The aegis & intelligencer. [volume] (Bel Air, Md.) 1864-1923, 1893-03-10

Slang In tho Mouths of Men Is Bad Enough,
but When Well Bred Young Women Are
Addicted to the Habit 1t Becomes Abso-
luteIy IntoIerable.
Dear girls, avoid slang. There are SO
many reasons why you should not use
1t, and only one excuse in its favor that
I have ever heard from any reliable au-
thority! Here it is:
Oliver Wendell Holmes, in one of his
racy breakfast table talks, says: "Don't
think undervalue the proper use and
application of cant word or phrase. It
adds piquancy to conversation as
mushroom does to sauce" That this
is the idea most young people have
when they first begin to use it all will
admit, but unfortunately 1t is like mod
crate drinking in its tendency, so insin-
uating in its growth as habit, and they
become so addicted to it" Ito follow
out the simile), that 1t seems impossible
to make themselves Ineligible without
1t. have heard young ladies (O talk
ing who seemed to have an entire vo-
cabulary composed of slang which
would be as utterly unintelligible to
well bred English or Scotch girl as
Chinese or Greek.
Toquote the veteran philosopher again:
"These expressions come to be algebraic
symbols of minds which have grown too
weak or ind LENT to discriminate. They
are the blank checks of intellectual
bankruptcy. You may fill them up with
whatever idea you like. Itmakes no diff
ference, for there are no funds in the
treasury upon which they are drawn"
That of course is very severe, but ]
have often heard quite clever and well
educated young ladies using those odious
"blank checks" to such an extent that
any one not knowing them intimately
might readily have supposed their lin
teIlectual bank" empty.
Iwonder what Dr. Holmes would have
thought of an actual conversation be-
tween two young ladies in good society,
SO called, who sat behind me in the grand
stand at baseball match last summer.
I can give it almost verbatim:
"Say, Jen abbreviated form of Jennie;
life is too short 10 use the whole of a
persons nance, who is the fly looking
'snide' in the yellow striped get up?"
"Oh, come off the roof To pretend
you don't know Cob. &C. o. B. are the
young gentleman's initials wittily con-
verted into 'Cob.) After the way you
went for him at the ball last week.
You can't 'stuif' me with that kind of
gag, Miss Innocent"
ooh, is that Cob? He must be off his
nut to rig himself in such a 'swagger'
way"
"Oh, Jen, look at Cob now! He is hor-
ribly ratified Mabe Short for MabeD
'slung glance at him, and he lost his
head as well as his base"
SIS she mashed ON Cob?'
"Ha, ha! Pull down your vestr Do
you think Mabe is off her base?' She likes
him to trot ner round and stump up the
needfuP for lie cream, etc., but she likes
ALT Jones heUter all the same-ee.' You
can bet your sweet life she won't marry
Cob"
"Look at him now. You bet he's 'hus-
tlingr"
"Get there, Eli" ''Ruddigore" 'sThat
was boss rum" and so on ad fnitu1n,
I'D nauseum. All this in perfectly audi
BILE voice, and they were seemingly IN
aware that there was anything vulgar or
out of the usual in their conversation.
Probably there was not, and yet thosetwo
young ladies were college graduates AMI
were possessed of more than average abil-
ity.
If you think this description exagger-
ofnT Ectao f-rit1nal1U To tho nnyt
restrained conversation between two
young ladies whom you know to l.,
guilty of using slang freely. fancy l
hear you say, "But never could talk
like that" Take care! Just as conf
dent ones as you have begun by using a
few slang words-"they are SO cute and
expressive, ou knowr'-and ended by
forming vulgar and enslaving habit
which took great strength of mind and
firm perseverance to break. The worst
stage of slang devotee is when she
grows utterly unconscious of or indif-
ferent to the habit. There is very little
hope Of improvement for her. The only
safe way is never to form the habit at
all.
Dear young girls, on you the clan
guage of the future" in great measure
depends. You are the coming mothers
and teachers and will have an all pow
erful influence in molding the language
of the next generation to come and num-
berless generations after that. See to e
that it is a language of intelligence.
grace and purity.-Miss Frank Davis in
Wives and Daughters.