As A c******n Saw Us

Chapter 8

PECULIARITIES AND MANNERISMS

One finds it difficult to learn the language fluently because of a peculiar second language called "slang," which is in use even among the fashionable classes. I despair of conveying any clear idea of it, as we have no exact equivalent. As near as I can judge, it is first composed by professional actors on the stage. Some funny remark being constantly repeated, as a part of a taking song, becomes slang, conveying a certain meaning, and is at once adopted by the people, especially by a class who pose as leaders in all towns, but who are not exactly the best, but charming imitations of the best, we may say. To illustrate this "jargon," I took a drive with a young lady at Manchester--a seaside resort. Her father was a man of good family, an official, and she was an attendant at a fashionable school. The following occurred in the conversation. Her slang is italicized:

Heathen Chinee: "It is very dull this week, Miss ----."

Young lady, sententiously: "Bum."

Heathen Chinee: "I hope it will be less bum soon."

Young lady: "It's all off with me all right, if it don't change soon, and don't you forget it!"

Heathen Chinee: "I wish I could do something."

Young lady: "Well, you'll have to get a move on you, as I go back to school to-morrow; then there'll be something doing."

Heathen Chinee: "Have you seen ---- lately?"

Young lady: "Yes, and isn't he a peach? Ah, he's a peacharina, and don't you forget it!"

Young lady (passing a friend): "Ah, there! why so toppy? Nay, nay, Pauline," this in reply to remarks from a friend; then turning to me, "Isn't she a jim dandy? Say, have you any girls in China that can top her?"

These are only a few of the slang expressions which occur to me. They are countless and endless. Such a girl in meeting a friend, instead of saying good-morning, says, "Ah, there," which is the slang for this salutation. If she wished to express a difference of opinion with you she would say, "Oh, come off." This girl would probably outgrow this if she moved in the very best circle, but the shop-girl of a common type lives in a whirl of slang; it becomes second nature, while the young men of all classes seem to use nothing else, and we often see the jargon of the lowest class used by some of the best people. There has been compiled a dictionary of slang; books are written on it, and an adept, say a "rough" or "hoodlum," it is said can carry on a conversation with nothing else. Thus, "Hi, cully, what's on?" to which comes in answer, "Hunki dori." All this means that a man has said, "How do you do, how are you, and what are you doing?" and thus learned in reply that everything is all right. A number of gentlemen were posing for a lady before a camera. "Have you finished?" asked one. "Yes, it's all off," was the reply, "and a peach, I think." It is unnecessary to say that among really refined people this slang is never heard, and would be considered a gross solecism, which gives me an opportunity to repeat that the really cultivated Americans, and they are many, are among the most delightful and charming of people.

They have strange habits, these Americans. The men chew tobacco, especially in the South, and in Virginia I have seen men spitting five or six feet, evidently taking pride in their skill in striking a "cuspidore." In every hotel, office, or public place are cuspidores--which become targets for these chewers. This is a national habit, extraordinary in so enlightened a people. So ridiculous has it made the Americans, so much has been written about it by such visitors as Charles Dickens, that the State governments have determined to take up the "spitting" question, and now there is a fine of from $10 to $100 for any one spitting in a car or on a hotel floor. Nearly all the "up-to-date" towns have passed anti-spitting laws. Up to this time, or even during my college days in America, this habit made walking on the sidewalk a most disagreeable function, and the interior of cars was a horror. Is not this remarkable in a people who claim so much? In the South certain white men and women chew snuff--a gross habit.

In the North they also have a strange custom, called chewing gum. This gum is the exudation from certain trees, and is manufactured into plates and sold in an attractive form, merely to chew like tobacco, and young and old may be seen chewing with great velocity. The children forget themselves and chew with great force, their jaws working like those of a cow chewing her cud, only more rapidly; and to see a party of three or four chewing frantically is one of the "sights" in America, which astonishes the Heathen Chinee and convinces him that, in the slang of the country, "there are others" who are peculiar. There are many manufactories of this stuff, which is harmless, though such constant chewing can but affect the size of the muscles of the jaw if the theory of evolution is to be believed; at least there will be no atrophy of these parts.

In New England, the northeastern portion of the country, this habit appeared to be more prevalent, and I asked several scientific persons if they had made any attempt to trace the history of the habit or to find anything to attribute it to. One learned man told me that he had made a special study of the habit, and believed that it was merely the modern expression in human beings of the cud chewing of ruminating mammals, as cows, goats, etc. In a word, the gum-chewing Americans are trying to chew their cud as did their ancestors. Any habit like this is seized upon by manufacturers for their personal profit, and every expedient is employed to induce people to chew. The gum is mixed with perfumes, and sold as a breath purifier; others mix it with pepsin, to aid the digestion; some with something else, which is sold on ships and excursion-boats as a cure or preventive for seasickness, all of which finds a large sale among the credulous Americans, who by a clever leader can be made to take up any fad or habit.

The Americans have a peculiar habit of "treating"; that is, one of a party will "treat" or buy a certain article and distribute it gratuitously to one or ten people. A young lady may treat her friends to gum, ice-cream, soda-water, or to a theater party. A matron may treat her friends to "high-balls" or cocktails at the club. The man confines his "treats" to drinks and cigars. Thus five or six Americans may meet in a club or barroom for the sale of liquors. One says, "Come up and have something;" or "What will you have, gentlemen; this is on me;" or in some places the treater says, "Let's liquor," and all step up, the drinks are dispensed, and the treater pays. You might suppose that he was deserving of some encomium, but not at all; he expects that the others will take their turn in treating, or at least this is the assumption; and if the party is engaged in social conversation each in turn will "treat," the others taking what they wish to drink or smoke. There is a code of etiquette regarding the treat. Thus, unless you are invited, it would be bad form among gentlemen to order wine when invited to drink unless the "treater" asks you to have wine; he means a drink of whisky, brandy, or a mixed drink, or you may take soda or a cigar, or you may refuse. It is a gross solecism to accept a cigar and put it in your pocket; you should not take it unless you smoke it on the spot.

Drinking to excess is frowned upon by all classes, and a drunkard is avoided and despised; but the amount an American will drink in a day is astonishing. A really delightful man told me that he did not drink much, and this was his daily experience: before breakfast a champagne cocktail; two or three drinks during the forenoon; a pint of white or red wine at lunch; two or three cocktails in the afternoon; a cocktail at dinner, with two glasses of wine; and in the evening at the club several drinks before bedtime! This man was never drunk, and never appeared to be under the influence of liquor, yet he was in reality never actually sober; and he is a type of a large number in the great cities who constitute what is termed the "man about town."

The Americans are not a wine-drinking people. Whisky, and of a very excellent quality, is the national drink, while vast quantities of beer are consumed, though they make the finest red and white wines. All the grog-shops are licensed by the Government and State--that is, made to pay a tax; but in the country there is a political party, the Prohibitionists, who would drive out all wine and liquor. These, working with the conservative people, often succeed in preventing saloons from opening in certain towns; but in large cities there are from one to two saloons to the block in the districts where they are allowed.

Taking everything into consideration, I think the Americans a temperate people. They organize in a thousand directions to fight drinking and other vices, and millions of dollars are expended yearly in this direction. A peculiar quality about the American humor is that they joke about the most serious things. In fact, drink and drinking afford thousands of stories, the point of which is often very obscure to an alien. Here is one, told to illustrate the cleverness of a drinker. He walked into a bar and ordered a "tin-roof cocktail." The barkeeper was nonplussed, and asked what a tin-roof cocktail was. "Why, it's on the house." I leave you to figure it out, but the barkeeper paid the bill. The ingenuity of the Americans is shown in their mixed drinks. They have cocktails, high-balls, ponies, straights, fizzes, and many other drinks. Books are written on the subject. I have seen a book devoted entirely to cocktails. Certain papers offer prizes for the invention of new drinks. I have told you that, all in all, America is a temperate country, especially when its composite character is considered; yet if the nation has a curse, a great moral drawback, it is the habit of drinking at the public bar.