The Grange advance. [volume] (Red Wing, Minn.) 1873-1877, 1877-01-24
Misuse Of Words.

given at certain gentleman house;
one of the servants, in bringing in an
OK tongue, let the plate and its con-
tents fall with splash the host, how
ever, was master of the occasion
ooh never mind; it's only a lapsus
lingum." The roar of laughter at this
sally was both loud and long. A neigh
boring fox-hunter who was present,
thought the joke SO good that he could
take it away with him. So the next
time he had dinner party he instruct
ed a servant to let fall leg of mutton
and he was much surprised when his
remark, that it was only lapsus lin
guB, was not greeted with the hearty
laughter he expected.
A minister once, in preaching on the
family relationships, had three heads
of discourse: First, the duties of pa
rents to children !; second, the duties
of children to parents third, the du-
ties Of parents who have no children.
Typographical errors in words are
sometimes very amusing. What an al
teration in the sense is made by even
misplacing letter, or comma, or
space Some one meant to say in
certain case, II sent a bulletin to
her" the compositor made it, 81 sent
bullet into her, Not long ago a
document was presented to US begin
ming, II, the undersigned.''
Slang is, par excellence, the misuse
of words. The word is borrowed from
the gypsy tongue, where it is used
for the secret language of
that tribe. It is, indeed, a secret
language. The words used in it are
used in a sense so different from their
proper meaning that only the initiated
can understand them. Slang, in its
usual significance, suggests burlesque
of conversational language. Strange is
it that style of expression which be-
gan in thieves cant should insinuate
itself into the talk of people of all
classes. The insidious nature of the
evil, the way in which islang terms
have become adopted, is to be explain
ed by the fact that secret language
has a certain fascination for many
people. Secret societies have their Sc
cret passwords. No doubt many {.
man has been led to join a secret Or
der just because he wanted to know
"the word," as some people term their
grand secret. The love of being in
itiated into mysteries known only to a
few is as old almost as the world.
Fashionable talk has become very
much Frenchified in the way of the
use of surperlatives. Can there ever
be any excuse for saying that anything
could be "dreadfully funny OF
''fearfully ridiculous,'' or lawfully
jolly" We have cloud colors'' and
"tall talk We have the genus 'scad,'
or the "howling SWELL Just think
of these terms for a moment. A man
who never heard the expression of
thought. Good English is the Ian
guage of the people. Thieves may,
if they choose, take a word, and say
among themselves: ''This word shall
among us mean such a thing, and who
ever does not know that it means such
thing is none of U.S. But leave that
talk to thieves, and let all honest men
and women use words in their true and
proper sense.
The confusion or careless use of pre-
nouns is the cause of much misunder-
standing both in written and spoken
language, more especially, however,
in the latter. Young mothers do not
like the baby called ''it.'' Dean Afford
tells US of deputation which was to
wait upon Bishop; the spokesman
was grammarian, and he could scarce
ly be prevented from addressing the
Bishop as ''Our Lord,'' thinking that
when more than one was present envy
must be wrong.
1t is unnecessary to give further eS-
amples of the misuse of pronouns. In
fact, it is quite common thing to err
in the way of being too particular about
their use. In the fear of being misun-
derstood, the simplest old woman in
terlards her conversation with sssays
she" and "says t. ''Says she to me
eight days past on Sunday, says she,
Mrs. So-and-so said to me. says she,
that you were no better than you
should be, says she and. says I, Mrs.
So.and.so. says L, you may say, says I.
what ye like - and so on ad ibitum,
We have often tried to discover the
necessity for the numerous ''says Isl
and ''says he's'' which occur in such
talk, and have come to the conclusion
that the reason of the use of these en-
pressions is to be found in the desire
to give graphic and word-for-woid
account of some past conversation.
Novelists in giving dialogue can vary
the thing. by Saying she said,'' ''she
replied, che remarked Isl respond
ed - ''she returned and so on
whereas the Essays she," and ''says t.
are the only terms ordinary people can
lay hold of. The painfulness Of the
very frequent use Of these terms need
not be incurred, if the people would
only remember that it is unnecessary
to attempt to detail any conversation
and that ''says she'' may be quite