Culture in Chi cago

By ROBERT WAITIIMAisl T WAS In receipt of a telegram the other day from my friend,

Mr. C. V. R. Thompson, the eminent chief correspondent of the I London Daily Express. It was filed in New York, and Western Union, delivering it to me over the teleprinter in the Washington office of the London News Chronicle, preceded it with five rings, an indication that it was recognised to be urgent and important. Mr. Thompson, in his concise way, had telegraphed :

" Your attention is directed to pages 126, 127, 129 and 130 of Life magazine?' The reference turned out to be to an advance notice by Life of a forthcoming book on Fractured French, by F. S. Pearson with drawings by Richard Taylor. "Cartoon captions are outrageous puns on French phrases that have become common expressions," Life explained. Thus, as pages 126 to 130 went on to show, coup de grace was translated as " lawn-mower," carte blanche as "Take Blanche home," honi soh qui 'nal y pense as " I honestly believe I'm going to be sick," piece de resistance as " shy girl," and so on.

Life said: " To most Europeans, who speak two or more languages as a matter of course, foreign tongues seem neither difficult nor unreasonable. But to most Americans, whose average dose is a couple of years of high-school French, foreign tongues remain a mystery. Most mysterious of all is the French idiom...." Arguing hat the best defence against the French idiom is ridicule, Life predicted that Fractured French will become a national institution.

It was clear to me at once why Mr. Thompson, as a fellow European who speaks two or more languages as a matter of course, had sent me the telegram. The reference could only be to an exchange of notes which occurred between us when we were Perspiring st adjoining Press seats at the Chicago stadium in mid- July, 1944, during the Democratic National Convention at which resident Roosevelt was Tenominated Presidential candidate and Senator Truman of !Missouri was nominated Vice-Presidential candidate.

It came back in a rush of memory—the heat and the smell of newly-sawn wood in the Press seats, the organ, the banners, the votes that Vice-President Wallace got on the first ballot, and the subsequent triumph of Senator Truman. I knew that somewhere in the office files there was a fat envelope of relics of the 1944 Demo- cratic Convention, and after a while I found it. And there, among the advance releases of the principal speeches, were the pencilled

notes from Mr. Thompson to me and from me to Mr. Thompson. They were rather carelessly mixed up inside a folded mimeographed

copy of the 1944 Democratic Party Platform, and the pages might

not have been in the right order ; but as far as I can now determine the exchange was opened by Mr. Thompson in the French idiom. To make everything easier for readers who do not speak two or more languages and for whom foreign tongues remain a mystery, simple translations of the exchanges will be given in every case.

Mr. Thompson wrote: Je pense que je vais avoir un chien chaud (I think 1'11 go have a hot dog). I replied agreeably enough, Faltes cette petite chose-la (Do that little thing), and, as I recall it,

Mr. Thompson then hoisted his not inconsiderable bulk off the narrow form we were sitting on and started off. Before he went, however, he seems to have passed a further note reading Vous

meilleur tenir une oeil sur cet charactere pendant Mon absence. C'est possible quill busterait (You'd better keep an eye on this

character while I'm away. He might burst). The reference plainly -was to one of the orators then addressing the convention, but !hue is nothing to show which of them it was. I answered reasstigngly: .Le laissez a moi—Je ne vous permetterai.en bas (Leave it to me—I won't let you down). This wai. raffia sporting of me, since Mr. Thompson and I arun..9pDositIOn papers. An interval evicletillY pissed, for there is a doodle on the paper showing wiIS geese flying over what appears to be a teapot of very

Elaborate design. Presently Mr. Thompson returned and delivered

himself of a note reading Cela a coupe la place (That hit the spot). To show that I had not minded keeping my lonely vigil on our joint

behalf I said: Un peu de ce que vous vous imagnieZ vous fait bon (a Cockney expression meaning A little of what you fancy does you good). Comme vrai (How true) Mr. Thompson replied. To bring

Mr. Thompson au fait (up to date) on the current scene I then informed him: II ne mont aucun signe de fermant en haut (He shows no sign of shutting up). To this Mr. Thompson retorted with a scholarly word-play. He wrote: VI ne fait pas, je vais icier en haut (If he doesn't, l'm going to throw up). A series of further drawings, among them one of a freight-train loaded with what may have been rocking-horses, indicates a lapse

of time before the exchange was resumed. The next notation from

Mr. Thompson seems to have been Mots, mots, mots (words, words, words). Intent upon keeping the correspondence on a high plane

I replied to this with a quotation from Shakespeare: Demain et demain et demain marche lentement dans cet pas inconsiderable de jour a jour au dernier syllable de temps registre (Tomorrow, and tomorrow, and tomorrow, creeps in this petty pace from day to day to the last syllable of recorded time). To this Mr. Thompson aptly rejoined: Pas demi (Not half).

There follows a note in my writing, apparently referring to some peroration from the rostrum, which says Sans doute cela est meilleur dehors que dans (Doubtless that is better out than in); but Mr. Thompson's attention seems to have been wandering from the speeches, for the next entry is a sentence saying: Troisieme du gauche, premier file—une morceau de wide droite, n'est ce pas? (Third from the left, front row—a bit of all right, huh ?). This evidently referred to one of the lady delegates in front of us. More correspondence took place which seems to be quite irrele-, vant to the occasion and even, in some cases, wholly obscure. For example, it is not clear why there should have occurred a note saying le peux l'obienir pour vous orificevente (I can get it for you wholesale). In any case, there can be no need here to record any of the further exchanges between Mr. Thompson and me during the 1944 Democratic National Convention. They were all of the same high standard.