LET'S SPEAK ENGLISH:
Broadcast: Monday, August 7, 1939 at 9:00 PM

Tenth Talk of New Series - Vocabulary

I. The Army:
a) Recruit
b) Infantry
c) Marshal
d) Bugle
e) Alarm.

II. The Merchant Navy:
a) Skipper
b) Steward
c) Cargo.

III. How English: a) Nice
b) Fond
c) Silly
d) Quaint.

IV.Different Kinds of Chaps
a) Companion
b) Comrade
c) Chum
d) Cad
e) Cadet
f) Caddie
g) Blackguard.

V. Very Topical :
Umbrella

TRANSCRIPT: TENTH TALK - VOCABULARY

England is rearming so fast that the obvious thing for me to discuss first is the army.

When you join the army, you're a RECRUIT. The word 'recruit' comes from the French word for to grow again - recroitre. A recruit is thus someone who makes the army grow again.

In the old days when you used to join the army, you were sent either to the artillery or to the cavalry or to the infantry. The artillery are gunners : the cavalry are horse soldiers and the infantry are foot soldiers. You might think that the word INFANTRY had somethings to do with infants: don't laugh, because that's the real origin of the word. The experienced veteran soldiers used to be in the cavalry: the foot soldiers were mostly young inexperienced men; so they were called infants or infantry. In fact, they were infants in arms.

If you're made responsible for something, in English idiom you're said to hold the baby. Everyone was criticizing England last year for not accepting responsibility for the defence of Czechoslovakia. A member of Parliament who knew that England still lacked military arms for a major war, said, "You need arms, if you have to hold the baby."

Napoleon also knew the value of the big battalions. But with him quality was just as important as quantity. Napoleon was always ready to promote any intelligent man from the ranks to be an officer, even to be a general. He used to say that every soldier carried a marshal's baton in his knapsack. A field marshal is now the highest rank in the army: but a MARSHAL was originally a servant who looked after the horses. It comes from the word 'mare' - which is a female horse, and the German word Schalk, meaning a rascal. So the word 'marshal' has also. been promoted.

The first thing a recruit is required' to do is to go on guard. Each guard consists of a sergeant, a number of sentries and a bugler, who has a bugle. A BUGLE is a brass trumpet which was originally called a buglehorn. A bugle-horn was once the horn of a buculus, which is the Latin for a little ox. For the first trumpets, like the first drinking vessels, were made out of ox-horns.

If the sergeant of the guard sees that there's anything wrong, he orders the bugler to sound the ALARM. The word 'alarm' comes from the Italian phrase 'all' arme', meaning 'to arms'. The German word Larm, meaning 'noise' has the same origin.

Have you ever noticed a supernumerary policeman on sentry duty in Palestine? As often as not, you'll see him sitting on a chair with his rifle across his knees, reading a newspaper. That's very dangerous, as the rifle might go off and kill someone. So I've invented a special apparatus to enable sentries to read more easily while on duty. It's shaped like the top of a music stand. The rod is put down inside the barrel of the rifle and the newspaper is propped up against the frame, like a sheet of music. It's very simple, and there's no danger to anyone.

The future of Palestine, however, lies on the sea. So let's now turn to the merchant navy.

The captain of a merchant ship is called a SKIPPER. That's a Dutch word and simply means a shipper; someone who sends goods on a ship. Holland was once a great maritime power and gave many sea words to the English language.

Talking of shippers, I received a letter the other day asking me why the Palestine Government didn't protect its 'citizenshippers' abroad. Of course, there is no such word as 'citizenshippers' in English. You can have a city, a citizen and citizenship. But you can't go on and invent 'citizenshipper'. The correct word is citizen.

When you go abroad this summer, as I'm sure you will, if you're not there already, the man you'll see most of on board will be the STEWARD. He's the man who wakes you in the morning, looks. after your cabin and serves your meals. He isn't quite as important as a field marshal but, like the marshal, he's gone up in the world. The marshal used to look after the mares: the steward used to look after the pigs. For the steward was once the sty ward, and looked after his master's pigsties. Now he looks after the human pigs on board ship who do nothing but eat all day, because they've paid for it anyhow.

But passengers are not really the important thing on a ship. It's the CARGO that pays. The cargo is the goods carried by the ship. 'Cargo' sounds as if it was something that should go by car. You'II be surprised to know that both 'car' and 'cargo' come from the Latin word carrus, meaning a vehicle, which in Spanish became corga: The Spaniards, like the Dutch, were also a great maritime power and have handed on the word 'cargo' to the British merchant navy.

In spite of the power of the British Empire, the English are a modest people. They don't boast like the Germans, the Italian or even the Americans. They always under-emphasize whatever they say. An Englishman goes to a magnificent concert and enjoys it thoroughly. But he won't say 'How magnificent!' he merely says 'How nice!' What I say about 'How nice!' is 'How English!'

Everything in England is nice: 'nice weather we're having': 'that's a nice hat you're wearing': 'he's getting on nicely at· school'. But I'm ashamed to say that 'the word NICE originally meant something foolish. It comes from the Latin word nescius, meaning ignorant.

Now FOND is another very English word. Fond means affectionate, but originally it also meant foolish. I can like you, I can love you and I can adore you: but if I'm a true Englishman, I'll never betray my emotions so boldly. All I'd say is that I'm fond of you. It may mean I'm being foolish, but that's the effect you have on me, dear listener.

In other words, I'm being very SILLY about you. Now 'nice' and 'fond' both used to mean 'foolish'. 'SiIIy' which now means 'foolish', started by meaning 'blessed'. Silly is the same as the German word selig.

What do you say to that? Isn't it extraordinary? Not if you're an Englishman, brought up on under-emphasis. Then it's just QUAINT. If an English explorer comes upon a cannibal tribe in the heart of Africa boiling a missionary for supper, all the explorer will say is 'how quaint!'

'Quaint' today means unusual, curious or unknown. But originally it meant exactly the opposite: for it comes from the Latin word cognitus meaning 'known'. So now you realize that English is a quaint language.

But it's not nearly so quaint as Pinglish. The word 'corn' in English, meaning wheat grain, is a collective noun. You say 'the corn is ripe': not 'the corns are ripe.' The word 'corns' can only refer to the hard and painful growths you sometimes get on your toes. I saw a picture the other day in a Palestinian newspaper of girls at a Jewish harvest festival carrying sheaves of corn on their heads. But the title of the picture said that the girls had corns on their heads. I wonder what on earth they'd been doing. Perhaps they'd been trying to walk their heads. Everything in Palestine is upside down anyhow.

Now we come to different kinds of chaps. A chap in England is any young fellow. If you know him well, you can call him affectionately 'old chap'. But it's not wise to do what a young Palestinian student did when he first arrived at the London University. He knew very little English, so when he went to the Dean for an interview, he wanted to be friendly. As he left, he said to the Dean, "Well, bye-bye, old chap". That was much too familiar.

If you're employed in an office, you usually work with colleagues or COMPANIONS. A companion was originally a man who shared your bread with you. The word comes from the Latin componio, meaning 'with bread'. You can share other things with your companion besides bread. I saw a menu the other day in a Jerusalem restaurant which offered stuffed intestines.

If you're particularly friendly with your companion, you call him COMRADE. A comrade was originally a man who shared your room with you. The word comes from the Spanish word camarada meaning a room-full.

The word CHUM has a similar origin. A close friend is a chum: school-boys are often chums. That word's an abbreviation of the word 'chamber-mate', meaning someone who shares the same room with you.

Now, if you share a room with a chum, you expect him to behave himself properly. Anyone who behaves disgracefully in England is said to be a CAD. He's not a gentleman, but a low, vulgar fellow. But the word 'cad' comes from the French word cadet meaning a younger son or brother. From cadet comes the word 'cadet', meaning a young officer in a training school. It's also the origin of the word 'caddie' who's a boy who carries your golf clubs. So a cad may have some quite respectable relatives, even though he is no gentleman himself.

There's been the same deterioration in the use of the word BLACKGUARD.

It's spelled 'black-guard', but it's pronounced 'blagard'. Nowadays, a blackguard is a villain and a scoundrel. But originally, he was merely one of the black guard, the servants in the kitchen of a nobleman's castle. As they worked with fire and grease, their hands and faces were often black. Hence blackguard.

Lastly we come to the very topical word UMBRELLA. What publicity the humble umbrella has received recently! It used to be said that the pen is mightier than the sword: now it's the umbrella that's mightier than the sword. Chamberlain used it in his fencing with Hitler and Mussolini: but curiously enough it was from Mussolini that he borrowed it. For 'umbrella' is an Italian derivative from the Latin word umbra, meaning a shadow. So an umbrella is a little shadow. This is how it was described in an early dictionary: "A kind of round skreene that gentlemen use in Italy to keep the sunne from them when they are riding by the way." I only wish Italian gentlemen today had the same unwarlike occupations.

If you're interested in the origin of English words, let me recommend to you a fascinating little book called the 'Romance of Words' by Ernest Weekley (W-E-E-K-L-E-Y) published by John Murray in London. It costs 325 mils in Palestine and you can order it through any bookseller.

In my talk next week, on Composition, I've arranged a little competition. I shall read you out an advertisement in Pinglish. If you like, write it down while I'm talking. Then rewrite it in correct English and send it to me in an envelope with your name and address. The three listeners who send in the best version will each get an autographed copy of the booklet to be published shortly containing the last six broadcasts on Brighter English. So don't forget a pencil and paper for next week's talk.