Judge — June 7, 1919 — page 24: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

: ‘ SRY lingo but is queer.” Politeness aside, J y this is the senti- oyous ment of each of us By talking animals. The man 2 from Noo Yoik grins at the drawl of the lady from Vir- ginia when she speaks of her “gyarden.”” The hard g makes fun of the dictionary words of the highbrow. Foreigners are linguistic half-wits. Hence the humor of dialect comedians—articulate enough to make the audience understand what they want to say et never able to say it as we should; wrestling ludicrously with our language; continually tricked by it, their every expression having to run the gantlet of plaguey idioms, and coming out gro- tesque, disheveled and undignified. The more earnestly they struggle, the more foolish they make themselv In “Fri endly Ene ’ the amicable conflict is not so much between the € cronies Pfeifer and Block as between both these worthies and the uncon- quered English tongue. A curious case of dialect complex is that of Otis Skinner. Mr. Skin- ner , in one play after an- other, taken up so many kinds of dialect that he now has a hard time forgetting the ones he isn’t using. His past accents won't stay put. In ‘*Humpty Dumpty,” where he was supposed to be an Eng- lishman, he once in a while dropped back into the intonations of “Mis- ter Antonio” of sunny Italy, a character he had been playing the season previous. This year he is a dashing French colonel, as drawn by Balzac, and he delivers some of his lines with bit of an Irish brogue—not pronounced enough to actually mar the part but unmistakable enough to give one an inward tickle. Joshing erudi pastime. What farce is complete with- ©). Osiy Skinner m Jargonings Lawton Mackaut y” ion is a popular stage Photo by Anes Posed exclusively for Jevar : : Bride out the bishop with long words and the back of a chair, lo short breeches? or what musi- cal comedy without the pro- fessor with horn goggles and ever-present book and ever- absent mind, serving as a butt for beauties and bound- ers? A few years ago when- ever this professor uttered the word “psychology” everybody in the audience burst into uncontrollable laughter. Today, in this era of “System” and scientific analysis, the comedian who should spring ‘ “psychology” would get no laugh at all. In order to score as a fool he must now mention something more advanced, something that the patrons of the American drama there in front of him will consider guffawable Greck—till they catch up with it ten years later. A timely and diverting sort of lingo fun is that between French damsels and Yank admirers who are there with everything but the language. The made- moiselle who rattles parlez-vous like a mitrailleuse nd always was, amusing. You remember her (played by Louise Drew) in“It Pays to Advertise” and (played by Irene Bordoni) in ‘“Hitchy Koo.” In both these shows it took two men to listen to her. To make Irene Bordoni_ re- duce her word output per second, required nothing less than physical violence by Hitchcock and Errol. Choking finally did the trick. In “She’s a Good Fel- low” we have the latest kink—a black one. Th negro maid practises up on French so as to be able to parlez-vous her ebony hero when he re- turns—and does so with Ethiopian éclat. The favorite situation, though, is soldier and French girl in France. ‘The Better ’Ole” has some delicious songs and conver- sations between Tommies and Made- moiselles. ‘Toot Sweet’ discovers u, assisted by Yanks in the same enviable difficulties. king his rakishest. Truly Cupid supplies itsown Esperanto. comicbooks.com