From A Pennyworth of Blunders, [by Rev. David Macrae, Glasgow: Morison Brothers, c. 1897]; pp. 3-48
A PENNYWORTH OF BLUNDERS.*
IT is a moral lesson on the power of “littles,” to notice how completely the smallest error, even in punctuation, may change the sense of a whole passage.
In an auctioneer’s list, the misplacing of a little hyphen, introduced, amongst the articles for sale, “2000 camels’ hair-brushes” — an item that would have interested Mr Darwin.
An American paper reported, on one occasion, the capture, in mid-channel, of “a large man-eating shark.” Another paper, copying the paragraph, but less careful about the punctuation, reported that “a large man, eating shark, was captured in mid-channel.”
I remember hearing of a lawsuit which arose owing to the alleged insertion of hyphens in one phrase in a will, wherein a famous horse-fancier left (according to promise) his black and white horses, of which he had several, to a friend. On the will being read, the words black and white were found connected by hyphens thus, “my black-and-white 4 horses.” The man’s sons declared that this meant simply the two piebald horses, while the legatee declared that what the testator meant to bequeath to him were his four black and his three white horses, and that hyphens had been furtively inserted afterwards to alter the sense and cut him out of what his old friend meant him to have.
It is well that heaven knows where commas are wanting, or the poor soldier’s scrap to his wife, “May heaven cherish and keep you from yours affectionately John D——,” might have led to unwished-for consequences.
As an illustration of the power of a comma to control, and, when shifted, to utterly reverse the meaning of a sentence, the following story is told: — “In Ramessa, there dwelt a prior of great liberality, who caused these lines to be written over his door —
“Be open evermore, O thou my door,
To none be shut, to honest or to poor.”
His successor, a priest of the name of Raynhard, was as niggardly as the other had been bountiful. He did not even go to the expense of painting out the lines; he simply altered the position of one point, which made the couplet read thus —
“Be open evermore, O thou my door,
To none, be shut to honest or to poor.”
Being afterwards deprived of his position on account of his extreme niggardliness, it passed into a proverb that “for one point Raynhard lost his priory.”
A somewhat similar anecdote is told of a barber who had a couplet over his door without any punctuation at all, but which the passer-by read thus —
“What do you think?
I’ll shave you for nothing and give you a drink.”
If any victim went in to avail himself of this apparently magnanimous offer, he found that the barber’s reading of it was —
“What ! do you think
I’ll shave you for nothing and give you a drink?”
to which his reply was, of course, a negative.
Reading in disregard of the punctuation, or with false pauses, or inflections, produces effects similar to the misplacing of points in printing. For instance, a precentor, getting the intimation — “A sailor, going to sea, his wife desires the prayers of the congregation,” gave it forth as if it were “A sailor going to see his wife, desires the prayers of the congregation.”
At a Delmonico dinner the toast — “Woman — without her, man is a brute,” was given: “Woman, without her man, is a brute.”
6The telegraph does such magical work for us day by day, that its errors are apt to be forgotten in our admiration of its celerity and general accuracy.
Yet, when the wires are affected by storms, or its clerks by carelessness, the telegraph makes dreadful blunders, In one case, the mere misplacing of a point was like to have embroiled two commercial firms in a lawsuit. The case was this: a message was sent — “You can have the hundred pieces at sixteen and nine. Thousand more at same rate.” As delivered in London it read — “You can have the hundred pieces at sixteen, and nine thousand more at same rate,” — on which understanding, or misunderstanding, the goods were ordered.
At a meeting of the Liverpool Chamber of Commerce, Mr Horsfall, M.P., complaining of the irregularity and incorrectness of the Anglo-Indian telegraph, instanced a message sent to one gentleman in Calcutta, to inform him that his wife [in England] had presented him “with a fine daughter.” The message informed him instead that his wife had presented him “with five daughters.”
In another case, a husband, anxiously awaiting news of an interesting event at home, received, per wire, the staggering announcement: — “Your wife had a fine box this morning.”
7A curious case occurred some years since in Canada. A well-known politician being ill at Toronto, the message was sent by wire to his family — “Mr Brown is no worse.” The family got it — “Mr Brown is no more,” and at once sent on a special train for his remains. In another case, a gentleman who had ordered his gig to await him at the station, was understood from the telegram to require the attendance of his pig.
Typographical errors, caused by the oversight of either the compositor or the proof-reader, are of constant occurrence, and many of them are very amusing.
In columns of news an absurd effect is often produced unintentionally by the running together of items that ought to have begun on different lines. In one of the leading papers in Paris the following paragraphs, printed without a break, must have read ominously: —
“Dr X. has been appointed head physician to the Hôpital de la Charité. Orders have been issued by the authorities for the immediate extension of the Cemetery de Parnasse.”
Notifications equally startling but equally unintentional, occasionally result from a bit of one paragraph getting attached to another through carelessness in shifting masses of type. In London the readers of one of the dailies were 8 astonished on one occasion, after reading a high-flown eulogy of a new tenor, who it was said had entranced the audience, to find it added, “He was sentenced to five years of penal servitude, so that society will for some time be freed from the infliction of his presence.”
This astounding climax was the result of the last sentence of the report of a trial, in another column, having got into the wrong place in “lifting.”
By far the most common form of typographical blundering is the insertion of one letter in place of another. Not long since, a newspaper, reporting the danger that an express train had run, in consequence of a cow getting upon the line, said — “As the safest way, the engineer put on full steam, dashed up against the cow, and literally cut it into calves ! ” Some farmers would no doubt be glad to know when that engineer is to be on the road again. In another newspaper, an insurance company in its advertisement congratulated its shareholders on the “low rate of morality during the past year.”
In the days when Mr Spurgeon’s name was constantly appearing in the papers, I remember being startled one day by the appearance of a paragraph headed, “Spurgeon Sent to Penal Servitude.” It was a case tried before Justice Denman in the London Central Criminal Court, but I found on reading it that a “p” had got into the heading 9 when no “p” should have been, and that the unhappy wight who had been sent to penal servitude was a “surgeon.”
The readers of an American paper were interested one morning by some reference to “buttered thunder.” When one of them wrote to ask where this kind of thunder was to be had, and whether it had any affinity with “greased lightning,” it turned out that the reading should have been “muttered thunder.”
I remember the late Professor Nichol referring, in one of his lectures, to an edition of the Bible in which the glorious prediction (in I Cor. xv.), “We shall all be changed,” was by the unfortunate omission of a single letter — the “c” in “changed” — printed, “We shall all be hanged ! ” Not at all the inspiring prospect that the apostle intended.
Mr Neish, of the Dundee Courier, told me of one newspaper report in which the “n” was left with ludicrous effect out of the word “turnkey,” making the sentence read, “that evidence had been given in Court by the sanitary inspector and a female turkey.” He mentioned a still more absurd mistake in the report of Gladstone’s famous speech about burning the boats and destroying the bridges. The sentence containing this expression was made to read, “I have burned my boots and destroyed my breeches, and therefore I cannot return.”
10At a public dinner in Newcastle, the menu, instead of winding up with “cheese and celery,” promised the cannibal item of “cheese and clergy.” It unintentionally suggested Sydney Smith’s “slice of cold missionary.”
Proof correctors, if not the compositors, would need to have some acquaintance with the subjects being spoken about if mistakes are to be avoided. Mr R. A. Proctor, the astronomer said, that in an essay on stereoscopic photography, he wrote about “lines, bands, and striæ near the violet end of the spectra.” This came from the printer’s hands in the following form: “Links, bands, and stripes for the violent kind of spectres ! ”
Worse than this was the dreadful turn once given to the description of a bridesmaid at a fashionable marriage. The reporter, who loved to air his few French phrases, said, “She looked au fait.” The printer who didn’t know French, and hadn’t seen the bridesmaid, sent it forth thus — “She looked all feet.” Had the unhappy compositor fallen into the clutches either of the bridesmaid or the poetic reporter, it is doubtful if much of him, either “feet” or head, would have been left to comment upon.
Let me record here the woeful case that first excited my own interest in typographical errors. When I was a lad at college, I wrote for publication a short paper on British rule in India. It was one of the first things I had every prepared for the 11 press; and my anxiety, as boy-authors will all understand, was very great. I had burned much midnight oil over the article, altering expressions, touching up the sentences here and there, and taking great pains to make them read euphoniously. With the concluding sentence I had taken particular pains, and prided myself much on its majestic Ciceronian swell. It was a long sentence: I need not give the whole of it (though I have it somewhere in my scrap-book), but I remember it ended with a reference to the time “when India was the home of civilisation, and the nursery of arts.”
The morning came round on which the journal was published to which my paper had been sent. I was too anxious to wait for the post. I went out before breakfast, bought a copy in the next street, ascertained that my paper was in it, and hurried back to my lodgings. Eagerly I turned to the place — please remember I was a boy, and that this was one of my first productions — and read it proudly, line by line, from the first to the last. The last ! Oh, dear reader, put yourself in my circumstances, and imagine the frightful shock your feelings would have sustained on seeing — as I then saw — that the letters a and r in the last word of that magnificent closing sentence had been transposed ! It was the simplest possible mistake. But, alas ! with what result? The final 12 clause read now as follows, — “when India was the home of civilisation, and the nursery of rats.” Rats ! I think I feel again that cold perspiration break out upon my brow. My feelings at that moment — well, they are over now. I cherish no resentment — can even hope that heaven may avert the doom which, in that moment of bitter mortification and rage, I called down in the name of all the gods, upon the paper, the editor, the compositor, the whole establishment that had brought my sublime peroration to this climax of absurdity, and made me, as I imagined, the laughing-stock of the town.
Typographical errors, however, are not always the fault of the compositor. They frequently arise from illegible writing on the part of those who supply “copy,” or from reporters failing to catch the exact words used by a speaker. One orator, speaking of the Italian struggle, said — “What do the Italians want? They simply want to be a nation.” “What do the Italians want?” said the newspaper report. “They simply want to be in Asia ! ”
Indistinctness of utterance is a source of confusion to many besides reporters. A clerical friend in Lancashire told me that he had got a wholesome warning in regard to pulpit articulation, by discovering, in one house where he was visiting the day after preaching from Luke xix. 21, that the 13 servant had gone home with the impression that his text had been “I feared thee, because thou art an oyster-man ! ”
A Hampshire incumbent recently reported in the Pall Mall Gazette some of the blunders he had heard made in the marriage service by that class of persons who have to pick the words up as best they can from hearing them repeated by others. He said that in his own parish it was quite the fashion for the man, when giving the ring, to say to the woman — “With my body I thee wash up, and with all my hurdle goods, I, thee and thou.”
He said the women were generally better up in this part of the service than the men. One day, however, a bride startled him by promising, in what she supposed to be the language of the prayer-book, to take her husband, “to ’ave and to ’old from this day fortni’t for betterer horse for richerer power, in siggerness health, to love cherries and to bay.”
What meaning this extraordinary vow conveyed to her own mind the incumbent said it baffled him to conjecture.
Another class of blunders, of which many curious specimens could be given, are those made by illiterate persons, and by children who are only learning to read. I remember at family worship in our own house a little girl reading, when 1st 14 Peter iv. 9 came to her turn — “Use hospitality without girning” — a not unhappy rendering. Some of our Highland servants, unfamiliar with English, made so many slips, some of them irresistibly ludicrous, that the practice of reading verse about had to be abandoned.
A minister at Partick told me that one night, when the chapter was being read at worship, one of the servants read very slowly and precisely as follows: — “And Abraham begat Isaac, and Isaac begat Jacob, and Jacob begat the twelve partridges.” It came on Mr —— like the shock of a galvanic battery. He had to dart from the room with his hand upon his mouth to prevent an irreverent explosion.
Even amongst educated people, most comical blunders are sometimes made, by mere slips of the tongue, with perfectly familiar words. In a Sunday school with which my father was once connected, a preacher who was present one night and addressed the children, got on admirably till, speaking of sin being destructive to both body and soul, he called it “sody and bowl.” When he tried to correct himself, he converted it into “bowl and sody,” which made matters worse, and, it is to be feared, put an end to any serious impression that may have been previously made.
The difficulty in rectifying a verbal slip when once the tongue has got into it must have been 15 felt or noticed by every one. A friend in the U.P. church who caught himself speaking of “the Popacy,” and felt there was something wrong, checked himself, and said — “I mean the Papery ! ”
Nothing, however, can exceed the confusion of sense sometimes made by the misplacing of emphasis in reading aloud. Even in the pulpit, passages of Scripture are often murdered from this cause.
On one occasion the verse, “And the prophet said to his sons, ‘Saddle me the ass;’ and they saddled him,” was read thus: — “And the prophet said unto his sons, ‘Saddle me, the ass;’ and they saddled him ! ” One can imagine how the prophet would have looked if he had been there.
Another class of mistakes arises from the misuse of words. Mrs Malaprop and Mrs Partington have furnished many illustrations, but none of them more comical than are constantly to be met with in real life. One woman told her minister that her husband was suffering from “ulsters in his stomach.”
I remember how a small boy, son of a Glasgow merchant, on being asked one day how they all were at home, replied that they were all well except his father, who had been confined to the house by “an allegory in his leg.”
The mistakes made by foreigners speaking our 16 language are often very amusing, as our mistakes in reversed circumstances must be to them.
Every one has heard of the eminent Continental divine who prayed that Dr Chalmers might long be “kippered” to his congregation. Pastor John Bost, of Laforce, told me of a somewhat similar mistake which he made in addressing the Free Assembly. In travelling through Scotland he had heard the word “barren” applied to hill-tops where there was no vegetation. Accordingly, on rising to address the Assembly, in which there happened to be an unusual number of venerable and bald-headed divines, he told them how nervous he was when he looked round and saw so many barren heads ! The Scotsmen remarked next day that for once the Free Assembly had got the truth told about it.
Of all the blunders which people fall into out of fondness for words that convey an impression of scholarship, there are none that call for less compassion than blunders in the use of Latin, French, or other unassimilated words in the place of good plain English. I remember a divinity student, at a written examination, finding himself left with too little time to finish a particular exercise, breaking off abruptly with a dash of the pen and the highly classical explanation, Non tempus !
An equally learned speaker at a public meeting concluded his appeal by the remarkable 17 warning — “Remember, the eyes of the vox populi are upon you ! ”
A story is told of a certain Provost of Glasgow who might have thanked God, like Coleridge, that he had never learned French, but who would have been wise, if, like Coleridge, he had made no attempt to speak it. This civic dignitary, when he visited Paris, was much pleased with the appearance of the gardens, squares, and fountains, and often heard the expression used — “What a fine effect that jet d’eau gives ! ” On his return, he was loud in his praise of Paris, and wished as far as possible to Parisianize Glasgow. On one occasion he said of St Enoch Square, “Grand square, grand square, it needs nothing to mak’ it perfect but a Jack-daw in the middle o’ it.”
When the Queen visited Dundee in 1844, the Town council provided a piece of red cloth for her Majesty to walk upon in passing from the steamer to the Royal carriage. At a subsequent meeting, a discussion arose as to what should be done with the cloth, when a learned Councillor proposed to preserve it “as a memento mori of the Royal visit.”
A story is told of two shoemakers, whose shops faced each other from opposite sides of the street, and who carried on a keen competition, advertising in their windows all the newest fashions of boots and shoes. One of them had a son at college who provided his father with the motto 18 “MENS CONSCIA RECTI ,” which was immediately displayed in the window. The rival bootmaker saw it. He had never heard of any boots of that name before, but he was not to be outdone. Next day, accordingly, there flamed in his window the announcement “MEN’S and Women’s CONSCIA RECTI.”
Everybody has heard of the schoolboy who translated “Cæsar transivit Alpes summa diligentia” — “Cæsar crossed the Alps on the top of a diligence ! ” But what are we to think of the following: —
Dr Johnson, while compiling his dictionary, sent a note to the Gentleman’s Magazine to inquire the etymology of the word Curmudgeon. Having obtained the desired information, he thus recorded in his work his obligation to an anonymous writer: “CURMUDGEON, s. vicious way of pronouncing CŒUR MÉCHANT. An unknown correspondent.”
Ash copied the word into his dictionary in the following manner: —
“CURMUDGEON, from the French cœur, “unknown,’ and méchant, ‘correspondent.’ ”
D’Israeli, the elder, cites some very odd cases of blundering translations. He speaks of one French writer who translates the Latin title of a treatise of Philo Judæus “Omnis bonus liber est“ (Every good man is a free man), by Tout livre est bon [Every book is good]. Jortin said it was well for the author that he did not 19 live within reach of the Inquisition, which might have taken this as a reflection on the Index Expurgatorius.
Cibber’s play of “Love’s last Shift” received in translation the title, “La Dernière Chemise de l’amour.”
It is told of the “first fiddle” in a London orchestra that, passing along Bookseller’s Row one day, his eye caught sight of a card in a window, headed “CICERONIS OPERA,” referring to a new edition of Cicero’s works. Attracted by the title, he stepped in and asked what new “opera” this was.
One of the funniest blunders of this kind on record is that made by a French writer who compiled a catalogue of “Works on Natural History,” in which he inserted “An Essay on Irish Bulls.”
Blunders are always more absurd when accompanied by an affectation of superior knowledge, or when made in matters with which every one is expected to be familiar.
A Canadian paper stated not long since that the Mayor of Brantfort, while reading to the Council a motion prepared by one of his colleagues, broke out into an uncontrollable guffaw when he found “Canal” spelt Kannell. The Councillor demanded an explanation. The mayor explained that the word should be spelt Canawl !
A story is told of two American politicians — one 20 from Kansas, the other from Louisiana — meeting on a Mississippi steamer, who got into a dispute as to which had got the best religious education. The Louisiana man brought the matter to a test by betting ten dollars that the other could not repeat the Lord’s Prayer.
“Done,” said the Kansas man; and after a squirt to afford a moment’s reflection, he began in a slow and steady voice —
“Now I lay me down to sleep,
I pray ——”
“Yes, yes; stop, I see you have it,” said the other, “you needn’t go on,” and handed over the stakes.
Curious stories are told of the blunders made by Oxford undergraduates in the Scripture examination, which, as a matter of form, they have to pass before taking their degree.
It is told of one that when asked who was the first king of Israel, he was so fortunate as to stumble upon the name of “Saul.” He saw that he had hit the mark, and, wishing to show the examiners how intimate his knowledge of the Scriptures was, he added confidentially, “Saul — also called Paul.”
Mr Don, author of a book on “University Life at Cambridge,” is responsible for the following cases: — One candidate for a degree stated the substance of Paul’s sermon at Athens to be, crying 21 out for the space of two hours, “Great is Diana of the Ephesians.” Another was asked to give the parable of the Good Samaritan. He did so with tolerable accuracy till he came to the place where the Samaritan says to the innkeeper, “When I come again I will repay thee.” Here the unlucky examinee added, “This he said, knowing that he should see his face no more.”
Another gentleman, whose acquaintance with Scripture seems to have been of an even more remarkable kind, when called upon to trace the connection between the Old and the New Testament, referred to the circumstance that Peter, with his sword, cut off the ear of the prophet Malachi.
These undergraduates seem not to be worse than other folk. A strange collection of blunders might be made from the examination papers of almost any school or college. A Liverpool schoolmaster selects the following from amongst the answers returned in the written exercises: —
“What are cromlechs?”
“Cromlechs are fibrous substances found in Scotland, out of which a sort of incombustible cloth is manufactured.”
“Tell what you know about the Round Towers in Ireland?”
“The round towers are tall towers built in memory of the dead, but for what purpose is not known.”
22A girl had the question put to her, “Who was Esau?” Her reply, which was in writing, was as follows: — “Esau was a man who wrote fables, and sold them for a bottle of potash.”
Absurd mistakes are sometimes made even in the pulpit, when the minister runs his comments into collateral sciences with which he is less acquainted than with theology.
It is told of one good old minister, that when he came in the course of exposition to the verse about the voice of the turtle being heard in the land, he, knowing only of one kind of turtle, proceeded to comment on the passage as follows: — “The turtle, my brethren, does not often sing — I have never heard it sing myself — but I have no doubt that when it does sing it sings most melaw-diously.”
This puts me in mind of a farmer, in a part of the country where “a hind” means a farm labourer, confiding to his minister the difficulty he had always felt over the verse where it says that the Lord makes the hinds to calve. He said if it hadn’t been in the Bible he wouldn’t have believed it possible; “and even as it is,” he said, “I canna understand hoo the thing could be done.”
A ludicrous story is told of an Edinburgh Baillie, whose studies in natural history seem to have been limited. The following case came before him one day: — A man who kept a ferret, having to go into the country, left the cage with the ferret in charge 23 of a neighbour till he should return. The neighbour incautiously opened the cage door, and the ferret escaped. The man was very angry, and brought a claim against him for damagers. The following was the decision of the learned Baillie — “Nae doot,” he said to the neighbour, “nae doot ye was wrang to open the cage door; but,” he added, turning to the owner, “ye was wrang too. What for did ye no clip the brute’s wings?”
The failure to pick up the exact words pronounced by another, or to understand what they mean, is often the result of dialectic peculiarities.
Dean Alford, in his “Queen’s English,” tells of a misunderstanding that resulted from the Cockney aspirate. A Scotch lad in a military school went up with a drawing of Venice, which he had just finished, to show it to the master. Observing that he had printed the name under it with two “n’s” (“Vennice”), the master said —
“Don’t you know that there’s only one ‘hen’ in ‘Venice’?”
“Only one hen in Venice ! ” exclaimed young Sandy with astonishment. “I’m thinking they’ll no hae mony eggs, then.”
Many curious stories are told of words being taken up, like that one, in a wrong sense, though from different causes.
An English vicar was standing on a Monday 24 morning at his gate when one of his parishioners arrived with a basketful of potatoes.
“What’s this?” said the vicar.
“Please sir,” replied the man, “it’s some of our best taturs — a very rare kind, sir. My wife said you should have some of them, as she heard you say in your sermon yesterday that the common taturs didn’t agree with you.”
At a party in Aberdeen, an English gentleman, looking at the portrait of the lady of the house, and wishing to compliment her, said he could see a good deal of humour about the eyes. “Indeed ! ” said the practical little woman, with surprise, “I didn’t think you would have seen it in the picture; but I have been troubled that way for a number of years.”
An old friend in Glasgow told me that at a public dinner, where the greater part of the company belonged to the cash aristocracy, the toast of “Arts and Sciences” came in its proper turn. An old gentleman, very dull of hearing, had failed to catch the words, and as the company rose to drink the toast, he said to his right-hand neighbour —
“What one is this?”
“‘Arts and Sciences.’ ’’
“Ah, ‘Absent Friends,’ ” said the innocent old gentleman, and unconsciously drank two toasts in one.
25An old Highlander, rather fond of his glass, was ordered by the doctor, during a temporary ailment, not to exceed one ounce of spirits in the day.
The old man was a little dubious about the amount, and asked his boy, who was at school, how much an ounce was.
“An ounce? — 16 drams, 1 oz.”
“16 drams?” exclaimed the delighted Highlander. “Gaw ! no so bad. 16 drams ! Run and tell Tonal Mactavish and Big John to come doon the nicht.”
Odd blunders have sometimes been made in composition by the misarrangement of clauses. The tombstone at La Point, which bears the brief inscription — “John Philips, accidentally shot as a mark of affection by his brother” — must have been a slip of this kind, unless brotherly affection at La Point has an unusual way of expressing itself. A Cleveland paper, describing a Republican demonstration in that city, said: — “The procession was very fine, and nearly two miles long, as was also the prayer of Dr Perry, the chaplain.” Similar to this was an advertisement which appeared in an English paper, under the heading of “To Let”: — “A house for a family in good repair.” Punch, in quoting this advertisement, conjectured that a family in good repair must mean one in which none of the members were cracked.
26The brief and touching advertisement — “Two sisters want washing,” which appeared in the Manchester Guardian, is not open to the objection of being ungrammatical, but it is certainly ambiguous, and is apt to excite the thought how many people want washing besides the two sisters.
Blunders in composition are apt to be made even by good writers when writing carelessly. We find Swift, in describing a piece of plate, saying — “I could perceive that it was scoured with half an eye.” Scoured with half an eye ! One feels inclined to ask “Whose?” as Sydney Smith did when recommended to take a walk on an empty stomach.
Many of the queer grammatical blunders which one meets are occasioned by the curt and elliptical style of writing so much in vogue in these days of quick trade and telegraphical despatches. “The brooches would have been sent before, but have been unwell,” was a note of apology sent to Dean Alford by his jeweller. Another tradesman described himself as a “GASHOLDER AND BOILERMAKER” — meaning, of course, that he made gasholders and boilers, but conveying the idea that he undertook to hold gas himself.
In India, the sign boards put up by native merchants to attract British customers would furnish an endless list of similar blunders. “Ihman Bucks & Co., Merchant and Sodawater,” 27 is the superscription over one shop in Allahabad. Over another there glares the following alarming announcement: —
If Mooka Sing & Co. are prepared to stand by their grammar, customers will probably think twice before letting their orders go.
After one of Mr Glaisher’s balloon ascents, the newspaper correspondent of the region where the æronaut and his friends came down, reported that “after partaking of a hearty breakfast, the balloon was brought into the town amidst the cheers and congratulations of the major part of the population.”
It was remarked at the time that the balloon might well be congratulated on having performed so unheard of a feat.
Another and exceedingly common kind of slip is the jumbling together of different figures or similes.
One of the most famous on record is that of Sir Boyle Roche, when expressing his suspicion, in the Irish Parliament, that underhand dealing was going on in regard to certain negotiations —
“I smell a rat ! ” cried the excited Baronet, “I smell a rat ! I see it floating in the air before me. But mark me, sir, I will nip it in the bud ! ”
28How true it is, as Professor David Masson once remarked, that we find tissues of words in which shreds from Nature’s four quarter are jumbled together as in heraldry — in which the writer begins with a lion, but finds it in the next clause to be a water-spout, in which icebergs swim in seas of lava, comets collect taxes, pigs sing, and teapots climb trees.
“Dicky” Turner, the Preston operative — the originator, it is said, of the word “teetotal” as now used — was a rousing speaker, with an imagination that ran riot through all kinds of images. Old Jacob Livesey said he remembered him in one of his speeches making the following extraordinary appeal: —
“Let us be up and doing, comrades ! Let us take our axes over our shoulders, and plough the deep till the good ship of temperance sails gaily over the land ! ”
How the deep could be ploughed with axes, and how ploughing the deep with axes or anything else could enable the good ship of temperance to sail anywhere, but especially to sail over the land, it would probably have puzzled even the soul-inspiring “Dicky” to have explained. “Dicky,” however, did not use much more licence than Addison, who in his letter from Italy, has the following couplet: —
“I bridle-in my struggling muse with pain
That longs to launch into a noble strain.”
In the dockyards, the idea of putting a bridle on a ship to prevent it from launching itself would seem a poetical licence indeed.
Cases of similar licence could probably be found in almost every writer who has written much. Even Shakespeare, in “Romeo and Juliet,” has an angel who
——“bestrides the lazy-packing clouds,
And sails upon the bosom of the air,”
— a strange thing, surely, a bosom, to sail upon. He speaks, also, in one of the best-known passages in “Hamlet,” of
“Taking arms against a sea of troubles.”
In such cases the incongruity probably arises from images succeeding one another with such rapidity in the poet’s mind that they trample on each other’s heels and get into confusion.
Another kind of blundering is that of jumbling up in one picture the features and characteristics of different nations or of different periods in history. Artists as well as literary men have made strange slips of this kind. Tintoret, in his picture of the Manna-Gathering in the Desert, has armed the Hebrews with guns ! Another artist, in a picture of the Crucifixion, represents a priest holding up before the eyes of the good thief a crucifix. A curious absurdity, for which, however, the original designer of the picture was not responsible, used to be seen in one of the College chapels in 3 Paris. On the restoration of the Bourbons in 1815, this picture, which represented Napoleon visiting the plague hospital in Egypt, was altered so as to wipe out its original character and prevent its removal. Bonaparte was accordingly converted into a Christ, and his aides-de-camp into disciples. The artist, however, did not deem it necessary to alter the whole costume, and our Saviour, accordingly, appeared in the boots of Napoleon !
Another blunder, akin to the mixed metaphors of which we were speaking, is that known as the bull — where a proposition or an idea contradicts itself in an absurd way, and where piquancy is given to the joke by the speaker not perceiving the contradiction himself. It is told of a man who had built a large house, that being at a loss to know what to do with the rubbish, his Irish servant advised him to have a pit dug large enough to contain it. “And what,” said he, smiling, “shall I do with the earth that I dig up from it?” “Arrah, yer honour,” said the man gravely, “make the pit big enough to hold it all.”
Sir Boyle Roche, already referred to, was the author of some of the oddest blunders of this kind. It was he who described himself on one occasion as “standing prostrate at the feet of royalty.” It was he, also, who made the famous reply, in the Irish Parliament, to the argument about considering the claims of posterity: —
31“I don’t see, Mr Speaker,” he said, vehemently, “why we should put ourselves out of the way to serve posterity. What has posterity ever done for us?”
A universal roar of laughter interrupted and disconcerted him, but he hastened to explain.
“When I say posterity, sir, I do not mean our ancestors, but those who come immediately after them.”
The Irish, rightly or wrongly, get credit for almost all the bulls that go the round of the papers. It was an Irishman who wanted to find a place where there was no death, that he might go and end his days there. It was an Irish editor who exclaimed, when speaking of the wrongs of Ireland, “Her cup of misery has been overflowing, and is not yet full ! ” It was an Irish newspaper that said of Robespierre that he “left no children behind him, except a brother, who was killed at the same time.” It was an Irish coroner who, when asked how he accounted for an extraordinary mortality in Limerick, replied, sadly — “I cannot tell. There are people dying this year that never died before.” It was an Irish hand-bill that announced, with boundless liberality, in reference to a great political demonstration in the Rotunda, that “Ladies, without distinction of sex, would be welcome.”
Scotland is not so prolific in bulls as the Sister Isle, but she has produced some.
32Two operatives in one of our Border towns were heard disputing about a new cemetery, beside the elegant railing of which they were standing.
One of them, evidently disliking the Continental fashion in which it was being laid out, said, in disgust, “I’d rather dee than be buried in sic a place.”
“Weel, it’s the verra reverse wi’ me,” said the other, “for I’ll be buried naewhere else, if I’m spared.”
A Paisley gentleman gets the credit for having demanded, in a letter to the newspapers, to know “why women should not be feely allowed to become medical men.”
Dean Ramsay tells the story of a half-cracked man in the Parish Kirk of “Auld Ayr,” who got his head in between the iron rails in front of a seat, and (finding himself unable to get it out again) startled the congregation by shouting in the middle of the sermon — “Murder, murder, my head ’ll hae to be cutit aff. Holy minister; O my head maun be cutit aff. It’s a judgment for leaving my godly Mr Peebles at the Newton.” When he had been extricated and quieted, and was asked why he put his head there, he said — “It was jeest to look on wi’ another woman.”
Even Parliament is not exempt from similar blunders. When at one time suicides were on the increase, a member moved for leave to bring in a bill to make self-murder a capital offence.
33Some old mistakes are made through inadvertence or forgetfulness.
The old Parish Registry Act provides that any person or persons wilfully making or causing to be made false returns in the register of baptisms, burials, or marriages, being thereof lawfully convicted, shall be deemed and adjudged to be guilty of felony, and shall be transported for the term of fourteen years. And the succeeding clause enacts “that one-half of all fines or penalties to be levied in pursuance of this Act shall go to the person who shall inform or sue for the same; and the remainder of such fines as shall be imposed on any churchwarden, shall go to the poor of the parish.”
The only penalty imposed by the Act is transportation for fourteen years, and that is to be equally divided between the informer and the poor of the parish ! In the original draft of the Act, instead of penalty, there had probably been a fine specified; and on making the substitution, the necessity of a corresponding alteration in other parts of the Bill was overlooked.
A lady, having a couple of children sick with the measles, wrote to a friend for the best remedy, and got sent her by mistake a recipe for making pickles, which, to her horror, thinking of her children, she read as follows: — “Scald them three or four times in very hot vinegar, and sprinkle them with salt; and in a few days they will be cured.”
34A different kind of blunder was made by an eminent Scottish advocate, who, on this particular occasion, had drunk rather freely. Being called on unexpectedly to plead in a cause in which he had been retained, he mistook the party for whom he was engaged, and delivered, to the amazement of the agent who had fee’d him, and to the horror of his client, an eloquent speech on the other side. Just as he was about to sit down, the trembling solicitor in a brief note, informed him of his mistake. This would have disconcerted most men, but had quite the opposite effect upon him. Readjusting his wig and gown, he resumed his oration with the words — “Such, my Lords, is the statement of this case, which you will probably hear from my learned brother on the other side. I shall now, therefore, show your Lordships how utterly untenable are the principles, and how distorted are the facts, upon which this plausible statement has proceeded.” And going over the whole ground, he so completely refuted the whole of his former pleading that he won his cause.
In another class of cases the mistake results from misapprehension. When the Bishop of Oxford sent round to the churchwardens in his diocese a circular of inquiries, including the question — “Does your officiating clergyman preach the gospel, and is his conversation and carriage consistent therewith?” the churchwarden of Wallingford replied — “He preaches the gospel, but does not keep a carriage.”
Principal Caird was preaching one Sunday evening in a country church, and as dusk was coming on, the beadle was in doubt as to whether the gas would have to be turned up before the service closed. Suddenly Caird, who at that moment was describing Goethe’s death, uttered almost with a shriek Goethe’s last words, “More light ! more light ! ” The beadle heard him, and at once rushed to the meter and turned up the gas !
The following story used to be told by the Rev. Mr M‘Dougall of Paisley. One day he was taking a simple friend from the country to see the Lunatic Asylum; but passing the Exchange took him to the door to look in. The man, who thought this was the Asylum, stood behind Mr M‘Dougall, and staring eagerly over his shoulder at the merchants stepping up and down, and gathering in eager groups, exclaimed, with surprise not unmingled with awe, “Is ’t safe, man? — they’re a’loose ! ”
An equally amusing mistake is said to have been made on one occasion by Dr Henderson of Galashiels. In the course of pastoral visitation, he called on a widow with a large family, and asked how they all were, and how things were getting on. She said, “All right, except Davie; he’s been troubled wi’ a sare leg, and no fit for wark.” Dr 35 Henderson could not remember which one Davie was, but did not like to hurt the widow’s feelings by betraying his ignorance; and in his prayer prayed that David’s affliction might be blessed to him.
On going home he said to his wife, referring to his call, “Which of the sons is Davie?” “Hoot,” she exclaimed, “Davie’s no a son; Davie is the cuddy ! ”
An odd mistake was made at Kew Conservatory about Professor Winslow, the eminent botanist. The Professor was a man of singular kindness and modesty, ready to show attention to the humblest person who took any interest in his favourite science. He once took a party of pupil teachers with his daughter to show them London and the gardens at Kew. When there, showing them through the conservatory, a lady and gentleman joined the party, supposing Winslow to be the regular guide. On emerging from the conservatory, the gentleman complimented the Professor on his intelligence, and slipped half-a-crown into his hand.
The gift was of course declined; “but I hadn’t the courage,” said Winslow afterwards, “to tell him I was Professor of Botany at Cambridge.”
A curious story is told of a mutual mistake made by Lord Guildford and a lady of quality in the house of Lord Melville. There was a 37 dinner party, at which Lord Seaforth was to be present. As Seaforth was deaf and dumb, Lady Melville, before the company arrived, sent a lady friend, who was familiar with the dumb alphabet, into the drawing-room, to be ready against his Lordship’s arrival. It happened, however, that Lord Guildford was the first to make his appearance; and the lady, taking him for Lord Seaforth, began to sign to him nimbly with her fingers. He replied in the same way; and they went on talking in this noiseless manner on their fingers till Lady Melville entered, when her friend said aloud —
“Well, I have been talking my best to this dumb man.”
“Dumb ! ” cried Lord Guildford, “bless me, I though you were dumb ! ”
Cooke, in his “Seven Narcotics,“ tells a curious story of a mistake made by a young Spanish doctor who went from Madrid to the Philippine Islands some years since, with the design of settling in the colony and pushing his fortune by means of his profession.
On the morning after he landed, the doctor sallied forth for a walk on the paseo.
He had not proceeded far when his attention was attracted to a young girl, a native, who was walking a few paces ahead of him. He observed that every now and then the girl stooped her head 38 towards the pavement, which was straightway spotted with blood.
Alarmed on the girl’s account, the doctor walked rapidly after her, observing that she still continued to expectorate blood at intervals as she went. Before he could come up with her, the girl had reached her home, a humble cottage in the suburbs, into which she entered. The doctor followed close upon her heels, and summoning her father and mother, directed them to send immediately for the priest, as their daughter had not many hours to live. The distracted parents, having learned the profession of their visitor, immediately acceded to his request. The child was put to bed in extreme affright, having been told what was about to befall her.
The nearest padre was brought, and gave her such spiritual comfort as he could.
The doctor plied his skill to the utmost, but in vain. In less than twenty-four hours the girl was dead. As up to that time the young Indian had always enjoyed excellent health, the doctor’s prognostication was regarded as an evidence of great and mysterious skill. The fame of it soon spread through Manilla, and the newly-arrived physician was beleaguered with patients, and in a fair way of accumulating a fortune. In the midst of all this, some one had the curiosity to ask the doctor how he could possibly have predicted the death of the 39 girl, seeing that she had been in perfect health a few hours before.
“Predict it ! ” replied the doctor, “why, sir, I saw her spit blood enough to have killed her half-a-dozen times.”
“Blood ! but how did you know it was blood?”
“How ! from the colour, of course.”
“But every one spits red in Manila.”
The doctor, who had already observed this fact, and was labouring under some uneasiness in regard to it, refused to make any further confession at the time; but he had said enough to elucidate the mystery. The thing soon spread throughout the city, and it became clear to everyone that what the new medico had taken for blood was nothing else than the red juice of the buyo, and that the poor girl had died from the fear of death caused by his prediction. His career in Manilla was ended. He found it best to leave by the next ship.
Paul Louis Courier relates the following story: — I was once travelling in Calabria — a land of wicked people, who, I believe, hate every one, and particularly the French; the reason why would take long to tell you; suffice it to say that they mortally hate us, and that one gets on very badly when he falls into their hands.
I had for a companion a young man.
In these mountains the roads are precipices; our horses got on with much difficulty; my companion 40 went first; a path which appeared to him shorter and more practicable led us astray.
It was my fault. Ought I to have trusted to a head only twenty years old?
Whilst daylight lasted, we tried to find our way through the wood, but the more we tried, the more bewildered we became, and it was pitch dark when we arrived at a very black-looking house. We entered, not without fear, but what could we do? We found a whole family of colliers at table; they immediately invited us to join them; my young man did not wait to be pressed; there we were eating and drinking, — he at least, for I was examining the place, and the appearance of our hosts. They had quite the look of colliers, but the house you would have taken for an arsenal; there was nothing but guns, pistols, swords, knives, and cutlasses. Everything displeased me, and I saw very well that I displeased them. My companion, on the contrary, was quite one of the family — he laughed and talked with them, and with an imprudence that I ought to have foreseen (but to what purpose if it was decreed), he told at once where we came from, where we were going, and that we were Frenchmen.
Just imagine ! amongst our most mortal enemies, alone, out of our road, so far from all human succour.
And then, to omit nothing that might ruin us, 41 he played the rich man, promised to give, the next morning, as a remuneration to these people, and to our guides, whatever they wished. Then he spoke of his portmanteau, begging them to take care of it, and to put it at the head of his bed; he did not wish, he said, for any other pillow. One would have thought he carried the crown diamonds.
What caused him so much solicitude about this portmanteau was his sweetheart’s letters.
Supper over, they left us. Our hosts slept below; we in the upper room where we had supped. A loft, raised some seven or eight feet, which was reached by a ladder, was the resting-place that awaited us; a sort of nest, into which we were to introduce ourselves by creeping under joists loaded with provisions for the year. My companion climbed up alone, and already nearly asleep, laid himself down with his head upon the precious portmanteau.
Having determined to sit up, I made a good fire and seated myself by the side of it. The night, which had been undisturbed, was nearly over, and I began to reassure myself. About the time when I thought the break of day could not be far off, I heard our host and his wife talking and disputing below; and, putting my ear to the chimney, which communicated with the one in the lower room, I perfectly distinguished these words spoken by the husband —
42“Well, let us see, must they both be killed?”
To which the wife replied, “Yes,” and I heard no more.
How shall I go on? I stood, scarcely breathing, my body cold as marble. When I think of it now ! — we, almost without weapons, against twelve or fifteen who had so many ! and my companion dead with sleep and fatigue ! To call him or make a noise, I dared not; to escape alone was impossible; the window was not high, but below were two large dogs howling like wolves. In what an agony I was, imagine if you can.
At the end of a long quarter of an hour, I heard some one on the stair, and through the crack of the door, I saw the man, his lamp in one hand, and in the other one of his large knives. He came up, his wife after him. I was behind the door; he opened it, but before he came in, he put down the lamp, which his wife took. He then entered, barefoot; and from outside, the woman said to him, in a low voice, shading the light of the lamp with her hand, “Softly, go softly.” When he got to the ladder he mounted it, his knife between his teeth, and getting up as high as the bed — the poor young man lying with his throat bare — with one hand he took his knife and with the other he seized a ham which hung from the ceiling, cut a slice from it, and retired as he had come !
43The door was closed again, the lamp disappeared, and I was left alone with my reflections.
As soon as day appeared, all the family, making a great noise, came to awaken us as we had requested. They brought us something to eat, and gave us a very clean and a very good breakfast, I assure you. Two capons formed part of it, of which we must, said our hostess, take away one, and eat the other. When I saw them I understood the meaning of those terrible words, “Must they both be killed?” and you also will guess now what they signified. So ends the story.
The mistaking of one person for another has often led people into very absurd positions. An American paper says: —
“There was a young man in Chagrin
Who fell dead in love with a twin
And whenever he kissed her
He found ’twas her sister,
This spoony young man of Chagrin.”
This case may be regarded as apocryphal, but it has its match in reality.
The proprietor of the National Hotel in Washington (Mr Guy) used to bear a striking resemblance to General Cass. During the sittings of Congress, when Cass was there, a gentleman from Baltimore, who had been put into an inferior room in the hotel, met the General on the stairs, took him for Mr Guy, whom he thought he knew very well, 44 and broke out upon him about the room. “And I’ll be hanged,“ he said, “if I stand this any longer. You must give me a room lower down.”
“Sir,” said the General, sternly, “you are mistaken in the person you are addressing. I am General Cass of Michigan.”
“General Cass?” stammered the gentleman, with some confusion. “I beg your pardon, General, I took you for my old friend Guy. I beg a thousand pardons.”
The General passed out of the building, but had occasion to return a few minutes after, when the stranger, as fate would have it, came upon him again. His back was now to the light, his hat was on, and the Baltimore gentleman was sure he had met Guy this time, as he had seen General Cass go out; so, slapping him familiarly on the shoulder, he said, with a laugh —
“By thunder, Guy, I’ve got a rich joke to tell you. I met that darned old Cass upstairs just now, thought it was you, and began cussing him up and down about my room.”
“Well, young man,” said the General, more sternly than ever, “you’ve met that darned old Cass again ! ”
Many curious arrest have been made from mistake as to person. Robert Leighton, the poet, told me that when in Cork, during the days of the Fenian excitement, he was apprehended as 45 “Head-Centre” Stephens, to whom he bore a striking resemblance, and was marched off in triumph by the constabulary, who were full of exultation at having, as they thought, earned the thousand pounds reward.
During the civil war in America, Confederate General Polk made a narrow escape, owing to one of those mistakes which frequently occurred from the pale blue of the Federal uniform and the bluish-grey of the Confederates being so much alike. Polk thus described the adventure to Colonel Fremantle: — “Well, sir, it was at the battle of Perryville, late in the evening — in fact it was almost dark, when Liddell’s Brigade came into action. Shortly after its arrival I observed a body of men, whom I believed to be Confederates, standing at an angle to this brigade and firing obliquely at the newly arrived troops. My adjutants being all away with messages to different parts of the field, I put spurs to my horse, and, cantering up to the colonel of the regiment that was firing, asked in angry tomes what he meant by shooting at our own men.
“He said with surprise, ‘I don’t think there can be any mistake. I am sure they are the enemy.’
“‘Enemy ! ’ I exclaimed, ‘I have just left them myself. Cease firing ! What is your name, sir?’
46“ ‘My name is Colonel A—— of the Fifth Indiana. And who, sir, pray, are you?’
“Then, for the first time, I discovered with a start that he was a Yankee officer, and that I was in the rear of the enemy’s lines. I saw there was nothing for it but to brazen it out. My dark blouse, and the increasing obscurity befriended me, so, shaking my fist in his face with the words, ‘I’ll soon show you, sir, who I am,’ I cantered slowly down the line, shouting in an authoritative tone to the Yankees to stop firing. As I did so, I experienced a disagreeable sensation, like screwing, up my back, expecting every moment a rush of bullets after me. I was afraid to increase my pace, until I got to a small copse, when I put my spurs in and galloped back to my men.”
Mr Ormsby, of the Middle Temple, in an interesting volume, entitled “Autumn Rambles in North Africa,” tells the following story: —
Abder-Rahman-ben Djellah, who reigned at Tuggurt, in the Region of the West Rhis, heard that in Constantina (then recently occupied by the French) there was a damsel whose beauty surpassed the most extravagant conceptions of the most imaginative poets.
At this time he was in a depressed state of mind.
He was a widower to an extent that may be represented by the vulgar fraction, ¼; for the dearest, 47 fairest, and fattest of his four wives, Ghazala, “the gazelle,” who weighed nearly twenty stones, had just died.
These tales of the Constantian beauty excited, first curiosity, and then a warmer and stronger passion; and he called to him his major-domo, a faithful person, and a man of judgment, and bade him go to the city of Constantina, and bring back a true report.
And the major-domo replied, “I hear and obey,” and went; and returned and reported, saying “It is true, O my master, what thy servants have said, and there is no lie at all. I myself have seen her. Her cheeks are like ripe pomegranates, and her eyebrows are curved like the branch of the palm tree, and her hair resembles the tail of El Warda, the mare of the Prophet, whose name be extolled ! and all day she sits in the window of her father’s house, which is, indeed, a mean casket for so bright a jewel, and steadfastly regards the persons who pass by, smiling in a manner that deprives the beholders of reason.”
Then the heart of Abder-Rahman was inflamed, and he gave a large sum in douros to the major-domo, and told him to go to Constantina, and bring back the damsel at any cost. And the major-domo departed and went to the house of the damsel’s father, and finding the father at the door of the house, he mentioned his mission, and explained 48 that he came on the part of a mighty prince of the South, to demand in marriage his daughter, the fair damsel who habitually sat in the window smiling, and that he was prepared to offer a handsome marriage portion. Whereupon the father was much perplexed; for indeed he had no daughter. He was only a hairdresser from Marseilles, who cut for the officers of the garrison, and curled for their wives; and the damsel was but a dummy — a wax figure which he had placed in the window as an indication of his profession.
But the major-domo was a man of a literal turn of mind, and as he had been instructed, under severe penalties, not to return without the damsel, he bought the image, and it became one of the chief ornaments of his master’s harem. And Abder-Rahman-ben-Djellah, who was a man of pleasant humour, and also of vast matrimonial experience, has been heard to say (so the story goes) that there were worse wives, so far as peace and quietness were concerned, than the one he got from Constantina.
Elf.Ed. Notes
The author uses some material by celebrated funnymen from the previous hundred years or so. Several can be find in Mark Lemon’s Jest Book, which is online here, in a unauthorized and uncredited American copy, called Joe Miller's Jest Book. I have linked their names with either the joke Macrae is referring to, or to other samples of their humor.
* There happen to be two “blunders” of the typographical variety in this text, which have been corrected. Also, there are what appears to be typographical mistakes to us today, but are not. The absence of a period after “Mr” instead of “Mr.”, and “St” instead of “St.”, was normal and accepted usage in those days. This is very common in Italian texts still, according to Bill Thayer, who surely knows. It also occurs in older French texts. The other accepted pseudo-blunder found here is the typographical format of leaving a space before some contractions, e.g. ’ll and the use of an apostrophe, e. g., “M‘Dougall”, instead of a superscript, or small “c” for Scottish names beginning with “Mc.”