quotation vocatives

   A distinction has been made in this study between quotation vocatives which arise incidentally and those which are applied to specific hearers as transferred names.

   A person who sings the Christmas carol which begins, ‘Oh, come, all ye faithful’ is not consciously applying the term ‘all ye faithful’ to a specific audience. A speaker who quotes ‘Where are you going to, my pretty maid?’ to a young woman who is obviously on her way somewhere is applying the vocative expression to her as a transfer.

   Transferred vocatives are usually names. A person who expresses surprise at someone’s deductive powers is told that it is ‘Elementary, my dear Watson’. A meeting in certain circumstances inspires the use of ‘Dr Livingstone, I presume’.

   The frequency of use of such transferred names almost has the effect of turning them, together with their accompanying words, into normal free-floating vocatives, selected because of the situation in which speaker and hearer find themselves rather than more individual reasons.

   They may also arise because of a speech incident, and have an effect on other vocatives used in close context. Thus, the use of ‘Watson’ may be brought about by a speaker saying: ‘Well done, Holmes’ to someone who has solved a puzzle.

   The use of ‘my fair maid’ may well lead to ‘Sir’ being used in return, as it is in the nursery rhyme.

   Certain names are well enough known in their own right to be used allusively as transfers. Holmes and Watson certainly fall into that category, and Watson does not need its attendant words in order to be used in conversation.

   A name like Horatio would probably not be very meaningful if used alone. A speaker would probably quote at least ‘There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio’, though he might not think it necessary to add ‘than are dreamt of in your philosophy’. However, it is clear that such a quotation, said to someone else, means that Horatio becomes a nonce transfer.

   A quotation like ‘It’s a mad world, my masters’, could also turn ‘my masters’ into a transferred vocative if there were hearers present who could be looked upon momentarily as ‘my masters’. As it happens, when that quotation partly occurs in An Error of Judgement, by Pamela Hansford Johnson, the speaker says it to himself ‘in a silly sort of mumble’, and is obviously thinking about the main content of the quotation, not applying the vocative to himself or anyone else.

   When transferred names or vocative expressions are used, whether inside quotations or not, they can break normal rules. Watson or Horatio, in the instances quoted above, could be applied for example to female hearers.

   Quotation vocatives applied as transferred names have been dealt with in separate entries in this book. Those which merely occur in quotations have been ignored.