The Plymouth Democrat. (Plymouth, Ind.) 1869-1941, 1870-04-21


| these sun-spots, with their black nuclei,
their striped penumbre, and their ever.
changing forms How curious are the
willow leaves, and rice grains, and mot
tied facul9, which the telescope reveals on
their ragged edges How beyond com
prehension the immensity of these great
rents in the luminous envelope Of the sun,
into which, were we to throw our entire
| globe, it would appear in their depths no
larger than rock rolled into the crater 0l
a volcano l-Prouidence (R ~ Journal.
"Cheek.o
AS a general thing, we deprecate the
use Of slang phrases; but there are some
| Of them that seem so exactly expressive
| of habit or characteristic that the most
fastidious etymologist might be pardoned
| in the occasional use of them.
There is a kind of guerrilla English hav.
ing its origin ON the streets, along the
wharves, among the newsboys, and every
where beyond the precincts of the schools.
1t annexes itself to the language in spite
of dictionary makers; It will not be
frowned away by the disapprOval of any
| LII. D.; it has its birth somewhere, some
how, because there is need of it; and
presently it ascends from The servants hall
| to the parlor and gets foothold on the
tapestry the newspapers adopt it, and
| thus we have it engraftel upon the Ian
guage. The erudite will tell us that this
| is all wrong; that we ought to draw every
expression from the swell of English un
defiled;" and that (for instance) the word
"cheek" signifies nothing else than " that
part of the face below the eyes, on each
side" But facts are facts, after all and
people will continue to use this word In
the highly expressive senses of "unblush-
ing impudence," or "effrontery." We
have selected it from the great stream of
slang running through the speech of the
people as perhaps better calculated than
any other to illustrate the wonderful ex
pressiveness of this "guerrilla English"
"What dye think of young T--?"
was lately asked in our hearing
"a cheeky boy" was the answer.
Could volumes have spoken more accu-
rately of fast, saucy young America than
that
At table lately, clean and hungry"
looking person, whose appearance denoted
that "square meals" were with him as
angel visits, coolly appropriated the whole
contents Of an uncommon dish, Of which
the supply was known to be limited. His
opposite sat waiting for the dish to reach
him and as he saw it replaced, empty,
upon the table, after this wholesale appro
priation of its contents, his veXation and
disappointment found vent in one word,
uttered with an emphasis that no amount
of underscoring here can reproduce;
"Cheeki"
The other diners laughed and smiled
approvingly, and the dinner-table private
redeemed from his nose beyond his ears
The lesson will not be lost on him.
We have all had some experience on
the railway trains with class of people
whose conduct can only flow from plen-
tiful supply of the quality named herein.
We enter car, and the first view tells us
that it is full-or nearl so. No vacant
seats attract our eye. We walk on, and TO
us appears the figure of a spruce young
man, with look of hard decision about
the angles of his face, sitting by the win
dow, while a great valise beside hin oc-
cupies the balance of the seat. We stop,
we hesitate; we don't like to address him,
,ur we don't fancy that look but we want
seat He looks straight out of the win
dow, and pretends to be unaware of our
presence.
"Sir!' say we. "Sir--"
He turns his head, and contemplates us
with stony eye.
Osiris the whole Of this seat taken ?"
"Yes, sir!'
He hurls the words at us like a charge
of shot. We mrrmur Indignantly,
Check" and pass on. No other word
that we know of can describe such con-
duct.
"Here is the bill for that suit you're
wearing, Mr.. Blue Jay" says the exas
retated tailor. "Do you propose 70 pay
it or not, sir9 If Pve presented it once,
| have eleven times, sir"
"Ah, indeed?' blandly replies the
Jeremy Diddler, "Well, now, | think
you'd better present it again, and thatll
Just make the even dozen, don't you see?
[ never did like the odd numbers"
Would anybody think of giving that
any such mild name as impudence? 1t is
cheek-downright check.
"Got any tiOur?" asked fellow who
sauntered into country store with his
hands in his pockets.
"Oh, yes, sir!" answers the merchant,
with alacrity. Extra and superfne--"
Any sugar."
"Certainly, sir; white and yellow cof
fee, crushed, powdered
"Butter?"
"Some has just come in-sweet and
nice.
"Eggs?"
"Plenty of 'em, sir"
"Well, Pm glad to hear it," drawls the
joker. "These things are all useful in
family, and Pm glad you've got 'em. Hope
you'll not allow your family to be without
'cm. Good morning"
Can this be called anything but
"cheek," and that Of the very checklist
description
The careless donkey who treads on
your cOrns at an evening party, and then
remarks, audibly, that some people have
feet as large as school districts; the young
scamp who proposes marriage to every
pretty girl of his acquaintance, "just to
keep his hand in, so he can do it grace
fully when the right time comes" the
blOOd-suckcr who offers to borrow IS on
the strength of as many minutes acquain-
tance the adventurer who energetically
courts handsome widow, and winds up
his visits by an elopement with her daugh-
ter; the man who asks woman her age,
a politician his conscientious opinion"
a girl if she has ever had an offer, and any
one for the amount of his income,-all
these arc memorable examples of a quail
ty of mind that is and must continue to
be known as "cheek."
We are not advocating the use of slang.
We only say that this illegitimate English
is most pungently expressive.-Phrenotog-
tcdi Journal
A PLEASANT story has lately circulated
about Count Bismarck. A country clergy
man, an old fellow collegian of the
Counts, was anxious to get his son into
the marines, and at length summoned up
courage to address his quondam comrade,
entertaining, however, but faint hopes of
the great Minister remembering him. Not
being much i'm the habit of writing to
grandees, the good man could not for
Tim. LII lnur 10 hnnifa hut