A Proper Englishman Speaks Proper English
Jacob Abramsohn made it good after several difficult years, and now he
wants to make sure that his son Chaim Yankle has a proper start in English
society. Nu, so what do you think? He
advertises in the London Times for an elocution teacher his son Chaim should learn
to speak like a proper Englishman.
A
young graduate of Oxford answers the newspaper classified.
“You are I hope the proper Englishman?” asks Abramsohn.
“I am, indeed, sir,” he answers a little nervously. “ I went to a public
school and then went up to Oxford where I majored in literature.”
Abramsohn looks him up and down, curls up his nose and asks: “You could
make my son Chaim he should sound like you and become also proper Englishman,
the rich people will think he was born in this country, not like his stupid father
what comes from Poland?”
“I would endeavour to do my very best, Mr. Abramsohn, “my very best.”
They discuss terms and a gentleman’s agreement is made. The young tutor will have three months to get
the boy started and if all goes well the contract will extend for another three
months. They shake hands.
Thereafter every morning, the tutor arrives, sits with the boy in a
small room for three hours in the morning and three in the afternoon, speaks to
him reads newspapers with him, and tries to scrape away the rust of the ghetto
and the bizarre lilt of the mama loshen,
Yiddish.
At the end of three months, Abramsohn meets the tutor at the door. “Before you so in to see my Chaim,” he says,
“please tell me how he is doing. Is it
worthwhile going on with our contract?”
The tutor looks a bit worn. “To
tell you the truth, Mr. Abramsohn, it’s a bit harder than I expected. Your son has the mannerism and accent of his
family deeply ingrained. But I think we
are making progress.”
“So, nu, is that from you a yes or a no?
You can make my little Chaim into a proper Englishman?”
“I would say it is a
positive possibility, only I think I will need to spend at least two more hours
each day with your son. It’s a real
challenge.”
“Huckeys dokey, Mr
Tutor. I give you three more months,
then we see.”
Three months pass. The boy and the tutor are left alone.
“Nu, nu, nu,” says Mr
Abramsohn to the tutor, “is my son a fine Englishman yet, he can talk with a
haxent just like you?”
The tutor looks
perfectly haggard. But he grits his
teeth and says: “Look, sir, I think we are getting there, I really do. But let me, please, have just one more month
with your son. This is a challenge like
I have never encountered before.”
Mr Abramsohn says, “I
will let you have this little bit of hextra time, but I ain’t going to pay you
if my Chaimie can’t speak like you by the end of this month. You understand?”
The tutor sighs. “I understand perfectly. I must succeed in this now, for my own
sake. I will stay with him all day and
also three hours every evening. ”
They shake hands
again.
Four weeks pass and
then the tutor comes to the door and is met by Mr. Abramsohn.
“Well,” he says to the
young man, “ is everythink the way you wanted?”
“Oy, Mr. Abramsohn,
this time I give by you a real success story.
Your boychik, Chaimie, he can talk just like me, mit no haxent and a
fine kind of Henglish spich.”
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