Baltimore Evening Sun (19 June 1911): 6.

Results accomplished to date by the movement for vaccination against typhoid fever:

Why doesn’t some idle philologist write a treatise upon spoken American, for the information and entertainment of future generations? In all countries there is a tendency for the written and spoken languages to diverge, not only in vocabulary, but also in grammar. The schools, of course, all teach the written language, but that language is seldom spoken by the common people, nor even, for that matter, by the majority of persons of the upper castes. Whatever they are taught in school, children actually speak the language they hear at home. Not until a child gets beyond the sixth grade—a feat accomplished by not more than one child in 10—does the influence of the written language begin to show in its speech.

A year or so ago I called attention to certain peculiar rules governing the conjugation of American verbs. For example, here are the changes that the verb “to see” undergoes in the first person singular, indicative mood, first in written English and then in spoken American:

It was my hope, at the time, that other investigators, far better equipped for the task of reducing American grammar to rules, would undertake it, but, so far, that hope has been in vain. Why doesn’t some Johns Hopkins man leap into the breach? Certainly an exhaustive thesis upon the tongue spoken by fully 60,000,000 Americans would be worthy the reward of a doctorate.

The philologists, whenever they condescend to discuss our spoken tongue at all, commonly reveal their gross ignorance of it. For example, they announce the discovery, every now and then, that the vocabulary of the average American is limited to 500, 1,000 or 2,000 words. What could be more absurd? As a matter of fact, the average American’s stock of nouns alone probably exceeds 2,500, and he constantly uses at least 500 adjectives and 250 verbs. Most children of 6 years know more than 500 nouns. It you don’t believe it, make an experiment on your own infant, pointing to object after object and asking the child their names. It may pronounce many of those nouns incorrectly, but it knows their meanings and differentiates between them.

Even foreigners use much larger vocabularies than the pundits are disposed to allow them. I lately read the statement that the average Italian immigrant, after two years in this country, still staggered along with a vocabulary of but 200 words. It may be so, but I doubt it. No matter how stupid the foreigner may be, if he actually essays to make himself understood in English, he is bound to acquire nouns and adjectives rapidly—perhaps at the rate of 10 a day. In two years he should have at least 1,500.

But to get back to the difference between our book language and our common spoken language. That difference is not merely one of grammatical structure and inflection, but also one of pronunciation and meaning. Practically all words of recent foreign derivation, such as cafe, reservoir, boudoir, bouillon and lingerie, are pronounced differently by those who speak the precise book language and those who speak the common patois. And many words of identical pronunciation vary in meaning in the two tongues. There is, for example, the word clever. In the English taught in the schools it means accomplished, shrewd, adroit, efficient, while in the American spoken on the streets it means agreeable, polite, considerate, affable.

Why not investigate the whole subject? Why not study American as Scotch, Bayerisch, Neapolitan and other dialects have been studied? Why not plat its grammar and penetrate to the baffling secrets of its syntax?

A writer in one of the law journals makes the discovery that there is a legal curiosity on the statute books of Maryland. It is Chapter 95, Section 76 of the Acts of 1910, which relates to the care of fences in Calvert county, and contains the specific provision that a J. P., on hearing a case under it, shall “enter judgment in favor of the plaintiff.” In other words it is impossible for a defendant to win. The verdict must always go to the plaintiff.

Too bad! Too bad! But had the discoverer of that freak gone a bit further he would have found many brothers to it. For example, Chapter 16, Section 10 of the Acts of 1723, and Chapter 244 of the Acts of 1834.

Five good books to read this summer: “The World of Dreams,” by Havelock Ellis; “The Suffragette,” by E. Sylvia Pankhurst; “Love and Marriage,” by Ellen Key; “Three Plays by Brieux,” with an introduction of George Bernard Shaw, and “The Jew,” by Dr. M. Fishberg.

The Voice of the People, as a fragrant breeze from the harbor wafts it in:

If you don’t think Baltimore is full of bughouse people, just look at the crowds that goes to hear them grand operas. When Van Sickle is bounced they won’t learn the children no more foolishness no more. This town ought to hustle more harder, like those Western towns. You never hear of nothing ever happening here.

From persons who know the difference between “will” and “shall,” but don’t know the difference between a Manhattan and a Martini—kind fates, deliver us!

The following illuminating observations upon the law are attributed to the American Magazine by some anonymous lawyer:

A judge is a lawyer who has been promoted for inefficiency. No great lawyer ever thinks of going into court in these days. A man who really understands the meaning and uses of the law is as much bored by arguing a case before the ordinary judge as Paderewski would be by teaching the five-finger exercise to a blacksmith. A lawyer’s first business with the law is to find the hole in it. His second business is to remember where he found it. His third business is to pull somebody through it. When an enterprising man comes to me for advice, I tell him what he can do with safety, what he can do with risk, and what he can do with danger. If he is the right kind of man he does the dangerous thing—and comes to me again.