Rensselaer Journal, Volume 11, Number 26, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 5 December 1901 — AS THE WORLDS REVOLVES [ARTICLE]

AS THE WORLDS REVOLVES

FAMILIARITY A VICE. It is greatly to be feared that familiarity is one of the vices of the age. You will hear little Cadsby Toad, who once happened to be in the same room as his grace the duke of Tetbury, always speak of that distinguished nobleman &b “Tetbury," and having occasionally found himself in the same field with that enthusiastic sportsman, my Lord Cobunter, will make a point of alluding to him as “Cubby.” This will, perhaps, scarcely give you cause for astonishment, but you can hardly understand people, who ought to know better, continually writing and talking of Earl Roberts as “Bobs.” We are apt in the present day to sneer at our ancestors, but I do not think they would have forgotten themselves so far as to call Lord Nelson “Horry,” or to speak of the great duke of Wellington as “Arty.” Such abbreviations and nicknames may be all very well as applied to popular pugilists, but they are distinctly out of place in referring to distinguished commanders. Equally objectionable is the familiar manner with which other notable people are treated. Why should the colonial secretary be spoken and written about as “Joe Chamberlain,” and why should the editor of Truth be brought before the public as “Labby?” In addition to these and many other instances it seems to me to be both slangy and disrespectful to speak of the soldiers of the king as “Tommies.” —J. AshbySterry in the London Graphic.