American Language Supplement 1

by H. L. Mencken

  Radiotrician, perhaps suggested by electrician rather than by mortician, was adopted by the radio repairmen in the late 1920s,5 a little while after the regular electrical jobbers began to call themselves electragists.6 The shoetricians, who appear in reactionary dictionaries as cobblers, dallied with shoe-rebuilder before they hit upon shoetrician. There was a Shoe-Rebuilders’ Association in Baltimore so early as October 17, 1935, as I record for posterity in AL4, p. 288, n. 5. But on Sunday, February 25, 1940, the directors of the Texas Master Shoe-Rebuilders’ Association met at the Hotel Texas, Fort Worth, and “decided that their service included more than rebuilding,… so the organization’s name was changed to the Texas-Southwestern Association of Shoetricians.”1 When news of this decision permeated the country there was mocking in the newspapers. The New York Times led off with an editorial sneer in which it was assumed idiotically that the customs shoemakers had begun to call themselves booticians, and that the cobblers were simply trying to leap aboard their bandwagon.2 It may seem incredible that even an editorial writer could have been unaware of the fact that bootician was the designation of a high-toned bootlegger, but there is the fact. During the months following a great many other papers took hacks at the shoe-tricians,3 but the more idealistic of them stuck to their new and lovely name. Fizzician, a second stage (the first being fountaineer) in the advance from soda-jerk, was reported by PM in 1938. Strategician, applied to a master of lawn-tennis, seems to have been invented in 1937 by John Lardner, son of the immortal Ring. Linguistician has been ascribed to a lady pedagogue of Lincoln, Neb.4 Locktician was noted in American Speech in 1937,5 and many other such marvels have been recorded in the same learned journal, e.g., whooptician,6 fermentician,7 bootblackitician,8 scholastician,9 dramatitian.10 Ecstatician (“one who studies, or is versed in, ecstasies”) turned up in the Atlantic Monthly in 1936,11 and jazzician in England in 1938.12 Bootician was my own invention, launched in the American Mercury in 1925.13 It was followed five years later by super-bootician.14 It came too late to be included in the DAE, but is listed by Berrey and Van den Bark, who define it as “a high-class bootlegger.” It enjoyed a considerable vogue during the last half dozen of the thirteen years of Prohibition, and reached England by 1931.1 The parent bootlegger is not as old as most Americans are apt to assume. The DAE’s first example is dated 1889. The term apparently originated in what is now Oklahoma in the days before the region was opened to white settlement, when the sale of liquor to the Indians was prohibited.

  The tendency to engaud lowly vocations with names presumed to be dignified goes back to the earliest days of the Republic, and has been frequently noted by English travelers, beginning with Thomas Anburey in 1779.2 In 1784 John Ferdinand Dalziel Smyth observed that the smallest American shopkeepers were calling their establishments stores, which indicated a large place to an Englishman. “The different distinct branches of manufacturers,” he said, “such as hosiers, haberdashers, clothiers, linen-drapers, grocers, stationers, etc., are not known here; they are all comprehended in the single name and occupation of merchant or storekeeper.”3 A dozen years later Francis Baily was reporting from Tennessee that storekeeper was “the general denomination” there for “everyone who buys and sells.”4 By 1846, as the DAE shows, the American barber-shop had begun to be a shaving-saloon, and by 1850 a photographer was a daguerreian artist. By the end of the 70s barbers were tonsorial artists,5 and in the early 80s presentable saloon-keepers became restauranters or restauranteurs.6 By 1901 the Police Gazette was carrying on a campaign for the abandonment of the lowly bartender and the adoption of either bar-clerk or mixologist, which last had been proposed sportively by the Knickerbocker Magazine in 1856, and had come into more or less use in the West by 1870.1 The early American photographers called their working-places studios, and in the course of time the term was adopted by the operators of billiard-rooms, barbershops, and even various sorts of stores.2 A contributor to American Speech, in 1926,3 reported encountering tonsorial studio, food studio and shoe studio. In 1940 the makers of Fanny Farmer candies were advertising that they maintained “studios in which these candies are made in Rochester, N. Y., Brooklyn, Minneapolis, Cleveland, Cambridge, Mass., and Milwaukee,” and at about the same time a candy-factory in Canada was inviting patrons to “pay us a visit and see the absolute cleanliness of our studios.”4 Welker Cockran, at last accounts, was operating a billiard studio in Hollywood, Calif., but it should be added that most of his colleagues seem to still prefer parlor or academy. Dr. A. G. Keller tells me that he once heard a chiropodist refer to his studio.

  The list of such euphemisms might be lengthened almost endlessly. A correspondent sends in the advertisement of a bill-collector who describes himself as a collection correspondent,5 another reports a tapeworn specialist who operates a Helminthological Institute,6 and a third turns in section manager (formerly aisle manager) for a floor-walker. From North Carolina comes over-the-counter salesperson for store-clerk,1 from Philadelphia comes a demand for a more elegant name for the airline stewardess or hostess,2 Chicago contributes trolley-pilot for motorman,3 Peoria, Ill., follows with gemmologist (a lady jeweler),4 and New York bands its soda-jerks into a Cooks, Countermen, Soda Dispensers and Assistants Union. Tree-surgeon is too familiar to need notice: Webster lists it without comment, and in 1934 the man who coined it, Martin L. Davey, was elected Governor of Ohio. The old-time newsboy is now a newspaper-boy, which seems to be regarded as somehow more dignified;5 a dog-catcher is a canine control officer in Peoria, Ill.,6 and a humane officer in Tulsa, Okla.;7 an iceman, in Denver, is an ice-attendant;8 a janitor is an engineer-custodian or a custodial engineer; and a grocer is a provisioner or victualer.9 So long ago as 1928 President E. L. Robins, of the National Fertilizer Association, started a campaign to drop its name and substitute either the National Association of Plant Food Manufacturers or the American Plant Food Association,10 and in 1940 the International Brotherhood of Red Caps changed its name to the United Transport Service Employees of America.11 In 1939, when the surviving customers’ men in the offices of the New York stockbrokers formed an Association of Customers’ Men, there was a considerable debate among them about the designation of their craft, which had been made somewhat dubious by the jibes of the town wits. Sixty-seven per cent, of them turned out to be in favor of changing it, with associate broker and broker’s representative polling the most votes as substitutes.12 But when the members met at their first annual convention on June 5 they decided to adopt customers’ broker.13 Three years before this the hod-carriers of Milwaukee, acting through the Milwaukee Building Trades Council, had resolved to be hod-carriers no more, but mason-laborers,1 and only a few months later the Long Island Federation of Women’s Clubs decreed that housewives should cease to be housewives and become homemakers. In 1942 some reformer in Kansas City launched a crusade to make it household executive.2 In 1943 the more solvent spiritualists of the country, fretting under a name that had acquired discreditable connotations, resolved to be psychists thenceforth, and organized Psychists, Inc., with John Myers of New York, “a non-professional medium of varied and remarkable powers,” as its first president.3

  Gardeners posturing as landscape architects and laborers posturing as gardeners are too numerous to be remarked. So are lobbyists under the guise of industrial consultants, press-agents disguised as publicity directors, public relations counsel or publicists, detectives as investigators or operatives, and messenger boys as communications carriers.4 Public relations counsel was launched by Edward L. Bernays of New York, one of the most distinguished members of the fraternity. It had been preceded by councillor in (or on) public relations, occasionally used by Ivy L. Lee (1878–1934), another eminent publicist. The history and true meaning of public relations counsel were thus expounded in a memorandum issued from the Bernays office on February 18, 1944:

  In 1919, Mr. Bernays returned to this country from the Peace Conference, at which he was present as a member of the United States Committee on Public Information
. On September 27, 1919, he unlocked the door of offices at 19 East 48th street. In Paris Mr. Bernays had been impressed with the effectiveness of the work carried on by the Committee on Public Information. For want of a better name, he called his new activities publicity direction and it was under this name that they were announced in a folder at the time. Ivy Lee at this time had already set up offices in downtown New York. He was calling himself an advisor on public relations. Sometimes he called himself a councillor in (or on) public relations.

  Mr. Bernays, and Doris E. Fleischman, a young woman working with him in his office at the time, whom he later married and who is now his partner, were semantically minded. They were dissatisfied with the term publicity director and searched for terminology that would come to mean the functions they were performing and no others. In casting about for a term, the two hit upon an expression that seemed to them to fit the need. They took the word counsel from legal nomenclature and added to it on public relations. To them, at the time, this phrase was the nearest approach to indicating just what they felt they were doing, that is, giving professional advice on relationships with the public to their clients, regardless of whether such advice resulted in publicity or not.

  Mr. Bernays then wrote a book, “Crystallizing Public Opinion,” published in 1923. Its purpose was to outline the scope and function of the new work. All the reviewers did not regard the new term as simply a euphemism for an old one. The New York Herald Tribune opined that, “individuals and nations may find equal profit in Mr. Bernays’ exposition of the new profession of public relations counsel.” The Baltimore Sun saw in the public relations counsel “a man who performs for the commercial, industrial, financial or governmental interests which retain him, the methods of both journalism and advertising, and embracing the use of all established mediums of communication.” In 1923 the New York Telephone Company’s Red Book was persuaded by Mr. Bernays to use the title in one of its listings and from this the practice became nationwide. Every large city today has counsels on public relations.

  Mr. Bernays then attempted to get universities and colleges to adopt the new term. Today there are courses in public relations in many universities. Mr. Bernays himself gave the first at New York University in 1923. In 1928 he wrote “Propaganda” and further currency was given to the term. In 1944 the Dictionary of Sociology described public relations as:

  “(1) Relations of an individual, association, government, or corporation with the publics which it must take into consideration in carrying on its social functions. These publics can include voters, customers, employees, potential employees, past employees, stockholders, members of antagonistic pressure groups, neighbors, etc.

  “(2) The body of theory and technique utilized in adjusting the relationships of a subject with its publics. These theories and techniques represent applications of sociology, social psychology, economics, and political science as well as of the special skills of journalists, artists, organizational experts, advertising men, etc., to the specific problems involved in this field of activity.” and public relations counsel as:

  “Specialist in public relations. Specifically, an expert in (a) analyzing public relations maladjustments, (b) locating probable causes of such maladjustments in the social behavior of the client and in the sentiments and opinions of publics, and (c) advising the client on suitable corrective measures. The latter requires “bedside” techniques as delicate and complex as those utilized by the psychiatrist in many cases. The public relations counselor has a field of competence that overlaps somewhat those of press agents, public opinion analysts, lobbyists, organizational experts, etc., and requires him to be in a broad sense a societal technician, proficient in the application of scientific social theories and tested publicity techniques.

  The lowly garbage-man and ash-man (English: dustman) have begun to disappear from the American fauna: they are now becoming sanitary officers, and the bureau under which the former works (at all events in heavenly Pasadena) has become the table waste disposal department.1 Street-sweeps are also becoming sanitary officers or sanitation men. The United States Postoffice now calls its male sweepers and cleaners charmen, and may be trusted on some near tomorrow to give a lift to its charwomen.2 The junkmen, by their own resolve, are now waste-material dealers.3

  This American aversion to designations indicating a servile or ignominious status goes back to the first days of the Republic, and in Chapter 1, Section 6 we have encountered J. Fenimore Cooper’s discussion of it. Help is traced by the DAE to 1630, and hired-men to 1694, but before the Revolution both terms seem to have been descriptive merely, with no hint of euphemism. Albert Matthews maintains with his accustomed great learning that this was certainly true of hired-man.4 Before 1776, he says, there was not “the slightest indication of its having been employed in a euphemistic sense.” But after 1776 it began to be employed to distinguish a freeman from a slave, and after 1863 it became a general substitute for servant, a “hated appellation.” It was not noted as an Americanism by any of the early writers on the subject, but Webster listed it in his American Dictionary of 1828. The NED does not mark it an Americanism, but hired-girl, hired-hand and hired-help are so designated. Hired-girl is traced to 1818, hired-hand to the same year, and hired-help to 1815. Help is also marked an Americanism. At the start it appears to have designated a person giving occasional assistance only, as opposed to a regular servant. Just when it became a euphemism is not clear, but it was probably after the Revolution, when the servant problem became acute. In the closing years of the Eighteenth Century Hugh Jones reported from New York in his “Travels in the United States, 1793–1797,” p. 24,5 that “if you want to hire a maid-servant in this city she will not allow you the title of master, or herself to be called servant.” In 1807 Charles William Janson reported in “the Stranger in America,” pp. 87 and 88, the following dialogue with a maidservant at the door of a friend’s house:

  Q. Is your master at home?

  A. I have no master.

  Q. Don’t you live here?

  A. I stay here.

  Q. And who are you then?

  A. Why, I am Mr.—’s help. I’d have you know, man, that I am no sarvent. None but negers are sarvents.1

  By the end of the Civil War, when the servant problem again became acute, it was impossible to placate these rambunctious females with euphemistic words, with the result described by another English observer, George Augustus Sala:2

  Goaded to desperation by young-lady helps, who will wear jewelry, crinoline, and ringlets, the employers of female labor advertise every day for foreign domestics. “A willing German girl,” “A hard-working Irish girl just arrived!” and so forth. They get hold of raw emigrants, simple and uncouth young ladies from the middle states of Germany or the wilds of southern Ireland. For a time they do very well. Accustomed to toil from their infancy, they will sweep and scrub, wash and iron, from early in the morning to late at night. They are too unsophisticated not to be obedient. They are temporarily grateful for abundant food and comfortable lodging, and make capital servants. But there comes a time when three meals a day, and unstinted meals too, bring about their inevitable consequences. They have more money than they know how to spend; they learn to talk American-English; they have their beaux and their female gossips; they awaken at last to the conviction, that they are as good as you, and a great deal better.

  Help and hired-girl are now both abandoned, and maid is the almost universal designation of a female servant.

  289. [The Engineering News-Record, the organ of the engineers, used to devote a column every week to uninvited invaders of the craft.… One of its favorite exhibits was a bedding manufacturer who became the first mattress-engineer and then promoted himself to the lofty dignity of sleep-engineer.] This hatching of bogus engineers still goes on. The following specimens from my collectanea, with examples of their use, include a few from the files of the Engineering News-Record, not listed in AL4:

  Civilization-engineer. A scientist.r />
  1927. Philadelphia Evening Bulletin (editorial), quoted in Engineering News-Record, Feb. 17. This is the only fitting term for the representatives of forty-five learned societies who gather under the auspices of the American Association for the Advancement of Science.

  Custodian-engineer. A janitor.

  1939. Richard C. Hottelet, private communication, March 7. In New York City the janitors of the public schools are called custodian-engineers.1

  Educational-engineer. A pedagogue.

  1937. P. W. L. Cox and R. E. Langfitt in High School Administration and Supervision. As an educational-engineer the [high-school] principal functions in three rôles.2

  Equipment-engineer.

  1941. Private communication from Robert H. Quinn of Brooklyn, July 24. Sign observed on the truck of a firm of office-furniture dealers.

  Esthetic-engineer. A painter.

  1942. Life, Aug. 17. Because his artists [of the Federal Art Project] work to exact specifications Supervisor Seitelson refers to them proudly as esthetic-engineers.

  Newspaper-engineer. A reorganizer of newspapers.

  1940. Editor and Publisher, April 20. Mrs. Ackley was formerly associated with Guy T. Viskniski & Associates, newspaper-engineers.

  Odor-engineer. A perfumery manufacturer.

  1940. Ray Giles in the Reader’s Digest, July, p. 81, (condensed from Advertising and Selling). Odor-engineers frequently have to caution enthusiastic clients against overdoing the use of scent.