Produced by Doran Gaston
English
As She is Spoke:
or
A Jest in Sober Earnest.
No. I.
The Parchment Paper Series.
English As She is Spoke.
"EXCRUCIATINGLY FUNNY," says The World, is "English as she is
Spoke, or a Jest in Sober thought."
—
"EVERY one who loves a laugh," says Fun, "should either buy, beg,borrow, or—we had almost said steal—this book; for in sober earnestwe aver that it is not given to every one to 'jest so.'"
English
As She is Spoke:
or
A Jest in Sober Earnest.
With an Introduction by
***
New York: D. Appleton & Co., 1, 3, & 5 Bond Street.
1884.
* Introduction *
**
FROM the time of Shakspere downwards, wits and authors innumerablehave made themselves and the public more or less merry at the expenseof the earlier efforts of the student of a strange tongue; but it hasbeen reserved to our own time for a soi disant instructor toperpetrate—at his own expense—the monstrous joke of publishing aGuide to Conversation in a language of which it is only too evidentthat every word is utterly strange to him. The Teutonic sage whoevolved the ideal portrait of an elephant from his "innerconsciousness" was a commonplace, matter-of fact person compared withthe daring visionary who conjures up a complete system of languagefrom the same fertile but untrustworthy source. The piquancy ofSenhor Pedro Carolino's New Guide of the Conversation in Portugueseand English is enhanced by the evident bona fides and carefulcompilation of "the little book," or as Pedro himself gravelyexpresses it, "for the care what we wrote him, and for hertypographical correction."
In short, the New Guide of the Conversation in Portuguese andEnglish was written with serious intent, and for the purpose ofinitiating Portuguese students into the mysteries of the Englishlanguage. The earlier portions of the book are divided into threecolumns, the first giving the Portuguese; the second what, in theopinion of the author, is the English equivalent; and the third theEnglish equivalent phonetically spelt, so that the tyro may at thesame time master our barbarous phraseology and the pronunciationthereof. In the second part of the work the learner is supposed tohave sufficiently mastered the pronunciation of the English language,to be left to his own devices.
A little consideration of the shaping of our author's English phrasesleads to the conclusion that the materials used have been aPortuguese-French phrase-book and a French-English dictionary. Withthese slight impedimenta has the daring Lusitanian ventured upon theunknown deep of a strange language, and the result, to quote againfrom the Preface, "May be worth the acceptation of the studiouspersons, and especially of the Youth, at which we dedicate himparticularly," but will at all events contribute not a little to theYouth's hilarity.
To begin with the vocabulary; it is perhaps hardly fair to expect aprofessor of languages to trouble himself with "Degrees of Kindred,"still, such titles as "Gossip mistress, a relation, an relation, aguardian, an guardian, the quatergrandfather, the quater-grandmother,"require some slight elucidation, and passing over the catalogue ofarticles of dress which are denominated "Objects of Man"