Speaking Proper, William Brown ’20

William Brown ’20

Speaking Proper

In Rome, see, which is always my motto—my motto is, a decent chap does what the folks about him, Romans in this case, are doing. Those Romans spoke Latin, which was a nice thing to speak, as it is a dead language and all. I hear tell those dead languages are real fond of being spoken. Anyway, the Romans spoke Latin. That we can’t deny. But what my friends spoke back in high school is another thing again, and I reckon even Dr. Jewell, who beats out the Pope in speaking Latin, couldn’t hardly decline a word of what those fellows said. Those chaps at school spoke a language of con-siderablesubtleness. I learned to speak that way too, which was a mile worse than Greek, alphabet and all. But I tell you, there was common ground all around, between the lingo at the Academy and the lingo at the Academy. Greek, see, has a great many particles. That was the trick with the new lingo too, the one my friends spoke—it had particles up to heaven and then a few. Only in the new way of speaking, which I was learning real quick for a language, and a living one too, which could fight back if it was cornered—the new way was more about those particles than the other words. Nope, there was no real dearth—I say, no dearth whatever—of particles in that lingo. I learned to use those particles too, and my words, which before were in a bad way without hardly a particle anywhere, soon waxed more particulate than I knew what to do with. I surprised a great many folks with the particulacy of my goings-on.

Greek has a deal of conjugation, too, and believe me there was conjugation in this New Deal language as well, yes sir, more than I expected. Well, I learned how to say all that too. I was feeling pretty chuffed about it, being a quick study and all. There was a couple subjunctives also, which I broke out a few times, but my parent or guardian said if she heard me let loose with another subjunctive like that I could just as well pack up and apply for the orphan’s home. So I gave up on the subjunctives, which was OK. I wasn’t real fond of those subjunctive sentiments, which didn’t seem too neighborly to me.

Well, I got pretty good at this jargon and all, and I figured it seemed all right, even if I couldn’t bust out with any subjunctives. So I figured I’d try out my stuff the next chance I got. It came pretty soon, as a matter of fact. I was hitching a lift, see, with the folks on the MBTA, which always were real kind about letting me ride with them. My foot had an altercation

with another foot, and my foot came out on top. That was all right; and even better, the chap doesn’t even hardly mind the altercation, he just launches out into some particles. Well, I was pleased better than a Wurst at Oktoberfest to hear my friend speak my new language, so I start right in with some particles of my own. We started up a regular conversation on that trolley, and a few folks around us joined in, and didn’t stint on the particles either. Anyway, we got so cordial, what with a few subjunctives and all, that one chap gave another a token of his esteem. Well, that was fine, so he gave him some esteem right back, and pretty soon there was esteem all over. Then the conductor, he stopped by, since he wasn’t about to miss out on the good feelings being spread abroad back in that trolley. He contributed some good feelings of his own, and it got pretty warm back there, what with the high esteem flying around. I got some high esteem right in the eye, which was when I decided I had had enough cordiality for that day. But I got some real practice with those particles.