on all the time, and they are likely to cause our hero plenty of headaches.

Another change that may cause him difficulty is the dropping of understood words from sentences, as when we say "the man I saw" for "the man whom I saw," or "Going?" for "Are you going?" That's ellipsis, if you want a five-dollar word. We practice it when we write

$ For this undiluted blessing-the loss of a mult.i.tude of cases, forms, and rules -we are, probably, indebted to the fact that English was, for some centuries, the poor-man's tongue. The Normans invaded England, and made their language the tongue of all educated, refined people. For centuries, all who could write, wrote anything but English-usually Latin. The result was that English was freed of all grammarians, conservatives, and formulists. The farmers, peddlers, and country people proceeded joyfully to throw out large quant.i.ties of unnecessary verbiage that got in their way. By the time the grammarians again laid hands on the language, a lot of useful pruning had been accomplished.

telegrams or newspaper heads. As with leveling and compression of words, we gain in speed at the expense of clarity. I recall once being puzzled by a headline reading "Little British Golf Victor." Did it mean that a horse named "Little British Golf" had won a race? No it transpired that a man named Little had won a golf tournament in England. Another read "Gold Hunt Started by Skeletons." Alas, a reading of the article dispelled my first cheerful picture of a crew of skeletons slogging off to the gold country with pick, pan, and packmule. All that had happened was that somebody had dug up some skeletons, quite inanimate, and this discovery had caused local gossip about the possible existence of a buried cache or h.o.a.rd of gold. Of course, the head writer had meant: "The Starting of a Hunt for Gold Has Been Caused by the Discovery of Skeletons." He simply a.s.sumed that the reader would fill in all the missing words.

Again, the Chinese languages are a horrible example: one may say that the Chinese talk in headlines. The table showing the comparative conciseness of languages, in the early part of this article, indicates the extraordinary terseness of Cantonese; Annamese, another Indo-Chinese language, is second on the list. Pitkin's History of Human Stupidity cites the Chinese proverb "s.h.i.+ ju pu ju s.h.i.+ ch'u"- literally "Miss enter not like miss go-out." Even a Chinese would be baffled by this unless he knew that it meant, "It is worse to imprison an innocent man than to release a culprit" As far as the actual words go, it might as well mean the opposite.

Suppose that as a result of a prolonged diet of headlines, English is reduced to a terseness like that of Cantonese. Our hero is being examined by the experts for whom the magistrate has sent. We'll neglect changes in p.r.o.nunciation-I think you'll have had enough of my quasiphonetic spelling-and concentrate on changes in syntax.

Hero: Welcome to my cell, gentlemen. Your names please?

ist Expert: I Mack.

znd Ditto: I Sutton.

Hero: Delighted; you know my name, of course. What do you want me to do?

Mack: From?

Hero: What?

Mack: No what, from.

Hero: Now, let's get this straight. You want to know where I'm from? That's easy; Philadelphia.

Sutton:No hear.

Hero: PHILADELPHIA.

Sutton: No mean no hear you; hear plenty. No hear Philadelphia.

Mack: Such place?

Sutton: Maybe. Ask more. Continent?

Hero: No, it's a city.

Sutton: No mean no. Philadelphia no continent, Philadelphia on continent. Six continent. Which?

Hero: I see-North America.

Mack: No North America Philadelphia.

Sutton: Crazy. Too bad.

Mack: Yes. Word-crazy. Too much word.

Hero: Say what is this? You two sit there like a couple of wooden Indians, and expect me to understand you from one or two words that you drop, and then you say I've got a verbal psychosis- Mack: Proof. Escape. Fingerprint. Check, sanitarium.

Sutton: Right. Interest. Health. Too bad. (They go out.) But actually, I doubt whether headlines will ever bring the language to this sad state. Their influence is probably confined to popularizing a few uncommon words, such as laud, flay, which are preferred to praise and denounce because of their shortness.

Changes in vocabulary are difficult to foresee, though we can cla.s.sify, if we can't prophesy, them. When we have a new meaning to express, we can do any of several things: we can invent a new word out of whole cloth, like gas, hooey. We can combine Latin or Greek roots to make a word, like Ornithorhynchus, telephone. We can combine parts of existing English words, as in brunch (Hollywood slang for an eleven o'clock meal). We can borrow a word from another modern language, either in something like its original form, as with knout (Russian), khaki (Hindustani), or corrupted, as with crawfish (Old French crevice), dunk (German tunken). Most often, we pile the new meaning on some unfortunate existing English word, which thereafter does double, triple, etc., duty. Thus short has acquired the meanings of a short circuit, a short story, a short movie such as newsreel, a short shot in artillery fire, a type of defect in iron castings, etc. Next to p.r.o.nunciation changes, vocabulary changes will be the most baffling of our hero's troubles with Twenty-Fifth Century English. Perhaps he'd better take a course in sketching before starting his time journey: when words, both spoken and written, fail, he can fall back on pictures!

Words also become obsolete and disappear. Sometimes we adopt another way of saying the same thing, because of convenience, fads, or reasons unknown. Where we once said "I height Brown," we now say "I am called Brown" or "My name is Brown." (Germans still say "Ich heisse Braun.") The old second-person singular p.r.o.noun thou has become obsolete, the plural you being used instead.

Again, words may disappear because the things they refer to disappear. Thus hacqueton is obsolete, because n.o.body has used a hacqueton (a padded s.h.i.+rt worn under armor) for some centuries. Buggy and frigate, to name a couple, will probably follow hacqueton in all vocabularies save those of historians and specialists, unless"somebody finds new meanings for them. Thus clipper has been saved by a transfer of its meaning to a modern object.

It's not strictly correct to say that today's slang is tomorrow's standard English, if we can judge from history. Of our vast "floating population" of slang terms, only the most useful few (like mob, originally a slang word) will be admitted to the company of words used in serious speech and writing. Our hero will find that most of the slang of his time has gone without a trace, and that the people of 2438 have a whole new set of slang terms wherewith to bewilder him. (I'm reminded of a time I had occasion to explain to a South African that by "the grub is fierce" I meant, not "the larva is ferocious," but "the food is unpalatable.") Let's suppose that our hero has been let out of the psychopathic ward, and has convinced the authorities of his true origin. He's turned over to a local savant who is to act as his guide and interpreter. This time we'll concentrate on changes in vocabulary and idiom.

Savant: Morning, Mr. Jones. I'm Einstein Mobray, who is to symbiose you for a few days until you hoylize yourself.

Hero: i'm sorry-you're going to what me until I what myself?

Mobray: I mean, you're going to reside with me until you adapt yourself. "Symbiose" is from "symbiosis," meaning "living together"; "hoylize" is from "Hoyle," as in the old term "according to Hoyle," "in conformity with the prevailing rules." I'll try to avoid terms like that. I have a surprise for you: another man from the Early Industrial Period-about i6oo. Ah, here he is- Come in, G.o.dwin. This is Morgan Jones, who I was telling you of. Mr. Jones, G.o.dwin Hill.

Hill: Verily, 'tis a great pleasure, Sir.

Mobray: Mr. Hill haved a most markworthy accident, whichby he was preserved from his time to ourn. He'll tell you of it, some day.

Hill:Faith, when I awoke I thought I had truly gone mad. And when they told me the date, I said, "Faugh! 'Tis a likely tale!" But they were right, it seems. Pray, how goes your trouble with authority, Einstein?

Mobray:The cachet's still good, but I'll get up with the narrs yet. What happened, Mr. Jones, was that I was gulling my belcher- Hero:Your what?

Mobray:Oh very well, my aerial vehicle propelled by expanding ga.s.ses, like a rocket. I was coasting it, and getted into the wrong layer, and they redded me down. The cachet means an upcough and thirty days' hanging.

Hill:'Sblood, do they hang you for that?

Mobray:Not me, my silk. I mean, my operating permit will be suspended for thirty days, and I'll have to pay a fine. But I hope to get up with them.

Hero:You'll get up with them? Do you mean you'll arise at the same time they do?

Mobray:No, no, no! I mean I expect to exert influence to have the cachet rubbered.

Hill:You-your???

Mobray:I mean, to have the summons cancelled.

Hero:Oh, I see! Just like fixing a ticket!

Hill:'What, Mr. Jones? Does that not mean "attaching an admission card"?

Mobray:I'd never neured that he meant, "repairing a public conveyance." What did you mean, Mr. Jones?

Hero:Well, in my time, when a cop pinched you- Mobray:(dials the portable telephone on his wrist) Quick, send up six dictionaries and a box of aspirin!

Hill:Aspirin? You mean "aspen"? There grows a tree by that name- (CURTAIN)

Bibliography

Kenyon, American p.r.o.nunciation. (The best for beginners.) Moore, Historical Outlines of English Phonology and Morphology.

Stanley, The Speech of East Texas.

Ward, The Phonetics of English. (British dialects.) James, Historical Introduction to French Phonetics.

Greenough & Kittredge, Words and Their Ways in English Speech.

Mencken, The American Language.

Bloomfield, Language.

Fowler, Modern English Usage.

Columbia University Press, American Speech. (Periodical) Columbia University Press, Phonetic Transcriptions.

Webster's New International Dictionary, 2nd Edition.

THE COMMAND.

Jom~wy BLACK took Volume ~ of the Britannica off the library shelf and opened it to "Chemistry." He adjusted the elastic that held his spectacles and found the place where he had left off last time. He worried his way through a few sentences, and then thought sadly that it was no use; he'd have to get Professor Methuen to explain some more before he could go on. And he did badly want to know all about chemistry, which had made him what he was-had made it possible for him to read an encyclopedia at all. For Johnny Black was not human.

He was, instead, a fine specimen of black bear, Euarctos amenca.n.u.s, into whose brain Methuen had injected, a chemical that lowered the resistance of the synapses between his brain cells, making that complicated electrical process called "thought" about as easy for Johnny's little brain as for a man's big one. And Johnny, whose ruling pa.s.sion was curiosity, was determined to find out all about the process.

He turned the pages carefully with his paw-he'd tried using his tongue once, but had cut it on the paper, and then Methuen had come in and given him h.e.l.l for wetting the pages-the more so, since Johnny was at that moment indulging in his secret vice, and the Professor had visions of Johnny's drooling tobacco juice over his expensive books.

Johnny read the articles on "Chess" and "Chicago." His thirst for knowledge satisfied for the nonce, he put the book away, stowed his spectacles in the case attached to his collar, and ambled out.

Outside, the island of St. Croix sweltered under a Caribbean sun. The blueness of the sky and the greenness of the hills were lost on Johnny, who, like all bears, was colorblind. But he wished that his bear's eyesight were keen enough to make out the boats in Frederiksted harbor. Professor Methuen could see them easily from the Biological Station, even without his gla.s.ses. His eyesight, together with his lack of fingers to manipulate, and articulatable vocal organs to speak, were Johnny's chief grievances against things in general. He sometimes wished that, if he had to be an animal with a hominoid brain, he were at least an ape-like McGinty, the chimpanzee, over there in the cages.

Johnny wondered about McGinty-he hadn't heard a peep out of him all morning, whereas it was usually the old ape's habit to shriek and throw things at everybody who went by. Curious, the bear shuffled across to the cages. The monkeys chattered at him, as usual, but no sound came from McGinty's cage. Standing up, Johnny saw that the chimp was sitting with his back to the wall and staring blankly. Johnny wondered whether he was dead, until he noticed that McGinty was breathing. Johnny tried growling a little; the ape's eyes swung at the sound, and his limbs stirred, but he did not get up. He must be pretty sick, thought Johnny, who wondered whether he should try to drag one of the scientists over. But then his rather selfcentered little soul comforted itself with the thought that Pablo would be around shortly with the ape's dinner, and would report McGinty's behavior.

Thinking of dinner reminded Johnny that it was high time he heard Honoria's bell to summon the biologists of the Station to lunch. But no bell came. The place seemed unnaturally quiet. The only sounds were those from the bird and monkey cages, and the put-put-put of a stationary engine from Bemis' place, over on the edge of the Station grounds. Johnny wondered what the eccentric botanist was up to. He knew that the other biologists didn't like Bemis; he'd heard Methuen make remarks about men-especially little plump men-who swaggered around in riding boots when there wasn't a horse near the Station. Bemis really didn't belong to the Station, but his financial inducements had led the treasurer to let him put up his house and laboratory there. With Johnny, to wonder was to investigate and he almost started for the place, but remembered the fuss Bemis had made last time.

Well, he could still investigate the reason for Honoria's delinquency. He trotted over to the kitchen and put his yellowish muzzle in the door. He didn't go farther, remembering the cook's unreasonable att.i.tude toward bears in her kitchen. There was a smell of burning food, and on a chair by the window sat Honoria, black and mountainous as ever, looking at nothing. A slight "woof!" from Johnny brought no more reaction than he had gotten from McGinty.

This was definitely alarming. Johnny set out to find Methuen. The Professor wasn't in the social room, but others were. Dr. Breuker, world-famous authority on the psychology of speech, sat in one easy chair, a newspaper across his lap. He didn't move when Johnny sniffed at his leg, and when the bear nipped his ankle he merely pulled the leg back a little. He had dropped a lighted cigarette on the rug, where it had burned a large hole before going out. Doctors Markush and Ryerson, and Ryerson's wife, were there too-all sitting like so many statues. Mrs. Ryerson held a phonograph record- probably one of those dance tunes she liked.

Johnny hunted some more for his lord, and eventually found the lanky Methuen, clad in underwear, lying on his bed and staring at the ceiling. He didn't look sick-his breathing was regular-but he didn't move unless prodded or nipped. Johnny's efforts to arouse him finally caused him to get off the bed and wander dreamily across the room, where he sat down and gazed into s.p.a.ce.

An hour later Johnny gave up trying to get sensible action out of the a.s.sorted scientists of the Biological Station, and went outside to think. He ordinarily enjoyed thinking, but this time there didn't seem to be enough facts to go on. 'What ought he to do? He could take the telephone off its stand, but he couldn't talk into it to call a physician. If he went down to Frederiksted to drag one up by main force, he'd probably get shot for his pains.

Happening to glance toward Bemis', he was surprised to see something round rise into the sky, slowly dwindle, and vanish in the sky. From his reading he guessed that this was a small balloon; he'd heard that Bemis was doing some sort of botanical experiment that involved the use of balloons. Another sphere followed the first, and then another, until they made a continuous procession dwindling into nothingness.

That was too much for Johnny; he had to find out why anyone should want to fill the heavens with balloons a yard in diameter. Besides, he might be able to get Bemis to come over to the Station and see about the entranced staff.

To one side of the Bemis house he found a truck, a lot of machinery, and two strange men. There was a huge pile of unfilled balloons, and the men were taking them one at a time, inflating them from a nozzle projecting from the machinery, and releasing them. To the bottom of each balloon a small box was attached.

One man saw Johnny, said "Cheez!" and felt for his pistol holster. Johnny stood up and gravely extended his right paw. He'd found that this was a good gesture to rea.s.sure people who were alarmed by his sudden appearance-not because Johnny cared whether they were alarmed, but because they sometimes carried guns and were dangerous if cornered or surprised.

The man shouted, "Get otta deh, youse!"

Johnny, puzzled, opened his mouth and said, "Wok?" His friends knew that this meant "What did you say?" or "What's going on here?" But the man, instead of sensibly explaining things, jerked out his pistol and fired.

Johnny felt a stunning blow and saw sparks as the .38 slug glanced off his thick skull. The next instant, the gravel of the driveway flew as he streaked for the gate. He could make ~ ~ m.p.h. in a sprint and 30 for miles at a time, and now he was going all out Back at the station, he found a bathroom mirror and inspected the two-inch gash in his forehead. It wasn't a serious wound, though the impact had given him a slight headache. He couldn't bandage it. But he could and did turn on the faucet and hold his head under it, mop the wound with a towel, take down the iodine bottle, extract the stopper with his teeth, and, holding the bottle between his paws, pour a few drops on the wound. The sting made him wince and spill some of the solution on the floor, where, he reflected, Methuen would find it and give him h.e.l.l.

Then he went out, keeping a watchful eye for the tough individuals at Bemis', and thought some more. Somehow, he suspected, these men, the balloons, and the trancelike state of the people at the Station were all connected. Had Bemis gone into a trance too? Or was he the real author of these developments? Johnny would have liked to investigate some more, but he had the strongest aversion to being shot at.

It occurred to him that if he wanted to take advantage of the scientists' malady he'd better do so while the doing was good, and he made for the kitchen. There he had a glorious time, for he had five effective natural can openers on each foot. He was pouring the contents of a can of peaches down his throat, when a noise outside brought him to the window. He saw the truck that had been at Bemis' back up and the two tough individuals get out. Johnny slipped noiselessly into the dining room and listened through the door, tensing himself to bolt if the intruders came his way.

He heard the outside kitchen door slam and the voice of the man who had shot him: "What's ya name, huh?"

The inert Honoria, still sitting in her chair, answered tonelessly, "Honoria Velez."