Authors: Bill Bryson
We in the English-speaking world have often been highly com-placent in expecting others to learn English without our making anything like the same effort in return. As of 1986, the number of American students studying Russian was 25,00o. The number of Russian students studying English was four million—giving a ratio of 160 to one in the Soviet's favor. In 1986, the Munich newspaper
Siiddeutsche
Zeitung investigated the studying of German as a foreign language around the world. In the United States, the num- ENGLISH AS A WORLD LANGUAGE
ber of college students taking a German course was 120,000, down from 216,000 in 1966. In the Soviet Union, the number was nine million. The problem is unlikely to get better. Between 1966 and 1986, 15o American colleges and universities canceled their Ger-man programs. In 1989, some 77 percent of all new college grad-uates had taken no foreign language courses.
A presidential commission under Ronald Reagan called the sit-uation scandalous. In 1987, in an effort to redress the balance Congress voted into law the Education for Economic Security Act, which provided an extra $2.45 million to promote the study of foreign languages—or a little over one cent per person in the coun-try. That should really turn the tables. There is evidence to suggest that some members of Congress aren't fully sympathetic with the necessity for a commercial nation to be multilingual. As one con-gressman quite seriously told Dr. David Edwards, head of the Joint National Committee on Languages, "If English was good enough for Jesus Christ, it's good enough for me," [Quoted in the
Guardian,
April 30, 1988]
Not only are we not doing terribly well at foreign languages, we're not even doing terribly well at English. The problem was well voiced by Professor Randolph Quirk, president of the British Academy and one of that country's leading linguistic scholars, when he wrote: "It would be ironic indeed if the millions of children in Germany, Japan and China who are diligently learning the lan-guage of Shakespeare and Eliot took more care in their use of English and showed more pride in their achievement than those for whom it is the native tongue."
We might sometimes wonder if we are the most responsible custodians of our own tongue, especially when we reflect that the Oxford University Press sells as many copies of the
Oxford English
Dictionary
in Japan as it does in America, and a third more than in Britain.
13.
NAMES
THE ENGLISH, IT HAS ALWAYS SEEMED
to me, have a certain genius for names. A glance through the British edition of
Who's Who
throws up a roll call that sounds disarmingly like the characters in a P. G. Wodehouse novel: Lord Fraser of Tullybelton, Captain Allwyne Arthur Compton Farqua-harson of Invercauld, Professor Valentine Mayneord, Sir Helenus Milmo, Lord Keith of Kinkel. Many British appellations are of truly heroic proportions, like that of the World War I admiral named Sir Reginald Aylmer Ranfulry Plunkett-Ernel-Erle-Drax.
The best ones go in for a kind of gloriously silly redundancy toward the end, as with Sir Humphrey Dodington Benedict Sher-ston Sherston-Baker and the truly unbeatable Leone Sextus Denys Oswolf Fraduati Tollemache-Tollemache-de Orellana-Plantagenet- Tollemache-Tollemache, a British army major who died in World War I. The leading explorer in Britain today is Sir Ranulph Twisleton-Wykeham-Fiennes. Somewhere in Britain to this day there is an old family rejoicing in the name MacGillesheatheanaich.
In the realms of nomenclature clearly we are dealing here with giants.
Often, presumably for reasons of private amusement, the British pronounce their names in ways that bear almost no resemblance to their spelling. Leveson-Gower is "looson gore," Marjoribanks is
"marchbanks," Hiscox is "hizzko," Howick is "hoyk," Ruthven is
"rivven," Zuill is "yull," Menzies is mingiss." They find particular pleasure in taking old Norman names and mashing them around until they become something altogether unique, so that Beaulieu becomes "bewley," Beauchamp turns into "beecham," Prideaux
NAMES
into "pridducks," Devereux to "devrooks," Cambois to "cammiss,"
Hautbois to "hobbiss," Belvoir somehow becomes "beaver," and Beaudesert turns, unfathomably, into "belzer."
They can perform this trick with even the simplest names, turn-ing Sinclair into "sinkler," Blackley into "blakely," Blount into
"blunt," Bethune into "beeton," Cockburn into "coburn," Coke into "cook." Lord Home becomes "lord hume," the novelist Anthony Powell becomes "pole," P. G. Wodehouse becomes
"woodhouse," the poet William Cowper becomes "cooper."
Caius College, Cambridge, is "keys," while Magdalen College, Oxford, and Magdalene College, Cambridge, are both pronounced
"mawdlin."
I could go on and on. In fact, I think I will. Viscount Althorp pronounces his name "awltrop," while the rather more sensible people of Althorp, the Northamptonshire village next to the vis-count's ancestral home, say "all-thorp." The Scottish town of Auch-inleck is pronounced "ock-in-leck," but the local baron, Lord Boswell of Auchinleck, pronounces it "affleck." There are two Bar-ons Dalziel. One pronounces it "dalzeel," the other "dee-ell." The family name Ridealgh can be pronounced "ridalj" or "riddi-alsh."
Some members of the Pepys family pronounce it "peeps" as the great diarist Samuel Pepys did, but others say "peppiss" and still others say "pips." The family name Hesmondhalgh can be "hez-mondhaw," "hezmondhalsh," or "hezmondhawltch." The surname generally said to have the most pronunciations is Featherstone-haugh, which can be pronounced in any of five ways: "feather-stun-haw," "feerston-shaw," "feston-haw," "feeson-hay," or (for those in a hurry) "fan-shaw." But in fact there are two other names with five pronunciations: Coughtrey, which can be "kotry," "kaw-try," "kowtry," "kootry," and "kofftry," and Wriotheseley, which can be "rottsly," "rittsly," "rizzli," "rithly," or "wriotheslee."
The problem is so extensive, and the possibility of gaffes so omnipresent, that the BBC employs an entire pronunciation unit, a small group of dedicated orthoepists (professional pronouncers) who spend their working lives getting to grips with these illogical pronunciations so that broadcasters don't have to do it on the air.
In short, there is scarcely an area of name giving in which the
THE MOTHER TONGUE
British don't show a kind of wayward genius. Take street names.
Just in the City of London, an area of one square mile, you can find Pope's Head Alley, Mincing Lane, Garlick Hill, Crutched Friars, Threadneedle Street, Bleeding Heart Yard, Seething Lane. In the same compact area you can find churches named St. Giles Crip-plegate, St. Sepulchre Without Newgate, All Hallows Barking, and the practically unbeatable St. Andrews-by-the-Wardrobe. But those are just their everyday names: Oftentimes the full, official titles are even more breathtaking, as with The Lord Mayor's Parish Church of St. Stephen Walbrook and St. Swithin Londonstone, St.
Benet Sheerhogg and St. Mary Bothall with St. Laurence Pount-ney, which is, for all that, just one church.
Equally arresting are British pub names. Other people are con-tent to dub their drinking establishment with pedestrian names like Harry's Bar and the Greenwood Lounge. But a Briton, when he wants to sup ale, must find his way to the Dog and Duck, the Goose and Firkin, the Flying Spoon, or the Spotted Dog. The names of Britain's 70,000 or so pubs cover a broad range, running from the inspired to the improbable, from the deft to the daft.
Almost any name will do so long as it is at least faintly absurd, unconnected with the name of the owner, and entirely lacking in any suggestion of drinking, conversing, and enjoying oneself. At a minimum the name should puzzle foreigners—this is a basic re-quirement of most British institutions—and ideally it should excite long and inconclusive debate, defy all logical explanation, and evoke images that border on the surreal. Among the pubs that meet, and indeed exceed, these exacting standards are the Frog and Nightgown, the Bull and Spectacles, the Flying Monk, and the Crab and Gumboil.
However unlikely a pub's name may sound, there is usually some explanation rooted in the depths of history. British inns were first given names in Roman times, 2., 000 years ago, but the present quirky system dates mostly from the Middle Ages, when it was deemed necessary to provide travelers, most of them illiterate, with some sort of instantly recognizable symbol.
The simplest approach, and often the most prudent, was to adopt a royal or aristocratic coat of arms. Thus a pub called the White
NAMES
Hart indicates ancient loyalty to Richard II (whose decree it was, incidentally, that all inns should carry signs), while an Eagle and Child denotes allegiance to the Earls of Derby and a Royal Oak commemorates Charles II, who was forced to hide in an oak tree after being defeated by Cromwell during the English Civil War. (If you look carefully at the pub sign, you can usually see the monarch hiding somewhere in the branches.) The one obvious shortcoming of such a system was that names had to be hastily changed every time a monarch was toppled. Occasionally luck would favor the publicans, as when Richard
III
(symbolized by a white boar) was succeeded by the Earl of Oxford (blue boar) and amends could be simply effected with a pot of paint. But pubkeepers quickly real-ized that a more cost-effective approach was to stick to generic names, which explains why there are so many pubs called the Queen's Head (about 300), King's Head ( 400), and Crown (the national champion at more than i,000).
Many pubs owe their names to popular sports (the Cricketers, the Fox and Hounds, the Cockpit), or to the workaday pursuits of the people who once drank in them. Pubs like the Plough, the Fleece, the Woo/pack, and the Shepherd's Rest were clearly de-signed for farmers and farmworkers. The Boot was for cobblers, the Anchor for sailors, and the Shoulder of Mutton for butchers. Not
all
references are so immediately evident. The Beetle and Wedge in Berkshire sounds hopelessly obscure until you realize that a beetle and wedge were basic tools of carpenters zoo years ago.
Many of the very oldest pub names represent religious themes—the Crossed Keys, the Seven Stars, the Hope and Anchor. The Lamb and Flag, a fairly common name in Britain still, was the symbol of the Knights Templar, who rode to the Crusades, and the Saracen's Head and Turk's Head commemorate their enemies'
fate. Still other pub names are built around catchphrases, homilies, puns, and bits of philosophy, or are simply of unknown prove-nance. Names such as the Tumbledown Dick, First and Last, Mor-tal Man, Romping Donkey, Ram Jam Inn, Live and Let Live, and Man with a Load of Mischief (the sign outside depicts a man with a woman slung over his shoulder) all fall resoundingly into this category.
THE MOTHER TONGUE
The picture is further clouded by the consideration that many pub names have been corrupted over the centuries. The Pig and Whistle is said to have its roots in peg (a drinking vessel) and wassail (a festive drink). The Goat and Compasses is sometimes said to come from "God Encompasseth Us." The Elephant and Castle, originally a pub and now a district of London, may have been the Infanta de Castille. The Old Bull and Bush, a famous pub on Hampstead Heath, is said to come from Boulogne Bouche and to commemorate a battle in France. Some of these derivations may be fanciful, but there is solid evidence to show that the Dog and Bacon was once the Dorking Beacon, that the Cat and Fiddle was once Caterine la Fidele (at least it is recorded as such in the Domesday Book), and that the Ostrich Inn in Buckinghamshire began life as the Hospice Inn.
All this is by way of introducing, in a decidedly roundabout manner, how we came to acquire our own names. The study of names is
onomastics.
For much of history, surnames, or last names, were not considered necessary. Two people named, say, Peter living in the same hamlet might adopt or be given second names to help distinguish them from each other—so that one might be called Peter White-Head and the other Peter Son of John (or Johnson)—but these additional names were seldom passed on. The business of acquiring surnames was a long one that evolved over centuries rather than years. As might be expected it began at the top of the social scale and worked its way down. In England last names did not become usual until after the Norman conquest, and in many other European countries, such as Holland, they evolved much later still. Most surnames come ultimately, if not always obviously, from one of four sources: place-names (e.g., Lincoln, Worthing-ton), nicknames (Whitehead, Armstrong), trade names (Smith, Carpenter), and patronymics, that is names indicating a familial relationship (Johnson, Robertson). In his lifetime a person might be known by a variety of names—for instance, as Peter the Butcher Who Lives by the Well at Putney Green or some such. This would eventually transmute into Peter Butcher or Peter Green or Peter Wells. Often in such cases the person would take his name from the figure on a nearby inn sign. In the Middle Ages, when the
NAMES
ability to read could scarcely be assumed, it was common for cer-tain types of businesses to have symbols outside their doors. The striped barber pole is a holdover from those days. A wine merchant would always have a bush by his front door. Hence his neighbor might end up being called George Bush.
Two events gave a boost to the adoption of surnames in England.
The first was the introduction of a poll tax in 1379, which led the government to collect the name of every person in the country aged sixteen or over, and the second was the enactment of the Statute of Additions in 1413, which required that all legal docu-ments contain not just the person's given name, but also his or her occupation and place of abode. These two pieces of medieval bu-reaucracy meant that virtually everyone had to settle on a definite and fixed surname.
It's surprising how many medieval occupations are embedded in modern family names. Some are obvious: Bowman, Archer, Car-penter, Shepherd, Forrester. But many others are not, either be-cause the craft has died or become rare, as with Fuller (a cleanser of cloths) and Fletcher (a maker of bows and arrows) or because the spelling has been corrupted in some way, as with Bateman (a corrupted form of boatman) or because the name uses a regional-ism, as with Akerman (a provincial word for a plowman). It mustn't be forgotten that this was a time of great flux in the English lan-guage, when many regional spellings and words were competing for dominance. Thus such names as Hill, Hall, and Hull could all originally have meant Hill but come from different parts of the country. Smith is the most common name in America and Britain, but it is also one of the most common in nearly every other Euro-pean language. The German Schmidt, the French Ferrier, Italian Ferraro, Spanish Herrero, Hungarian Kovacs, and Russian Kus-netzov are all Smiths.