The English Of The English

One or tlie first sermons the specta.or heard on landing in England was ?reached in Westminster Abb8y. Tho mpressiveness of the Abbey service is, oy the way, somewhat marred by tho aianner in which the crowd "crowda" -he monuments, the women sitting on he pedestals and the men aanging their .ïats on the arms or any other projoc:ions in sight. The preacher that evenmg was the Very Rev. Dean of Ely. rie gave an excellent sermón on certain problema of modern thought, but all :he way through he pronounced evolu-ion "e"-volution. Tho next evening :he spectator was the guest of a wellknown London journalist, a gradúate }f Cambridge, who also used the word ivolution, pronouncing it also "e"-volulion. So odd a pronunciation might be set down, in the case of a Church of Cngland clergyman, as one of those pulpit peculiarities or affectations - at least so they sound - which t'nose unaccusiomed to them cannot escape noticing. rhis theory can hardly be stretched to apply to a layman, and a newspaper man at that, and so the spectator asked liis host if "e"-volution was the ordiaary English pronunciation. The latter replied that he had never heard any other. The spectator thought he had discovered a new Americanism. Conulting various dictionaries on hls return, the spectator changed his mind. Not one of them gave "e"-volution a3 sven a possible or altérnate pronunciación, not the Century, nor the Standard, nor even Stormonth. Indeed, the last authority went so far the other way as to give ev-olve as the proper pronunciation of evolve. The spectator was thus driven to the conclusión that the English are more independent of dictionaries than the Americana are not constantiy "looking up words" as we are here.and accept the ordinary usage of the people with whom they associatea as authoritative, which would be a typical British way of settling almost any question. An amusing bit of art slang came to the spectator's attention - was,. In fact, thrust upon him- at this year's exhibit of the Royal Academy. The one comment (whether of admirationf or surprise) was the invviabie phrasg, "How very extr'ord'n'ry!" This jafs ,jj applied indiscriminately to anynd %Ê every picture, írom a bit of réalistic flesh painting- usually, in Pnris and London alike, the back of soir.e recllnlng woman with the reddish hair, which must be the latest fad with the realists - to one of Sargent's portraits, or a wonderful setting of many figures, such as Alma-Tadema's "Spring." It was extraordinary how tiresome the constant repetition of that phraso became after a single day at the Academy. But It was at the Royal Mews, the stablea of Buckingham Palace, that the spectator had impressed Uimi him how much importance attaches to a proper discrimination in the use of English. The groom In attendance was a most impressive person, so very impressive from his cockade to his boots as to satisfy completely one's ideal of statellness in even an humbler royal flunkey. And he "lived up" to his livery. His manner was dignity itself. Referring to the parade at Hyde Park the day before, at which the spectator had bten present, he asked the groom wiisther any royalties had been "out ritfing" there that afternoon. "Oh, no, sir," replied that functionary, v.lth freezing sarcasm; "their Royal Highnessss and the ladies and gentlemen of the court 'ride' in the morning. They 'drive' In the afternoon." There may have been previous occasions in the spactator's experience when he was equally crushed by the sense of having used the wrong word in the presence of a critlcal authority; but he failed to recall them theo, and he has failed to recall thsm since.