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THE AMERICAN LANGUAGE

changed his Polish name of Karzeniowski to Conrad because few Englishmen could pronounce owski correctly, so the Italian or Greek or Slav immigrant, coming up for naturalization, very often sheds his family name with his old allegiance, and emerges as Taylor, Jackson or Wilson. I once encountered a firm of Polish Jews, showing the name of Robinson & Jones on its sign- board, whose partners were born Rubinowitz and Jonas. I lately heard of a German named Knoche a name doubly difficult to Americans, what with the kn and the ch who changed it boldly to Knox to avoid being called Nokky. A Greek named Zoyio- poulous, Kolokotronis, Mavrokerdatos or Const antinopolous would find it practically impossible to carry on amicable business with Americans ; his name would arouse their mirth, if not their downright ire. And the same burden would lie upon a Hun- garian named Beniczkyne or Gyalui, or Szilagyi, or Vezercsil- lagok. Or a Finn named Kyyhkysen, or Jaaskelainen, or Tuulen- suu, or Uotinen, all honorable Finnish patronymics. Or a Swede named Sjogren, or Schjtt, or Leijonhufvud. Or a Bo- hemian named Srb, or Hrubka. Or, for that matter, a German named Kannengiesser, or Schnapaupf, or Pfannenbecker.

But more important than this purely linguistic hostility, there is a deeper social enmity, and it urges the immigrant to change his name with even greater force. For a hundred years past all the heaviest and most degrading labor of the United States has been done by successive armies of foreigners, and so a concept of inferiority has come to be attached to mere foreignness. In addition, these newcomers, pressing upward steadily in the man- ner already described, have offered the native a formidable, and considering their lower standards of living, what has ap- peared to him to be an unfair competition on his own plane, and as a result a hatred born of disastrous rivalry has been added to his disdain. Our unmatchable vocabulary of derisive names for foreigners reveals the national attitude. The French boche, the German hunyadi (for Hungarian),<ref name=twenty>This is army slang, but promises to survive. The Germans, during the war, had no opprobrious nicknames for their foes. The French were always/ref> and the old English froggy (for Frenchman) seem lone and feeble beside our great reper-