Características de metodología SCRUM

Americans also seemed to find reassurance in the resonance between the plain speech once widespread among the Quakers and the speech they saw printed on the pages of their parlor Bibles. If some Americans were troubled by the disappearance of the Quakers’ quaint speech, they were even more distressed by the changing place and form of the Bible in American culture. As Paul Gutjahr points out, a late-century spate of new translations in the United States and Britain indicated “increasing doubt over the dependability and efficacy of the King James Version.”40 He explains that the Revised Version of 1881-1885

realized one of the worst fears of nineteenth-century American anti-revisionists, namely, that authorizing and introducing a new bible would deprive Americans of a primary cultural ‘anchor’ in the form of a shared national text. In one fell swoop, the introduction of the Revised Version gave credibility to doubts about the trustworthiness of the bible, while it loosened the grip of the King James Bible—a book one author called “the highest bond of unity for the English race.”41

Quaker speech was inextricably linked with the language of the King James Bible; Tibbals observed that “as always in the special locutions of Friends, it was the phrasing of the noble King James Version that they followed.”42 Like the King James Bible, Quakers had become another significant cultural anchor to a unified and pious American past, one imagined to be quite unlike the contentious and changing present. Although the Revised Version retained

thee and thou, it is likely that believers’ fears about a ‘changing’ scripture would have been allayed by hearing thee and thou remain in the voices of pious Quakers.

As we have seen, when American writers deployed Quaker speech, they laid greatest emphasis on the pronouns “thee” and “thou,” although archaic verb endings such as “wilt” or “goest” often appear. Authors also occasionally made use of plain Quaker speech habits such as the ordinal numbering of the days and months, and phrases like “sense of the meeting.” More obscure Quakerisms like “to join the great majority” (a frank and amiable euphemism for death) were seldom used.43

Thee and thou were strongly associated with religious speech in general, and biblical language in particular. As historian Richard Bailey explains, throughout the nineteenth century,

Voices of evangelists took myriad forms, many of them expressing reverence through archaism and formality of a highly conventional kind. Reflecting the language of the 1611 Authorized Version of the Bible, nineteenth-century religious ceremonies often drew upon vocabulary and grammatical structures long obsolescent in the language—for instance, the –(e)th endings for third-person singular present indicative verbs and the pronouns thee and thou.”44

As Quaker speech retained many of these forms in reality (and even more of them in

observers’ imaginations), Quakers became the perfect vehicle for an everyday piety—a piety which eschewed pulpit or vestments and seemed to reflect a living language of the scriptures in ordinary life.

This living language was often reflected in a mild and admiring humor. As we will see in Chapter Four, jokes were a very popular way to comment on the vicissitudes of

nineteenth-century Quaker practices and beliefs. These jokes almost always indicated the Quaker by incorporating plain language; this language lent the Friend the impression of a

person who was at once anachronistic and authoritative. This 1872 joke from Harper’s Weekly speaks directly to this usage:

A skeptical young collegian confronted an old Quaker with the statement that he did not believe in the Bible. Said the Quaker, “Does thee believe in France?” “Yes. Though I have not seen it, I have seen others who have. Besides, there is plenty of proof that such a country does exist.” “Then thee will not believe any thing thee or others have not seen?” “No, to be sure I won't.” “Did thee ever see thy own brains?” “No.” “Ever see any body that did?” “No.”

“Does thee believe thee has any?”45

In this very funny joke, the Friend (as is typical in Quaker jokes) easily takes the upper hand. The details of the two players’ relationship to each other, however, is crucial; the dupe is a “skeptical young collegian,” certain that “he did not believe in the Bible.” The “old Quaker” knocks down this premise straight away, effortlessly revealing the fallacy in the educated man’s syllogism. The plain language not only buffers the Quaker’s dismissive tone, but also reflects the language of the Bible he defends. In this instance the language of the Bible and the Bible itself are placed in affirmative contrast with outspoken youth, higher education, and—presumably—Higher Criticism. At the time this joke was published, the Quaker language was beginning its most rapid erosion—but in the joke, thee authority remains inviolate.

Even as Quaker speech garnered respect, the biblical cadences of thee and thou often provoked gentle amusement. This 1871 joke, also from Harper’s Weekly, reflects a comic perspective on the perceived excesses of Quaker/scriptural speech:

AQuaker lately popped the question to a fair Quakeress as follows; “Hum! Yea and verily, Penelope, the spirit urgeth and moveth me

wonderfully to beseech thee to cleave unto me, flesh of my flesh, and bone of my bone.”

“Hum! Truly, Obadiah, thou hast wisely said. Inasmuch as it is written that it is not good for man to be alone, lo! I will sojourn with thee.”46

The Biblicism of this Friendly speech is evident—and, the joke implies, almost obfuscatory. Without the directness (or even the romance) implied by the colloquial “popped the

question,” Obadiah’s proposal makes direct reference to Adam’s proclamation in Genesis 2:23—“bone of my bones, and flesh of my flesh: she shall be called Woman.”47 Obadiah himself rejoices in the biblical name of a prophet. (His beloved’s name is equally old- fashioned, but claims Greek rather than Hebrew origins.) When Penelope responds, she likewise quotes the second chapter of Genesis in her assent.

Like the Quaker proposal, the Biblicism—and plain truth—of plain speech could be both comic and admirable. In 1877, Harper’s Weekly printed this joke, which makes several explicit references to scripture:

The Quaker's Address to his Watch-Maker.—“I hereby send thee my pocket clock, which standeth in need of thy friendly correction. The last time it was at thy friendly school it was in no way benefited or profited thereby, for I perceive by the index of its mind that it is a liar, and the truth is not in it. Purge it, therefore, I beseech thee, and correct it from the error of its ways, and show it the path wherein it should go; and when thou layest thy correcting hand upon it, see that it be without passion, lest thou shouldst drive it to destruction; and when thou seest it conformable to the above-mentioned rules, send it home to me with a just and true bill, drawn out in the spirit of moderation, and I will remit it to thee in the root of all evil.”48

The joke savors of the prodigal’s tale; moreover, the Quaker writing makes direct allusions to 1 John 2:4, James 5:20, Proverbs 22:6, and 1 Timothy 6:10 (references which would have been recognizable to most readers of the day).49 The Quaker’s standards for virtue are such that he equates a faulty watch with a fallen sinner—the fun of the joke lies in the recognition of the biblical passages used with reference to such a mundane object. Quakers were

imagined by logical extension of their plain speech to speak the language of the Bible, too— whatever the circumstances—and in this case, the frustrated Quaker’s scriptural plea