A Dictionary of Cont..

to say that it will serve my turn is to employ a
cliche.
service; duty. Service, an act of helpful activity,
is one of the great cant words of the twentieth
century (Why don? you stop in at our gentswear
department and let us be of service to
you). Duty is that which one is bound to do by
moral or legal obligation (To do my duty in
that state of life unto which it shall please (God
to call me). It was a cant word of our grandfather’s
generation, and whereas service, when
abused, is often simply fatuous, the greed showing
innocently through the thin plating of altruism,
duty, when abused, was often simster,
masking cruelties and tyrannies of the most
dreadful kind.
Though it properly describes work or duty
performed in the interest of another, obviously
much service in its general usage is either duty
without altruistic intent or self-regarding action
hypocritically advertised as something else.
Service with a Smile may mean cheerful robbrY.
service; render service; serve. Though some authorities
in England are reluctant to accept it,
service as a transitive verb is well established in
American usage. It means to give such service
to as is necessary to maintain in working order,
to make fit for service, to restore to condition
for service, and is usually used with reference to
mechanical things (Let us service your automobile,
television set, refrigerator, etc.). In colloquial
usage it has also pretty well ousted serve
and render service (Three transportation lines
will service the Fair).
A service man is one who comes to a house
to service the various mechanical devices that
need expert repair or maintenance. He is in no
sense a servant, but one whose services must be
sought with solicitude, who must be treated with
obsequious respect, and whose shortcomings,
even in his professed skills, must be delicately
ignored. (A serviceman is a member of the
army or navy.)
serviette; napkin. When Americans say napkin,
they mean a rectangular piece of paper or linen
or cotton cloth used at table to wipe the lips
and hands and to protect the clothes (Fold
your napkins, children; don’t leave them wadded
in heaps on the table that way!). In England,
however, where diapers (once a euphemism)
have come widely to be called napkins, napkins,
to avoid the unsavory connotation, are
often called serviettes. The word serviette is also
employed in America, but not very widely .and
more as a touch of elegance than of modesty,
though with the increasing use of napkin in
“feminine hygiene” serviette may gain wider
currency in the United States. At the momlsnt,
however, napkin, both the word and the thing,
is in itself sufficiently elegant for the millions
to need no substitute.
An interesting illustration of the importance
of connotation in meaning is supplied, in connection
with the word napkin, by the airlines.
Some of the lines have been attempting to per-
445 set
suade their passengers to tuck their napkins, at
mealtimes, in their collars so that they will protect
the whole front instead of merely, as when
more elegantly placed across the knees, the lap.
On an airliner this is sensible and if followed
would prevent a great deal of annoyance and
complaint. The difficulty is that this generation
of Americans, particularly those of the social
groups from which a large portion of airline
passengers is drawn, has been taught that tucking
the napkin into the neck instead of laying
it across the lap is, if not downright bad manners,
at least rustic and inelegant. Some genius
in the service of the airlines has, therefore,
struck upon the happy idea of putting the instructions
in French, the language above all
languages of prandial elegance, and upon each
tray is placed a small card suggesting serviette
au cou. A simple drawing, above the inscription,
of a clean and happy gourmand with his
napkin in the proper place removes all possible
doubt and, at the same time, leaves the passenger
with the flattering realization that he can
read French.
session. See cession.
set. The past tense is set. The participle is also set.
Originally this verb meant “cause to sit” and,
by extension, “put.” Unlike the verb sit, which
could not be used with an object, set implied
an object that was acted upon as well as an
agent. But both object and agent did not have
to be mentioned every time the verb appeared.
There were two constructions in which set was
used apparently without an object.
1. When the object was the agent’s own body,
as in set yourself down, the pronoun was sometimes
omitted, as in set down and rest your
bones. This construction is still heard but is not
now accepted as standard. It was condemned by
grammarians, who claimed that sit was required
in sentences of this kind that did not have an
expressed object. For generations, school children
were told not to use set without an object.
It seems that they finally learned not to use set
at all in the sense of “cause to sit.” As set down
became unacceptable, people began to say sit
the baby down. This must have distressed the
purists even more than set down, but apparently
no one had the heart to struggle against it. Sit
is now acceptable English for “cause to sit.” Set
may also be used in this sense, provided the object
is mentioned. But most people today avoid
set unless it is quite clear that they do not mean
“sit.” They say set the baby on his feet but sit
him in the chair.
2. When the verb in a sentence is passive, the
thing acted on, the logical object, becomes the
grammatical subject and is always mentioned,
but the agent may be ignored. In many English
verbs, the active form may be used with a passive
sense, as in the bout upset, tile washes well,
the car drives easily. (See passive voice and
transitive verbs.) This was true for the verb sef.
People said the jar sets on the shelf and the hen
is setting, just as we say apples cook quickly
and dinner is cooking. This use of set was also