Page 91 - The Language of Humour

78 WRITTEN TEXTS—LITERATURE
‘Girl number twenty,’ said Mr Gradgrind, squarely pointing with his
square forefinger, ‘I don’t know that girl. Who is that girl?’
‘Sissy Jupe, sir,’ explained number twenty, blushing, standing up
and curtseying.
‘Sissy is not a name,’ said Mr Gradgrind. ‘Don’t call yourself Sissy.
Call yourself Cecilia.’
‘It’s father as calls me Sissy, sir,’ returned the young girl, in a
trembling voice, and with another curtsey.
‘Then he has no business to do it,’ said Mr Gradgrind. ‘Tell him he
mustn’t. Cecilia Jupe. Let me see. What is your father?’
‘He belongs to the horse-riding, if you please, sir.’
Mr Gradgrind frowned, and waved off the objectionable calling with
his hand…
…‘Very well, then. He is a veterinary surgeon, a farrier and horse-
breaker. Give me your definition of a horse.’
(Sissy Jupe thrown into the greatest alarm by this demand.)
‘Girl number twenty unable to define a horse!’ said Mr Gradgrind,
for the general behoof of all the little pitchers. ‘Girl number twenty
possessed of no facts, in reference to one of the commonest of animals!
Some boy’s definition of a horse. Bitzer, yours.’
… But, whereas the girl was so dark-eyed and dark-haired, that she
seemed to receive a deeper and more lustrous colour from the sun
when it shone upon her, the boy was so light-eyed and light-haired that
the selfsame rays appeared to draw out of him what little colour he
ever possessed. His cold eyes would hardly have been eyes…
‘Bitzer,’ said Thomas Gradgrind. ‘Your definition of a horse.’
‘Quadruped. Graminivorous. Forty teeth, namely twenty four
grinders, four eye-teeth, and twelve incisive. Sheds coat in the spring;
in marshy countries, sheds hoofs too. Hoofs hard, but requiring to be
shod with iron. Age known by marks in mouth.’

Commentary
The character of Gradgrind is constructed, both in appearance and
speech style, as powerful, authoritarian and repressive type of man, yet
he is made to seem absurd. This is done by parodying some
recognisable traits of speech, but exaggerating them to emphasise the
negative or ridiculous qualities. He repeats the word ‘Facts’ (the capital
letter suggests it has the importance of a proper noun, like the name of
an institution) more often than is needed (remember Grice’s maxim of
quantity—Unit 3). The structures are relatively plain and short and
include a number of imperatives: ‘Plant nothing else…root out
everything else.’ He uses sentences that are noticeably shortened: ‘Girl