ter
of language; but his is a dangerous example for the unscholarly, who are
congenitally careless and who are responsible for _soubriquet_ instead
of _sobriquet_, for _a l'outrance_ instead of _a outrance_, and for _en
deshabille_ instead of _en deshabille_. The late Mrs. Oliphant in her
little book on Sheridan credited him with _gaiete du coeur_. It was
long an American habit to term a railway station a _depot_ (totally
anglicized in its pronunciation--_deep-oh)_; but _depot_ is in French
the name for a storehouse, and it is not--or not customarily--the name
of a railway station. It was also a custom in American theatres to give
the name of _parquette_-seats to the chairs which are known in England
as 'stalls'; and in village theatres _parquette_ was generally
pronounced 'par-kay'.

There are probably as many in Great Britain as in the United States
who speak the French which is not spoken by the French themselves.
Affectation and pretentiousness and the desire to show off are abundant
in all countries. They manifest themselves even in Paris, where I once
discovered on a bill of fare at the Grand Hotel _Irisch-stew a la
francaise_. This may be companioned by a bill of fare on a Cunard
steamer plying between Liverpool and New York, whereon I found myself
authorized to order _tartletes_ and _cutletes_. When I called the
attention of a neighbour to these outlandish vocables, the affable
steward bent forward to enlighten my ignorance. 'It's the French,
sir,' he explained; '_tartlete_ and _cutlete_ is French.'

That way danger lies; and when we are speaking or writing to those who
have English as their mother-tongue there are obvious advantages in
speaking and writing English, with no vain effort to capture Gallic
graces. Readers of Mark Twain's _Tramp Abroad_ will recall the scathing
rebuke which the author administered to his agent, Harris, because a
report which Harris had submitted was peppered, not only with French and
German words, but also with savage plunder from Choctaw and Feejee and
Eskimo. Harris explained that he intruded these hostile verbs and nouns
to adorn his page, and justified himself by saying that 'they all do
it. Everybody that writes elegantly'. Whereupon Mark Twain, whose own
English was as pure as it was rich and flexible, promptly read Harris a
needed lesson: 'A man who writes a book for the general public to read
is not justified in disfiguring his pages with untranslated foreign
expressions.