CHAPTER V
THE LANGUAGE OF THE LINE
Talleyrand once wittily said that language was given us to hide our thoughts, and this saying might be enlarged by adding that slang was given us to hide our language. The Frenchman, in making this witticism, was referring not only to the beautiful language of Corneille and Molière, but to speech in general. However, if he visited the lines of the Canadian or British troops today, even though his knowledge of English were perfect, he would hear many words and expressions not found in the dictionaries of any country or heard in polite society.
Necessity is the mother of invention. It seems that in all national or international games, such as the sport of our American allies—baseball—or the sport of kings and emperors—war—necessity demands that a special language shall evolve. And so, around each and in the midst of each, an expressive, though sometimes inelegant, slang has grown up, understood and employed only by the initiated. In the case of the present war this slang is made up of a mixture of English, French, pantomime, and American or Canadian.
Some people give North America credit for a language of its own. On a visit to Paris some years ago I was passing the entrance of a theater on the Boulevard des Capucines when a grisette approached me with a "bon soir, cheri"; and proceeded to ask if I were lonely. Not desiring to be bothered, I replied shortly that I did not speak French.
"Oh, zat ees tres bien, monsieur," she replied coyly, "I spik zee A-mer-ee-can."
And many of our own brothers of the motherland do not admit that we Canadians speak the same language as they, but an accented modification of it, though they admire the pointedness of many of our expressions. I well remember the amusement caused in an English officers' mess by one of them telling the others that he had heard a Canadian say that he liked "the Englishman's accent." And with that charmingly bantering way that Englishmen have, he said with a smile to a couple of us Canadians present:
"Rawtha a jolly bit of side! Cawnt you see it, you priceless old things?" And at his request we all filled our glasses again; while one of the Canadians, for the sake of argument, expressed the opinion that the term accent might as truly be applied to the Englishman's "rawtha," as to our rather; or to the English "bawth," as to our harder-sounding and not so euphonious, but probably equally correct pronunciation of the word, bath. Of course, he was met by good-natured smiles of tolerance and pity, and the reply that since we think their pronunciation shows more euphony, why do we not pronounce as they do?
"Because if we did someone at home would probably hand us an over-ripe egg," was the answer.
The slang of the lines resembles a new system of Esperanto, since it takes in, in a cosmopolitan manner, all the languages of the neighborhood, as well as some whose existence may be doubted. For example, "no bon" means no good, and is a mixture of English, French, and a disgusted look.
"Na poo" (which is probably a mutilated form of the French "il n'y en a plus,"—there is no more) has a most versatile meaning, and is used in many different senses. Sometimes it signifies that some article of the rations is finished, as "the rum is na poo"—a not uncommon state of affairs. At other times it is used as we employ the slang phrase, "nothing doing."