The Project Gutenberg EBook of English as she is spoke, by José da Fonseca and Pedro Carolino

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Title: English as she is spoke or, A jest in sober earnest

Author: José da Fonseca
        Pedro Carolino

Release Date: November 7, 2009 [EBook #30411]

Language: English

*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK ENGLISH AS SHE IS SPOKE ***

Produced by Doran Gaston

  English
  As She is Spoke:

or

A Jest in Sober Earnest.

No. I.

The Parchment Paper Series.

English As She is Spoke.

"EXCRUCIATINGLY FUNNY," says The World, is "English as she is
Spoke, or a Jest in Sober thought."

—

"EVERY one who loves a laugh," says Fun, "should either buy, beg, borrow, or—we had almost said steal—this book; for in sober earnest we aver that it is not given to every one to 'jest so.'"

  English
  As She is Spoke:

or

A Jest in Sober Earnest.

With an Introduction by

JAMES MILLINGTON.

***

New York: D. Appleton & Co., 1, 3, & 5 Bond Street.

1884.

* Introduction *

**

FROM the time of Shakspere downwards, wits and authors innumerable have made themselves and the public more or less merry at the expense of the earlier efforts of the student of a strange tongue; but it has been reserved to our own time for a soi disant instructor to perpetrate—at his own expense—the monstrous joke of publishing a Guide to Conversation in a language of which it is only too evident that every word is utterly strange to him. The Teutonic sage who evolved the ideal portrait of an elephant from his "inner consciousness" was a commonplace, matter-of fact person compared with the daring visionary who conjures up a complete system of language from the same fertile but untrustworthy source. The piquancy of Senhor Pedro Carolino's New Guide of the Conversation in Portuguese and English is enhanced by the evident bona fides and careful compilation of "the little book," or as Pedro himself gravely expresses it, "for the care what we wrote him, and for her typographical correction."

In short, the New Guide of the Conversation in Portuguese and English was written with serious intent, and for the purpose of initiating Portuguese students into the mysteries of the English language. The earlier portions of the book are divided into three columns, the first giving the Portuguese; the second what, in the opinion of the author, is the English equivalent; and the third the English equivalent phonetically spelt, so that the tyro may at the same time master our barbarous phraseology and the pronunciation thereof. In the second part of the work the learner is supposed to have sufficiently mastered the pronunciation of the English language, to be left to his own devices.

A little consideration of the shaping of our author's English phrases leads to the conclusion that the materials used have been a Portuguese-French phrase-book and a French-English dictionary. With these slight impedimenta has the daring Lusitanian ventured upon the unknown deep of a strange language, and the result, to quote again from the Preface, "May be worth the acceptation of the studious persons, and especially of the Youth, at which we dedicate him particularly," but will at all events contribute not a little to the Youth's hilarity.

To begin with the vocabulary; it is perhaps hardly fair to expect a professor of languages to trouble himself with "Degrees of Kindred," still, such titles as "Gossip mistress, a relation, an relation, a guardian, an guardian, the quatergrandfather, the quater-grandmother," require some slight elucidation, and passing over the catalogue of articles of dress which are denominated "Objects of Man" and "Woman Objects," one may take exception to "crumbs" and "groceries," which are inserted among plates and cruets as ordinary table garniture.

Among what are denominated "Eatings" we find "some wigs," "a dainty dishes," "a mutton shoulder," "a little mine," "hog-fat," and "an amelet": the menu is scarcely appetising, especially when among "Fishes and Shellfishes" our Portuguese Lucullus sets down the "hedgehog," "snail," and "wolf." After this such trifles as "starch" arranged under the heading of "Metals and Minerals," and "brick" and "whitelead" under that of "Common Stones" fall almost flat; but one would like to be initiated into the mysteries of "gleek," "carousal," and "keel," which are gravely asserted to be "Games." Among "Chivalry Orders" one has a glimmering of what is intended by "Saint Michaelmas" and "Very-Merit"; but under the heading of "Degrees," although by a slight exercise of the imagination we can picture to ourselves "a quater master," "a general to galeries," or even a "vessel captain," we are entirely nonplussed by "a harbinger" and "a parapet."

Passing on to "Familiar Phrases," most of which appear to be old friends with new faces, Senhor Carolino's literal cribs from the French become more and more apparent, in spite of his boast in the Preface of being "clean of gallicisms and despoiled phrases." "Apply you at the study during that you are young" is doubtless an excellent precept, and as he remarks further on "How do you can it to deny"; but study may be misdirected, and in the moral, no less than in the material world, it is useful to know. "That are the dishes whom you must be and to abstain"; while the meaning of "This girl have a beauty edge" is scarcely clear unless it relates to the preternatural acuteness of the fair sex in these days of board schools and woman's rights.

Further on the conversationalist appears to get into rough company, and we find him remarking "He laughs at my nose, he jest by me," gallicé "Il me rit au nez, il se moque de moi"; "He has me take out my hairs," "He does me some kicks," "He has scratch the face with hers nails," all doubtless painfully translated with the assistance of a French-English dictionary from "Il m'a arraché les cheveux," "Il me donne des coups-de-pied," "Il m'a lacere la figure de ses ongles." It is noticeable that our instructor as a rule endeavours to make the possessive pronoun agree with the substantive in number and gender in orthodox Portuguese fashion, and that like a true grammatical patriot he insists upon the substantive having the same gender as in his native tongue; therefore "às unhas" must be rendered "hers nails" and "vóssas civilidádes" "yours civilities." By this time no one will be disposed to contradict our inimitable Pedro when he remarks "E factéo" giving the translation as "He has the word for to laugh," a construction bearing a suspicious resemblance to "Il a le mot pour rire." "He do the devil at four" has no reference to an artful scheme for circumventing the Archfiend at a stated hour, but is merely a simulacrum of the well-known gallic idiomatic expression "Il fait le diable à quatre." Truly this is excellent fooling; Punch in his wildest humour, backed by the whole colony of Leicester Square, could not produce