The Monitor. [volume] (Woodstown, N.J.) 1884-1892, 1890-07-25

Uncle Jack" said Kitty, "I've seen
some of those very words in the stories in
81. Nicholas. Are they any better in
print?"
mot a bit, my dear. But if story con-
Germs a slangy boy, or a frontiersman, or
hunter, or sailor, or persons III any region
of country or walk Of life which gives
them a speech peculiar to themselves
characteristeric. prevailing, what we call a
dialect, in fact-then, you see. these peo-
pie wouldn't be real people unless they
spoke after their peculiar fashion. Their
phrases must belong to their place in the
world, and their occupation, as much as
their clothes"
Il catch on, . said tie tucorrigible Jack.
go ahead. Uncle! just wax u.s.
Il don't suppose you are unusually
quarrelsome, Jack, but | have certainly
heard you propose TO whale, lick.
larrup,' leather lay out tan
'whack,' .wallop,' maui 'pummel.'
pay out, lash lam,' fix and
'whop' n or another of your
fellow-beings. You both say grab or
'prig' for 'take';yo u say hook it., or bolt,
or make tracks or 'mizzle,' or walk
your chalks,' or 'absquatulate,' or cut
sticks svamose the ranch. or leg it, if
you mean to 60 out or run away. You
call shoes 'brogans,' and watches 'tickers,
and clothes toys, and food grub and feet
'trotters, } and talk CAB, and your house
'diggin.' Anything fine or unusual
you pronounce stunning to be rich or
fashionable is to be 'swells' or 'nobby;'
great people are 'swells' or 'nobs;' and to
be poor or in trouble is to be down on your
luck Now. these are mere random quo
tations from your everyday speech. If 1
set myself to remember, | could
repeat to you a hundred words
and phrases still more senseless, if posi-
Bile. Dc you wonder that your mother
thinks such a dialect vulgar and poverty
stricken?"
Uncle Jack, said Kitty, eagerly, sit
does sound shocking from you. But some
how it never did before. And slang is
so much more exciting han dictionary
words, YOU know, and it sell ms as if our
talk would seem perfectly prim and starchy
without it,"
Yes Kitty, dare Say the real charm OF
slang to w~ell-taught children, like you, is
the sense of adventure and excitementy GU
get v itb it. You are like those old borderers
who had cattle enough of their own, but
found the chief delight of life in making
forays across the boundary to lift the
lean kline of their ~neighbors. We elders
have outgrown the fun, if we ever appre.
ciated it, and object to the theft. For you
see, children, this jargon of yours comes
familiar speech ofpeople too ignorant to ex-
press their few ideas in decent English. It's
the contribution of thinkers, gypsies, stable
boys, ~track-layers, deck hands, and roughs
and rowdiesI in general.
Rough and 'rowdy' sound slangy"
said Kitty, refiectively.
$50 they do, chick, and SO they WERE"
replied Uncle Jack. They are two more
examples of the promoted words; words SO
to describe great modern classes
that their low origin is forgotten in their
usefulness. And slang, certainly, has this
great value. that il showsyo u how language
The English tongue isso vigorous
that it seizes whatever i. needs for growth,
just as it did in infancy. AT that period
direct limitations of sounds were constant
ly made into words, just as you tw young
vandals to day use 'chink' for money
Farther on in the growth of the tongue, it
took from ordinary speech these initiative
words and converted them to new uses,
just as you say ticker for watch and
puff for advertisement The contraction
of words is another stage, as mob, now
peri. city good English, was at first merely
slang for the Latin mobile. the fox e
crowd; as cab was slang for 'oabriolet,'
and 'furlong' for Iurrow. long, the length
of a furrow, and as your favorite mob is
mobility Then there's another tendency
of the language which slang repeats, and
that is an inclination in difficult sounds to
get themselves altered to suituntaught ears.
You think it fun, for example, to say jim
myjohn, for 'd~emijohn.' But demijohn
itself is a corruption, slang in fact, for the
Arabic flanagan, itself changed from the
name of the Persian glass,making town of
Damaghan."
81 see said jack; 'and we make words
from mems names in the same way. | sup
pose 'boycotting' will be good English
soon?"
Every likely, my boy" answered his
uncle. Martinez which is Indispensable,
was the name of a historic general over
strict in discipline. Derrick was a fam
Gus hangman Of the seventeenth century,
in honor of the roughs nicknamed the
gallows-like hosting apparatus; and these
are two, only, out of scores of cases."
Then you think, Uncle Jack, that if a
word is a good one, and its ancestors
weren't too low, we have a right to its"
Il don't think the ancestry matters much,
Kitty, when the word is a good one. But
that is the question to settle. Many ofthe