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Going Old -English:
It's 'igh Time We Jolly Well Found Out
In addition to those included in the above sixtyeight, literally hundreds more Englishmen have 'arrived in Hollywood to tr>' their luck without getting a foothold yet, and are therefore not included in my abstruse calculations.
How Far Things Have Gone
ONE of the more recent arrivals, Reginald Sharland, is actually starting a Hollywood cricket team That shows you how far the thing has already gone. He has sent emissaries to England with instructions to bring back with them bats, balls, wickets, stumps, nets, pads, weed-killer and plenty of teacups. Any day now, these holy emblems of England's national rite may arrive in Hollywood; and then even Califor
nia's meadows will be taken over for the worship of this foreign deity. Also, of course, there is the matter of English accent and pronunciation. Just everybody is taking lessons nowadays in broad "a's," and It's getting to be downright unfashionable not to be able to trot out a few at any smart gathering. No longer is it possible, as of yore, to tell an Englishman from an American; they're all talking the same, or at least trying to. Who would ever think, to hear them talk as they do to-day^ that Ruth Chatterton and Hedda Hopper were both one hundred per cent. Yankees? The point where the English mvasion of Hollywood becomes serious is just this matter of pronunciation. No hundred per cent. American is going to take the trouble to object because a few Hollywood people become Union-Jack-conscious in other ways. But when the English impress their manner of speaking upon the American picture stars, they impress it on all America. And the idea that America should be dictated to in this or any other matter by a bunch of Limey lads is, to many, altogether shocking.
"Suspenders"? Horrors!
â– PRONUNCIATION isn't all, either. The very Jj^words of the American language are being replaced by English words, just because the Hollywood people have let themselves be influenced by the invadtrs. Take, for example, that fine old American word, "suspenders." When Fred Kerr, a London stage veteran, came to Hollywood some months ago, he wanted something to keep his pants up and went into a shop. He asked for "braces," and the salesman said, "On, you mean suspenders.^" Kerr had three apopleptic seizures and a fit of the palsy, and finally the salesman was so touched by the actor's condition that he consented to call the contraption "braces." From then on, the word has swept the country, and nowadays, if you ask for "suspenders" in any number of shops, they give you such a look that you want to fall through the floor. All a part of this insidious English propaganda, without a doubt. Something ought to be done.
The English have a way of shriveling a poor American with one glance, if he should either do or say anything that doesn't measure up to the Limey idea of perfect behavior. No race except King George's Own could have changed Hollywood and Hollywood life so quickly.
In the last two years, the American habit of mixing ginger ale with Scotch has practically died out in {Continued on page 87)
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