Abraham Lincoln & English as She Is Spoke
Sometimes the threads of the universe weave together in unexpected ways: one of my favorite books, English as She Is Spoke, turns out to have also been enjoyed by Abraham Lincoln. The book is a primer on how to speak English written by somebody who does not speak it themselves. According to Wikipedia, Mark Twain said of it that
Nobody can add to the absurdity of this book, nobody can imitate it successfully, nobody can hope to produce its fellow; it is perfect.
while
Stephen Pile mentions this work in The Book of Heroic Failures and comments: “Is there anything in conventional English which could equal the vividness of ‘to craunch a marmoset’?” The original has “to craunch the marmoset”, an entry under the book’s “Idiotisms and Proverbs”. This is the author’s attempt to translate the French slang idiomatic expression croquer le marmot, used to indicate “waiting patiently for someone to open a door”
But most remarkably, this part caught my eye:
In January 1864, then US President Abraham Lincoln and Secretary of State William H. Seward laughed as Lincoln’s private secretary John Hay read aloud from the book. The book has been cited as one example of many diversions that Lincoln used to lighten his heart and mind from the weight of the US Civil War and his cabinet’s political infighting.
I folllowed the citation and sure enough, the story is recounted in a section on Lincoln’s humor from a book collecting Seward’s autobiography and letters, published 1891:
One evening, after a day of harassing anxiety and work, the President, accompanied by his private secretary, walked into the library of Seward’s house.
“No, more bad news, I hope, Mr. President?”
“No; nothing further; but Hay happened to find a book that amused us; so I told him we would walk over to Seward’s, and read it to him and have a laugh over it.”
The book was the little Portuguese guide to English conversation, since become famous under the title of “English as She is Spoke.”
As John Hay read aloud its queer inverted sentences, Lincoln and Seward laughed heartily, their minds finding a brief but welcome relief from care.
