ppeal because of the foreign connotations of
'rendezvous'. The French noun was adopted into English more than three
centuries ago; and it was used as a verb nearly three centuries ago; it
does not interfere with the current of sympathy when I find it in the
prose of Scott and of Mark Twain. Nevertheless, it appears to me
unfortunate in Seeger's noble poem, where it forces me to taste its
foreign flavour.

Another French word, _bouquet_, is indisputably English; and yet when I
find it in Walt Whitman's heartfelt lament for Lincoln, 'O Captain, my
Captain', I cannot but feel it to be a blemish:--

'For you _bouquets_ and ribbon'd wreaths--for you the shore's a-crowding,
For you they call, the swaying mass, their eager faces turning.'

It may be hypercriticism on my part, but _bouquet_ strikes me as sadly
infelicitous; and a large part of its infelicity is due to its having
kept its French spelling and its French pronunciation. It is not in
keeping; it diverts the flow of feeling; it is almost indecorous--much
as a quotation from Voltaire in the original might be indecorous in a
funeral address delivered by an Anglican bishop in a cathedral.

[Footnote 2: _Savan_ is quite obsolete in British use, and is not in the
_Century Dictionary_ or in Webster, 1911. _Savant_ is common, and often
written without italics, but the pronunciation is never
anglicized.--H.B.]

VII

There are several questions which writers and speakers who give thought
to their expressions will do well to ask themselves when they are
tempted to employ a French word or indeed a word from any alien tongue.
The first is the simplest: Is the foreign word really needed? For
example, there is no benefit in borrowing _impasse_ when there exists
already in English its exact equivalent, 'blind-alley', which carries
the meaning more effectively even to the small percentage of readers or
listeners who are familiar with French. Nor is there any gain in
_resume_ when 'summary' and 'synopsis' and 'abstract' are all available.

The second question is perhaps not quite so simple: Is the French word
one which English has already accepted and made its own? We do not
really need _questionnaire_, since we have 'interrogatory', but if we
want it we can make shift with 'questionary'; and for _concessionnaire_
we can put 'concessionary'. To balance 'employer' there is 'employee',
better by far than _employe_, which insists on a French pronunciation.
Matthew A