He is anxious to speak the very best English, and to say that a word is slangy or common interdicts its use. Sometimes, when the weather is fine and things go smoothly, he is in an excellent and communicative humour, and talks a good deal as we travel. A few days ago I remarked, “What a beautiful day this is!” and soon after, note-book in hand, he said, “You say ‘a beautiful day.’ Is that better English than ‘a devilish fine day,’ which most foreigners say?” I replied that it was “common,” and “beautiful” has been brought out frequently since. Again, “When you ask a question you never say, ‘What the d—l is it?’ as other foreigners do. Is it proper for men to say it and not for women?” I told him it was proper for neither, it was a very “common” word, and I saw that he erased it from his note-book. At first he always used fellows for men, as, “Will you have one or two fellows for your kuruma?” “fellows and women.” At last he called the Chief Physician of the hospital here a fellow, on which I told him that it was slightly slangy, and at least “colloquial,” and for two days he has scrupulously spoken of man and men. To-day he brought a boy with very sore eyes to see me, on which I exclaimed, “Poor little fellow!” and this evening he said, “You called that boy a fellow, I thought it was a bad word!” The habits of many of the Yokohama foreigners have helped to obliterate any distinctions between right and wrong, if he ever made any. If he wishes to tell me that he has seen a very tipsy man, he always says he has seen “a fellow as drunk as an Englishman.” At Nikkô I asked him how many legal wives a man could have in Japan, and he replied, “Only one lawful one, but as many others (mekaké) as he can support, just as Englishmen have.” He never forgets a correction. Till I told him it was slangy he always spoke of inebriated people as “tight,” and when I gave him the words “tipsy,” “drunk,” “intoxicated,” he asked me which one would use in writing good English, and since then he has always spoken of people as “intoxicated.”
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