The Wheeling daily intelligencer. [volume] (Wheeling, W. Va.) 1865-1903, 1889-07-12

we give America, They reach the
colonies (which in language are more
American than English, and they come
over here in papers, novels, anecdotes,
II American is to be the Language Of the
world, Americans may, and do, ask
themselves II they afe making thai Lam
guage wisely and well. AS mere
speakers Of the old branch ofthe English
speech, we may be preipdiced, but " has
occurred 10 an American writer that the
Language Is not In the best health. II
phonetic decay has not begun, neolog-
isms, or new,fangled terms, have come In
like a food. The American critic in
the Critic divides the fresh phrases
into the "hyper-elegant" and the Sub
slangy," not a very elegant expression,
but Ineligible. The word "elegant" %
now, 10 Americans, what VASTLY 6ne''
was 10 English, and what "iolly" Is
now. Elegant haunts the vocabulary;
II appears ut the elegant cradle OF the
elegant baby, and beside the elegant
Casket OF the elegant corpse, A laund.
ress, or washer.wOmap, Is now "a lady
%launderer," who Operates her mangle.
Lady launderer' Is democratic, and
not SO bad, but To Operate q mangle is
TO consider too curiously, ut is more
blessed to donate than,to giye,n In the
new speech. The Vocable sal" comes
In everywhere. Statements have a
"iactual basis" and dentist 10 q "den-
talist," q party man q "iaCtlonalIst," q
tinker n WConYefsationali8t,h On the
other hand and unexpectedly, our old
friend emotional" becomes "emotive."
Nouns BECOME verbs with pantomimic
rapidly a man meals" in one place
and nrooms" In another No ppestates,
or alleges, but NClaimsj' nobody asserts,
he "allows.h II was O Western poet
who made Goethe rhyme 10 Nteeth,'
and "Cyclades' to- "maids.p ~" has
come 10 his own again in Vskepticj" bat
It does not follow, as the critic thinks,
that he who writes "skeptlc" should
write "AkhooP Even "kHtiks' may
make blunders.
Perhaps there ia no use In renon,,
strating with novelties in language, IL
they fake" II they ''catch on" what
can be said or done2 They ct into the
great scheme Of evolution, and the fit.
test survive. And why ave all sorts OF
hideous harbarisms the lltteSt to sur
IYiye? There must bc some law oil ua'
ture In their favor. Probably these new
and dreadful expressions are adapted TO
the flaws Of least resistance and oil. hui
man Conceit. A piece OF slang may have
originally possessed some hpmor, Of
when a man is reported TO ''allow" in.
stead OF assert" There Is kind OIL
htotes, OF intentional understandment'
This catches the fancy, and, becoming
familiar, becomes easy. The careless
writer scribbles on the lines OF least re-
sistance. He las q number Of slang
catchwords, and he lets all his ideas flow
into the moulds already provided. He
deals in stereotyped phrases which de-
mand no thought at all. A modern
French hnmorist, NJ. G%rosclaude, has
invented a Btyleof writing In which there
is nothing but stereotyped phrases. It'll
he who described N. FreyCinet cutting
a cake with the gravity which
he imports even into serious matters
A great many people are Grosclaudes
withouthumor, andsolemnlys state every
thing in o kind OF conventional lingo
which Is born Of lTiness, and follows the
line OF least resistance In the mind. The
enormous number OF writers In 2 coun,
try 80 full OF readers us America must
contain mvriads Of these lazy persons,
and thus the language OF the future, like
the languages Of to-day and Of the past,
Is being fashioned by Incidence into q
new speech. The more idle our minds,
or, perhaps, the more rapid and impetu'
GUS our minds, the less we stop to pick
out phrases and the more We rush at the
first catchword. Thus the old languages
lose their infections and thus the wit Of
one, after being the slang Of many, de-
yelopB into the language Of the future.
But Is the future To be careless Of guam.
titles? Some one hes published an au.
tograph OF the late Mr.. Bryant Q boyish
version OF the Eneid, in which he
writes:
Eolus spoke, and with exCrled might
lmpclled his spear against the mountains
height.
Did the poet think that the second
syllable in Rolus was long? And how
many people speak Of the race horse
Amphion with the accent on the sec
ond, how many lay the stress on tho
frat syllable? Poetry is becoming diff.
cult 10 scan, so much do tue younger
authors write about classical persons,
and so very slightly acquainted are they
with the language in which those an.
Gent gods and heroes conversed, made
love and transacted business. Perhaps
mixed metaphors are to be part Of the
language OF the future, % when we read
that a "pill" is made "appetizingn by
being dressed in beautiful English
In fact the English of the future will
need ali the "mental acuity" which the
people ri the future are likely to de-
velop.
While Incidence and Ignorance are at
work on one side, refinement and re-
search are working their will on the
other. An American novelist says oil
somebody's attitute that II was "arres.
tive as an obellsk, and understandable as
a labyrinth" Here Is q nice derange'
ment OF epitaphs. But II Is an English
novelist who speaks OF "the lurcling
reyerberationsn OF the freight. This
KIM OF pBTluELlHllCo VIII ShtpA INV bhS
Language OF the future, by way OF Q pro-
test. fired Of hearing things said In a
slipshod, common, mean way, authors
will take refuge In old, unholy adven:
lures in unheard Of ways. They will
be dictionary readers like Rossetti,
Cutter and Others, aid when found
will make o note Of queer and char.
acteristiC terms, 10 be used In places
and connections which are not so
much characteristic as Queer. Con.
sidering sucha phrase as this, taken at
random from an accomplished and adj
mired student Of style; Beyond these
Arc blue undulatlons OF varying tone,
and then another bosky.lookinR spot,
which constitutes, as you are told, the
residential umbrage Of another peer"
Nav we not take umbrago, as tho people
Isay, az The bosklnoss o fthis phraseologyH
So We are tossed about at present be-
tween the almost meaningless common.
place and the scarcely more significant
research, and the unheard.ot associations
OF words, And 80, probably, II has al:
ways been, aud oll.iashioned readers Of
Gibbon and Johnson may have lement.
ed over the Language Of The future, never
guessing that utnbraRe might become