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An Anatomy of Chinese Offensive Words A Lexical and Semantic Analysis 1St Ed 2021 Edition Adrian Tien Full Chapter
An Anatomy of Chinese Offensive Words A Lexical and Semantic Analysis 1St Ed 2021 Edition Adrian Tien Full Chapter
An Anatomy of Chinese Offensive Words A Lexical and Semantic Analysis 1St Ed 2021 Edition Adrian Tien Full Chapter
An Anatomy of
Chinese Offensive
Words
A Lexical and Semantic Analysis
Adrian Tien (Deceased)
Lorna Carson
School of Linguistic, Speech and Communication Sciences
Trinity College Dublin
Dublin, Ireland
Ning Jiang
Trinity Centre for Asian Studies
Trinity College Dublin
Dublin, Ireland
This Palgrave Macmillan imprint is published by the registered company Springer Nature Switzerland AG.
The registered company address is: Gewerbestrasse 11, 6330 Cham, Switzerland
This book is dedicated to Adrian’s memory and to his mother,
Mrs Feng Tien.
Foreword
vii
viii Foreword
Professor David Singleton’s mots justes) was never lost on his contempo-
raries. Adrian’s life and research career were cut off in their prime. His loss
to the international academic community, to his students and friends, is
simply too great to be described here. He was a beloved scholar, friend
and son, and we were honoured to know him. We hope that this book
will convey his passion and expertise as well as help to deepen knowledge
of Chinese language and culture in the English-speaking world.
Preface
I first met Adrian Tien in August 1990. I was teaching a first-year course
on Cross-Cultural Communication in the Department of Linguistics at
the Australian National University, and it was the first lecture of this
course. That year, it was held in a large lecture room in the John Dedman
Building. I had already started addressing the students when the door
opened and a very young and anxious-looking student came in. It was
Adrian. He was 17 years old. He approached me after the lecture, very
serious and very intense, and immediately started telling me about his
great dilemma: should he study linguistics or music? He loved both, he
said: ‘what to do?’ I encouraged him to stay with both linguistics and
music, and he did: throughout his all-too-brief life, he pursued both lin-
guistics (in particular, semantics, i.e., the study of meaning) and music,
and had great achievements in both fields.
In 1997, in Australia he was bestowed the title QTA (Queen’s Trust
Achiever Award) by the Governor General of Australia as a Young
Australian Achiever, an award which honoured his achievements in
both fields.
He went on to complete his Ph.D. in 2005 at the University of New
England, Australia, supervised by Professor Cliff Goddard. This led to his
first book Lexical Semantics of Children’s Mandarin Chinese during the
First Four Years (2011). In it, he looked deeply into the relationships
between words and thought in the developing mind of a young child.
ix
x Preface
our last meeting. I discovered that Adrian had deep and serious faith and
was clear in his mind about the purpose and meaning of his life.
He was serene and mature. He loved his life in Dublin. He also loved
travelling to linguistic conferences in different countries and on different
continents, and presenting his NSM-based work there. He felt that he
was receiving very good responses from the international audiences: he
felt that people were interested, often fascinated, that his work was valued.
At those working lunches in 2015, Adrian also spoke to me about his
mother Feng, who stayed close to him all his life and provided an emo-
tional anchor for him. She lived with him in Dublin. Seeing him in 2015
as a confident researcher and university teacher, full of life, I understood
how his mother Feng was a constant in his life and how grateful he was
to her and for her.
Those lunches at Pancake Parlour were the last times I saw Adrian.
When the tragic news of his death came three years later, the memory of
those meetings was a consolation to me. Adrian truly loved his work, the
big picture and the smallest details—he was passionate about both. This
love of both the big ideas and the smallest details (seen in the context of
the big picture) illuminates his third book (An Anatomy of Chinese
Offensive Words: A Lexical and Semantic Analysis), which he wasn’t given
time to finish but which his colleagues in Dublin have now so lovingly
completed and prepared for publication.
The NSM community, scattered around the world but united in spirit
and in the love of the ideas and goals that we share, pays tribute to Adrian
Tien, with love.
Canberra, Australia
Anna Wierzbicka
Contents
xiii
xiv Contents
Appendix A: Inventory of Natural Semantic Metalanguage
(NSM) Semantic Primes213
Index239
About the Authors
xv
xvi About the Authors
xvii
List of Tables
xix
1
What Is All the Fuss About?
Caldwell-Harris (2014, 1), for instance, pointed out that there are cer-
tain ‘emotionality differences between a native and a foreign language’, in
the sense that bilingual speakers feel a difference when they are swearing
in a non-native language as opposed to their native language. Dewaele’s
(2013) research showed that offensive words, among other emotion-
laden words, carry less ‘emotional weight’ for the non-native speakers
than they do for native speakers. Dewaele (2016, 112) further discovered
that non-native speakers ‘overestimate the offensiveness of most words,
with the exception of the most offensive one in the list’, and compared to
native speakers, they are ‘less sure about the exact meaning’ of offensive
words and seem to show a different distributional pattern of offensive
words (see also Dewaele 2010). It appears that mastery of offensive words
in the non-native language is linked with speakers’ proficiency of that
language—or at least part of that proficiency—and factors such as prior
experience of immersion in the non-native language (e.g. experience liv-
ing in that linguistic environment) and having been socialized into the
various uses of offensive words, including the kinds of ‘inhibitions that
usually constrain usage’ of these words (Wajnryb 2004, 164) play a vital
role in this mastery. On account of this, Mercury (1995) called for offen-
sive words to be properly taught to non-native speakers as part of the
language teaching curriculum, including what, when, where, to whom,
why and how these words may be used as they are by native speakers.
There are many labels for what we understand to be offensive language:
‘swear words’, ‘dirty words’, ‘bad words’, ‘foul language’, ‘rude language’,
‘taboo language’, ‘obscene words’ or ‘obscenity’, ‘profane words’ or ‘pro-
fanity’, ‘vulgar words’ or ‘vulgarity’, ‘curse words’ or ‘cursing’, ‘blasphemy’,
‘expletives’, ‘insults and slurs’, ‘slang’, ‘scatology’, even ‘colourful meta-
phors’ and ‘sexual innuendoes’. There must be a reason why offensive
words exist at all as part of a language’s lexicon, whether or not these
words are accessed by every language user (noting that while one person
may declare never having used offensive words, another may confess to
using offensive words on the odd occasion or on a regular basis). It appears
that, one way or the other, humans cannot do without offensive words,
and there is plenty of evidence to suggest this. In situations of language
contact, for example, offensive words are usually among some of the first
vocabulary items in a language (the source language) to creep into the
4 A. Tien et al.
• However, ‘context can negate a demeaning intention’ (129). For example, the
intimate use of the ‘n-word’ between African Americans and other youths to
denote friendship.
• ‘One needs not know the meanings of the words in order for the intention to
insult to be successfully conveyed. Indeed, the speaker can transform mean-
ings, provided that the manner of expression and the context make the emo-
tional point clear’ (117). Neu’s example is a three-year-old uttering You lamp!
You towel! You plate! as words of insult.
• ‘One’s words can mean more than one consciously intends’ (130). For exam-
ple, innuendoes or insinuations (though it may be argued that the speaker
still has a ‘conscious intention’ in uttering words of these kinds, which the
addressee can find offensive).
the use of forbidden words and so the breaking of […] taboos]’ (e.g.
naming taboos) (124). It appears that ‘taboo’ or ‘forbidden’ words encap-
sulate in them (or in their meanings) certain societal or cultural attitudes
that have been conventionalized over time and violating such conven-
tions, or conventionalized attitudes, leads to a breaking of established
social or cultural taboos. Neu (125) elaborates further: ‘attitudes [driving
at taboos] are socially shaped, sometimes perhaps for good reasons, some-
times for no reason at all […] Society seeks to constrain both the activi-
ties and the language used for describing [things/themes considered
tabooed].’ However, Neu points out that ‘we have our boundaries, both
personal and conventional, and verbal crossings of those boundaries can
carry great emotional force’. In other words, sometimes offence is caused
because the meaning of a word contravenes the shared conventional and
societal attitudes; other times offence is caused by this word because it
steps over the line in terms of what an individual considers acceptable or
tolerable.
Anthropologist Ashley Montagu penned the well-known work The
Anatomy of Swearing (Montagu 1967), examining the history and usage
of offensive language in English. Here, our proffered anatomy of contem-
porary offensive language in Chinese examines such words not only in
Chinese Mandarin but also in some Chinese dialects, notably Hokkien
and Cantonese, as well as some non-standard varieties of these.
Importantly, representative offensive words have been subjected to rigor-
ous semantic, linguistic and cultural analysis, using the Natural Semantic
Metalanguage approach. Our findings contribute to the understanding
of Chinese language and culture in some new and innovative ways. Some
of the main claims which will be explored in the following chapters can
be summarized as follows:
• Using offensive words is more than just about accessing a socially sensitive or
tabooed part of our languages on impulse. It is about the kind of linguistic
choices that we make and not only are we conscious of the linguistic choices
that we are making, but as proficient speakers, we are aware of any social
taboo which is behind the offensive word.
• If offensive words are socially tabooed because they pose a kind of challenge
to certain social norms or cultural values—to mention the ‘unmention-
12 A. Tien et al.
This book will proceed with a chapter which contextualizes the study
of the offensive lexicon in Chinese (Chap. 2). It will tackle some key
representative offensive words that are known to all Chinese and to all
those who have proficiency in Chinese (Chap. 3). Tapping into some
representative offensive words will reveal some of those immensely sig-
nificant social norms or cultural values that really matter to those who
live, think and behave in Chinese culture (Chap. 4). We will then survey
offensive words in selected Chinese dialects and their varieties (Chap. 5),
because offensive words can illustrate linguistic variation across different
dialects or varieties of the same language; the same offensive meaning
expressed by similar yet different lexical forms or conversely, the same
lexical form expressing similar yet different offensive meanings. A study
on offensive words in contemporary Chinese cyberspace (Chap. 6) probes
a few high-frequency terms found in Chinese online communication that
reflect highly dynamic and flexible language use. Then, an investigation
into the emergence of offensive words and offensive language generally in
the context of early acquisition of Chinese (Chap. 7) traces when, why
and how young children come to deploy offensive words during the early
years of life. Last but not least, the examination of Chinese offensive lexi-
con takes us to Singapore, where offensive words may serve as a way of
reinstating sociocultural homogeneity (Chap. 8). Here, we demonstrate
that people use offensive words not just to offend others but, in a curious
way, to bond with others.
A few notes on what is to follow. We use an extensive range of real-life
examples, drawn from online discussion boards, social media, newspa-
pers, corpora and other sources. Given the shifting nature of online
sources and a desire to focus on the linguistic content rather than the
individual author, we do not link each and every example to the specific
1 What Is All the Fuss About? 13
source post, especially for those drawn from discussion boards. Rather we
provide a list of the principal resources that we mined in the appendix to
this book. Most of our examples are drawn from written sources, although
the chapter on child language use is drawn from an oral corpus. Finally,
to close this introductory chapter and to kick-start our ensuing discus-
sions, we quote Tien (2015, 164), who reminds us that offensive words
‘represent a fascinating and compelling source of enquiry, richly packed
with cultural information waiting to be discovered’. With this promise,
the chapters of this book will take readers through a discovery of Chinese
offensive words as rich as the cultural information that lies behind them.
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2
An Anatomy of the Chinese Offensive
Lexicon
2.1 Introduction
While offensive words are found in the lexicons of the world’s languages
and despite some of their similarities, offensive words are not cross-
linguistically transferrable or translatable. Nevertheless, it is possible to
sketch out some general linguistic properties and characteristics of offen-
sive words across languages. As a matter of fact, offensive words them-
selves constitute only the lexical representation of offensive language, in
terms of words or lexical items (e.g. whore, bitch in English). Offensive
language may also be represented morphologically or syllabically, in
affixes that offend (e.g. in Japanese, when offensive morphemes are
attached to the verb fuzakeru ‘to joke around’, modifying it, forming
offensive predicates such as fuzakeru na ‘don’t bullshit me!’ and fuzakeru
na yo ‘don’t you fucking bullshit me!’) as well as syntactically or phrasally,
and in phrases that offend.
Ljung argues that Pinker’s offensive ‘categories’ are probably ‘too few
and too broad’, and adds McEnery’s (2006, 32) typology of swearing,
which comprises 15 categories as follows:
The third function, replacive swearing, refers to ‘taboo words that may
replace an almost infinite number of ordinary non-taboo nouns and verbs
which are given new literal meanings which are interpreted in terms of
the linguistic and situational settings in which they are used’ (35). For
instance, the word shit in Jimmy is a piece of shit (162) is an offensive
noun (or more precisely, a noun in an offensive nominal phrase, includ-
ing its preceding noun classifier, a piece of) whose literal meaning no lon-
ger has anything to do with the original referent which is the bodily
excretion, even though it remains demeaning.
On the swearing themes across languages, Ljung (35–44) notes that
these have to do with the religious/supernatural, scatological, sex organs,
sexual activities, mother/family, ancestors, animals, death, disease and
prostitution. It should be reiterated here that the general linguistic
20 A. Tien et al.
often with the intention of making that person also feel bad (‘I feel some-
thing very bad towards you’ and ‘because of this, I want to say something
bad to you’) (c.f. Goddard 2015, 202). Or these words may be uttered
merely as a way of venting one’s negative emotions (‘I feel something
bad’), without being directed at anyone (197). Last but not least, people
can make someone else feel bad when they say something about someone
else or something. For example, while the offensive word motherfucker
offends not because of its literal meaning, its non-literal meaning, which
is intensely disrespectful, must have emerged as a result of semantic
extension from reference to the illicit act of having sex with one’s mother.
On the dichotomic contrast between literal and non-literal meanings
of offensive words, the terms ‘connotative’ versus ‘denotative’ often crop
up in the literature (e.g. Mohr 2013, 6; Jay 1992, 10–12). An example is
the word prick, whose literal and denotative meaning refers to the penis
and whose non-literal and connotative meaning is emotionally charged
to offend someone, usually male, as a way of denigrating them. Even so,
it appears feasible to surmise that there is probably some kind of a seman-
tic association between the connotative/non-literal and denotative/literal
meanings of an offensive word. In the case of the example just given, the
offensive sense of the word prick (the connotative meaning) probably
stems from blatantly mentioning the male body part (the denotative
meaning), because the verbal offender is being deliberately insensitive
towards the social custom that the private body part is not usually some-
thing which is openly and uninhibitedly mentioned. If there was not any
semantic association between the connotative/non-literal and denotative/
literal meanings of an offensive word, then one might as well have used
the word penis as an emotional and offensive word, in place of the word
prick (noting that penis is normally an unemotional word used denota-
tively to refer to the anatomical part).
there may not be any single words that exist in the language to represent
them. NSM explications of these characteristics, typically introduced by
a semantic component along the lines of ‘many people think as fol-
lows …’, are known as ‘scripts’ as they capture the cultural meanings
behind such shared cultural characteristics, articulating them metalin-
guistically based on primes. Coming to grips with cultural scripts in rela-
tion to the assumptions that underlie the meanings of offensive words—or
categories of offensive words—or the attitudes towards use of these offen-
sive words will be pivotal to tapping into important cultural underpin-
nings of offensive language.
Another interesting NSM notion which is relevant here is the idea of
cultural key words. According to Wierzbicka (1991, 333; 1997, 15–17),
a word may qualify as a key word if it encapsulates vital cultural informa-
tion on the commonly held characteristics of the community of people in
a culture and if it is problematic to translate into other languages.
Sometimes a cultural key word may have a high frequency of occurrence
in the language’s lexicon, and sometimes it may belong to a cluster of
words in the language which elaborate on a significant aspect of the cul-
ture, describing or referring to that aspect (this is the idea of ‘cultural
elaboration’; see Wierzbicka 1997, 10–11). It will become evident from
analyses of offensive words in this book that offensive words are also cul-
tural key words, since they fulfil some or all the criteria as outlined by
Wierzbicka. After all, there is no stipulation that a cultural key word has
to sound ‘good’ (in this sense, an analogy may again be drawn with the
jigsaw puzzle: it is what it is, even if it does not look ‘pretty’).
Some of the past NSM literature demonstrating how it is possible to
get inside the meaning of offensive words include Wierzbicka (1992,
2002), who analyzed the meanings of the offensive b-words in Australian
English (bloody, bastard, bugger and bullshit). In fact, nearly all of the
NSM studies have focused on selected offensive words and offensive lan-
guage generally in Australian English. Hill’s (1992) article investigated
the difference between imprecatory interjectional expressions (‘God
knows’ and ‘goodness knows’) in Australian English. Kidman’s (1993)
unpublished thesis was a study of the ‘semantics of swearing in Australia’,
concentrating on four-letter words. More recently, Stollznow (2002,
2004) analysed terms of abuse in Australian English, including whinger,
24 A. Tien et al.
many people can feel something very bad when they hear this word
many people think like this: it is very bad if someone says this word
In fact, exactly the same semantic component also goes in the met-
alexical awareness section in the semantic template of the NSM
26 A. Tien et al.
Gabrenya and Hwang 1996, 309; Gao et al. 1996). Further to this is the
observation that ‘to a Chinese [person], extreme emotions often are
viewed as sources of various health problems, and moderation in emo-
tional expressions is essential to achieving internal balance’ (Gao and
Ting-Toomey, 39). It is therefore in one’s own interest to keep one’s feel-
ings and behaviours generally under control or moderated.
But Chinese speakers do face off, and they have been using offensive
words since ancient times. They have either been quoted as using offen-
sive words or, in more recent millennia, they have been commenting on
or even studying offensive words. Confucius (551–479 bce) was quoted
in the Lúnyǔ 論語 [The Analects] as having said, famously, yòu ér bù sūn
dì, zhǎng ér wú shù yān, lǎo ér bùsı ̌, shì wèi zéi 幼而不孫弟, 長而無述
焉, 老而不死, 是為賊 ‘In youth not humble as befits a junior; in man-
hood, doing nothing worthy of being handed down; and living on to old
age—then to live to an old age and not die—this is petty thievery’.
Here the meanings of the words zéi 賊 ‘thief ’ and sı ̌ 死 ‘die’ are intended
to be connotative, rather than denotative, and they serve as a kind of
offensive curse based on themes of lowly professions and death. Separately,
Confucius was known to have famously said, according to Mèngzı ̌ 孟子
Mencius, that shı ̌zuòyǒngzhě, qí wú hòu hū 始作俑者, 其無後乎 ‘those
who make tomb figures will die without progeny’. Here is a curse-like
phrase wú hòu 無後 ‘without progeny’, based on traditional Chinese folk
values that it is important to be able to produce descendants in order to
carry on the family name. Mencius (372−289 bce), a most influential
and staunch Confucianist, was supposed to have said wú jūn wú fù, shì
qínshòu yě 無君無父, 是禽獸也 lit. ‘those who have no regard for the
emperor or the father are beasts’ (see Mèngzı ̌ 孟子 ‘Mencius’). Here,
offensiveness is conveyed through the word qínshòu 禽獸 ‘beast’, based
on the theme of animals so comparing a human being to an animal in a
denigrating manner.
In the monumental historical treatise, the Zuǒ Zhuàn 左傳 Commentary
of Zuo first compiled during the Chūn Qiū 春秋 ‘Spring–Autumn’
(771–476 bce) period, an offensive phrase was found in connection with
the demise of the king of Chu (Chǔ Wáng 楚王): bù yı ̌ shòu zhōng 不以
壽終 ‘to die an untimely death’. In contemporary terms, bù yı ̌ shòu zhōng
translates as bù dé hǎo sı ̌ 不得好死 ‘to suffer an uncomfortable death’ in
28 A. Tien et al.
modern Chinese. According to the Zuǒ Zhuàn, the king of Chu was to
‘die an untimely and uncomfortable death’. As described above, this
phrase is consistent with the Chinese curse based on the theme of death.
The following sources are illuminating in that they are actual instances
of how someone in ancient China would have verbally abused or offended
someone directly. For instance, Zhànguó Cè 戰國策 Strategies of the
Warring States, reputedly compiled during the Zhànguó Cè 戰國 ‘Warring
States’ (475–221 bce) period, recorded the King Wei of Qi (Qí Wēi Wáng
齊威王) as having shouted at someone ér mǔ, bì yě! 而母, 婢也! ‘your
mother is nothing but a lowly maid!’ Here the word bì 婢 ‘a lowly maid’
is charged with offensive power because like the word zéi 賊 ‘thief ’, it
dwells on the culturally sensitive theme of lowly professions. What makes
this exclamation all the more offensive, though, is the fact that it involves
the mother of the target of abuse. The sensitive role of the mother in
Chinese culture is explained in ensuing discussions of this book. In Shì
Shuō Xīnyǔ 世說新語 A New Account of the Tales of the World written
during the Southern Song Dynasty (420–581 ce) told the anecdote of
Kuai Shi 蒯氏 in the Jin Dynasty (265–420 ce) who, in a tiff, called her
husband Sun Xiu 孫秀 a háo zi 貉子 (lit. a raccoon) ‘a lowly southerner
(a person from the south of China)’. For the same reason as the word
qínshòu 禽獸 ‘beast’ mentioned earlier, to analogize someone as a rac-
coon was regarded as very degrading. In the last example, in the chroni-
cle, Zī Zhì Tōng Jiàn 資治通鑒, written by Sima Guang 司馬光
(1019–1086 ce) and first published in 1084, there is a story from the
Eastern Wei Dynasty (534–550 ce) of the then prime minister cum gen-
eralissimo Gao Cheng 高澄 who, in a bout of anger, contemptuously
attacked the puppet emperor Xiao Jing 孝静帝 as zhèn, zhèn, gǒu jiǎo
zhèn! 朕, 朕, 狗腳朕! ‘So you think you are the emperor? No, you are
nothing but a lackey!’ The offending word here is gǒu jiǎo 狗腳 (lit. ‘leg
of a dog’) ‘a lackey’, and the contemporary version of this word is gǒu tuı ̌
(zi) 狗腿(子) lit. ‘(a small) leg of a dog’. Here the offensive power of the
word again relates to comparing a human with an animal or a beast,
which was—and still is—considered very belittling.
In recent centuries, Chinese scholars and literati have been more active
in commenting on the nature of offensive words, defending their use or
attempting to legitimize them. The literary giant Lu Xun 魯迅, for
2 An Anatomy of the Chinese Offensive Lexicon 29
instance, (in)famously wrote a short print article titled Lùn ‘tā mā de!’ 論’
他媽的!’ approx. lit. on the expression ‘a motherfucker is he!’ (Lu 1925).
Though short, this article raised the problem of translating offensive
words into—or from—Chinese, and it gave a brief historical account of
offensive words in Chinese as well as a quick survey of regional uses of
such words in China. Another notable literary figure on the subject was
Shiqiu Liang 梁實秋, who is the foremost Chinese authority on
Shakespeare (though his greatest accomplishment was probably his lexi-
cographical work on the Chinese language, having edited great volumes
of Chinese dictionaries). Liang’s (1999) book mentioned at the begin-
ning of this volume, Màrén de Yìshù 罵人的藝術 ‘The Fine Art of
Reviling’, is one of the first books published dedicated to the topic of
offensive words in Chinese. Most of the sections are, in fact, reproduc-
tions from the author’s own newspaper columns dating back to 1927.
The book is mostly a collection of semi-humorous and satirical social
commentaries on Chinese offensive language. William B. Pettus, of the
former California College in China, translated the author’s Preface. Here
the author reported that
from ancient times to the present, whether in China or abroad, there has
been no man who has not reviled. Reviling is based on ideas of morality.
This is because when reviling the very least that is required is to know
whether a person should or should not be reviled. Their determination of
this is our guide. Therefore, reviling is a highly moral affair, as it is rooted
and grounded in that which is necessary. (Liang 1999, 2; translated by
William B. Pettus)
Language: English
BY
OLIVER OPTIC,
AUTHOR OF “THE BOAT CLUB,” “ALL ABOARD,” “NOW OR
NEVER,” “TRY
AGAIN,” “POOR AND PROUD,” “LITTLE BY LITTLE,” &c.
BOSTON:
LEE AND SHEPARD,
(SUCCESSORS TO PHILLIPS, SAMPSON & CO.)
1866.
Entered, according to Act of Congress, in the year 1862, by
WILLIAM T. ADAMS,
In the Clerk’s Office of the District Court of the District of
Massachusetts.
ELECTROTYPED AT THE
BOSTON STEREOTYPE FOUNDRY.
ROBINSON CRUSOE, Jr.
I.
Robert Gray was a Riverdale boy, and a very smart one too. Very
likely most of my readers will think he was altogether too smart for
his years, when they have read the story I have to tell about him.
Robert was generally a very good boy, but, like a great many
persons who are older and ought to be wiser than he was, he would
sometimes get very queer notions into his head, which made him act
very strangely.
He was born on the Fourth of July, which may be the reason why he
was so smart, though I do not think it was. He could make boxes and
carts, windmills and water-wheels, and ever so many other things.
Behind his father’s house there was a little brook, flowing into the
river. In this stream Robert had built a dam, and put up a water-
wheel, which kept turning day and night till a freshet came and swept
it into the river.
His father was a carpenter, and Robert spent a great part of his
leisure hours in the shop, inventing or constructing queer machines,
of which no one but himself knew the use; and I am not sure that he
always knew himself.
On his birthday, when Robert was eleven years old, his oldest
brother, who lived in Boston, sent him a copy of Robinson Crusoe as
a birthday present. Almost every child reads this book, and I
suppose there is not another book in the world which children like to
read so well as this.
It is the story of a man who was wrecked on an island, far away from
the main land, and on which no human being lived. The book tells
how Robinson Crusoe lived on the island, what he had to eat, and
how he obtained it; how he built a boat, and could not get it into the
water, and then built another, and did get it into the water; about his
dog and goats, his cat and his parrots, and his Man Friday.
The poor man lived alone for a long time, and most of us would think
he could not have been very happy, away from his country and
friends, with no one to speak to but his cat and goats, and his Man
Friday, and none of them could understand him.
Robert Gray didn’t think so. He read the book through in two or three
days after he received it, and thought Robinson Crusoe must have
had a nice time of it with his cat and his goats, and his Man Friday.
He was even silly enough to wish himself on a lonely island, away
from his father and mother. He thought he should be happy there in
building his house, and roaming over his island in search of food,
and in sailing on the sea, fishing, and hunting for shell fish.
Then he read the book through again, and the more he read the
more he thought Crusoe was a great man, and the more he wished
to be like him, and to live on an island far away from other people.
“Have you read Robinson Crusoe?” said Robert Gray to Frank Lee,
as they were walking home from school one day.
“Yes, three times,” replied Frank; and his eyes sparkled as he
thought of the pleasure which the book had afforded him.
“Well, I’ve read it twice, and I think it is a first-rate book.”
“So do I; and I mean to read it again some time.”
“How should you like to live like Robinson Crusoe, all alone on an
island by yourself?” asked Robert, very gravely.
“Well, I don’t know as I should like it overmuch. I should want some
of Jenny’s doughnuts and apple pies.”
“Pooh! who cares for them?” said Robert, with a sneer.
“I do, for one.”
“Well, I don’t. I would just as lief have oysters and cocoanuts, fish
and grapes, and such things.”
“Without any butter, or sugar, or molasses?”
“I could get along without them.”
“Then there would be great storms, and you would get wet and be
cold.”
“I wouldn’t mind that.”
“Suppose you should be sick—have the measles, the hooping-
cough, or the scarlet fever? Who would take care of you then?”
“I would take care of myself.”
“Perhaps you could; but I think you would wish your mother was on
the island with you in that case,” said Frank, with a laugh.
“I don’t believe I should; at any rate, I should like to try it.”
“It is all very pretty to read about, but I don’t believe I should like to
try it. What would you do, Robert, when the Indians came to the
island?”
“I would do just as Robinson Crusoe did. I would shoot as many of
them as I could. I would catch one of them, and make him be my
Man Friday.”
“Suppose they should happen to shoot you instead; and then broil
you for their supper? Don’t you think you would ‘make a dainty dish
to set before the king’?”
“I am certain that I could get along just as well as Robinson Crusoe
did.”
“Perhaps not; every one don’t get out of a scrape as easily as
Robinson Crusoe did. I know one thing—I shall not go on any
desolate island to live as long as I can help it.”
“I think I should have a first-rate time on one,” said Robert, as he
turned down the street which led to his father’s house.
The next week the long summer vacation began, and Robert read
Robinson Crusoe through again from beginning to end. He spent
almost all his time in thinking about the man alone on the island; and
I dare say he very often dreamed about the goats, the cat, the parrot,
and Man Friday.
He used to lie for hours together under the great elm tree behind the
house fancying what a famous Crusoe he would make; and wishing
he could be cast away upon a lonely island, and there live in a cave,
with a cat and a parrot.
It was certainly very silly of him to spend the greater part of his time
in dreaming about such things, when he ought to have been thankful
for his comfortable and pleasant home, and the company of his
parents, and his brothers and sisters, and for all the good things
which God had given him.
Off for the Island.
II.
Robert Gray wanted to be a Robinson Crusoe, and he actually
went so far as to form a plan by which he could live on an island,
sleep in a cave, and have no companions but a dog and an old cat.
Of course he did not tell any body about this famous plan, for fear his
friends might find it out, and prevent him from becoming a Crusoe.
But he went to work, and got every thing ready as fast as he could.
He was a smart boy, as I have said before, and his plan was very
well laid for a child.
He meant to be Robinson Crusoe, Jr., but he was not quite willing to
go upon the island without any tools to work with, or any thing to eat,
after he arrived. I think, if he could, he would have made sure of
most of the comforts of life.
Mr. Gray’s shop was only a short distance from the river. The little
brook in which Robert placed his water-wheel, widened into a pretty
large stream near the shop. Here Mr. Crusoe, Jr., intended to build a
raft, which should bear him to the lonely island.
Near the middle of the great pond, which my young friends will find
described in The Young Voyagers, there was a small island, which
Robert had chosen for his future home, and where he was to be
“monarch of all he surveyed.”
After Frank Lee’s unfortunate cruise down the river, Robert had
some doubts about being able to reach the island. But these did not
prevent him from trying to carry out his plan. He might, perhaps, get
wrecked, as Joe Birch had been; but if he did, it would be so much
the more like Robinson Crusoe,—only a rock, with the water knee
deep upon it, was not a very good place to be “monarch of all he
surveyed.”
Robert’s father and mother had gone to visit his uncle in the State of
New York, and were to be absent two weeks. This seemed like a
good time for his great enterprise, as his oldest sister was the only
person at home besides himself, and she was too busy to watch him
very closely.
He worked away on his raft for two days before he finished it, for he
did not mean to go to sea, as he called it to himself, in such a
shabby craft as that in which Joe had been wrecked. He had tools
from the shop, a hammer, and plenty of nails, and he made the raft
very strong and safe.
It was raised above the water, so that the top was dry when he stood
upon it; and to make it more secure, he put a little fence all round it,
to prevent him from slipping off if the craft should strike upon a rock.
Then he made two oars with which he could move and steer the raft.
He also nailed a box upon the platform, upon which he could sit.
When this queer ark was done, he pushed it out into the stream, and
made a trial trip as far as the river, and rowed it back to the place
from which he started.
From the barn he took two horse-blankets, for his bed on the island,
and placed them on the raft. He got a tin cup and a kettle from the
house, as well as several other things which he thought he might
need. A small hatchet and some nails from the shop completed his
outfit. All these articles were secured on the raft, just before dark,
and the next morning he intended to start for the island.
Robert was so tired after the hard work he had done upon the raft,
that he slept like a rock all night, and did not wake up till his sister
called him to breakfast. He had intended to start very early in the
morning, but this part of his plan had failed.
After breakfast, he took twenty cents which he had saved towards
buying a book called The Swiss Family Robinson, which Frank Lee
told him was something like Robinson Crusoe, and went to the
grocery store to buy some provisions.
He bought a sheet of gingerbread, some crackers, and a piece of
cheese, and ran across the fields with them to the brook. He was
very careful to keep away from the house, so that his sister should
not see him. Having placed these things in the box on the raft, so
that they would be safe, he went back to the house once more.
“Puss, puss, puss,” said he; and presently the old black cat came
purring and mewing up to him, and rubbing her head against his
legs.
Poor pussy had not the least idea that she was destined to be the
companion of a Robinson Crusoe; so she let him take her up in his
arms. If she had only known what a scrape she was about to get
into, I am sure she would not have let Mr. Crusoe, Jr., put one of his
fingers upon her.
“Trip, Trip, Trip,—come here, Trip,” said he to the spaniel dog that
was sleeping on the door mat.
Trip had no more idea than pussy of the famous plan in which he
was to play a part; so he waked up and followed his young master. I
don’t believe Trip had any taste for Crusoe life; and he would have
liked to know where his beef and bones were to come from, for he
was not very fond of gingerbread and crackers.
If pussy didn’t “smell a rat” when they reached the raft, it was
because there was no rat for her to smell; but she showed a very
proper spirit, and, by her scratching and snarling, showed that she
did not like the idea of sailing down the river on a raft.
Robert did not heed her objections; and what do you think he did
with poor pussy? Why, he put her in the box with the crackers and
gingerbread and cheese! Trip, having a decided taste for the water,
did not object to going upon the raft. Yet, judging from the way he
looked up into his master’s face, he wondered what was “in the
wind,” and what big thing was going to be done.
“Now, Trip, we are all ready for a start,” said Robert, as he stepped
upon the raft. “You needn’t scratch and cry so, pussy. Nobody is
going to hurt you.”
Trip looked up in his face and wagged his tail, and pussy scratched
and howled, and refused to be comforted. But Trip had the
advantage of pussy very much in one respect, for, when he became
sick of the adventure, he could jump into the water and swim ashore.
Robert, however, gave little thought or heed at this moment to the
wishes or comfort of his two companions, for his mind was wholly
taken up with the preparations for the grand departure.
All was now ready; Robert pushed off the raft, and it floated slowly
down the stream.
The Water-Wheel.
III.
The river was broad and deep, but Robert was not afraid. He had
been on the water a great deal for a little boy, and he was sure that
his raft was strong enough to bear a pretty hard knock upon the
rocks.
Poor pussy kept up a constant crying, in the box, and once in a while
she scratched, with all her might, against the sides; but she could not
get out.
Trip behaved himself much better, but he gazed up in his young
master’s face all the time, and did not know what to make of this very
singular voyage.
Robert was much pleased with his success thus far, and was
satisfied that he should make a very good Robinson Crusoe, Jr. The
raft worked quite well, and with the great oar at the stern, he could
steer it as easily as though it had been a real boat.
He had not yet reached the dangerous part of the river, which was
called the Rapids. This was the place where Joe Birch had been
wrecked. He had some doubts about being able to pass with safety
between the rocks, which here rose above the surface of the water.
But he was a bold, brave boy, and he was almost sure that, if any
thing happened, he could swim ashore.
As he thought of the raft being dashed to pieces against a rock, he
wondered what would become of poor pussy.
He did not want to drown her; so he decided to give her a fair chance
to save her life in case of any accident. He opened the box, and
pussy was glad enough to get out.
As she jumped from the box, Robert saw that she had made a sad
mess of the provisions he had obtained for use on the island. She
had scratched open the papers, and the gingerbread was broken