I DARE SAY —
That Yankee tempo!
By Florence Fisher Parry
It won’t be long now. The suspense is awful – much worse, I think, than in 1940. But now that the tumult and the shouting have died down, one thing stands out clear. We are a far more nervous, impatient and quick-tempered people than we’ve ever realized before.
The strain and suspense, the fear and uncertainty which the war has put upon us, is telling in our tempers. Our control is wearing a little thin. Not that we haven’t always been an impatient people. Our tempo has always been quicker than others’. There’s something within us that clicks faster than in any other people. We have fewer processes; we have quicker arrivals. We get there. We cut corners to get there. There’s an urgent pulse in us not to be found in other people.
It’s in our speech. It’s in our very walk. It’s a certain wiry, nervous, irritable drive. It ties up with our very chemistry. We catch on faster than other people. That’s why our speech is so vivid and explicit. That’s why we need slang and use it so much and are always adding to it, and condense in a word, in a phrase, what “Regular” English would require whole long sentences to convey.
Quick on the trigger
And because we’re geared high, and because of our nervous, accelerated tempo, we get there first, whatever the goal. Never has this American attribute stood out so markedly as during this present campaign. I would say that there has not been a campaign speech made by anyone that the listening audience hasn’t been way ahead of the speaker! That’s why our speakers have had such a tough time keeping back the applause until they’ve made their point. That’s because their audiences get the point almost before the poor speaker has had a chance to begin his sentence!
Now there’s been a lot of talk about how the President’s delivery has slowed down lately, how very, very different it is since even four years ago. Frankly, I suspect that it isn’t so much that the President has slowed down so much as if is that we have stepped up so much.
All this being so, it is amazing that it has not been recognized more successfully by the motion picture producers and directors. For in direct ratio to the stepping-up of our national tempo has been the motion picture producers’ tendency to make longer movies and longer drawn-out sequences.
In the last month, I have seen half a dozen movies that have worn me out, in something the same way that one is worn out it one has to walk with someone who has to move very, very slowly.
Now I am going to name some of these pictures: Since You Went Away, Going My Way, Casanova Brown, The Seventh Cross. These come most quickly to mind. It seemed to me as though they would never end!
Some of them were very good pictures indeed, or would have been if they’d been stepped-up in their pace and cut in their contents.
The same thing occurs in our public functions. There have been innumerable luncheons and banquets and meetings im town lately, designed to promote some of the worthiest causes that have ever enlisted our support. Yet in nearly every case the function was simply too long! The other day I sat for four solid hours at a luncheon, first eating and then listening to the speakers.
That’s America
We’re always hearing about the graces, the leisures and the ampler, richer ways of life which have been adopted by our charming neighbors, the South Americans; by our charming Allies, the English; by our new and interesting Allies, the Russians; by our ingratiating Allies, the Chinese. All these others (we crude, unschooled and unaged Americans are told) have discovered the secret of leisurely living, and we are adjured to take example from them.
Now with all due respect to these estimable friends and neighbors, and with due regard for their more – shall we say? – civilized mode of life, I attest: Our quick, hasty, nervous, restless, American tempo suits us best. It’s our very makeup. We burn up energy needlessly. We scorch our highways with speed-burning tires. We run when we could walk. We stand when we could sit. We talk when we could be silent. We get mad when we could be calm.
We’re a fast steppin’, quick thinkin’ dynamo. We’re America! We want to get a move on!
