Weeds of Speech

MY DEAR BELLA--Arthur Kober--Random House ($2).

These episodes of life in The Bronx have for principal characters Bella Gross, a private secretary who will not let herself be called a stenographer; her father and mother; and the young man she thinks occasionally of marrying, Max Fine, a C.P.A. who will not let himself be called a bookkeeper. All the stories (originally printed in The New Yorker and now illustrated by The New Yorker's Sydney Hoff) achieve the distinction of being not only funny but sympathetic.

The Bronx is a luxuriant weed patch on the landscape of U.S. speech, and Mr. Kober knows its every leaf and stalk. Damon Runyon thinks that Kober has "the keenest ear for human speech of any writer since Ring Lardner." In one way Kober tops Lardner, for Lardner's baseball players talked pretty much alike, whereas there are distinct differences--some obvious, some subtle--in the talk of Bella and Max as against that of Ma and Pa Gross.

The older generation have learned a patois that passes for English, but they retain sentence structures from Yiddish (Pa Gross, protesting a torrent of talk: "Like a machine is gung the tunks. Like a sobvay is coming the woids--tukk, tukk, tukk!"). They put extra consonants in certain words--"udder" for or, "paintner" for painter, "finndish" for finish. They say "chonging" for charging, "serrisfied" for satisfied, "tenner" for tenant.

The young people, U.S.-born and schooled, don't use the old folks' "regelleh." They say "regella." Their mistakes belong not to Yiddish, but to The Bronx: omitted consonants ("lease" for least, "oney" for only, "finey" for finally, "subjeck" for subject); misconceptions ("grain matter" for grey matter) ; transpositions ("dastric" for drastic); mixed metaphors ("Mac Fine, honestly, if there's any figgers arounn, your nose is bound to be knee-deep in them").

The young people have a great American thirst to improve themselves. They are the nouveaux riches of culture, fond of words like "whence," "whereof" and "elucidate." A beautiful word like "osculation" serves Bella the double purpose of showing both learning and gentility.

Moreover, the Bronx youngsters of her generation insist on seemliness. When their social club gets together, a chairman presides and discourse is conducted by parliamentary rules.

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