(1) The chauffeur and the lost hook
there is a story told about me that is apocryphal
1. Latin CALEFACERE = CALERE (“to heat”) + FACERE ("to do")
2. French CHAUFFER (“to warm up”)
[English, by ~14th century, CHAFE (“to rub, causing heat”)]
3. French CHAUFFEUR (“stoker” - not Bram - but the one who feeds a steam engine)
4. French CHAUFFEUR ("heater-upper" - of early motor cars which, before the advent of the spark plug, had to be ignited by starting a small fire in a box beside the engine)
5. English, by 1902:
To the Editor of the New York Times:
I observe with mild pain that THE TIMES, like The Evening Post, seems to have accepted “chauffeur” as a name for the functionary who controls the motion of a certain kind of lately invented vehicle. Is this the best we can do with the resources of Shakespeare’s language? The word is distinctly a bad importation. If it had in French a peculiar or idiomatic meaning, we might welcome it; but it means simply what we call “⬛⬛⬛⬛⬛⬛⬛,” or what the English call “⬛⬛⬛⬛⬛⬛.” To my mind, the right word is “⬛⬛⬛⬛⬛⬛,” which might very well have been adopted instead of “⬛⬛⬛⬛⬛⬛⬛⬛.” Still “⬛⬛⬛⬛⬛⬛⬛⬛” is tolerable; “chauffeur” is intolerable, and should be repudiated. In the mouths of the plain people it will probably become “chawfer.”
There is a story told about me that is apocryphal. It is said that after the war I was driving the string-theorist around the continent. We traveled from one university to another, and I waited upon him, and I heard him give the same lecture so many times that I came to know him by heart. So much so that in Zagreb I asked if I could act his part, if I could give his lecture instead.
The city was unknown to us, and we to it. By then, the string-theorist had begun to tire of routine and he longed to find methods through which he could be set free. He decided to agree to my request, which is why I confidently strode to the lectern that afternoon, and delivered a flawless facsimile of his dissertation.
But remembering is not the same as understanding – the too-tidy moral of this fable goes – and so, afterwards, when a student raised her pesky little hand and asked her tricksy little question, it is said that I had been unable to find the answer. Instead I had been forced to point at the string-theorist and declare:
Why that is so simple a question... so rudimentary... even my chauffeur can answer it.
“My chauffeur acts as though he were conferring an honor upon me in consenting to drive my car,” remarked a member of the Automobile Club of America recently, and his is no isolated case.
Let the automobile owner (who has not expressly stipulated to the minutest detail the duties he expects to be done) ask his chauffeur to wash his car, and he is likely to receive a lesson in correct chauffeur dignity that will long be remembered. Wash a car! A chauffeur do such a menial job as using a wet sponge and chamois over the machine! Preposterous!
“My union won’t let me...” was the excuse one gave a few days ago.
The story ends, then it continues. We were excited after that lecture, but were obligated to appear at the reception. Once we arrived, the string-theorist took out my handkerchief and he dabbed his brow with it. He plucked uncouthly at the hors d'oeuvres and stuffed a kerchief-wrapped cheese-ball into my coat-pocket. In turn, I took the pipe out of his coat-pocket and began to puff on it. I was haughty and ignored the sniveling graduate students who dared approach.
Then, at the first opportunity, we dashed off to the Studebaker and the string-theorist insisted that we continue the charade. He drove me to the Three Stallion Inn and we ordered a fearsome dinner. A heavy grape-ale was being served, poured out from my groaty goatskin bag. We had our fair share. Then later on in the night, when he ran over that poor woman and her even-poorer child, and we were sure of it, he turned to me and said:
I not have been myself lately, no, I must return this day to you.
What could I have said to him? He believed that he had come unhooked from the world when all he had done was come undone from his self. By the time the police arrived he was all blabber and drool, and the police recognized me for who I was, and him for him, for had I not given the brilliant lecture just earlier that evening? “Take pity,” I told the authorities as they carried him away, “For he is not well. Don’t go hanging him, just store him out of sight.” Then I took the excuse of the night’s distress to cut short the rest of my tour, and I went home. My wife told me – you look different, did you cut our hair, or was it that it grew back, I don’t remember, I don’t understand what is happening to us.
The story ends, then it continues. Unlike the other, I was never uncertain about what I was. This life has never been so much of a mystery for me. The theorist believed there were at least seven dimensions through which we vibrated - and likely many more! - but I only needed the four to explain why I had come to be, and why I would also come to my end.
The rapid growth of the automobile business has fostered, to a large extent, many of the evils which employers have had to suffer. There has not been time to educate the men properly. There are, of course, many good, conscientious chauffeurs, and in some cases the men have been with their employers for three or four years.
- [ibid]
[More from: The Three Stallion Inn]
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