“It is not at all ridiculous to them.” Trent laid aside the pen with an appearance of relief and rose to his feet. “Let me explain. A people like our own, not very fond of using its mind, gets on in the ordinary way with a very small and simple vocabulary. Long words are abnormal, and like everything else that is abnormal, they are either very funny or tremendously solemn. Take the phrase ‘intelligent anticipation’, for instance. If such a phrase had been used in any other country in Europe, it would not have attracted the slightest attention. With us it has become a proverb; we all grin when we hear it in a speech or read it in a leading article; it is considered to be one of the best things ever said. Why? Just because it consists of two long words. The idea expressed is as commonplace as cold mutton. Then there’s ‘terminological inexactitude’. How we all roared, and are still roaring, at that! And the whole of the joke is that the words are long. It’s just the same when we want to be very serious; we mark it by turning to long words. When a solicitor can begin a sentence with, ‘pursuant to the instructions communicated to our representative,’ or some such gibberish, he feels that he is earning his six-and-eightpence. Don’t laugh! It is perfectly true. Now Continentals haven’t got that feeling. They are always bothering about ideas, and the result is that every shopkeeper or peasant has a vocabulary in daily use that is simply Greek to the vast majority of Britons. I remember some time ago I was dining with a friend of mine who is a Paris cabman. We had dinner at a dirty little restaurant opposite the central post office, a place where all the clients were cabmen or porters. Conversation was general, and it struck me that a London cabman would have felt a little out of his depth. Words like ‘functionary’ and ‘unforgettable’ and ‘exterminate’ and ‘independence’ hurtled across the table every instant. And these were just ordinary, vulgar, jolly, red-faced cabmen. Mind you,” he went on hurriedly, as the lady crossed the room and took up his pen, “I merely mention this to illustrate my point. I’m not saying that cab-men ought to be intellectuals. I don’t think so; I agree with Keats—happy is England, sweet her artless cabmen, enough their simple loveliness for me. But when you come to the people who make up the collective industrial brain-power of the country.... Why, do you know—” “Oh no, no, no!” cried Mrs. Manderson. “I don’t know anything at the moment, except that your talking must be stopped somehow, if we are to get any further with that letter to Mr. Marlowe. You shall not get out of it. Come!” She put the pen into his hand.