PART III.
THE VULGAR GIRL.
As translated by Cowley, Horace is made to say—
"Hence, ye profane, I hate ye all,
Both the great vulgar and the small!"
The small vulgar
There will be no attempt made in this paper to deal with the great vulgar, but some attempt will be made in it to deal with the small, being the category to which, it may be assumed, belongs the average vulgar girl.
It is of course impossible within the limits of a short essay to indicate more than a few of the leading characteristics of this girl. She it is who not only wants to monopolise the conversation, but who wants to confine it to one subject. She should remember the quaint counsel, "The honourablest part of talk is to give the occasion, and again to moderate, and pass to something else." Moreover in conversation she too often follows the rule laid down by a French author for those about to write love-letters:
"Begin without knowing what you are going to say, and end without knowing what you have said."
If at the end of a conversation she sometimes knew what she had said, the vulgar girl, who is not necessarily a callous girl, would feel very unhappy.
Her tendency to talk indiscreetly has doubtless its origin in the precipitancy which causes her to break in upon the speech of others. There is a lesson which she might learn from a certain polite echo. This echo may be heard opposite to Mugdock Castle in Scotland. It will repeat any sentence of six syllables in the exact tone in which it is uttered—waiting till the sentence is finished.
Another result of the lack of deliberation which characterises the vulgar girl is seen in the fact that the latest book, the latest play, the latest picture, is to her Thingimy by Thingimbob. That nomenclature is somewhat vague, and is moreover out of date, but it still commends itself to the vulgar girl, as does the soubriquet The Bard for Shakespeare.
Her singular phraseology, which she conceives to set her at an advantage, in reality sometimes sets the vulgar girl at a disadvantage. Of Tennyson she said the other day—
"I don't pretend to understand him any more than Browning, but then he tootles on prettily, and that's what I like in poetry."
A main difference between Browning and Tennyson was here correctly set forth, but the phrasing was in questionable taste. "Tootles" is a good word, but to say that Tennyson "tootles on prettily," is to understate his merits. It shall here be pointed out in passing that "I don't pretend" is a favourite form of asseveration with the vulgar girl, and is one which she should try to vary, if only because it inferentially asserts that other people do pretend.
The vulgar girl is "by way of being" (her own phrase) witty. One part of her wit is to say "muchly" for much, and another part of it is to say "free gratis" for free of charge.
Flippancy as a substitute for wit so often evokes mirth that the vulgar girl as would-be wit not incomprehensibly largely indulges in it. I sat beside her once during a performance of Beethoven's Septett, one of the loveliest things in music, with here and there a heart-delighting gaiety in it. During the fifth movement of it she whispered to me—
"Isn't it like 'The Bogie Man'?"
The levity in what follows was even more remarkable. The speaker was a young bride.
"I didn't feel a bit nervous at my wedding," she said. "You see, I have been used to private theatricals."
A girl like that mistakes gaiety of head for gaiety of heart.
Her first appearance in a new role
As a sample of vulgar girl-wit at its crudest, I give the following, in which a girl spoke of a lady—
"She couldn't turn white, but she went the colour of an unripe tomato."
Upset by Tomato sauce
The vulgar girl who is "by way of being" witty is not "by way of being" sentimental, and is rather addicted to signing her letters "Your's," which word she believes to be rightly written as above, with an apostrophe. This girl, for the rest, is generally good-natured, and her vein of censure is more often odd than terrible. Thus she said the other day of a dentist—
"He is a horrible little snob, but that doesn't matter when he gets into your mouth."
An old Fairy Tale
As often as not the vulgar girl has both sense and sensibility. Of the latter fact she is profoundly ashamed, and has been known to say of a book that has deeply agitated her—
"I got to feel quite eye-in-water over it."
She affects to care, only for the gaieties of life, but knows something of its gravities, and has often a bit of heroine in her. The worst thing about her is her speech. "Jolly" is her favourite adverb. She is jolly glad when she is not jolly mad, and she will soon describe herself as jolly sad. She uses the verb "mashed" hideously; where her prototype of twenty years ago said "swell" she says "swagger;" and she does not stick at saying "beastly." For the rest, she has always some pet word of the hour. Thus "dotty" is an adjective now much in favour with her. Thereby hangs a tale. The vulgar girl sometimes knows Italian, and it was she who translated a line from a famous lady's epitaph—
"Vergine magnanime, dotta, divina."
"A virgin magnanimous, dotty, divine."
On the other hand there are vulgar girls who do not know Latin, and one of them has been known to say "effluvia" for "smell," the Latin for "smell" being "effluvium."
The pronunciation of her own language is by some thought to offer insuperable difficulties to the English vulgar girl, who pronounces the "t" in "often" but does not pronounce it in "Westminster," whose favourite colour, she has been heard to aver, is "terrar cottar," who plays an instrument which she calls "the varlin," who says "towards" and "interesting," who pronounces "ate" "et," and whose vocabulary has been known to include the words "pantomine," "Feb'uary" and "sec'etary." So far is this list from exhausting the faults of pronunciation of the said vulgar girl, that it must be added that she gives to no one vowel its proper sound, while among the consonants "h" initial and "g" final stumble her. She is particularly careless regarding the latter consonant when the form which her vulgarity takes is that of would-be "smartness."
Very abominable to this girl is grammar, which is all but invariably set at defiance by her. Thus, even when she does not say "it were," as did Mrs. Cluppins, she favours such phrasing as "those sort of," "very pleased," "different to" and "between you and I."
A model
Her predilection for abbreviations is another marked feature of the vulgar girl. To "'bus" she has lately added "biz," and "spec" has found her approval.
The pity of it!
Just as she has always a favourite word, she has mostly a favourite phrase. In one instance known to me it is "You know what I mean," and everyone knows what she means, as well everyone may.
Take this assertion—
"It's one of those schools where they sleep in carbuncles—you know what I mean."
Of course everyone knows what she means.
not omnivorous
Or take this—
"I can't be in six or seven places at one; I'm not omnivorous—you know what I mean."
An extreme view
Of course everyone knows what she means.
They call her Mrs. Malaprop; but, in point of fact, her case is a notable improvement upon that of Sheridan's heroine, the ignorance of that lady having been of a shade by just so much deeper that it left her unwitting of the fact that she was wrong. The girl here in view has a shrewd suspicion that she is wrong, but pays her hearers the compliment of assuming that they will understand her. In only one instance, so far as has come to my knowledge, has she ever overtaxed her listener's powers of comprehension. She spoke of a living novelist.
"I can't bear his books," she said. "They're so very femme de chambre—you know what I mean."
Not only did the person addressed not know what she meant, but he will not now be induced to believe that she meant "fin de siècle," and unconsciously used what, it seems to some of us, was a very happy substitute for this rather hackneyed phrase.
I have in the foregoing dwelt more particularly on what is to me the most striking fact in connection with the vulgar girl, the base uses to which she puts her native speech; that my account of her may not, however, be wholly inadequate, I have also conferred with persons whose views on manners and deportment, as frequently expressed by them, have led me to believe that they may be better able than I am to point out what, from the social standpoint, constitutes a vulgar girl. Of the many data supplied me, I give below a few.
The vulgar girl is "arch."
The vulgar girl is "coy."
The vulgar girl loves "chaff."
The vulgar girl has sidelong looks.
The vulgar girl calls milk "cream" and bacon "ham."
The vulgar girl shouts or whispers.
The vulgar girl thinks all other girls vulgar.
The vulgar girl has never been told, or has been told in vain, to sit up and put her knees together.
The vulgar girl is the girl of whom the vulgar boy says that she is "not half a bad sort."
(To be continued.)
["OUR HERO."]
A TALE OF THE FRANCO-ENGLISH WAR NINETY YEARS AGO.
By AGNES GIBERNE, Author of "Sun, Moon and Stars," "The Girl at the Dower House," etc.