Weekly expositor. (Brockway Centre, Mich.) 1882-1894, 1890-01-09
AN AGE OF SLANG.
How Some Universally Known Every
day Expressions Originated.

Inc tame OF Uuni the Colloctor-doW 'Chost-
nuts" Grew - TOO Thin" Started in Con-
gress Twenty Years Ago = A Blooming
daisy"
This may be called in one sense the
age OF slang. But after all what is
called slang is frequently the giving Of
new meaning to old words or the in
vention of new words from old roots.
The slang of to-day becomes the ele-
CANT language OF tomorrow. 1t is in
teresting to know how many of the
commonest words and even phrases
which were once regarded as slangy
and inelegant became part OF the polite
language of the times. Words, like
lives, have biography, says writer
in the Pittsburg Dispatch. Many words,
instead, have histories of important
personages and events in the affairs OF
the world. This makes the history of
word often as interesting and as
valuable as that OF individuals.
dun" is word now whose mean
ing is known TO every one who under
stands the English language. Too
many wish they did not know it. Yet
at the beginning of this century it was
unknown as a verb About that time
a constable in England named John
Dun became celebrated as a first-class
collector of bad accounts. When 9TH
ers would fail to collect bad debt Dun
would be sure to get it out of the debt
or. So we'll known did this become
that people from the surrounding coun-
try sent him their accounts when they
could not collect them. 1t soon passed
into a current phrase that when q per-
son owed money and did not pay when
asked he would have TO be "Dunned."
Hence it soon became common in such
cases to say, "You will have to Dun
So-and-so if you wish to collect your
money"
"Chestnuts," in reference TO repeat
ing stories which are old, is new, and
not much can be said in its favor eX-
cept that, being word that is not in
elegant either in sound or origin, and
expressing so much in two syllables, it
has probably come to stay with us. It's
origin is not positively known. and
only two probable sources are given.
One is that some shrewd wit, seeing
an analogy between the propensity of
joke to become stale and fiat quickly,
and the chestnut to become wormy in a
few days, applied the word chestnut"
to a joke when repeated too often and
palmed of as new on company
which had heard it so frequently as to
become bored.
This may be its origin, but many are
inclined to attribute it TO the other al
legged source-to wit: That a theatre
cal party travelling on a train and try
ing to beguie the weary hours by
reading and telling stories, bought a
lot OF chestnuts at station TO help pass
the time. A member of the company
proposed that they tell stories and that
whoever told story that had been
told recently should be pelted with
chesnuts. A little bell in the party
was to be rung whenever a stale joke
was perpetrated as a signal that all
were TO fling a chestnut at the offender.
"You are a daisy" is considered very
slangy by those who use it indiscrim-
inately. and oftentimes it is. But if
used in the sense in which its inventor,
Charles Dickens, intended it, it is
good and forcible. In David Copper
field" it is first used in the sense OF
calling a person a daisy in a way 10
express admiration. and, at the same
time, to laugh at ones credulity.
Steerforth says TO young Copperfield:
david, my daisy, you are so innocent
of the world. Let me call you my
daisy, as it is so refreshing to find one
in these corrupt days so innocent and
phisticated. My dear Copperfield,
the daisies OF the field are not fresher
than YOU"
TOO thin" is a two-worded phrase
heard in all classes of society. By
some it is used in vulgar sense, and
it is Objectionable slang; by others it is
used in the manner which gave 1t to us
as a good word. TO say when speak
ing of an action, "Oh, that's too thin,"
is vulgar slang, because an action cam
not be thin. But to say, when a per-
son makes statement which is calcu-
lated TO mislead, "Oh, that is too thin, "
is not slang 1t was given currency by
the Hon. Alexander H. Stephens OF
Georgia in the United States congress
in 1870. Some member had made q
reply to Mr.. Stephens and the latter
had his chair wheeled out in the aisle
and said in that shrill, piping voice
which always commanded silence:
"Mr. Speaker, the gentleman's argu-
ments are gratuitous assertions made
up of whole cloth. And cloth, sir, SO
gauzy and thin that 1t will not hold
water. 1t is entirely too thin, SIR"
One of the best words we have is
"agnosticism, yet its. inventor, Pro
fessor John Tyndall, the great scien
fist, says that when he used it he had
no idea it would pc used again or that
he would be misunderstood in using it.
He could find no other, he says, to con.
vey an idea of his religious belief in
answer TO some churchmen that he
told, what he did believe. Hence he
invented "agnosticism, meaning "th'
unknowable." 1t Is only about fifteer
years old.
EDITIN' IN OLD KENTUCKY