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130-549: Pierrot ( / ˈ p ɪər oʊ / PEER -oh , US also / ˈ p iː ə r oʊ , ˌ p iː ə ˈ r oʊ / PEE -ə-roh, PEE -ə- ROH ; French: [pjɛʁo] ), a stock character of pantomime and commedia dell'arte , has his origins in the late 17th-century Italian troupe of players performing in Paris and known as the Comédie-Italienne . The name is a diminutive of Pierre (Peter), using

260-707: A cot–caught merger , which is rapidly spreading throughout the whole country. However, the South, Inland North, and a Northeastern coastal corridor passing through Rhode Island, New York City, Philadelphia, and Baltimore typically preserve an older cot–caught distinction. For that Northeastern corridor, the realization of the THOUGHT vowel is particularly marked , as depicted in humorous spellings, like in tawk and cawfee ( talk and coffee ), which intend to represent it being tense and diphthongal : [oə] . A split of TRAP into two separate phonemes , using different

390-520: A pronunciations for example in gap [æ] versus gas [eə] , further defines New York City as well as Philadelphia–Baltimore accents. Most Americans preserve all historical /r/ sounds, using what is known as a rhotic accent . The only traditional r -dropping (or non-rhoticity) in regional U.S. accents variably appears today in eastern New England , New York City , and some of the former plantation South primarily among older speakers (and, relatedly, some African-American Vernacular English across

520-611: A beloved early comic hero was the Little Tramp of Charlie Chaplin , who conceived the character, in Chaplin's words, as "a sort of Pierrot". As the diverse incarnations of the 19th-century Pierrot would predict, the hallmarks of the modernist Pierrot are his ambiguity and complexity. One of his earliest appearances was in Alexander Blok 's The Puppet Show (1906), called by one theater-historian "the greatest example of

650-631: A complex phenomenon of "both convergence and divergence": some accents are homogenizing and leveling , while others are diversifying and deviating further away from one another. Having been settled longer than the American West Coast, the East Coast has had more time to develop unique accents, and it currently comprises three or four linguistically significant regions, each of which possesses English varieties both different from each other as well as quite internally diverse: New England ,

780-447: A consonant, such as in pearl , car and fort . Non-rhotic American accents, those that do not pronounce ⟨r⟩ except before a vowel, such as some accents of Eastern New England , New York City , and African-Americans , and a specific few (often older ones) spoken by Southerners , are often quickly noticed by General American listeners and perceived as sounding especially ethnic, regional, or antiquated. Rhoticity

910-402: A frilled collaret and a hat, usually with a close-fitting crown and wide round brim and, more rarely, with a conical shape like a dunce's cap. Pierrot's character developed from that of a buffoon to become an avatar of the disenfranchised. Many cultural movements found him amenable to their respective causes: Decadents turned him into a disillusioned foe of idealism; Symbolists saw him as

1040-600: A game of symbolic otherness ...". Inspired by the French Symbolists , especially Verlaine, Rubén Darío , the Nicaraguan poet widely acknowledged as the founder of Spanish-American literary modernism ( modernismo ), placed Pierrot ("sad poet and dreamer") in opposition to Columbine ("fatal woman", the arch-materialistic "lover of rich silk garments, golden jewelry, pearls and diamonds") in his 1898 prose-poem The Eternal Adventure of Pierrot and Columbine . In

1170-493: A lonely fellow-sufferer; Modernists made him into a silent, alienated observer of the mysteries of the human condition. Much of that mythic quality ("I'm Pierrot," said David Bowie : "I'm Everyman") still adheres to the "sad clown" in the postmodern era. Pierrot is sometimes said to be a French variant of the sixteenth-century Italian Pedrolino , but the two types have little but their names ("Little Pete") and social stations in common. Both are comic servants, but Pedrolino, as

1300-591: A merger with the THOUGHT ( caught ) set. Having taken place prior to the unrounding of the cot vowel, it results in lengthening and perhaps raising, merging the more recently separated vowel into the THOUGHT vowel in the following environments: before many instances of /f/ , /θ/ , and particularly /s/ (as in Austria, cloth, cost, loss, off, often, etc.), a few instances before /ŋ/ (as in strong, long, wrong ), and variably by region or speaker in gone , on , and certain other words. Unlike American accents,

1430-636: A nice day , for sure); many are now distinctly old-fashioned (swell, groovy). Some English words now in general use, such as hijacking, disc jockey , boost, bulldoze and jazz , originated as American slang. American English has always shown a marked tendency to use words in different parts of speech and nouns are often used as verbs . Examples of nouns that are now also verbs are interview, advocate, vacuum, lobby, pressure, rear-end, transition, feature, profile, hashtag, head, divorce, loan, estimate, X-ray, spearhead, skyrocket, showcase, bad-mouth, vacation , major, and many others. Compounds coined in

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1560-410: A painting depicting Edward Young burying his daughter by night. An anonymous critic commented on the monochromatic nature of that painting with the lyrics: Au clair de la lune Les objets sont bleus Plaignons l'infortune De ce malheureux Las ! sa fille est morte Ce n'est pas un jeu Ouvrez-lui la porte Pour l'amour de Dieu. By the light of the moon All things are blue Cry for

1690-516: A perfectly pointless cruelty to me. In their 1957 play Bad Seed: A Play in Two Acts , Maxwell Anderson and William March write: "A few days later, in the same apartment. The living-room is empty: Rhoda can be seen practicing 'Au Clair de la Lune' on the piano in the den." In F. Scott Fitzgerald's novel Tender is the Night , Dick and Nicole Diver's children sing the first verse at the request of

1820-480: A process of extensive dialect mixture and leveling in which English varieties across the colonies became more homogeneous compared with the varieties in Britain. English thus predominated in the colonies even by the end of the 17th century's first immigration of non-English speakers from Western Europe and Africa. Additionally, firsthand descriptions of a fairly uniform American English (particularly in contrast to

1950-419: A section to Pierrot (as well as to Pierrette, his Decadent counterpart) in two ludic pieces for piano—Beach's Children's Carnival (1894) and Foote's Five Bagatelles (1893). The fin de siècle world in which this Pierrot resided was clearly at odds with the reigning American Realist and Naturalist aesthetic (although such figures as Ambrose Bierce and John LaFarge were mounting serious challenges to it). It

2080-693: A secure place in the standard musical repertoire). The portrait and genre painter Vittorio Matteo Corcos produced Portrait of Boy in Pierrot Costume in 1897. In 1895, the playwright and future Nobel laureate Jacinto Benavente wrote rapturously in his journal of a performance of the Hanlon-Lees , and three years later he published his only pantomime: The Whiteness of Pierrot . A true fin de siècle mask, Pierrot paints his face black to commit robbery and murder; then, after restoring his pallor, he hides himself, terrified of his own undoing, in

2210-519: A series of Pierrot-themed short—"Pierrot Enamored of Glory" (1897), "Pierrot and His Cats" (1898), "The Nuptials of Pierrot" (1899), "Pierrot's Gesture" (1899), "The Caprices of Pierrot" (1900)—culminating, after the turn of the century (and in the year of Couto's death), with "Pierrot-Gravedigger" (1901). For the Spanish-speaking world, according to scholar Emilio Peral Vega, Couto "expresses that first manifestation of Pierrot as an alter ego in

2340-680: A series of other vowel shifts in the same region, known by linguists as the " Inland North ". The Inland North shares with the Eastern New England dialect (including Boston accents ) a backer tongue positioning of the GOOSE /u/ vowel (to [u] ) and the MOUTH /aʊ/ vowel (to [ɑʊ~äʊ] ) in comparison to the rest of the country. Ranging from northern New England across the Great Lakes to Minnesota, another Northern regional marker

2470-459: A skullcap for a hat, and greatly increased the wide cut of both blouse and trousers. Deburau's Pierrot avoided the crude Pierrots—timid, sexless, lazy, and greedy—found in earlier pantomime. The Funambules Pierrot appealed to audiences in the faery-tale style which incorporate the commedia types. The plot often hinged on Cassander's pursuit of Harlequin and Columbine, having to deal with a clever and ambiguous Pierrot. Deburau early—about 1828—caught

2600-504: A snowbank—forever. Thus does he forfeit his union with Columbine (the intended beneficiary of his crimes) for a frosty marriage with the moon. Pierrot and his fellow masks were late in coming to the United States, which, unlike England, Russia, and the countries of continental Europe, had had no early exposure to commedia dell'arte. The Hanlon-Lees made their first U.S. appearance in 1858, and their subsequent tours, well into

2730-600: A so-called "first" Zanni , often acts with cunning and daring. an engine of the plot in the scenarios where he appears. Pierrot, on the other hand, as a "second"' Zanni, stands "on the periphery of the action". He dispenses advice and courts his master's young daughter, Columbine, bashfully. His origins among the Italian players in France go back to Molière 's peasant Pierrot in Don Juan, or The Stone Guest (1665). In 1673,

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2860-462: A survey, completed in 2003, polling English speakers across the United States about their specific everyday word choices, hoping to identify regionalisms. The study found that most Americans prefer the term sub for a long sandwich, soda (but pop in the Great Lakes region and generic coke in the South) for a sweet and bubbly soft drink , you or you guys for the plural of you (but y'all in

2990-547: A theater. This was the part of the song I disliked most, not only because I knew that it was sad, but because my mother was deliberately (and rather unfairly, I thought) making it sadder: "Ma chandelle est morte; Je n'ai plus de feu; Ouvre-moi la porte; Pour l'amour de Dieu." I knew, from an earlier explanation, that the song was about somebody (a little girl, I thought) who was cold because her candle and fire had gone out. She went to somebody else (a little boy, I thought) and asked him to help her for God's sake. He said no. It seemed

3120-514: A troupe of Italian players led by Pasquale Casorti performed in Dyrehavsbakken . Casorti's son, Giuseppe (1749–1826), began appearing as Pierrot in pantomimes, which now had a formulaic plot structure. Pierrot is still a fixture at Bakken , at nearby Tivoli Gardens and Tivoli Friheden in Aarhus . Ludwig Tieck 's The Topsy-Turvy World (1798) is an early—and highly successful—example of

3250-453: A variation of American English in these islands. In 2021, about 245 million Americans, aged 5 or above, spoke English at home: a majority of the United States total population of roughly 330 million people. The United States has never had an official language at the federal level, but English is commonly used at the federal level and in states without an official language. 32 of the 50 states, in some cases as part of what has been called

3380-654: Is also associated with the United States, perhaps mostly in the Midwest and the South. American accents that have not undergone the cot–caught merger (the lexical sets LOT and THOUGHT ) have instead retained a LOT – CLOTH split : a 17th-century distinction in which certain words (labeled as the CLOTH lexical set ) separated away from the LOT set. The split, which has now reversed in most British English, simultaneously shifts this relatively recent CLOTH set into

3510-664: Is also home to a creole language known commonly as Hawaiian Pidgin , and some Hawaii residents speak English with a Pidgin-influenced accent. American English also gave rise to some dialects outside the country, for example, Philippine English , beginning during the American occupation of the Philippines and subsequently the Insular Government of the Philippine Islands ; Thomasites first established

3640-704: Is aptly honored in the title of a song by the British rock-group The Soft Machine : "Thank You Pierrot Lunaire" (1969). Pierrot appears among the revelers at various international carnivals. His name suggests kinship with the Pierrot Grenade of Trinidad and Tobago Carnival , being a satire on the richer and more respectable Pierrot. Pierrot Grenade was a finely dressed masquerader and deeply supreme scholar/jester proud of his ability to spell any word in his own fashion and quoting Shakespearean characters as Julius Caesar, Mark Anthony, and Othello at length. In one of

3770-449: Is bed time and, in a thin sweet voice, she is singing him into drowsiness. I am on the floor, as usual among the chair legs, and I crawl behind my mother's chair because I do not like the song she is singing and do not want her to see what it does to me. She sings: "Au clair de la lune; Mon ami, Pierrot; Prête-moi ta plume; Pour écrire un mot." Then the vowels darken ominously. My mother's voice deepens dramatically, as if she were singing in

3900-438: Is close enough to a Pierrot to deserve a mention here. Much less well-known is the work of two other composers— Mario Pasquale Costa and Vittorio Monti . Costa's pantomime L'Histoire d'un Pierrot ( Story of a Pierrot ), which debuted in Paris in 1893, was so admired in its day that it eventually reached audiences on several continents, was paired with Cavalleria Rusticana by New York's Metropolitan Opera Company in 1909, and

4030-538: Is common in most American accents despite being now rare in England because, during the 17th-century British colonization, nearly all dialects of English were rhotic, and most North American English simply remained that way. The preservation of rhoticity in North America was also supported by continuing waves of rhotic-accented Scotch-Irish immigrants, most intensely during the 18th century (and moderately during

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4160-617: Is in fact jarring to find the champion of American prose Realism, William Dean Howells , introducing Pastels in Prose (1890), a volume of French prose-poems containing a Paul Margueritte pantomime, The Death of Pierrot , with words of warm praise (and even congratulations to each poet for failing "to saddle his reader with a moral"). So uncustomary was the French Aesthetic viewpoint that, when Pierrot made an appearance in Pierrot

4290-494: Is known in linguistics as General American ; it covers a fairly uniform accent continuum native to certain regions of the U.S. but especially associated with broadcast mass media and highly educated speech. However, historical and present linguistic evidence does not support the notion of there being one single mainstream American accent . The sound of American English continues to evolve, with some local accents disappearing, but several larger regional accents having emerged in

4420-420: Is often identified by Americans as a "country" accent, and is defined by the /aɪ/ vowel losing its gliding quality : [aː] , the initiation event for a complicated Southern vowel shift, including a " Southern drawl " that makes short front vowels into distinct-sounding gliding vowels . The fronting of the vowels of GOOSE , GOAT , MOUTH , and STRUT tends to also define Southern accents as well as

4550-583: Is passing fine,/Who would be happy must not marry Columbine"). Another pocket of North-American sympathy with the Decadence—one manifestation of what the Latin world called modernismo —could be found in the progressive literary scene of Mexico, its parent country, Spain, having been long conversant with the commedia dell'arte. In 1897, Bernardo Couto Castillo , another Decadent who, at the age of twenty-two, died even more tragically young than Peters, embarked on

4680-1263: Is the common language at home, in public, and in government. Au clair de la lune The song appears as early as 1820 in Les Voitures Verseés , with only the first verse. Four verses were later re-published in the 1858 compilation Chants et Chansons populaires de la France . In the 1870 compilation Chansons et Rondes Enfantines , only the first two verses of the original four were retained. "Au clair de la lune, Mon ami Pierrot, Prête-moi ta plume Pour écrire un mot. Ma chandelle est morte, Je n'ai plus de feu. Ouvre-moi ta porte Pour l'amour de Dieu." Au clair de la lune, Pierrot répondit : "Je n'ai pas de plume, Je suis dans mon lit. Va chez la voisine, Je crois qu'elle y est, Car dans sa cuisine On bat le briquet." Au clair de la lune, L'aimable Lubin; Frappe chez la brune, Elle répond soudain : –Qui frappe de la sorte? Il dit à son tour : –Ouvrez votre porte, Pour le Dieu d'Amour. Au clair de la lune, On n'y voit qu'un peu. On chercha la plume, On chercha du feu. En cherchant d'la sorte, Je n'sais c'qu'on trouva; Mais je sais qu'la porte Sur eux se ferma." "By

4810-465: Is the earliest recognizable record of the human voice and the earliest recognizable record of music. According to those researchers, the phonautograph recording contains the beginning of the song, " Au clair de la lune, mon ami Pierrot, prête moi ". In 2008, composer Fred Momotenko composed an eponymous tribute score for 4-part vocal ensemble and surround audio. In the 1804 painting and sculpting exposition, Pierre-Auguste Vafflard presented

4940-469: Is the variable fronting of /ɑ/ before /r/ , for example, appearing four times in the stereotypical Boston shibboleth Park the car in Harvard Yard . Several other phenomena serve to distinguish regional U.S. accents. Boston , Pittsburgh , Upper Midwestern , and Western U.S. accents have fully completed a merger of the LOT vowel with the THOUGHT vowel ( /ɑ/ and /ɔ/ , respectively):

5070-499: Is very long (see Visual arts below). As for the drama , Pierrot was a regular fixture in the plays of the Little Theatre Movement ( Edna St. Vincent Millay 's Aria da Capo [1920], Robert Emmons Rogers' Behind a Watteau Picture [1918], Blanche Jennings Thompson's The Dream Maker [1922]), which nourished the careers of such important Modernists as Eugene O'Neill , Susan Glaspell , and others. In film ,

5200-518: The femme-fatale of his first "Lulu" play, Earth Spirit (1895), in a Pierrot costume. In a similar spirit, the painter Paul Hoecker put cheeky young men into Pierrot costumes to ape their complacent burgher elders in Pierrots with Pipes ( c.  1900 ) and swilling champagne in Waiting Woman ( c.  1895 ). Canio's Pagliaccio in the famous opera (1892) by Leoncavallo

5330-667: The Addendum to "The Stone Guest" , Scaramouche Tiberio Fiorilli and a troupe assembled from the Comédie-Italienne entertained Londoners with selections from their Parisian repertoire. And in 1717, Pierrot's name first appears in an English entertainment: a pantomime by John Rich entitled The Jealous Doctor; or, The Intriguing Dame . Thereafter, until the end of the century, Pierrot appeared fairly regularly in English pantomimes (which were originally mute harlequinades ; in

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5460-482: The English-only movement , have adopted legislation granting official or co-official status to English. Typically only "English" is specified, not a particular variety like American English. (From 1923 to 1969, the state of Illinois recognized its official language as "American", meaning American English.) Puerto Rico is the largest example of a United States territory in which another language – Spanish –

5590-622: The Mid-Atlantic states (including a New York accent as well as a unique Philadelphia–Baltimore accent ), and the South . As of the 20th century, the middle and eastern Great Lakes area , Chicago being the largest city with these speakers, also ushered in certain unique features, including the fronting of the LOT /ɑ/ vowel in the mouth toward [a] and tensing of the TRAP /æ/ vowel wholesale to [eə] . These sound changes have triggered

5720-551: The Native American languages . Examples of such names are opossum , raccoon , squash , moose (from Algonquian ), wigwam , and moccasin . American English speakers have integrated traditionally non-English terms and expressions into the mainstream cultural lexicon; for instance, en masse , from French ; cookie , from Dutch ; kindergarten from German , and rodeo from Spanish . Landscape features are often loanwords from French or Spanish, and

5850-722: The francophile tastes of the 19th century Victorian era Britain (for example they preferred programme for program , manoeuvre for maneuver , cheque for check , etc.). AmE almost always uses -ize in words like realize . BrE prefers -ise , but also uses -ize on occasion (see: Oxford spelling ). There are a few differences in punctuation rules. British English is more tolerant of run-on sentences , called " comma splices " in American English, and American English prefers that periods and commas be placed inside closing quotation marks even in cases in which British rules would place them outside. American English also favors

5980-662: The seaside Pierrots who, as late as the 1950s, performed on the piers of Brighton , Margate , and Blackpool . They inspired the Will Morris Pierrots, named after their Birmingham founder. They originated in the Smethwick area in the late 1890s and played to large audiences in the Midlands . Walter Westley Russell committed these performers to canvas in The Pierrots (c. 1900). Pierrot's mask claimed

6110-829: The "Pierrot" section of Telemann 's Burlesque Overture (1717–22), Mozart 's 1783 "Masquerade" (in which Mozart himself took the role of Harlequin and his brother-in-law, Joseph Lange , that of Pierrot), and the "Pierrot" section of Robert Schumann 's Carnival (1835). Even the embryonic art of the motion picture turned to Pierrot before the century was out: he appeared, not only in early celluloid shorts ( Georges Méliès 's The Nightmare [1896], The Magician [1898]; Alice Guy 's Arrival of Pierrette and Pierrot [1900], Pierrette's Amorous Adventures [1900]; Ambroise-François Parnaland's Pierrot's Big Head/Pierrot's Tongue [1900], Pierrot-Drinker [1900]), but also in Emile Reynaud 's Praxinoscope production of Poor Pierrot (1892),

6240-537: The 18th century on Parisian stages. Sometimes he spoke gibberish, sometimes the audience itself sang his lines, inscribed on placards held aloft. He could appear as a valet, a cook, or an adventurer; his character is not strictly defined. In the 1720s, Pierrot came into his own. In plays such as Trophonius's Cave (1722) and The Golden Ass (1725), one meets an engaging Pierrot. The accomplished comic actor Jean-Baptiste Hamoche portrayed him with success. After 1733, he rarely appears in new plays. Pierrot also appeared in

6370-709: The 18th century; apartment , shanty in the 19th century; project, condominium , townhouse , mobile home in the 20th century; and parts thereof ( driveway , breezeway, backyard ) . Industry and material innovations from the 19th century onwards provide distinctive new words, phrases, and idioms through railroading (see further at rail terminology ) and transportation terminology, ranging from types of roads ( dirt roads , freeways ) to infrastructure ( parking lot , overpass , rest area ), to automotive terminology often now standard in English internationally. Already existing English words—such as store , shop , lumber —underwent shifts in meaning; others remained in

6500-491: The 19th century, the harlequinade was a "play within a play" during the pantomime), finding his most notable interpreter in Carlo Delpini (1740–1828). Delpini, according to the popular-theater historian, M. Willson Disher, "kept strictly to the idea of a creature so stupid as to think that if he raised his leg level with his shoulder he could use it as a gun." Pierrot was later displaced by the English clown . In 1800,

6630-429: The 20th century had acquired a rich and wide range of personae. He was the naïve butt of practical jokes and amorous scheming (Gautier); the prankish but innocent waif (Banville, Verlaine, Willette); the narcissistic dreamer clutching at the moon, which could symbolize many things, from spiritual perfection to death (Giraud, Laforgue, Willette, Dowson); the frail, neurasthenic , often doom-ridden soul (Richepin, Beardsley);

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6760-566: The 20th century, of scores of cities throughout the country accustomed their audiences to their fantastic, acrobatic Pierrots. But the Pierrot that would leave the deepest imprint upon the American imagination was that of the French and English Decadents , a creature who quickly found his home in the so-called little magazines of the 1890s (as well as in the poster-art that they spawned). One of

6890-546: The 20th century. The use of English in the United States is a result of British colonization of the Americas . The first wave of English-speaking settlers arrived in North America during the early 17th century, followed by further migrations in the 18th and 19th centuries. During the 17th and 18th centuries, dialects from many different regions of England and the British Isles existed in every American colony, allowing

7020-441: The 50 U.S. states . Since the late 20th century, American English has become the most influential form of English worldwide. Varieties of American English include many patterns of pronunciation, vocabulary, grammar and particularly spelling that are unified nationwide but distinct from other English dialects around the world. Any American or Canadian accent perceived as lacking noticeably local, ethnic, or cultural markers

7150-572: The British form is a back-formation , such as AmE burglarize and BrE burgle (from burglar ). However, while individuals usually use one or the other, both forms will be widely understood and mostly used alongside each other within the two systems. While written American English is largely standardized across the country and spoken American English dialects are highly mutually intelligible, there are still several recognizable regional and ethnic accents and lexical distinctions. The regional sounds of present-day American English are reportedly engaged in

7280-644: The Candles [1917]), and, most importantly, Crispin (in "The Comedian as the Letter C" [1923]). As for fiction , William Faulkner began his career as a chronicler of Pierrot's amorous disappointments and existential anguish in such little-known works as his play The Marionettes (1920) and the verses of his Vision in Spring (1921), works that were an early and revealing declaration of the novelist's "fragmented state" (some critics have argued that Pierrot stands behind

7410-581: The Cat [1889]), and Édouard Vuillard ( The Black Pierrot [c. 1890]). The mime "Tombre" of Jean Richepin 's novel Nice People ( Braves Gens [1886]) turned him into a pathetic and alcoholic "phantom"; Paul Verlaine imagined him as a gormandizing naïf in "Pantomime" (1869), then, like Tombre, as a lightning-lit specter in "Pierrot" (1868, pub. 1882). Laforgue put three of the "complaints" of his first published volume of poems (1885) into "Lord" Pierrot's mouth—and dedicated his next book, The Imitation of Our Lady

7540-881: The Comédie-Italienne made its own contribution to the Don Juan legend with an Addendum to "The Stone Guest ", which included Molière's Pierrot. Thereafter the character—sometimes a peasant, but more often now an Italianate "second" Zanni—appeared fairly regularly in the Italians' offerings, his role always taken by one Giuseppe Giaratone (or Geratoni, fl. 1639-1697). Among the French dramatists writing roles for Pierrot were Jean de Palaprat , Claude-Ignace Brugière de Barante, Antoine Houdar de la Motte , and Jean-François Regnard . They present him as an anomaly among busy social personalities around him. Columbine laughs at his advances; his masters who are in pursuit of pretty young wives brush off his warnings to act their age. His isolation bears

7670-490: The Decadence, such exotica discombobulated the mainstream American public, which regarded the little magazines in general as "freak periodicals" and declared, through one of its mouthpieces, Munsey's Magazine , that "each new representative of the species is, if possible, more preposterous than the last". And yet the Pierrot of that species was gaining a foothold elsewhere. The composers Amy Beach and Arthur Foote devoted

7800-413: The East Coast (perhaps in imitation of 19th-century London speech), even the East Coast has gradually begun to restore rhoticity, due to it becoming nationally prestigious in the 20th century. The pronunciation of ⟨r⟩ is a postalveolar approximant [ ɹ̠ ] or retroflex approximant [ ɻ ] , but a unique "bunched tongue" variant of the approximant r sound

7930-604: The Funambules" and aftermath below), but he is very rarely pugnacious (as he is in the pantomimes of the Hanlon-Lees ). American English American English , sometimes called United States English or U.S. English , is the set of varieties of the English language native to the United States. English is the most widely spoken language in the United States ; the de facto common language used in government, education, and commerce; and an official language in 32 of

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8060-571: The Inland North. Rather than one particular accent, General American is best defined as an umbrella covering an American accent that does not incorporate features associated with some particular region, ethnicity, or socioeconomic group. Typical General American features include rhoticity , the father–bother merger , Mary–marry–merry merger , pre-nasal "short a " tensing , and other particular vowel sounds . General American features are embraced most by Americans who are highly educated or in

8190-481: The Moon (1886), completely to Pierrot and his world (Pierrots were legion among the minor, now-forgotten poets: for samples, see Willette's journal The Pierrot , which appeared between 1888 and 1889, then again in 1891). In the realm of song, Claude Debussy set both Verlaine's "Pantomime" and Banville 's "Pierrot" (1842) to music in 1881 (not published until 1926)—the only precedents among works by major composers being

8320-895: The Murderer (1883). But French mimes and actors were not the only figures responsible for Pierrot's ubiquity: the English Hanlon brothers (sometimes called the Hanlon-Lees ), gymnasts and acrobats who had been schooled in the 1860s in pantomimes from Baptiste's repertoire, traveled (and dazzled) the world well into the 20th century with their pantomimic sketches and extravaganzas featuring riotously nightmarish Pierrots. The Naturalists — Émile Zola especially, who wrote glowingly of them—were captivated by their art. Edmond de Goncourt modeled his acrobat-mimes in his The Zemganno Brothers (1879) upon them; J.-K. Huysmans (whose Against Nature [1884] would become Dorian Gray 's bible) and his friend Léon Hennique wrote their pantomime Pierrot

8450-595: The Painter (1893), a pantomime by Alfred Thompson , set to music by the American composer Laura Sedgwick Collins , The New York Times covered it as an event, although it was only a student production. It was found to be "pleasing" because, in part, it was "odd". Not until the first decade of the next century, when the great (and popular) fantasist Maxfield Parrish worked his magic on the figure, would Pierrot be comfortably naturalized in America. Of course, writers from

8580-548: The Secondo part. In 1964, French pop singer France Gall recorded a version of this song, with altered lyrics to make it a love song. In 2008, a phonautograph paper recording made by Édouard-Léon Scott de Martinville of "Au clair de la lune" on 9 April 1860, was digitally converted to sound by researchers at the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory . This one-line excerpt of the song

8710-722: The Skeptic (1881) after seeing them perform at the Folies Bergère (and, in turn, Jules Laforgue wrote his pantomime Pierrot the Cut-Up [ Pierrot fumiste , 1882] after reading the scenario by Huysmans and Hennique). It was in part through the enthusiasm that they excited, coupled with the Impressionists ' taste for popular entertainment, such as the circus and the music-hall, as well as the new bohemianism that then reigned in artistic quarters such as Montmartre (and which

8840-573: The South), sneakers for athletic shoes (but often tennis shoes outside the Northeast), and shopping cart for a cart used for carrying supermarket goods. American English and British English (BrE) often differ at the levels of phonology, phonetics, vocabulary, and, to a much lesser extent, grammar and orthography. The first large American dictionary, An American Dictionary of the English Language , known as Webster's Dictionary ,

8970-528: The U.S. Several verbs ending in -ize are of U.S. origin; for example, fetishize, prioritize, burglarize, accessorize, weatherize , etc.; and so are some back-formations (locate, fine-tune, curate, donate, emote, upholster and enthuse). Among syntactic constructions that arose are outside of, headed for, meet up with, back of, etc. Americanisms formed by alteration of some existing words include notably pesky, phony, rambunctious, buddy, sundae , skeeter, sashay and kitty-corner. Adjectives that arose in

9100-570: The U.S. are for instance foothill , landslide (in all senses), backdrop , teenager , brainstorm , bandwagon , hitchhike , smalltime, and a huge number of others. Other compound words have been founded based on industrialization and the wave of the automobile: five-passenger car, four-door sedan, two-door sedan, and station-wagon (called an estate car in British English). Some are euphemistic ( human resources , affirmative action , correctional facility ). Many compound nouns have

9230-676: The U.S. are, for example, lengthy, bossy, cute and cutesy, punk (in all senses), sticky (of the weather), through (as in "finished"), and many colloquial forms such as peppy or wacky . A number of words and meanings that originated in Middle English or Early Modern English and that have been in everyday use in the United States have since disappeared in most varieties of British English; some of these have cognates in Lowland Scots . Terms such as fall ("autumn"), faucet ("tap"), diaper ("nappy"; itself unused in

9360-530: The U.S. while changing in Britain. Science, urbanization, and democracy have been important factors in bringing about changes in the written and spoken language of the United States. From the world of business and finance came new terms ( merger , downsize , bottom line ), from sports and gambling terminology came, specific jargon aside, common everyday American idioms, including many idioms related to baseball . The names of some American inventions remained largely confined to North America ( elevator [except in

9490-427: The U.S.), candy ("sweets"), skillet , eyeglasses , and obligate are often regarded as Americanisms. Fall for example came to denote the season in 16th century England, a contraction of Middle English expressions like "fall of the leaf" and "fall of the year." Gotten ( past participle of get ) is often considered to be largely an Americanism. Other words and meanings were brought back to Britain from

9620-541: The U.S., especially in the second half of the 20th century; these include hire ("to employ"), I guess (famously criticized by H. W. Fowler ), baggage , hit (a place), and the adverbs overly and presently ("currently"). Some of these, for example, monkey wrench and wastebasket , originated in 19th century Britain. The adjectives mad meaning "angry", smart meaning "intelligent", and sick meaning "ill" are also more frequent in American (and Irish) English than British English. Linguist Bert Vaux created

9750-538: The United States and the United Kingdom suggest that, while spoken American English deviated away from period British English in many ways, it is conservative in a few other ways, preserving certain features 21st-century British English has since lost. Full rhoticity (or "R-fulness") is typical of American accents, pronouncing the phoneme /r/ (corresponding to the letter ⟨r⟩ ) in all environments, including in syllable-final position or before

9880-516: The United States living abroad—especially in Paris or London—were aberrantly susceptible to the charms of the Decadence. Such a figure was Stuart Merrill , who consorted with the French Symbolists and who compiled and translated the pieces in Pastels in Prose . Another was William Theodore Peters , an acquaintance of Ernest Dowson and other members of the Rhymers' Club and a driving force behind

10010-605: The West and Midwest, and New York Latino English , spoken in the New York metropolitan area . Additionally, ethnic varieties such as Yeshiva English and " Yinglish " are spoken by some American Orthodox Jews , Cajun Vernacular English by some Cajuns in southern Louisiana , and Pennsylvania Dutch English by some Pennsylvania Dutch people. American Indian Englishes have been documented among diverse Indian tribes. The island state of Hawaii , though primarily English-speaking,

10140-461: The Zanni: the fifty rondels of his Pierrot lunaire ( Moonstruck Pierrot, 1884) inspired generations of composers (see Pierrot lunaire below), and his verse-play Pierrot-Narcissus (1887) offered a definitive portrait of the poet-dreamer. The choreographer Joseph Hansen staged the ballet Macabre Pierrot in 1884 in collaboration with the poet Théo Hannon . Pierrot figured prominently in

10270-555: The accents spoken in the " Midland ": a vast band of the country that constitutes an intermediate dialect region between the traditional North and South. Western U.S. accents mostly fall under the General American spectrum. Below, ten major American English accents are defined by their particular combinations of certain vowel sounds: In 2010, William Labov noted that Great Lakes, Philadelphia, Pittsburgh, and West Coast accents have undergone "vigorous new sound changes" since

10400-505: The aeronautical sense ], gasoline ) as did certain automotive terms ( truck , trunk ). New foreign loanwords came with 19th and early 20th century European immigration to the U.S.; notably, from Yiddish ( chutzpah , schmooze, bupkis, glitch ) and German ( hamburger , wiener ). A large number of English colloquialisms from various periods are American in origin; some have lost their American flavor (from OK and cool to nerd and 24/7 ), while others have not ( have

10530-490: The attention of the Romantics . In 1842, Théophile Gautier published a fake review of a "Shakespeare" pantomime he claimed to have seen at the Funambules. It placed Pierrot in the company of over-reachers in high literature such as Don Juan or Macbeth . Deburau's son, Jean-Charles (or, as he preferred, "Charles" [1829–1873]), assumed Pierrot's blouse the year after his father died. Another important Pierrot of mid-century

10660-532: The attention of the great theater innovator Edward Gordon Craig . Craig's involvement with the figure grew with time. In 1897, Craig, dressed as Pierrot, gave a quasi-impromptu stage-reading of Hans Christian Andersen 's story "What the Moon Saw" as part of a benefit performance for theater artists in need. Although he lamented that "the Pierrot figure was inherently alien to the German-speaking world",

10790-526: The brunette's door. She suddenly responds: – Who's knocking like that? He then replies: – Open your door for the God of Love! By the light of the moon One could barely see. The pen was looked for, The light was looked for. With all that looking I don't know what was found, But I do know that the door Shut itself on them. Some sources report that "plume" (pen) was originally "lume" (an old word for "light" or "lamp"), which makes more sense of

10920-575: The canvases of Georges Seurat ( Pierrot with a White Pipe [Aman-Jean] [1883]; The Painter Aman-Jean as Pierrot [1883]), Léon Comerre ( Pierrot [1884], Pierrot Playing the Mandolin [1884]), Henri Rousseau ( A Carnival Night [1886]), Paul Cézanne ( Mardi gras [Pierrot and Harlequin] [1888]), Fernand Pelez ( Grimaces and Miseries a.k.a. The Saltimbanques [1888]), Pablo Picasso ( Pierrot and Columbine [1900]), Guillaume Seignac ( Pierrot's Embrace [1900]), Théophile Steinlen ( Pierrot and

11050-521: The clumsy, although ardent, lover, who wins Columbine's heart, or murders her in frustration (Margueritte); the cynical and misogynistic dandy , sometimes dressed in black (Huysmans/Hennique, Laforgue); the Christ-like victim of the martyrdom that is Art (Giraud, Willette, Ensor); the androgynous and unholy creature of corruption (Richepin, Wedekind); the madcap master of chaos (the Hanlon-Lees);

11180-502: The conception and theatrical realization of Dowson's Pierrot of the Minute (1897; see England above). Of the three books that Peters published before his death (of starvation) at the age of forty-two, his Posies out of Rings: And Other Conceits (1896) is most notable here: in it, four poems and an "Epilogue" for the aforementioned Dowson play are devoted to Pierrot (from the mouth of Pierrot loquitur : "Although this pantomime of life

11310-406: The country), though the vowel-consonant cluster found in "bird", "work", "hurt", "learn", etc. usually retains its r pronunciation, even in these non-rhotic American accents. Non-rhoticity among such speakers is presumed to have arisen from their upper classes' close historical contact with England, imitating London's r -dropping, a feature that has continued to gain prestige throughout England from

11440-614: The diverse regional dialects of British English) became common after the mid-18th century, while at the same time speakers' identification with this new variety increased. Since the 18th century, American English has developed into some new varieties, including regional dialects that retain minor influences from waves of immigrant speakers of diverse languages, primarily European languages. Some racial and regional variation in American English reflects these groups' geographic settlement, their de jure or de facto segregation, and patterns in their resettlement. This can be seen, for example, in

11570-742: The double quotation mark ("like this") over the single ('as here'). Vocabulary differences vary by region. For example, autumn is used more commonly in the United Kingdom, whereas fall is more common in American English. Some other differences include: aerial (United Kingdom) vs. antenna, biscuit (United Kingdom) vs. cookie/cracker, car park (United Kingdom) vs. parking lot, caravan (United Kingdom) vs. trailer, city centre (United Kingdom) vs. downtown, flat (United Kingdom) vs. apartment, fringe (United Kingdom) vs. bangs, and holiday (United Kingdom) vs. vacation. AmE sometimes favors words that are morphologically more complex, whereas BrE uses clipped forms, such as AmE transportation and BrE transport or where

11700-404: The drawings of Aubrey Beardsley , and various writers referenced him in their poetry. Ethel Wright painted Bonjour, Pierrot! (a greeting to a dour clown sitting disconsolate with his dog) in 1893. The Pierrot of popular taste also spawned a uniquely English entertainment. In 1891, the singer and banjoist Clifford Essex , resolved to create a troupe of English Pierrot entertainers, and called them

11830-508: The earliest and most influential of these in America, The Chap-Book (1894–98), which featured a story about Pierrot by the aesthete Percival Pollard in its second number, was soon host to Beardsley-inspired Pierrots drawn by E.B. Bird and Frank Hazenplug (the Canadian poet Bliss Carman should also be mentioned for his contribution to Pierrot's dissemination in mass-market publications such as Harper's ). Like most things associated with

11960-687: The few extant contemporary illustrations involving Pedrolino—i.e., the frontispiece of Giulio Cesare Croce's Pedrolino's Great Victory against the Doctor Gratiano Scatolone, for Love of the Beautiful Franceschina (1621)—the Zanni is shown thrashing il Dottore rather savagely (and, as the title indicates, victoriously). Such aggressive ferocity is almost never to be seen, early or late, in the behavioral repertoire of Pierrot. Pierrot can be murderous (see "Shakespeare at

12090-410: The first animated movie and the first hand-colored one. In Belgium, Félicien Rops depicted a grinning Pierrot who witnesses an unromantic backstage scene ( Blowing Cupid's Nose [1881]). James Ensor painted Pierrots obsessively, in various poses from prostrate to bowing his head in despondency, sometimes even with a smiling skeleton. The Belgian poet and dramatist Albert Giraud also identified with

12220-517: The following two centuries) when this ethnic group eventually made up one-seventh of the colonial population. Scotch-Irish settlers spread from Delaware and Pennsylvania throughout the larger Mid-Atlantic region, the inland regions of both the South and North, and throughout the West: American dialect areas that were all uninfluenced by upper-class non-rhoticity and that consequently have remained consistently rhotic. While non-rhoticity spread on

12350-523: The harlequinade in Russia". Vsevolod Meyerhold , who both directed the first production and took on the role, dramatically emphasized the multifacetedness of the character: according to one spectator, Meyerhold's Pierrot was "nothing like those familiar, falsely sugary, whining Pierrots. Everything about him is sharply angular; in a hushed voice he whispers strange words of sadness; somehow he contrives to be caustic, heart-rending, gentle: all these things yet at

12480-889: The hospital , BrE to hospital ; contrast, however, AmE actress Elizabeth Taylor , BrE the actress Elizabeth Taylor ). Often, these differences are a matter of relative preferences rather than absolute rules; and most are not stable since the two varieties are constantly influencing each other, and American English is not a standardized set of dialects. Differences in orthography are also minor. The main differences are that American English usually uses spellings such as flavor for British flavour , fiber for fibre , defense for defence , analyze for analyse , license for licence , catalog for catalogue and traveling for travelling . Noah Webster popularized such spellings in America, but he did not invent most of them. Rather, "he chose already existing options on such grounds as simplicity, analogy or etymology." Other differences are due to

12610-674: The influence of 18th-century Protestant Ulster Scots immigrants (known in the U.S. as the Scotch-Irish ) in Appalachia developing Appalachian English and the 20th-century Great Migration bringing African-American Vernacular English to the Great Lakes urban centers. Any phonologically unmarked North American accent falls under an umbrella known as General American. This section mostly refers to such General American features. Studies on historical usage of English in both

12740-415: The introduction of the commedia dell'arte characters into parodic metatheater (Pierrot is a member of the audience watching the play). The penetration of Pierrot and his companions of the commedia into Spain is documented in a painting by Goya , Itinerant Actors (1793). It foreshadows the work of such Spanish successors as Picasso and Fernand Pelez , both of whom also showed strong sympathy with

12870-497: The issue of naturalization: Hermann Bahr took his inspiration for his Pantomime of the Good Man (1893) directly from his encounter with the exclusively French Cercle Funambulesque ; Rudolf Holzer set the action of his Puppet Loyalty (1899), unapologetically, in a fabulous Paris; and Karl Michael von Levetzow settled his Two Pierrots (1900) in the birthplace of Pierrot's comedy, Italy. In Germany, Frank Wedekind introduced

13000-470: The last year of the century, Pierrot appeared in a Russian ballet, Harlequin's Millions a.k.a. Harlequinade (1900), its libretto and choreography by Marius Petipa , its music by Riccardo Drigo , its dancers the members of St. Petersburg's Imperial Ballet . It would set the stage for the later and greater triumphs of Pierrot in the productions of the Ballets Russes . The Pierrot bequeathed to

13130-438: The late 18th century onwards, but which has conversely lost prestige in the U.S. since at least the early 20th century. Non-rhoticity makes a word like car sound like cah or source like sauce . New York City and Southern accents are the most prominent regional accents of the country, as well as the most stigmatized and socially disfavored. Southern speech, strongest in southern Appalachia and certain areas of Texas,

13260-486: The light of the moon, My friend Pierrot , Lend me your quill To write a word. My candle is dead, I have no light left. Open your door for me For the love of God." By the light of the moon, Pierrot replied: "I don't have any quill, I am in my bed Go to the neighbor's, I think she's there Because in her kitchen Someone is lighting the fire." By the light of the moon Likeable Lubin Knocks on

13390-458: The lives of traveling saltimbancos . The Théâtre des Funambules was a little theater licensed in its early years to present only mimed and acrobatic acts. It was the home, beginning in 1816, of Jean-Gaspard Deburau (1796–1846), the most famous Pierrot ever. He was immortalized by Jean-Louis Barrault in Marcel Carné 's film Children of Paradise (1945). Deburau, from the year 1825,

13520-427: The mid-nineteenth century onwards, so they "are now more different from each other than they were 50 or 100 years ago", while other accents, like of New York City and Boston, have remained stable in that same time-frame. However, a General American sound system also has some debated degree of influence nationwide, for example, gradually beginning to oust the regional accent in urban areas of the South and at least some in

13650-531: The misfortune Of this poor soul Sadly! His daughter is dead It is no game Open the door to her For the love of God. The "Story of my Friend Peterkin and the Moon" in The Ladies Pocket Magazine (1835) mentions the song several times and ends: Indeed, what must have been the chagrin and despair of this same Jaurat, when he heard sung every night by all the little boys of Paris, that song of "Au clair de la lune", every verse of which

13780-617: The most formal contexts, and regional accents with the most General American native features include North Midland, Western New England, and Western accents. Although no longer region-specific, African-American Vernacular English , which remains the native variety of most working- and middle-class African Americans , has a close relationship to Southern dialects and has greatly influenced everyday speech of many Americans, including hip hop culture . Hispanic and Latino Americans have also developed native-speaker varieties of English. The best-studied Latino Englishes are Chicano English , spoken in

13910-402: The past forms of a few verbs (for example, AmE/BrE: learned / learnt , burned / burnt , snuck/sneaked , dove/dived ) although the purportedly "British" forms can occasionally be seen in American English writing as well; different prepositions and adverbs in certain contexts (for example, AmE in school, BrE at school ); and whether or not a definite article is used, in very few cases (AmE to

14040-563: The pathos of Watteau 's portraits. An Italian company was called back to Paris in 1716, and Pierrot was reincarnated by the actors Pierre-François Biancolelli (son of the Harlequin of the banished troupe of players) and, after Biancolelli abandoned the role, the celebrated Fabio Sticotti (1676–1741) and his son Antoine Jean (1715–1772). But the character seems to have been regarded as unimportant by this company, since he appears infrequently in its new plays. The character appeared often in

14170-436: The playwright Franz Blei introduced him enthusiastically into his playlet The Kissy-Face: A Columbiade (1895), and his fellow-Austrians Richard Specht and Richard Beer-Hofmann made an effort to naturalize Pierrot—in their plays Pierrot-Hunchback (1896) and Pierrot-Hypnotist (1892, first pub. 1984), respectively—by linking his fortunes with those of Goethe 's Faust. Still others among their countrymen simply sidestepped

14300-660: The poems of Jules Laforgue , whose "ton 'pierrot'" informed all of Eliot's early poetry. (Laforgue, he said, "was the first to teach me how to speak, to teach me the poetic possibilities of my own idiom of speech.") Prufrock is a Pierrot transplanted to America. Another prominent Modernist, Wallace Stevens , was undisguised in his identification with Pierrot in his earliest poems and letters—an identification that he later complicated and refined through such avatars as Bowl (in Bowl, Cat and Broomstick [1917]), Carlos (in Carlos Among

14430-553: The purveyor of hearty and wholesome fun (the English pier Pierrots)—and various combinations of these. Like the earlier masks of commedia dell'arte, Pierrot now knew no national boundaries. Thanks to the international gregariousness of modernism, he would soon be found everywhere. Pierrot played a seminal role in the emergence of modernism in the arts. He was a key figure in every art-form except architecture. With respect to poetry , T. S. Eliot 's "breakthrough work", " The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock " (1915), owed its existence to

14560-400: The same time impudent." The fifty poems that were published by Albert Giraud (born Emile Albert Kayenbergh) as Pierrot lunaire: Rondels bergamasques in 1884 were set to music several times. The best known version is by Arnold Schoenberg , i.e., his Opus 21: Dreimal sieben Gedichte aus Albert Girauds Pierrot lunaire ( Thrice-Seven Poems from Albert Giraud's Pierrot lunaire—Schoenberg

14690-581: The section "Le flirt" (No. 19) of his 1914 piano collection Sports et divertissements . In 1926, Samuel Barber rewrote "H-35: Au Claire de la Lune: A Modern Setting of an old folk tune" while studying at the Curtis Institute of Music . In 1928, Marc Blitzstein orchestrated "Variations sur 'Au Claire de la Lune'." In 1955, Swiss composer Frank Martin wrote a setting of Au clair de la lune for one of his children to practice octaves (Primo part). It consists of three variations provided by

14820-456: The semi-autobiographical Nick Adams of Faulkner's fellow- Nobel laureate Ernest Hemingway , and another contends that James Joyce 's Stephen Dedalus , again an avatar of his own creator, also shares the same parentage). In music , historians of modernism generally place Arnold Schoenberg 's 1912 song-cycle Pierrot lunaire at the very pinnacle of high-modernist achievement. And in ballet , Igor Stravinsky 's Petrushka (1911), in which

14950-525: The song’s contextual framework. Much of the lyrics have sexual innuendos. Muzio Clementi 's Op 48 is a fantasia on the tune A set of variations on the tune appears in Boieldieu 's opera Les voitures versees French composer Ferdinand Hérold wrote a set of variations for piano solo in E-flat major. The American-born Brazilian/French composer Charles-Lucien Lambert wrote a set of variations on

15080-545: The suffix -ot and derives from the Italian Pedrolino . His character in contemporary popular culture—in poetry, fiction, and the visual arts, as well as works for the stage, screen, and concert hall—is that of the sad clown , often pining for love of Columbine (who usually breaks his heart and leaves him for Harlequin ). Performing unmasked, with a whitened face, he wears a loose white blouse with large buttons and wide white pantaloons. Sometimes he appears with

15210-570: The traditional standard accent of (southern) England, Received Pronunciation (RP), has evolved a trap–bath split . Moreover, American accents preserve /h/ at the start of syllables, while perhaps a majority of the regional dialects of England participate in /h/ dropping , particularly in informal contexts. However, General American is also innovative in a number of its own ways: The process of coining new lexical items started as soon as English-speaking British-American colonists began borrowing names for unfamiliar flora, fauna, and topography from

15340-469: The traditionally Pulcinella -like clown wears the heart of Pierrot, is often argued to have attained the same stature. Students of modernist painting and sculpture are familiar with Pierrot (in many different attitudes, from the ineffably sad to the ebulliently impudent) through the masterworks of his acolytes, including Pablo Picasso , Juan Gris , Georges Rouault , Salvador Dalí , Max Beckmann , August Macke , Paul Klee , Jacques Lipchitz —the list

15470-517: The tune (ca 1860) 19th-century French composer Camille Saint-Saëns quoted the first few notes of the tune in the section "The Fossils", part of his suite The Carnival of the Animals Claude Debussy , composer of the similarly named " Clair de lune " from his Suite bergamasque , uses "Au clair de la lune" as the basis of his song "Pierrot" ( Pantomime , L. 31) from Quatre Chansons de Jeunesse . Erik Satie quoted this song in

15600-417: The verb-and-preposition combination: stopover, lineup, tryout, spin-off, shootout , holdup, hideout, comeback, makeover , and many more. Some prepositional and phrasal verbs are in fact of American origin ( win out, hold up, back up/off/down/out, face up to and many others). Noun endings such as -ee (retiree), -ery (bakery), -ster (gangster) and -cian (beautician) are also particularly productive in

15730-527: The visual arts and in folksongs (" Au clair de la lune "). The art of Claude Gillot ( Master André's Tomb [c. 1717]), of Gillot's students Watteau ( Italian Actors [c. 1719]) and Nicolas Lancret ( Italian Actors near a Fountain [c. 1719]), of Jean-Baptiste Oudry ( Italian Actors in a Park [c. 1725]), of Philippe Mercier ( Pierrot and Harlequin [n.d.]), and of Jean-Honoré Fragonard ( A Boy as Pierrot [1776–1780]), features him prominently. As early as 1673, just months after Pierrot had made his debut in

15860-775: The word corn , used in England to refer to wheat (or any cereal), came to denote the maize plant, the most important crop in the U.S. Most Mexican Spanish contributions came after the War of 1812 , with the opening of the West, like ranch (now a common house style ). Due to Mexican culinary influence, many Spanish words are incorporated in general use when talking about certain popular dishes: cilantro (instead of coriander), queso, tacos, quesadillas, enchiladas, tostadas, fajitas, burritos, and guacamole. These words usually lack an English equivalent and are found in popular restaurants. New forms of dwelling created new terms ( lot , waterfront) and types of homes like log cabin , adobe in

15990-596: Was Charles-Dominique-Martin Legrand, known as Paul Legrand (1816–1898; see photo at top of page). He began appearing at the Funambules as Pierrot in 1845. Legrand left the Funambules in 1853 for the Folies-Nouvelles , which attracted the fashionable set, unlike the Funambules' working-class audiences. Legrand often appeared in realistic costume, his chalky face his only concession to tradition, leading some advocates of pantomime, such as Gautier, to lament that he

16120-414: Was a remembrance of happiness to Cresson, and a reproach of cruelty to friend Peterkin, who would not open his door to his neighbor, when he requested this slight service. In his 1952 memoir Witness , Whittaker Chambers reminisced: In my earliest recollections of her, my mother is sitting in the lamplight, in a Windsor rocking chair, in front of the parlor stove. She is holding my brother on her lap. It

16250-526: Was betraying the character of the type. Legrand's Pierrot influenced future mimes. In the 1880s and 1890s, the pantomime reached a type of apogee, and Pierrot became ubiquitous. Moreover, he acquired a female counterpart, Pierrette, who rivaled Columbine for his affections. A Cercle Funambulesque was founded in 1888, and Pierrot (sometimes played by female mimes, such as Félicia Mallet ) dominated its productions until its demise in 1898. Sarah Bernhardt even donned Pierrot's blouse for Jean Richepin 's Pierrot

16380-446: Was celebrated by such denizens as Adolphe Willette , whose cartoons and canvases are crowded with Pierrots)—it was through all this that Pierrot achieved almost unprecedented currency and visibility towards the end of the century. He invaded the visual arts—not only in the work of Willette, but also in the illustrations and posters of Jules Chéret ; in the engravings of Odilon Redon ( The Swamp Flower: A Sad Human Head [1885]); and in

16510-953: Was numerologically superstitious). This led, among other things, to ensemble groups' appropriating Pierrot's name, such as the English Pierrot Players (1967–70). The Pierrot behind those cycles has invaded worlds well beyond those of composers, singers, and ensemble-performers. Theatrical groups such as the Opera Quotannis have brought Pierrot's Passion to the dramatic stage; dancers such as Glen Tetley have choreographed it; poets such as Wayne Koestenbaum have derived original inspiration from it. It has been translated into still more distant media by painters, such as Paul Klee ; fiction-writers, such as Helen Stevenson; filmmakers, such as Bruce LaBruce ; and graphic-novelists, such as Antoine Dodé. A passionately sinister Pierrot Lunaire has even shadowed DC Comics' Batman . Pierrot

16640-541: Was premiered as a film by Baldassarre Negroni in 1914. Its libretto, like that of Monti's "mimodrama" Noël de Pierrot a.k.a. A Clown's Christmas (1900), was written by Fernand Beissier, one of the founders of the Cercle Funambulesque . (Monti would go on to acquire his own fame by celebrating another spiritual outsider much akin to Pierrot—the Gypsy . His Csárdás [c. 1904], like Pagliacci , has found

16770-399: Was the only actor at the Funambules to play Pierrot, and he did so in several types of pantomime: rustic, melodramatic, "realistic", and fantastic. His style, according to Louis Péricaud , formed "an enormous contrast with the exuberance, the superabundance of gestures, of leaps, that ... his predecessors had employed". He altered the costume: he dispensed with the frilled collaret, substituted

16900-469: Was written by Noah Webster in 1828, codifying several of these spellings. Differences in grammar are relatively minor, and do not normally affect mutual intelligibility; these include: typically a lack of differentiation between adjectives and adverbs, employing the equivalent adjectives as adverbs he ran quick / he ran quickly ; different use of some auxiliary verbs ; formal (rather than notional) agreement with collective nouns ; different preferences for

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