[Ebooks PDF] download Context counts : papers on language, gender, and power 1st edition lakoff full
Context
counts : papers on language, gender, and power 1st Edition Lakoff
Visit to download the full and correct content document: https://textbookfull.com/product/context-counts-papers-on-language-gender-and-pow er-1st-edition-lakoff/
More products digital (pdf, epub, mobi) instant download maybe you interests ...
Oxford University Press is a department of the University of Oxford. It furthers the University’s objective of excellence in research, scholarship, and education by publishing worldwide. Oxford is a registered trade mark of Oxford University Press in the UK and certain other countries.
Published in the United States of America by Oxford University Press 198 Madison Avenue, New York, NY 10016, United States of America.
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, without the prior permission in writing of Oxford University Press, or as expressly permitted by law, by license, or under terms agreed with the appropriate reproduction rights organization. Inquiries concerning reproduction outside the scope of the above should be sent to the Rights Department, Oxford University Press, at the address above.
You must not circulate this work in any other form and you must impose this same condition on any acquirer.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Names: Lakoff, Robin Tolmach, author. | Sutton, Laurel A., editor.
Title: Context counts : papers on language, gender, and power / Robin Talmoch Lakoff; edited by Laurel Sutton.
Description: New York, NY : Oxford University Press, [2017] | Includes bibliographical references and index.
Identifiers: LCCN 2016024895| ISBN 9780195119893 (pbk. : alk. paper) | ISBN 9780195119886 (cloth : alk. paper)
LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2016024895
9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
Paperback Printed by WebCom, Inc., Canada
Hardback printed by Bridgeport National Bindery, Inc., United States of America
Illa ipsa loquitor
CONTENTS
Acknowledgments ix
Contributors xi
Introduction 1 By Laurel A. Sutton
1. Language in context (1972) 7
Introduction by Sally McConnell-Ginet
2. The logic of politeness; or, Minding your P’s and Q’s (1973) 37
Introduction by Sachiko Ide
3. Excerpts from two 1974 papers: Pluralism in linguistics; Linguistic theory and the real world 57
Introduction by Birch Moonwomon
4. You say what you are: Acceptability and gender-related language (1977) 85
Introduction by Mary Bucholtz
5. Stylistic strategies within a grammar of style (1979) 101
Introduction by Deborah Tannen
6. When talk is not cheap: Psychotherapy as conversation (1979) 137
Introduction by Joan Swann
7. Some of my favorite writers are literate: The mingling of oral and literate strategies in written communication (1982) 151
Introduction by Jenny Cook-Gumperz
8. Persuasive discourse and ordinary conversation, with examples from advertising (1982) 183
Introduction by Janet S. Shibamoto-Smith
9. Doubletalk: Sexism in tech talk (1983) 209
Introduction by Susan M. Ervin-Tripp
10. My life in court (1986) 225
Introduction by Susan Blackwell
11. The way we were; or, The real actual truth about generative semantics: A memoir (1989) 241
Introduction by Georgia Green
12. Review essay: Women and disability (1989) 299
Introduction by Suzette Haden Elgin
13. Pragmatics and the law: Speech act theory confronts the First Amendment (1992) 315
Introduction by Susan C. Herring
14. The rhetoric of reproduction (1992) 335
Introduction by Laurel A. Sutton
15. True confessions? Pragmatic competence and criminal confession (1996) 353
Introduction by Linda Coleman
16. Afterword 371 by Robin Lakoff
Index 385
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
This book would not have been possible without the expert assistance of Julia Bernd, who provided eagle-eyed editing, insightful comments, and tireless research, all of which helped shape this book into a volume worthy of its author.
Thanks also to Jocelyn Ahlers for creating Chapter 3 through her wise choices, and for giving me the final push to finish this volume.
This book’s contributors have shown more patience than I thought possible; I offer thanks and apologies in equal measure. I will always mourn the fact that the amazing Suzette Haden Elgin passed away before she could see this book in print.
And finally, thanks to Robin Lakoff for being Robin: she was, and is, the feminist linguist we need—and sometimes even deserve.
CONTRIBUTORS
Susan Blackwell, Department of Language, Literature and Communication, Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam
Mary Bucholtz, Department of Linguistics, University of California, Santa Barbara
Linda Coleman, Department of English, University of Maryland
Jenny Cook-Gumperz, Department of Education, University of California, Santa Barbara
Suzette Haden Elgin, Associate Professor Emeritus (Retired), Department of Linguistics, San Diego State University; Director, Ozark Center for Language Studies
Susan M. Ervin-Tripp, Department of Psychology, University of California, Berkeley, Emerita
Georgia Green, Department of Linguistics, University of Illinois, Emerita
Susan C. Herring, Professor of Information Science and Linguistics, School of Informatics and Computing, Indiana University
Sachiko Ide, Department of English, Japan Women’s University, Retired
Sally McConnell-Ginet, Department of Linguistics, Cornell University, Professor Emerita
Birch Moonwomon, Department of English, Sonoma State University
Janet S. Shibamoto-Smith, Department of Anthropology, University of California, Davis, Professor Emerita
Laurel A. Sutton, Department of Linguistics, University of California, Berkeley/Sutton Strategy
Joan Swann, Emeritus Chair of English Language, The Open University UK
Deborah Tannen, Department of Linguistics, Georgetown University
[ xii ] Contributors
Introduction
BY LAUREL A. SUTTON
This book did not exist, so it became necessary to invent it. Or edit it, anyway. The papers collected in this volume represent over twenty years of groundbreaking research by Robin Lakoff; they originally appeared in diverse journals, conference proceedings, and volumes devoted to specialized topics in linguistics. Just try to find them in your university library.
Language and woman’s place, Lakoff’s seminal 1975 book, remains her most- cited work, turning up in almost every paper written about gender and language, and often positioned as Lakoff’s first and last word on the subject. The importance of Language and woman’s place in the field of sociolinguistics (and indeed feminism) cannot be overestimated, an impact dealt with eloquently and at length by Bucholtz and Hall (1995). And yet I think the long shadow of her book has obscured Lakoff’s subsequent work on language and gender, language and law, and language and politics, a point discussed by Bucholtz (2004) in her introduction to the newly annotated edition of Language and woman’s place. Think of this book as a halogen lamp in that shadow.
It was not easy to choose from Lakoff’s full list of publications. I wanted to put together a book that served many needs: a retrospective, a reader, a history, a reference, and a guide to Lakoff’s theoretical views. While the papers presented here cover many topics, from hardcore transformational grammar to advertising devices to judicial speech to anti-abortion propaganda, they all rely on sound linguistic analysis combined with Lakoff’s keen insight into the use, misuse, and abuse of language. Underlying all
her work is Lakoff’s understanding of the many ways in which power and social relations are expressed in everyday utterances; and it is this understanding, always expressed so clearly, that keeps these essays fresh and relevant. Naturally, the examples and “current” linguistic theory discussed in the oldest papers included here (1970s) are dated, but even these provide an insider’s view into the field and the feeling of the times.
All of the contributors—Lakoff’s peers, noted linguists in their own right—gave generously of their time and energy to provide introductions to each chapter, framing Lakoff’s work in a historical and personal context. The introductions span a broad range of perspectives, from mini-research papers to deeply personal anecdotes. They are truly the icing on the cake.
Those who know Lakoff only as a feminist may be pleasantly surprised by the diversity of subjects covered in this volume; those who know her only as the author of Language and woman’s place will now have an account of her linguistic research and writing from that time until the late 1990s. And for those young scholars just beginning to think about language, I hope this book provides a rich resource of intelligent commentary and analysis to which they will return again and again.
REFERENCES
Bucholtz, Mary. 2004. Introduction. Language and woman’s place: Text and commentaries, ed. by Mary Bucholtz, 3–14. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Bucholtz, Mary, and Kira Hall. 1995. Introduction: Twenty years after Language and woman’s place. Gender articulated: Language and the socially constructed self, ed. by Mary Bucholtz and Kira Hall, 1–22. New York and London: Routledge. Lakoff, Robin. 1975. Language and woman’s place. New York: Harper and Row.
Introduction to “Language in context”
BY SALLY MCCONNELL- GINET
When “Language in context” first appeared in 1972, it broke much new ground, turning linguists’ attention to the rich and subtle resources languages offer their speakers for articulating and managing their social relations with one another. Lakoff was certainly not the first to observe, for example, that English modals might express different degrees of politeness, and that their value in a particular utterance is very heavily dependent on extralinguistic features of the context in which that utterance is made. Traditional descriptive linguists had made such observations. She was, however, one of the very first linguists trained in the generative grammar tradition to suggest that such phenomena merit linguistic explanation and that their analysis might be especially crucial for illuminating crosslinguistic comparisons. The word “explanation” is key here. Lakoff aims in this paper to go beyond taxonomy and description to formulate some general explanatory principles. Her comparisons of English and Japanese are designed to show the potential universal applicability of some of these principles and to explore some of the ways in which their instantiation differs cross-linguistically and cross- culturally. This emphasis on the search for general explanatory notions was very much in keeping with the tenets of generative grammar, the framework within which she had begun her own linguistic work.
At the time this paper first appeared, theories of semantic competence were just beginning to be developed in generative linguistics. There was already a debate about the nature of the semantics– syntax interface. The
“generative semantics” camp (with which Lakoff was identified) held that semantic phenomena “drive” the grammar. That is, semantic representations are in some sense basic (and, for most of these and other linguists, universal), and it is language-particular grammars that yield actual surface forms “from” semantic input. “Interpretive semantics,” on the other hand, took syntactic representations of some kind as input to the semantics, with semantics feeding on syntax rather than vice versa. But perhaps the critical difference was that the generative semanticists took semantic representations to be fundamentally syntactic, governed by exactly the same principles that operate generally in syntax; interpretive semantics left open the possibility that semantic representations might be quite different from syntactic.
Now the question of how best to describe and analyze the dependence of interpretation on context—a major issue that “Language in context” raises— was not really being systematically addressed by either semantics camp. Even less attention was being paid to the social ramifications of language use. Although a few linguists had begun to explore proposals from the philosophy of language about the heavily contextual character of linguistic communication (especially those inspired by Grice 1968), the field of linguistic pragmatics did not yet exist. Sociolinguistics was also in its very early stages, and virtually all the work available (e.g., Labov 1972) emphasized socially conditioned variation of the sort that distinguishes dialects and plays a role in language change. Ideas about what is now sometimes called “communicative competence” were still in their infancy; “interactional sociolinguistics” and “discourse analysis” were not yet part of linguists’ vocabularies. Lakoff’s article, published in the prestigious and widely read journal Language, was an important spur to subsequent work on questions of the importance of context to the understanding of natural language utterances and their social effects.
In rereading “Language in context,” I was surprised to find that it did not actually address in much detail the question of how investigations of contextual matters were to be integrated with the rest of linguistic inquiry. As I remembered, there is the claim that “traditional transformational grammar” (which was accompanied by no semantics, much less any pragmatics) fails when confronted with language in context. The idea is that the “applicability” of grammatical rules must be conditioned by contextual phenomena because a rule is considered “inapplicable” in contexts where its application would produce any kind of oddness at all. Contextual matters as well as other semantic phenomena are seen as essential inputs to the grammar, the task of which Lakoff assumes (without argument) is to predict the acceptability or appropriateness (and perhaps even the social
efficacy) of utterances— that is, sentences uttered in particular contexts. “Grammaticality” is no longer a notion that applies to sentences as such but is reserved for sentences together with social contexts, which include interlocutors and their sociolinguistically relevant properties (including their attitudes) and relations. But Lakoff never really considers the possibility that social appraisal of utterances might be explained outside grammar proper— that social and syntactic deviance might be very different kinds of phenomena. Or, if not extragrammatical, social and other contextual properties of utterances might be assigned to syntactically well- formed sentential structures without figuring at all in syntactic derivations.
In the end, however, this generative semantics/pragmatics stance does not really matter very much. What I found especially interesting in rereading the paper is how little Lakoff’s theoretical position (against which I have often argued, and which frames the paper as a main point) actually affects her discussion. Whether we pack contextual factors into the syntax or not, we still need somewhere to say something about what particular sentential structures indicate about the preferred contexts of their use and what effect their utterance has on contexts. What she shows quite convincingly is that relative social status, age, sex, and other aspects of social identities and relations have linguistic underpinnings not only in languages like Japanese, which have a whole array of forms apparently specialized for social interactive purposes, but even in languages like English, which at first glance might appear socially neutral. Although English speakers do not express deference or superiority or consideration in the same ways nor under exactly the same circumstances that Japanese speakers do, Lakoff shows that they must attend to such factors at least implicitly in their linguistic performance. And they have a rich tacit knowledge of the sociolinguistic implications that discriminate among alternative ways of conveying what is roughly “the same” message.
“Language in context” set the stage for “Language and woman’s place” (Lakoff 1973), first published the following year. Lakoff is already noting that interlocutors’ gender is sociolinguistically important in English as well as in Japanese, and she is already hypothesizing, for instance, that tag questions might be an important component of the sociolinguistic construction of gender in English (of course, she doesn’t put it in quite these terms, which were not really available then). And she already forges a strong link between matters of gender and questions of male privilege and female subordination. Although her feminist voice was to strengthen in later work, we can hear it beginning to speak in this early article. Her use of generic masculines, which continues in “Language and woman’s place,” may jar some contemporary feminist readers. She writes, for example, that
the use of certain particles in Japanese provides “implicit personal information about the speaker, about his sex and status, relative to that of the addressee” (p. 23). A sentence like “the speaker of Japanese must make his (or her) sex explicit in most conversations” (n. 5) suggests, however, that she was chafing a bit against what was then the overwhelmingly standard pronominal usage.
In short, “Language and context” is still very much worth reading. It is, of course, the product of its time, and in some ways it seems dated. But it makes some important general points about the social power of language that can stand even if the theoretical trappings and the detailed claims about how English works (and, to a lesser extent, Japanese) might be problematic.
“Language in context” pushed me and many others who read it as graduate students to think more seriously about the social implications of language, and especially to pay attention to the nitty-gritty detail of socially significant linguistic choices. In the quarter- century since this paper first appeared, the study of language in context has become an increasingly important area of linguistic inquiry. Robin Lakoff’s voice was one of the first and most forceful to address topics in this area, and its articulate energy was all the more remarkable in 1972, given the dismissive attitude of most mainstream linguists toward such work.
Thank you, Robin, for daring to speak out as a linguist on matters that the leading (mainly male) research linguists had dismissed as outside the province of linguistics. And thank you especially for inspiring others of us to try to follow your example.
REFERENCES
Grice, H. P. 1968. The William James Lectures. Published with other material in H.P. Grice (1989), Studies in the way of words. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
Labov, William. 1972. Sociolinguistic patterns. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press.
Lakoff, Robin. 1973. Language and woman’s place. Language in Society 2.45–79.
CHAPTER 1
Language in context (1972)
Traditional transformational grammar attempts to define the conditions on the applicability of grammatical rules on the basis of superficial syntactic environment alone. This paper discusses a number of examples in several languages that show that such a goal is unattainable— that, in order to predict correctly the applicability of many rules, one must be able to refer to assumptions about the social context of an utterance, as well as to other implicit assumptions made by the participants in a discourse.
When studying exotic languages, the speaker of English often runs into odd facts. As if the syntactic, lexical, and morphological peculiarities with which other people’s languages are unfortunately replete were not enough to confound the English speaker, he encounters still odder details: things which, as far as he can see, have no analogs in English at all. It is certainly bad enough to encounter case languages, or languages with complex and synthetic tense systems, or absolute constructions, or six words for “snow”; but at least these are analogous to things that occur in English. But what about certain still stranger phenomena? How does the native speaker ever learn these weird distinctions? How can he ever remember to make them, in the course of ordinary conversation? Doesn’t he inevitably (though accidentally) offend everyone he encounters, or incessantly stamp himself as a boob?
This paper originally appeared in Language 48:907–27. Reprinted here with permission of the publisher.
I should like to thank the following people, who have served as informants or made valuable suggestions regarding the Japanese data: Chisato Kitagawa, Tazuko Uyeno, and Kazuhiko Yoshida. I should also like to thank George Lakoff for much helpful discussion. All errors and misinterpretations are, of course, my own responsibility.
The problems I am referring to will of course be immediately recognizable to anyone who has done any reading about almost any language that is not English— that is, I should think, any linguist. I refer to phenomena such as the following:
(i) Particles, like doch in German, or ge in Classical Greek, or zo in Japanese. How do you know when to use them? And how do you know when not to? Are they inserted in sentences randomly? Since these particles do not add to the “information content” conveyed by the sentence, but rather relate this information content to the feelings the speaker has about it, or else suggest the feelings of the speaker toward the situation of the speech act, it is sometimes rather cavalierly stated that they are “meaningless.” If this were really true, it would of course be impossible to misuse them. But we all know that there is nothing easier for the non-native speaker.
(ii) Honorifics. Asian languages, Japanese in particular, are infamous for containing these. Using them in the wrong situation will, one is assured, result in instantaneous ostracism. But how do you know when the situation is wrong? The non-native speaker apparently never sorts it out. Can the native speaker (who is linguistically naive) be expected to do any better?
(iii) Many languages have endings on verbs, or special forms related to the verbal system, that are used to suggest that the speaker himself doesn’t take responsibility for a reported claim, or that he does— that he is hesitant about a claim he is making or confident of its veracity. How can a speaker keep track of these mysterious concepts? Are speakers of other languages conceivably that much smarter than we are? Then why don’t they have a man on the moon?
The purpose of this paper is to explore these questions. I will not really attempt to answer the question, “How do they do it?”— we don’t know how people do even the simplest and most obvious linguistic operations. But what I will show is that these phenomena also occur in English. It is often not superficially obvious that we are dealing, in English, with phenomena analogous to politeness or hesitance markers in other languages; there are often no special separate readily identifiable morphological devices. Rather, these distinctions are expressed by forms used elsewhere for other purposes. Therefore it is easy to imagine that they are not present at all. But I hope to show that the reverse is true; and further, that if the presence and uses of these forms are recognized, several of the most difficult
problems confronting such diverse areas as theoretical linguistics and the teaching of second languages will be solvable. Thus I am in effect making two claims, the first of theoretical, the other of practical, interest:
(a) Contextually linked linguistic phenomena are probably identifiable, to one extent or another, in all the languages of the world. But one language may have special markers for some or many of these possibilities, while another language may utilize forms it uses elsewhere for other purposes. One language may require that these markers be present, while another may consider them optional, or to be used only in case special classification is desired, or for special stylistic effects. (As we shall see later in this paper, Japanese is apparently a representative of the first class of languages, English of the second. Hence, as many speakers of Japanese have said to me, English sounds “harsh” or “impolite” to them; while to the speaker of English, Japanese often gives the effect of being unbelievably subtle, making inordinately many unnecessary distinctions.) But we should ask, not only whether a language is one type or the other or a mixture of both, but also whether this fact about a language is related to any other facts, deep or superficial, about its structure. Since questions of this sort have not been studied in any disciplined way heretofore, nothing is known at present. The answers, if ever found, would be of interest in studies of the lexicon, the forms of logical structure, the identification of linguistically relevant types of presupposition, and many other areas with which linguistic theorists are at present concerned.
(b) If one is to teach second-language use successfully— so that a nonnative speaker can use the language he is learning in a way reminiscent of a native speaker, rather than a robot— then the situations in which forms of this type are usable in a given language must be identified. It is obviously useless to try to list or pinpoint the superficial syntactic configurations where they are correctly used; examples will be given later in the paper that illustrate the problem. We must then identify the means by which the second language makes these distinctions, and pair the two, although in terms of superficial syntax, the two languages will appear to have little in common.
We may distinguish certain aspects of context from others. Some have universal linguistic relevance; others may be linguistically relevant under certain conversational situations but not others, or for certain cultures but not others; and still others may never be linguistically relevant as far as
we know. So it is normally true in all languages and all situations that one must somehow make clear the type of speech act involved: are you asking a question, making a statement, or giving an order? Ambiguities in this regard are generally not tolerated.1 Some languages require that you know more about the speech situation than this. English sometimes requires overt notice as to whether the speaker believes a past- time event is relevant to the present, by the use of the perfect tense rather than the preterit. Other languages require that there be overt expression of the identity of speaker and/or addressee: What are their respective social positions? And, related to this, of course, what are their respective ages and sex? English only sometimes requires that these be recognized overtly; other languages, such as Japanese, require it much more often. But it is hard to think of a language that requires one special overt marker if the speaker has blue eyes, and a different one if the speaker has brown eyes. This is contextual information, as real and available to the speakers of a language for the purpose of making distinctions as are differentiation of age and sex; yet only the latter two often occur as linguistically significant contextual information.
In any case, I trust that, by the end of this discussion, it will be perfectly clear that there are areas of linguistic competence that cannot be described in any theory that does not allow an integration of information about the context in which the discourse takes place— sometimes erroneously referred to as “realworld” as opposed to “linguistically relevant” situation—and the purely linguistically relevant information the sentence seeks to convey: superficial syntax, choice of lexical items, and semantics aside from contextually relevant meaning elements.
I shall try to substantiate some of the claims I have been making by looking at examples.
We all know, or at least know of, languages that employ honorifics as essential elements in sentences. Sometimes they occur with personal names, and in these cases it is fairly easy to see what is going on: one usually assumes that the speaker either actually is lower in status than the addressee, or is speaking as if he were. In the latter case, which is perhaps the more usual in conversational situations, it is assumed that this linguistic abasement occurs for reasons of politeness. But an important question
1. Gordon & G. Lakoff (1971) discuss a number of interesting cases where, if one looks only at superficial syntactic configurations, apparent ambiguities of this type do in fact exist: e.g., It’s stuffy in here, most normally a declarative statement, may, under specific, contextually determined conditions, be interpretable as an imperative, equivalent to Please open the window. As they show, this does not indicate that such sentences really are ambiguous between the two interpretations: it indicates rather that context must play a role in the interpretation of sentences.
is usually glossed over: Why is it polite for the speaker to suggest that the addressee surpasses him in status? In some languages we find honorifics related to non-human items, to show that the speaker considers them of importance in one way or another. How is this related to any notion of politeness, which is a concept involving behavior between human beings? Another problem is that many languages apparently have two kinds of honorifics. One is the kind I have just mentioned. But going hand in hand with this is the use of forms that humble or debase the speaker himself, or things connected with him. Translated into English, this often has ludicrous results, e.g., “Honorable Mr. Snarf have some of my humble apple pie?” This sort of translation is ludicrous for several reasons, but perhaps principally because, by translating the honorific and dis-honorific, if I may use that term, with overt adjectives, the sense of the sentence has been palpably altered. In the original language, the sense of superiority or inferiority conveyed by the honorifics is presupposed, or implicit. The use of adjectives like honorable and humble makes these concepts explicit. So what had been a tacit suggestion, in effect, is now made overt. The English translations do not, I think, allow the monolingual speaker of English to get any sense of how a speaker of Japanese feels when he is addressed with -san. But I believe there are locutions in English whose force comes close to that of the true honorific, because the differentiation in status they establish is implicit rather than overt. These forms are also used for the sake of politeness (as adjectives like humble and honorable never are). I said earlier that these contextually linked forms had not been recognized in English partly because the forms utilized for this purpose had other, more obvious uses. English modals are a case in point. Certain uses of the modal must are parallel to the use in other languages of special honorific forms:
(1) You must have some of this cake.
(2) You should have some of this cake.
(3) You may have some of this cake.
Let us assume, for the purpose of analyzing these sentences, a special social situation: a party, at which the hostess is offering the guests a cake that she baked herself or at least selected herself, and which she therefore takes responsibility for. In such a social context, (1) is the most polite of these forms, approaching in its range of appropriateness that of a true honorific in languages that have such forms. Further, although in theory (2) should be more “polite” than (1), in actual use it is not: in the situation established above, the use of (2) would be rude, while (1) would be polite. And (3),
which might at first seem the most polite form, actually is the least. Why is this?
Finding the answer lies partly in determining what constitutes politeness, and of course, its opposite, rudeness. If we can define these notions, then the uses of these modals will be seen to be governed by the same assumptions of politeness as govern the use of honorifics; once the principle is understood, it can be transferred from language to language. What we are dealing with here is something extralinguistic— the way in which individuals relate to one another— that directly affects the use of language. We must understand something about non-linguistic social interaction before we can see the generalization that is in effect regulating the use of sentences like (1)–(3), along with the use of affixes like -san and o- in Japanese.
It is obvious, of course, that what passes for politeness in one culture will appear to a member of another culture as slavishness or boorishness. We are all familiar with examples of this. Then how can we talk about universal conditions governing the use of honorifics and other politeness markers? I think we can assume that there is a universal definition of what constitutes linguistic politeness: part of this involves the speaker’s acting as though his status were lower than that of the addressee. What may differ from language to language, or culture to culture—or from subculture to subculture within a language— is the question of when it is polite to be polite, to what extent, and how it is shown in terms of superficial linguistic behavior.2 Although a speaker may know the universal definition of politeness, he may apply it at the wrong time or in the wrong way if he attempts to transfer the uses of his own language directly into another; hence the ludicrousness that results from taking a polite concept implicit in one language and making it explicit. If, in a given language, one’s own possessions are customarily followed by a marker of humility (a situation which perhaps can be symbolized by (4) below), it does not follow that (5), in which what is implicit in the marker in (4) is made explicit, is a reasonable English translation of (4). In fact, as has
2. So, for example, if an officer in the Army (a subculture with special status-related rules) gives a command to a private, he will not normally preface his command with please. Although in most English- speaking groups the use of please prefaced to an imperative is a mark of politeness, to use please in this situation will be interpretable as sarcastic. Again, in some cultures it is considered polite to refuse an invitation several times before one is conventionally “prevailed upon” to accept: if a speaker from such a culture finds himself in one where it is considered polite to accept invitations at once with thanks, confusion and worse will inevitably ensue, with each party impressing the other as unbelievably boorish or stupid.
already been noted, the effect of such bogus translations is generally laughable, and rightly so:
(4) Have some of this cake—yecch. (5) Have some of this revolting cake.
My claim is that a sentence like (1) is a much closer translation of (4) than (5) is, although (5) stays closer to the superficial syntax of the original language. The task of the translator then is compounded: he must translate contextual and societal concepts— contexts that are, strictly speaking, extralinguistic—in addition to merely translating words and ideas and endings.
Let me try to be more specific in identifying (1), but not (2) or (3), as an honorific form in an extended sense of the term. (I will define “honorific” as a form used to convey the idea that the speaker is being polite to the hearer.) At first it seems contradictory to say that a sentence containing must is more polite than one using should or may. Going by the ordinary uses of the modals, must imposes an obligation, while should merely gives advice that may be disregarded, and may allows someone to do something he already wanted to do. Surely it should be more polite to give someone advice, or to let someone do as he wishes, than to impose an unavoidable obligation upon him.
Normally this is true, but under special conditions the reverse is the case, and this is the situation in (1)–(3). If we want to understand why these modals work as they do here, we must ask: Under what realworld conditions is it appropriate to use each of these modals? So, for example, if the use of must expresses the imposition upon its superficial subject of an obligation (whether by the speaker or by someone else, with the speaker merely reporting the fact), under what conditions in the real world is it necessary to impose an obligation? The answer is simple: it must be the case that the person on whom the obligation rests would not do what he is instructed unless he were obliged to do it. That is, the assumption is that performing the act is distasteful, requiring coercion of the superficial subject.
Now in a normal situation it is not polite to coerce anyone, since, among other things, such action reminds him that you are his superior in power. Thus must is normally used for politeness only when it is a secondhand report that an obligation is imposed, on the addressee or on a third person, by someone other than the speaker. In this situation, the speaker is not using must as a means of coercion through his greater power or prestige; but he is so doing when must reflects the speaker’s own imposition
of an obligation. In a sentence like (1), the most natural assumption is that the speaker himself is imposing an obligation on the hearer. Then why is (1) a polite offer? Why does one not take umbrage when such a sentence is spoken to one, as a dinner guest, by one’s hostess? We seem to be faced with an utterance that is, in a special sense, “ambiguous.” This is, of course, no normal type of ambiguity, since it cannot be disambiguated by linguistic context or by paraphrase. Rather, the addressee, hearing a sentence like (1), disambiguates it in terms of the social situation in which he is exposed to it.
Let me be more precise. Suppose you overhear the sentence Visiting relatives can be a nuisance in isolation. You have no way of knowing whether the speaker is talking about relatives who visit, or the act of visiting one’s relatives. But if the hearer has also heard prior discourse, and if, for example, this discourse was concerned with a discussion of the properties of relatives, and when relatives were a nuisance, the hearer is able to disambiguate the sentence by linguistic means.
Now we know that the modal must is actually an amalgam of several meanings, all related but differentiable. (I will confine my discussion to the root sense of must for obvious reasons.) As suggested above, these related meanings are:
(a) The speaker is higher in rank than the superficial subject of must, in sent. (1) identical with the addressee. As such the former can impose an obligation on the latter.
(b) The thing the addressee is told to do is distasteful to him: he must be compelled to do it against his will.
(c) Something untoward will happen to the addressee if he does not carry out the instruction.3
Any of these assumptions might be primary in a given instance. In nonpolite situations, normally (a) is paramount in sentences like (6), and (c) in cases like (7); it seems to depend on context.
3. It seems reasonable to believe that, of the three assumptions comprising the meaning of must, (a) and (c) are first-order presuppositions, and (b) second-order. The reason for making this claim is that (a) and (c) can be questioned, as is typical of firstorder presuppositions, while (b) cannot, as the following examples show. In reply to, e.g., You must take out the garbage!, the respondent might retort, under the appropriate circumstances, with You can’t make me! or Who’s gonna make me? (which contradict (a), and are equivalent to “You don’t have the authority”), or with So what if I don’t? (which contradicts (c), and is equivalent to “If I don’t do it, I won’t suffer”). But he cannot reply with *I want to anyhow! (which would be a contradiction of (b) and equivalent to “I am not being made to do it against my will.”).
(6) You must clean the latrine, Private Zotz: this is the Army, and I’m your sergeant.
(7) You must take this medicine, Mr. President, or you will never get over making those awkward gestures.
Theoretically, then, a sentence like (1) should be triply ambiguous, and two of the ambiguities should be rude. In fact, if taken out of context, such a sentence would be just as mysterious to the hearer as Visiting relatives can be a nuisance. But just as with the latter, (1) is swiftly disambiguated if one is aware of the context. For (1), it is extralinguistic context: one knows one is being addressed by the hostess proffering her cake, and one accordingly decides on meaning (b). (Of course, if (1) were spoken by a member of the Mafia whose wife had baked the cake, the range of possible choices of meaning might be wider.)
Why are should and may less polite in this context? In the case of these modals, we are making rather different assumptions about the willingness of the subject to perform the act, and it is here, I think, that the non-politeness lies. With should, there is normally no assumption that the action is to be performed against the subject’s will: the speaker is making a suggestion to the addressee to do something that might not have occurred to him, but there is no hint that he would be averse to it, or would have to be compelled to do it. In fact, the use of should indicates that the speaker is not in a position to use duress to secure compliance: he can suggest but not coerce. In non-polite use, then, should is more polite than must since the speaker is not suggesting his status is such that he can coerce the addressee. But this implies that he need not coerce the addressee, and for this reason the “humbling” force of must is absent. But should by itself is not really a politeness marker: it does not humble the speaker, but merely makes him the equal of the addressee. So the use of should in the dinner party situation is not particularly polite: in fact, it is rather rude, since the hostess is suggesting that it would be better for the addressee if he had some cake—that is, that the cake is too good to miss. From this assumption, the implication follows that the hostess’ offering is a good thing—contrary, as we have seen, to the rules of politeness. As a further example of this, consider what happens if the hostess should overtly make the same suggestion. The same sense of impropriety ensues from (8) as from (2): (8) Have some of this delicious cake.
But if another guest is offering the cake, both (2) and (8) are perfectly appropriate and usual, since the guest is not praising his own property. This shows that implicit and explicit assumptions—in this case, of the value of
one’s own possessions— work the same way in determining appropriateness, and both work the same way as honorifics in other languages:
(9) Have some of this ‘o- cake’.4
(10) Have some of my friend’s ‘o- cake’.
(11) You should have some of her cake.
(12) Have some of her delicious cake.
Finally, it is now easy to see why may in (3) is not a polite form: in fact, its use makes two assumptions, both of which are counter to the conventions of politeness: (a) that the person who is able to grant permission (by the use of may) is superior to the person seeking it; (b) that the person seeking permission not only is not averse to doing the act indicated, but wishes to do it. Then the further assumption is that, as far as the person receiving permission by sentence (3) is concerned, having the cake is a good thing. As with should, this is counter to the usage of politeness.
These examples show several things. First, there are uses of the modals that reflect politeness, in terms of relative status of speaker and hearer, and implicit desirability of the act in question. In this respect these modal uses are parallel to the use of honorifics in other languages. Second, in order to tell how a modal is being used, and whether certain responses to it are (linguistically) appropriate, one must be aware of many extralinguistic, social factors. Just as, in speaking other languages, one must be aware of the social status of the other participants in a conversation in order to carry on the conversation acceptably, so one must at least some of the time in English, a language usually said not to require overt distinctions of this sort.
There are many other examples of politeness conventions explicitly realized in English. One is the use of imperatives, a task fraught with
4. According to Tazuko Uyeno, although not every Japanese noun may receive the o-honorific prefix, those that can behave as suggested in the text. E.g., the word taku “house” will take the prefix o- when it refers to the home of someone other than the speaker and will occur without o- when the speaker’s own house is being referred to. The same informant points out an interesting difference in polite usage between Japanese and English, also relevant at this point: I have noted above that in English the modal must, ordinarily not a polite form, may be interpreted as polite in specific social contexts where one is able to “ignore” certain aspects of the meaning of must. But in Japanese, this is not the case: I cannot use the word-for- word equivalent of “You must have some cake” as a polite utterance equivalent to its English translation. It would, in fact, be interpreted as rude under the circumstances. One must rather say something like, “Please have some cake as a favor to me.” Thus it is not necessarily true that one can “ignore” the same aspects of meaning in two languages.
Another random document with no related content on Scribd:
“North Platte, is all. I joined at North Platte, this spring, when you began the big push to make 290 miles before stopping again.”
“Two hundred and eighty-eight,” the general corrected. “That will take us to Fort Sanders in the Laramie Plains. But I think you ought to inspect what’s been done in the two other years. It’s up to the Union Pacific to treat you as well as the Overland treated you. Did you ever ride on a railroad?”
“I guess I did when I was little, before we came out to Kansas. We drove out to Kansas from Ohio in 1858; but after that Harry Revere and I drove across to Denver.”
“Who’s Harry Revere?”
“He’s a friend of George and me. He was an Overland man, too—he was station-keeper at Beaver Creek station while George and I were hostlers. Then he rode Pony Express for a while, between Bijou Junction and Denver. He’s a dandy; as spunky as a badger. He’s back east somewhere, on the railroad, doing telegraphing.”
“You build railroads, but you don’t travel on them, eh?” laughed General Blair.
“Yes, sir. All I do is haul rails and watch ’em being laid—but the graders don’t even see the rails. They just shovel dirt.”
“You’ll be out of sight of the rails and the dirt, too, if you go on that western trip with me,” General Dodge said, grimly. “So first, you’d better get acquainted with the finished end and see what those rails that you’ve helped lay are being used for. Suppose you stay right aboard this car and take a trip back, of a couple of hundred miles, if General Casement will spare you.”
“I’ll spare him if you’ll spare some of that 288 miles,” General Casement retorted. “You’re breaking up my army.”
Evidently even a boy was important, these days.
“Jimmie Muldoon’s brother will spell me, while I’m gone,” Terry proffered. “He can ride my mule. Her name’s Jenny She’s smart. She’d do the hauling without anybody on her.”
“All right. You make your arrangements with Pat and Jimmie Muldoon, then,” said General Casement.
“And I guess I’ll ask my father.”
“Where’s he?”
“He’s the engine driver for the boarding-train. That’s his job, because he got crippled up in the war.”
“Oh, Ralph Richards?” queried General Dodge. “He was one of my soldiers, in that same war. You’re his boy, are you? Any more of the family on the U. P.?”
“My mother’s down at Denver still, but here’s my dog. His name’s Shep. He’d fight Injuns, only today there was too much shooting, so he stayed in the engine.”
“Well,” spoke the general, “you see your father and Pat Miles and Jimmie Muldoon; then bring your dog and come along back to the car. We’re going down to North Platte tonight, and tomorrow I’ll take you as far as Kearney, anyhow. How’ll that suit you?”
“Fine, sir.” And Terry hustled out, his head in a whirl of excitement.
Matters were speedily fixed; but before he could return dusk had settled over the great expanse of lonely plains. The Pawnees were on guard. Far up the grade a few lights twinkled, from the graders’ camps. Already the track-layer gang were going to bed; some inside the boarding-train, some on top, some underneath—just as they all pleased.
Ordinarily Terry would have spread his blankets on top, where there was plenty of fresh air. However, this night he was to be a guest of the big chief, General Dodge himself, in the headquarters car, for a trip over the new U. P. Railroad, to see that the rails were O. K.
And so was Shep. Shep usually tried to go wherever Terry went— except, of course, when guns were banging too recklessly.
The men were still up, in the rear or office end of the headquarters car, talking together.
“The rest of us won’t turn in till we’re back at North Platte,” the general explained. “I’ve had a bunk opened for you, up forward. Do you think you can sleep?”
“Yes, sir. I can always sleep,” Terry assured.
“All right. Good night. You won’t miss much. We’ll probably lie over at North Platte till morning.”
The bunk was a clever arrangement. During the day it was folded against the side of the car and nobody would know it was there. At night it was let down, and hung flat with a curtain in front of it. The car probably had several such bunks. They were something new, the invention of a Mr. Pullman; and when Terry climbed into his, he found it mighty comfortable. Shep curled underneath, between the seats.
Lying snug and warm, Terry prepared to calm himself, and sleep; but the future looked very bright. He caught his thoughts surging ahead, upon the survey trip half promised by the general: maybe clear to Utah, exploring and finding George and the Bates party. Hooray! Indians, bear and buffalo, new country—! Pshaw! He was getting wide awake. He ought to sleep. So he began to figure.
Over 300 miles, so far, by the Union Pacific, in the two years and a quarter; 700 miles yet to Salt Lake, and then as much farther as they could get before meeting the Central! The general had planned to lay nearly 300 miles more—288 anyway—this year! Whew! Forty carloads of supplies to every mile; 400 rails and 2,650 ties to every mile; ten spikes to each rail, three blows of the sledge to each spike—then how many rails, how many ties, how many sledge blows, how many galloping charges back and forth of Jenny and the little truck, to cross plains and deserts and mountains and win the race with the Central?
This tour by train was going to be nice enough, but it seemed tame compared with end o’ track work, and with surveying. And the laying of the track looked to be such a big job that perhaps General Casement couldn’t spare him again. Shucks!
While figuring and bothering, Terry fell asleep. He did not know that his trip east and back was not going to be as tame as it appeared in
CHAPTER IV DOWN THE LINE—AND BACK
S in the night he knew that they were in motion—the engine was pushing them along, over the track. But when he really woke up, they were standing still, in daylight. North Platte, as like as not; or maybe Kearney. No, it couldn’t be Kearney, could it, for Kearney was 100 miles and more, and that seemed a long way to go, in just one night. At any rate, they were standing in some town; there was a lot of noise outside, of shouting and engine-puffing and feet-scuffling. So he put on his clothes in a jiffy and jumped down through the curtains.
By the rattle of dishes and the smell of bacon the cook was getting breakfast, but the main part of the car was empty. Everybody had left. Seemed as though General Dodge didn’t take time to sleep, himself, for no other bunk was open. Here came old Shep, yawning, from his night’s quarters. Terry hastened to the platform, to find where they were.
North Platte, sure. They’d come only sixty or seventy miles, and must have been lying here quite a while. Yes, it was North Platte, on the south bank of the North Platte River just above where the North Platte joined the South Platte to help make the big Platte.
North Platte was the end of the road, for traffic; the terminal point, that is. The freight and passenger trains from Omaha, 293 miles, stopped here and went back; only the construction-trains went on, with supplies for end o’ track. But North Platte was considerable of a place—and an awful tough place, too, plumb full of gambling joints and saloons.
It had started up in a hurry, last December, when the road had reached it and had made a terminal point and supply depot of it, for the winter There hadn’t been a thing here, except a prairie-dog town
—and in three weeks there had been a brick round-house to hold forty engines, and a station-house, and a water tank heated by a stove so it wouldn’t freeze, and a big hotel to cost $18,000, and a knock-down warehouse (the kind that could be taken apart and fitted together again) almost as large, for the Casement Brothers, and fifteen or sixteen other business buildings, and over a thousand people, including gamblers and saloon keepers, living in all kinds of board and sheet-iron and canvas shacks.
When Terry had joined the road, at the close of winter, North Platte boasted 2,000 people, counting the graders and track-layers, and was a “roaring” town. There was some talk of making it the headquarters of the Union Pacific, instead of Omaha.
It used to be livelier at night than in the day-time, even; but it certainly was lively enough this morning. A long freight-train was unloading ties and iron, to be added to the great collection of ties and iron already waiting for the haul onward to the next supply dump, toward end o’ track. A passenger train had pulled in from Omaha. The passengers were trooping to the Railroad House (which was the name of the $18,000 hotel) or to the eating-room in the Casement Brothers’ portable warehouse, or bargaining to be taken by wagons across the South Platte ford, where the Overland Stage for Denver connected with the railroad.
As fast as the Union Pacific, on the north side of the Platte River, lengthened its passenger haul from Omaha, on the south side of the Platte River the Overland Stage shortened its haul to Denver and Salt Lake.
After a while there would be no stage haul needed, through this country. The stages would run only between Denver and wherever the railroad passed by, north of it; and people would go through from the Missouri River in two days instead of in six.
An engine and tender backed up and hooked on to the Dodge car; a fine-looking car, which must be the Lincoln car for the Government commissioners, had been coupled on, behind. While Terry gazed about, from his platform, trying to take in all the sights, here came General Dodge and Superintendent Reed, as if in a hurry.
“All aboard!” The general waved his arm at the engineer, as he sprang up the steps. To ring of bell and hiss of exhaust the little train started. There was no time lost.
“Hello, young man,” the general greeted, to Terry. “Ready for the day?”
“Yes, sir.”
“I expect you’d like to begin with breakfast. So would Mr Reed and I. We’ve made one beginning but we’ll make another. We all can eat and watch things go past at the same time.”
Decidedly, it was fun to sit at a table and eat while whirled along across country at a tremendous pace, with the landscape flitting by in plain sight just outside the windows.
“How fast are we going now, please?” Terry ventured. The general looked at his watch a minute, and seemed to be listening.
“About twenty-five miles an hour, I should judge. Is that right, Sam?”
Whew! And when Ben Holladay, the King of the Overland Stage, had made fourteen miles in an hour with his special coach and a special team of fours, that had seemed like a lightning trip.
They had thundered over the long bridge above the North Platte River, and were scooting eastward, parallel with the main Platte. From across the river the emigrants who still stuck to their slow prairie schooners or covered wagons, waved at the train. At a safe distance some antelope fled, flashing their white rumps. Prairie-dogs sat up at the mouth of their burrows, to gaze.
Once in a while a ranch, with low adobe buildings, might be seen, south of the river; and an old stage station there, before or behind, was almost always in sight. The Overland had quit running, east of Cottonwood station, near North Platte.
On this side of the river there was not much to see, except the railroad telegraph poles, and the prairie-dogs, and the line of rails
that stretched clear to Omaha on the Missouri River, and a sidestation of one little building which slipped by so quickly that Terry could not read the sign.
The general and Superintendent Reed went back into the Lincoln car, to talk with the commissioners there. They left the headquarters car to Terry, Shep and the black cook.
“How you like this sort o’ travel, boy?” queried the cook, as he tidied the car with a dust-rag.
“We’re sure moving,” Terry grinned. “It beats staging. How fast are we going now, do you think?”
“Oh, mebbe thirty miles an houah. Reckon we gotto meet ’nother train. This heah road is shy on meetin’ places yet. But, sho’, thirty miles ain’t nothin’, boy. When the gin’ral heahs somethin’ callin’ him, he jest tells this old cah to step on the injine’s tail, an’—woof! ’Way we go, fifty, mebbe fifty-five miles an houah! Yessuh. Sometimes the gin’ral he likes to show off a bit, too, when there’s gover’ment folks abohd. He shuah gives ’em a ride, so they’ll know this ain’t any play road, down today an’ up tomorrow. Where you from?”
“End o’ track,” answered Terry.
“What you do there?”
“Haul rails.”
“Was you up there yestuhday, when they fit the Injuns?”
“You bet. They found we were bad medicine, too. They almost set the boarding-train on fire, though. That was a right smart fight, till the general and the Pawnees came and drove ’em off in a jiffy.”
“Hi yi!” the cook chuckled. “We-all had jest got into Nohth Platte when the gin’ral, he heard about it. He’s a powerful fightin’ man, the gin’ral is. He’s fit Injuns a lot o’ times befoh. An’ those commishners, they’re fightin’ men, too; they done fit in the wah. An’ there was a passel o’ seemed like white trash here, who was quittin’ work on the road because they’d got paid off. But the gin’ral, he calls out: ‘You boys, the Injuns are ’tackin’ our camps up the road. Pile in, if you want to go with me.’ An’ they shuah piled in, every last one of ’em,
same as though they hadn’t quit the road at all. Yessuh! An’ when they piled in, this chile he piled out, t’other end. He guessed like he wasn’t needed. Hi yi! No, suh! He’s got too much scalp. His hair ain’t like white man’s hair; it’s same length all ovuh his haid.”
“Indians don’t scalp negroes. They can’t. And they think it’s bad medicine,” said Terry. “They call you buffalo soldiers.”
“I ain’t no buff’lo soldiers. I’m a cook, an’ I knowed they didn’t want no cook up yonduh,” the darky retorted. “Yessuh. An’ in case it come on night, Injuns might not make any diff’rence ’tween a white man an’ a black man. No, suh.”
“Not unless they felt your hair,” laughed Terry. The cook seemed to turn a shade pale.
“No Injun’s gwine to feel my hair. No, suh! Not unless he can outrun this heah train; an’ then when he reaches in he’s got to catch me, foh if I once get out the othuh end—oh, boy! I’d jest hit the ground twice between the train an’ Omaha. The Injuns’d be sayin’ ‘There he goes’ the same time Omaha was sayin’ ‘Heah he comes!’ Yessuh! I’m powerful scared o’ Injuns. It’s gwine to be a mighty bad yeah, foh Injuns, too.”
“How do you know?”
“’Cause I heard the gin’ral sayin’ so. I heard him say he’d asked foh moh soldiers, to guard the line cl’ar to the mountings. Yessuh. He’s asked Gin’ral Sherman. How far you gwine?”
“I dunno. To Omaha, maybe. Why?”
“Got some kin there?”
“No. I’m riding for fun.”
“You ridin’ foh fun?”
“Yes.”
“When you get to Omaha, then you gwine back where you come from?”
“Sure thing. I’ve got a job, at end o’ track.”
“Don’t you do it; don’t you do it, boy,” advised the cook, as darkly as his face. “Don’t you ride ’round these pahts foh fun. No, suh! An’ don’t you staht back from Omaha till Gin’ral Sherman’s soldiers have killed ev’ry one o’ them Injuns. Yessuh! You let Gin’ral Sherman an’ Gin’ral Dodge ’tend to one end o’ track, an’ you get a job at t’other end.”
Terry had to laugh, but the cook’s words struck home. Matters looked bad. The Indians had started in, that was certain; and everybody appeared to think that this was an “Injun” year. Somehow, he felt that he was deserting his post. He was leaving Paddy Miles and the gang to their troubles, and was making for safety, himself.
“When do we stop next?” he asked.
“I dunno. Mebbe we’ll stop at Willow Island, foh ohduhs; an’ mebbe we’ll stop at Kearney. Jest depends on the gin’ral. We stop whenever we please, or whenever the injineer needs wood an’ watuh, or whenever we got to meet ’nothuh train.”
“How far is Kearney?”
“Hundred miles from Nohth Platte. We’ll get there befoh noon, an’ we’ll get to Omaha befoh dark. Yessuh, we’ll travel right along.”
The cook went on about his business, and Terry stared out at the flying country, which danced a reel in tune with the roaring wheels. This was great fun, of course, to be speeding over the new Union Pacific Railroad, in a private car, but——! And he wondered how Jenny and Jimmie Muldoon’s brother were holding down the job at end o’ track.
With a swoop and a whistle they rushed past a long freight-train, waiting on a siding. At every siding there was one of these long freights, plumb loaded and headed west, or partly empty and headed east.
They might get a glimpse of Fort McPherson, at Cottonwood Springs on the stage road along the other side of the river. Then they whirled right through Brady Island station of the railroad. But stop they did at Willow Island, which bore the same name as the old Overland station, across from it.
The station buildings, except the station-house itself, were of sod, and loop-holed so as to fight off the Indians. They looked like a fort. A lot of cedar bridge-piles and telegraph poles and cottonwood ties were stacked here, brought in by ranchers’ wagons from the places where they had been cut. The road didn’t get much of such stuff, on these bare plains, but once in a while there was a valley or some bottom-land with a little timber growing. Cedar ties and cottonwood ties were no good, though, until they were soaked in zinc, to make them hard and lasting. The best ties came from Missouri, Iowa and Wisconsin.
The next stop was at Plum Creek, also named for the old stage station, opposite; then there was a pause on a side-track, to let another train by; and they were off again. It certainly was fast work.
General Dodge entered his headquarters car.
“How do you like railroading, now?” he asked.
“Fine, sir. We go some, don’t we!”
“Rather beat the stages, or your old yellow mule, that’s a fact,” the general admitted. “But if it wasn’t for you fellows that lay the track in such good shape, we couldn’t go at all.”
“And the men who discover the trail—they count a heap, too, I guess,” Terry added.
“Yes, siree. The surveyors’ job is the most ticklish job, especially out on the desert and in the mountains. Track-layers, graders, and surveyors—they’re all heroes. They do the hard work, but the people who never see them don’t think of them. Well, will you stay aboard into Omaha?”
“Would I be a long time getting back?” Terry queried.
“No, sir; not unless the road is tied up by Indian trouble. I’ll put you on a train and send you right through to North Platte; then you can jump a construction-train, and keep going to end of track again. You’ll have your pass.”
“Where do we stop next, please?” Terry asked.
“At Kearney We’ll be there in about an hour You can get off and stretch your legs, and so can the dog.”
“Could I go back from Kearney?” Terry blurted.
“Oh, pshaw!” And the general’s eyes twinkled. “You aren’t homesick already, are you? You might have to wait there until two o’clock in the morning, for the passenger train. You could catch the same train farther down the line. No; you’d better ride on to Omaha, and see the whole system that you’ve helped build.”
“Yes, sir,” agreed Terry—but somehow he felt a little doubtful. If he should be kept at Omaha, on account of Indian trouble—oh, that wouldn’t do at all. His place was at the front.
Kearney had been named for old Fort Kearney, across the river. It wasn’t much of a place, yet: just the station and a store and scattering of small houses. There were several soldiers from the fort standing around. General Dodge and Superintendent Reed had jumped off and seemed to be having business with an officer, while the engine took on water; so Terry and Shep jumped off, too. Then a man came running from the station door, with a piece of yellow paper —a telegram—for the engineer.
He was a lively young man, with a limp. Staring, Terry scarcely could believe his eyes. Now he, too, ran, yelling, and Shep bolted ahead, barking, and they caught the young man, who turned, astonished.
Yes, it was Harry Revere, all right—good old Harry, ex-school teacher, ex-Pike’s Peaker, ex-prospector, ex-Pony Express rider, exOverland Stage station-keeper, and a dandy partner.
“For heaven’s sake, what you doing here?” he demanded, as they shook hands.
“Oh, I’m traveling special, inspecting the U. P.,” grinned Terry. “What you doing?”
“I’m the boss lightning-shooter at this shebang,” proclaimed Harry. “You couldn’t travel at all, if it wasn’t for me. See? Wait till I deliver this dispatch.”
In a moment he came back.
“Thought you were somewhere down the line farther; thought you were in Omaha, maybe,” said Terry.
“So I was, but I’m getting promoted out toward the front. That’s where I want to be. I won’t stop till I’m clear through to Salt Lake. But where you going? Thought you had a job at the front, yourself? How’s Jenny? [Jenny really was Harry’s mule, but she was working for the company.] How are your folks?”
“They’re all right. So’s Jenny. Jimmie Muldoon’s brother is riding her and spelling me. I’m going to Omaha. General Dodge invited me.”
“You haven’t quit?”
“No. I’m just on a little trip.”
“What do you want to go on to Omaha for?” scolded Harry. “Shucks! This is no time to take it easy, when we’re trying to make a big year. I want to be at the front, myself. There’s nothing between here and Omaha. Where’s George?”
“He’s on survey, ’way out.”
“Wish I was with him,” asserted Harry. “But I’m getting along, by hops and skips. I don’t savvy why you want to go to Omaha, when you were at the front, yourself, with Jenny.”
“I don’t want to go, Harry,” Terry confessed. “Gee, I’d like to be back already. General Dodge has asked me, though; I guess he thinks it’s a treat for me to ride to Omaha. I’m sick of loafing—I’ve been gone a night and half a day, now, and I ought to be back, in case they need me.”
“Bully for you,” Harry praised. “I’ll tell you: You stop off here with me, for a couple of hours. You can explain to the general that you’d rather stay and visit me than go on to Omaha. You won’t have to wait for the passenger train. No, sir! I’ll fix you out.”
“I’ll ask him,” answered Terry, on the run again.
The general seemed to understand perfectly.
“You see, sir,” Terry finished, “I’d like to be on the job till you come through next time, and then maybe I can get off to go out on that
survey trip, if you have room for me. I’d rather find George Stanton than go to Omaha. I like the front, and I’ve seen a whole lot of the road, now.”
“That’s all right,” General Dodge approved. “The front’s the best place. You stay there, and keep your share of the rails moving up. We can’t run trains without rails, and unless we have the rails we can’t get to Salt Lake and beat the Central. So good-by and good luck. I’ll have a wire sent to your father that you’ve turned back.”
“Please tell him to tell Pat Miles that I’ll be there tomorrow morning sure, and I’ll want my mule and truck,” Terry begged.
The general laughed. He and Mr. Reed boarded their train and it pulled out. Terry and Shep found Harry Revere in the operator’s room of the passenger station—which also was the station-agent’s room.
“What do you have to do, Harry?”
“Nothing much I only sell tickets and check up freight and bill express and send dispatches and read the wire and wrestle baggage and sweep out and answer questions and once in a while tend some woman’s baby while she goes home after something she’s forgotten. When there’s nothing more important, I eat or sleep. But I’m hoping to push on up front, where it’s lively. I aim to get to Salt Lake as soon as the rails and poles do. Were you in that Injun fracas at end o’ track, yesterday?”
“I shore was. How’d you hear?”
“I picked it off the wire. I just sat here and made medicine while youall fought. Nobody scalped, was there? Did they hurt Jenny? I asked the North Platte operator and he laughed at me. ‘Ha, ha!’ was all he said.”
“Nope; nobody scalped, except a couple of the Sioux. They put a hole through Jenny’s ear, though.”
“The low-down villains!” grumbled Harry. “Abused the beautiful ear of my Jenny, did they? When I come along I’ll bring her an earring. Reckon a little bale of hay would please her most: an earring to
represent a little bale of hay And a cob of corn for the other ear, if she gets a hole through that too. Say,” he asked, “you didn’t see Sol Judy in those parts, did you?”
“No. Is Sol around there?”
“Yep. He’s a scout at Fort McPherson, helping guard the line.” That was good news. Sol Judy was another old friend. He dated away back to the Kansas ranch, where he’d appeared on his way from California. And he’d been with them in the Colorado gold diggin’s, and had driven stage and scouted along the Overland; and now here he was again, still doing his share of work while the country grew
“Our whole family’s joining in with the U. P., looks like,” Harry added.
“All except my mother and George’s mother and Virgie.” Virgie was George Stanton’s sister. “And I bet you they’ll be on the job some way, before we get done with it.”
“You win,” Harry chuckled. “That’s their style—right up and coming. Well, let’s go to dinner How’d you like fried ham and saleratus biscuits?”
“Fine.”
“Good. Yesterday I had saleratus biscuits and fried ham, today we’ll have fried ham and saleratus biscuits; tomorrow there’ll be just biscuits and ham. It’s a great system.”
They ate in the section house, at a board table covered with oilcloth. After dinner they swapped yarns and visited, while Harry busied himself dispatching or attending to the people who dropped in. A passenger train from the west came through, and a freight.
About three o’clock Harry took another message, and reported on it.
“Now you can get out of here. There’ll be a freight along in about half an hour.” That was welcome news.
“From the east, you mean?”
“Yep.”
“Hooray,” Terry cheered. “I’ll be on the job again in the morning.”
But Harry scowled as he jiggled his telegraph key
“Dead once more,” he complained.
“Who?”
“The line west.”
“Maybe the operator up there’s asleep.”
“No. It’s lack of juice. I can tell. Something’s busted.”
“Injuns did it, huh?”
“Naw, don’t think so. Ever since that buck tore a wire out and tried to ride off with it, and lightning struck the line a mile or so beyond and killed him and his pony both, the Injuns have let the Talking Spirit alone. ’Cept of course they shoot the insulators off, now and then. And the Overlanders chop the poles for firewood and use a piece of wire when they want to fix their wagons. At least, they do that on the other side the river, and I reckon they reach over and do it on this side. And the poles make mighty fine scratch sticks for the buffalo to rub against.”
The Overland Telegraph Company’s line across continent followed the stage road, south of the Platte; the Union Pacific Railroad line followed the rails on this side of the river. But when the railroad was finished, there would likely be only the one line.
“What are you going to do?” Terry asked.
“Find Bill Thompson. The break’s between here and Willow.”
“Who’s Bill Thompson?”
“Head lineman. He’ll have to get out and fix it. You stay here and keep shop while I hunt Bill.”
“Supposing the freight comes along,” queried Terry. “Do I jump it?”
“Nary a jump,” Harry answered, from the door. “Let her come. She dassn’t run through without orders from the boss, and that’s Harry Revere, chief lightning-shooter, station-agent, ticket-seller, expresstoter, freight-slinger, baggage-wrecker and baby-tender. I’ll be back and tell ’em what to do.”
He was gone about twenty minutes, and returned considerably flustered.
“Bill’s fishing. Dog-gone him! He never catches anything, either He went up the Platte or down the Platte; left word he was going down, so probably he’s up. Now traffic on the Union Pacific Railroad will have to wait on Bill. I’ve got people hunting him.”
The freight pulled in. The engine stood fuming; the crew lolled about; yes, everything and everybody waited on Bill Thompson. Terry felt that he was losing valuable time. This was pretty tough. He wanted to be on his way
Bill appeared, breathless, at half-past four—and he hadn’t caught a single fish, either. Now he had to get his men together and his handcar out.
“How far’s he going?” Terry demanded, struck with an idea.
“As far as Willow, anyway. North Platte, maybe, if he takes the notion,” said Harry “There’s better fishing at North Platte—and better eating, too. Besides, he’s got a girl up there, at an all-night hash counter.”
“Gee, then! Why can’t Shep and I go too?” Terry proposed.
“Sure thing. There’s nothing like a handcar, for seeing the country from. Climb aboard. Tell Bill I sent you.”
“But won’t the freight pass us?”
“Not till you get to Willow. It’ll have to wait till Bill gives the O. K. These freights are mighty uncertain—they’re strictly limited. When they don’t happen to be moving they’re standing still, waiting for something. The main business of a freight crew on this line seems to be hunting a side-track. So if you’re really in a hurry you’d better take the handcar.”
“All right. Good-by.” And Terry ran for the handcar.
“I’ll see you at Salt Lake,” called Harry, after.
The handcar crew were about ready. They numbered four, in broadbrimmed slouch hats, flannel shirts, and trousers tucked into heavy
boots. They were just stowing their climbing irons and other tools on the car, and a couple of rifles, also.
Bill Thompson, the red-faced head lineman, with whiskers on his chin, granted Terry a sharp look.
“What’s the matter, bub?”
“Harry said I could go up track with you, if you don’t mind.”
“An’ the dawg too?”
“Yes, please.”
“An’ ’ow fur might you be goin’?” By his speech Bill was English.
“Clear to North Platte, if I can. I’ve got a job with the track-laying gang at end o’ track.”
“Needn’t be scared of Injuns, boy,” remarked one of the other men, as Terry and Shep hopped aboard together. “They don’t bother the track. These here guns are for antelope. You sit at one end, out of the way, and hold your dog where he won’t be stepped on.”
With a running start they were off. Harry waved from the station door. Shep lay braced, considerably astonished; but he was a wise old dog, and put his trust in his master. Terry sat with his legs hanging over the rear end of the car; the men, two to a bar, pumped regularly; the car gathered way, and moved clanking over the rails. This assuredly beat riding upon a train, because a fellow was right outdoors and could see everywhere.
It was sort of go-as-you-please, too. The men kept close watch of the telegraph line; now and then they stopped the car, and one of them put on his climbing irons and shinned up a pole, to inspect. But they didn’t find the break, yet. Meanwhile the sun sank lower and lower, and presently entered a bank of clouds in the west. Dusk began to gather; the plains seemed very quiet and lonely, and the handcar small and lost.
What with the frequent stops, to investigate, darkness was making everything dim when they rolled into Plum Creek station. Plum Creek was as lonely as the country around; the station was locked and the agent evidently had gone for the night.
“’E wouldn’t know h’anything, any’ow,” remarked Bill Thompson. “’E h’ain’t a h’operator.”
They bowled on, through Plum Creek, and into the darkness.
“’Ow’s a man expected to see a broken wire this time o’ day?” Bill grumbled.
“’Tisn’t day; it’s night.”
“Right you h’are,” he answered. “We’ll go h’on to Willow an’ find out if h’anybody there knows h’anything. An’ when we’re at Willow we’re ’alf way to North Platte, aye? Might as well go on to North Platte, aye? H’are you game? North Platte’s a proper kind o’ place. ’Bout time this line was inspected clear through, h’anyway. Climb a pole, one o’ you, an’ test out. We’re liable to pass that break unbeknown.”
With a torch, one of the men climbed a pole.
“I can raise ’em east, but I can’t get ’em, west,” he called down. “The break’s on ahead still. I see a light, ’way up track.”
“What kind o’ light?”
“First I thought it was a train a-comin’. Doesn’t seem to move, though. It’s ’round a curve. You fellers on the ground can’t see it.”
“Trampers, maybe.”
“Or the h’operator from Willow is tryin’ to fix that break ’imself,” added Bill. “Come down an’ we’ll go h’up.”
So the man came down from the pole, and the handcar moved on, pump-pump, clank-clank, with everybody peering ahead.
Yes, after a time they could glimpse the light, before, where the track led. It flickered ruddily, but did not move. Looked to be a bonfire.
“I don’t see any figgers at it,” said one of the men.
“They must be workin’ on the wire,” said Bill. “Or else layin’ an’ toastin’ their shins.”
“You don’t reckon it’s Injuns, do you?”
“What’d h’Injuns be doin’ with a big fire to show their whereabouts?” Bill reproved. “H’anyway, ’ere we come.”
The distance lessened, and the bonfire grew plainer. It was a hundred yards before, on the curve—it was seventy-five yards—it was fifty yards; the handcar had slackened, while everybody gazed curiously; and suddenly, as if out of the very ground, there had sprung into ruddy view on both sides of the track a dozen figures, ahorse and afoot.
Bill yelped alarmed.
“H’Injuns, boys! Don’t stop. Give it to her! We’ll run right through ’em!”
The men bowed their backs. The handcar fairly jumped as it charged the fire and the figures. Hanging hard and squirming flat, Terry held his breath. A moment more, and ’midst a chorus of yells they were there, running the gauntlet. Then, to a violent crash, they and the car were hurtling together, high in the air.
