Being born in the American Mid-west, my native tongue is English spoken in broad, flat tones without regional accents. My English is not of the hard Boston variety, nor does it reflect the softer tones of Southern speech. Thus, the title of this essay in Mid-western speech would read, Tony Blair, Ed Carr and War, with the final R’s not being silent or elided.
Now I know full well that my use of the final R’s in English speech marks me as a peasant in the eyes of certain upper class Brits who are the Honorable Queen Elizabeth’s subjects. If history is a respectable guide, we fought a WAH back in 1776 to throw off the rule of upper class Brits. Now we have a fairly bright British Prime Minister who is widely called George Bush’s lapdog and who is known in upper class circles as Tony BLAH.
Unfortunately, this old essayist has no claim to academic excellence gained by attending an English college such as Oxford. As a matter of fact, I never was influenced by a college anywhere because I did not attend one. My schooling in Missouri, which I believe was first rate, demanded and encouraged me to sound out the words giving value to each of its letters. If the word had the letter “R,” it would be appropriately recognized and pronounced. So I am aghast at upper class Brits who drop the final “R” in Tony’s name, and in my family name and in the name of the projected hostilities with Iraq.
But among the-nose-in-the-air Britons, there is an equally disturbing habit of dropping vowels on the tail end of words to make them sound elegant, I suppose. Much is being made of MILITARY planning and preparations these days. According to some television commentators and high flown English politicians, we should know that when the British Army sets about preparing itself for WAH, it is making MILITRY preparations. My limited education said that MILITARY has four syllables and my dictionary – woops, that’s another failure right there! That should read DICTIONRY, which I should have known.
George Bush has made a few speeches about defending American territory from invading Iraq troops. Bush likes to paint himself as a Texan, which he is not, but in view of his love affair with Tony Blah, he should be defending American territry including his adopted Texas accent. Of course, if Bush and Tony Blah don’t pull off their wah which they say has been forced on them by that well known villain Saddam Hussein, perhaps a lot of American and British soldiers will wind up in the graveyard, otherwise known as the CEMETRY.
Do the upper class Brits have any plans to return the elided vowels from the end of words like the ones discussed in this piece? If they have any plans to return them to general use, I have heard nothing of it.
All that leads me to a reporter-commentator who works for CNN and who uses the name of Christiane Amanpour. Her accent is so upper class British, even though one of her parents came from Iran, that I am always a half sentence behind her. She dazzles me with Blah making militry plans to defend our territry so we can all stay out of the cemetry. Very quickly I am lost when she makes her TV reports.
Ordinary English men and women don’t speak as Madame Amanpour speaks. For quite a while during World Wah II, it was my fortune to work with English troops and the British Royal Air Force. I can’t recall any problems in dealing with them face-to-face or over aircraft radios. But they spoke standard English and there were few if any questions. But those Tommies and the flyers with the RAF were several steps removed – below – the elevated upper class roots of Christiane Amanpour. If one of her kind was directing AH (air) operations, perhaps the conflict would still be going on.
Before I leave the elevated atmosphere of upper class British speech, I should also ask our British allies what the hell ever happened to the letter “R” in the middle of a word. When a broadcast comes from London, there often is a reference to TUHKEY and there is also great concern about a race called the KUHDS. They even refer to BUHDS flying about. By the end of the broadcast, I can say that it is my belief that the upscale British announcers are talking about Turkey, the Kurds and birds. I am at a loss to explain to you why Bush’s fast friends in England go with a 25 letter alphabet. I suppose that’s why they are upper class and the rest of us are peasants.
This essay closes with a reference to Time Magazine which used to publish a tribute to the Irish which always appeared in the edition closest to St. Patrick’s Day. It was written by T. E. Kelem in a review of Brendan Behan’s “Borstal Boy.”
“The English language brings out the best in the Irish. They court it like a beautiful woman. They make it bray with donkey laughter. They hurl it at the sky like a paint pot full of rainbows, and then make it chant a dirge for man’s fate and man’s follies that is as mournful as misty spring rain crying over the fallow earth. Rarely has a people paid the lavish complement and taken the subtle revenge of turning its oppressor’s speech into sorcery.”
As an American of Irish ancestry, I looked forward to Kellem’s annual tribute which was to me a wonderful piece of writing as well as a welcome to Spring. It makes the upper class British attempts to bastardize the English language by dropping vowels and final “R’s” an exercise in crass juvenility. My Donegal ancestors would roll in the aisles if they were told that my name is now Cah and that we are now preparing for another wah to be co-authored by Bush’s sometime pal, Tony Blah.
Rule, Brittania! Brittania rule the waves! Britons nevah, nevah will be slaves. (Slight apologies to James Thomson, 1700-1748, from his play “Alfred”, Act II, Scene 5. Thomson was an Englishman.)
DONEGAL THOUGHTS
Several years ago, my medical moguls had me placed in the Columbia Presbyterian Hospital in New York City for nearly two weeks. I think they were trying to remove the carnality from my heart. From the name of the hospital, it might be assumed that the hospital would be a bastion of Protestant culture and devotion. That was not the case at all, if one were to judge by the nurses who attended to my needs. Most were from Ireland with many coming from County Donegal. It must be assumed that they were Catholics, not Protestants at all.
They soon recognized that my surname came from that part of Northwest Ireland occupied by County Donegal. I had been told by John Walsh, the Director of the Irish-American Institute, that Carr is a common Donegal name. It is also spelled as Kerr, but Kerr and Carr are pronounced much the same.
One or two of the nurses saw me exercising in the halls and said they had an ancient saying to recite to me. The little saying goes something like this:
Donegal, Donegal,
Where the people eat the praties (potatoes),
Skins and all!
I told them that the Donegal poem or saying was light years ahead of any English poetry that had ever been read to me. That made all of us feel better.
My experience with the Irish nurses at the Presbyterian hospital is recited because it brings up another friendship with another Donegal fellow who seems intent on retiring from the U. S. Postal Service soon. His name is Tom Kerr. Our surnames are spelled differently, but as I said, are pronounced in the same way.
I got to know Tom a few years ago in the Short Hills, New Jersey Post Office where he works. Before I knew Tom, I often dealt with
Jim McBride on postal matters. As my good Irish girl friend from Chicago, Ann Hincks, would say, Jim McBride was “one of the boys from home.”
As I got to know Tom Kerr, it became clear that he was a County Donegal man so we had much to talk about. Tom does his job with a good sense of humor, which is to be expected of any Irishman. When we converse, it is quiet conversation without histrionics. In short, it is the conversation of two friends of Irish-American citizenry who trace the roots of our families to their ancestry in County Donegal where the praties are eaten, skins and all!
Shortly before Christmas 2002, I happened to be in the Post Office with my wife Judy Chicka. While Judy was finishing her transaction with George Dlugos, a colleague of Tom Kerr and a good guy, I wandered over to a spot a few feet away from Tom. At that time, in a louder than usual voice, I said, “Mr. Kerr, I’ve got one thing to say to you.” George looked up from his dealings with my wife fearing, I suppose, that a dispute or a fight would take place.
Instantly, Tom Kerr said in stentorian tones to me, “Mr. Carr. I also have one thing to say to you.” By this time, I suppose other people were quite sure that a dispute was about to happen.
When Tom finished his statement, both of us said in unison, “Merry Christmas” and shook hands. No disputes; no fights; just two old Irish guys wishing each other Merry Christmas.
If Bush and Saddam Hussein were Irish, maybe the world would be a more peaceful place and there would be more laughter and enjoyment.
We can’t close this essay without a reference to Irish poetry which is an integral part of Irish culture. The English who imposed their will on Ireland for hundreds of years, never understood the Irish. Even today, the Northern Irish question demands Tony Blair’s attention as he tries to serve George Bush with respect to Iraq. One of the conservative or reactionary English authors, tried to capture the English sentiment about the Irish in his “Ballad of the White Horse.” The writer was Gilbert Keith Chesterton, 1874-1936. He wrote:
“For the great Gaels of Ireland
Are the men that God made mad,
For all their wars are merry,
And all their songs are sad.”
Lord Chesterton was nuts and that is a charitable assessment. He says, for example, that all our songs are sad. That is not true about a Doctor Johnson and his motor car. During Ireland’s War for Independence which finally produced a treaty in 1922, the Irish Republican Army had very little compunction about commandeering someone’s car for their use. In this case, it happened to a Protestant doctor, Doctor Johnson, an English sympathizer, who was not a popular figure with the Irish Republican Army (IRA). The fourth verse of the song about taking Doctor Johnson’s car away goes like this:
“What will my loyal brethren think
When they hear the news,
My car has been commandeered
By the Rebels (IRA) at Dunluce.”
“We’ll give you a receipt for it,
All signed by Captain Barr,
And when Ireland gets her freedom, boy,
You’ll get your motor car.”
The honorable Lord Chesterton may think “Johnson’s Motor Car” is a sad song, but most Irish people think it is funny, pleasant and entirely merry. So much for Lord Chesterton.
Now for a man contemplating retirement, it is to be hoped that there will be plenty to eat. On the other hand, there is a Gaelic saying:
“When the food is scarce
And you see the hearse,
Then you will know,
You died of hunger.”
Another Gaelic piece of wisdom goes like this:
“Outside the dog
Books are man’s best friend.
Inside the dog,
It’s too dark to read anyhow.”
(see attached translation)
I suspect that Lord Chesterton would not be amused by such use of the English language. But Tom Kerr might understand Gaelic wit better than the Lord who says all our songs are sad.
Finally, all that brings me to a thought about Tom Kerr’s retirement. And that calls for a contribution from one of the great Irish poets, William Butler Yeats, 1856-1939. Yeats was born in England but elected to live his life in Ireland. In his “The Municipal Gallery Revisited,” he has a comment about friendship. The final words in the seventh stanza of that poem say:
“Think where man’s glory most begins and ends,
And say my glory was I had such friends.”
And so as my name sake Tom takes his leave from the United States Postal Service, I believe it fair to say that his many friends, his glory, as Yeats says, wish him well. And as for me, I hope Tom’s future is filled with merry songs, regardless of what Lord Chesterton had to say.
E. E. CARR
March 7, 2003
~~~
Maybe, right before an Englishman with an upper-class accent passes away, he lets loose a giant “ARRRRRRRR” sound like a pirate to catch up on a lifetime of Rs withheld.
I’m glad I got to visit Donegal when my family went to Ireland last year to scatter Pop’s ashes. Incredibly friendly people and beautiful scenery. Would highly recommend.