YOUR PROBLEMS SOLVED
Dear Mary.. .
Q. I have just come across the inquiry from O.K., London W2 (2 May) concerning the pronunciation of the names Darby and Enroughty. By strange coincidence, about a week ago I had occasion to take up that same curiosity at an informal lunch club in this area. To answer this question, I am happy to enclose a letter from a 1956 issue of American Heritage indicating that the name spelt Enroughty was indeed pro- nounced Darby! As the letter indicates, this paradox was due to good old-fashioned greed. I trust you can summarise the answer!
R.V.M., Connecticut, USA A. Thank you for your gratifying enclosure. The letter from John N. Ware, of Shorter College, Rome, Georgia, told how having received an unintentional 'spiking' during a baseball match from an opposing baseman named Darby, Ware was surprised to see the name spelt 'Enroughty' in the following day's newspaper. 'Yes,' he was told. 'That's the way the nut spells "Darby".' Being even that early a monomaniac on etymolo- gy,' Ware wrote, 'I began digging. I really got several bites, some evidently no-goods, but this one the most likely. In the middle of the 18th century the ancient and hon- ourable-but-dirt-poor Enroughty family of England found itself impaled on two equal- ly distasteful horns of a dilemma. Some 40 years earlier, a perverted Enroughty female had committed the unpardonable crime of marrying a plebeian scrub — of all things, "in trade", in other words, working for his living; repugnant to every true Enroughty. His name was Derby, pronounced, of course, Darby. The family gave him the same treatment as they did in a similar case in The House Divided, snubbed him fero- ciously and erased the unrepentant Magda- lene from the family roll. And as in The House Divided, the snubbed took ample and delicious revenge. When Darby died a childless widower and worth a fortune, he left his money to the Enroughtys on condi- tion that they change their name to Darby! And there they were. They just couldn't miss that money, but to change the name — what a mess! A meeting of the clan was called, and after long debate, one member came up with a brilliant and life-and-face- and-name-saving device: 'Let's keep on spelling it Enroughty and pronounce it Darby.' Carried unanimously, and with wild cheers. So that was that.
Q. What do other people do about the offensive noise produced when tomato ketchup is squeezed out of its plastic bottle? G.W, Beaumaris, Anglesey A. To avoid this unpleasantness, top house- holders prefer to purchase the glass-bottled version of tomato ketchup. The wider- necked outlet disallows the syndrome of `bottle-belching'.
Q. When driving, my husband and I like to `do a sweep' of houses of architectural interest that we are going close by. What is the best way to deflect aggression from owners who intercept one in the drive? One cannot always know the names of their nearest neighbours and pretend to have been looking for them.
B.L., London SW3 A. The safest thing is to say, 'I'm frightfully sorry. I thought this was my son's school/my mother's nursing home.'
Mary Killen
If you have a problem write to Dear Mary, clo The Spectator, 56 Doughty Street, London WCIN 2LL.
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