The Columbian. [volume] (Bloomsburg, Pa.) 1866-1910, 1875-12-24
Changes in Words.

These exits and entrances of words must
be constantly going on. Those who have
lived through generation or two must have
noted how many have been introduced or
have changed their ground in their time
Allusions to their introductions and changes
meet us constantly in our reading. Thus
Banter, Mob, Bully, Bubble, Sham, Shut
fling and Palming, were new words in the
7dtle''s day, who writes, 81 have done nv
utmost for some years past to stop the pro-
gress of Mobb and Banter, but have been
plainly borne down by numbers and betrayed
by those who promised to assist me-" Re
connoHre, and other French terms of war, are
ridiculed as innovations in the Spectator.
Skate was u new word in Swifts day. 80
skate, if you know what that means" he
writes to Stella. "There is a new word
coined within few months" says Fuller,
'called yJandtics." Locke was accused of
affectation in using idea instead of notion.
"We have been obliged" says the World,
'to adopt the word police from the French"
Where we read in another number, 81 as
sisted at the birth of that most significant
word .firtation, which dropped from the
most beautiful mouth in the world, and
which has since received the sanction of our
most accurate Laureate in one of his come
dies" Ignore was once sacred to grand
jurles, "ln the interest of" has been quoted
in our time as a slang phrase just coming in
to meaning. Bore has wormed itself into
use within the memory of man. Wrinkle is
quietly going into use in its secondary slang
sense. Mut we have read from the pen of
grave lady, writing on a grave subject, to
express her serious scorn. Most of these
words are received as necessities in the
language. Some, like "humbug," are still
struggling into respectability. In the middle
of the last century, it was denounced as
"the uncouth dialect of the Huns, the abber
Of the Hottentots," Another writer puts it
into the mouth CT party of giggling girls,
who pronounce some one--whom he suspects
to be himself-an odious, hOrriJle, detestaJle
stocking Humbug. This last new coined
expression" he observes, Sounds absurd
and disagreeable whenever it is pronounced;
but from the mouth of a lady it is shocking
detestable, horrible and odious." Yet so
pointedly does it hit blot in humanity, so
necessary has it become TO the vituperative
element in our nature, that neither mankind
nor wOmankind can do without it. The
iastidious peQuincy is eloQucntin in its praise
"N ct neither is it any safe ground of abso-
Lutte eX-communication from the sanctities of
Literature, that phrase is entirely the
growth of the street. The word huBtJug, for
instance, rests upon rich and comprehen,
sive basis it cannot be rendered adequately
either by German or Greek, the two richest
of human languages and without this ex-
pressiye word we should all be disarmed for
one great case, continually recurrent, OF
social enornity, 4 vast mass of vilainy
that cannot otherwise be reached by legal
Penalties, or brought within the rhetoric Of
scorn, would go at large with absolute impu,
nifty were it not through the Rhadaman,
thcan aid of this yirluous and inexorable
wOrdN
The fashion of language toward scenery
especially Alpine scenery-has entirely
changed, Once it was surveyed with the
eye simply of the trayeleEto whom it might
well seem ragged 'horrd,' 'inhospitable,
now, when difficulties of transit are over
come, or hailed for the difficulties sake, de
scription expatiates in the whole gamut o
rapture from tender and lovely TO sublime