Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1895-02-09
LANGUAGE OF TRADE.
Word. and Phrases That Don't De
scribe the Things Referred To.

From the New York Sum-
your cloth lis better than that" said
the tailor to the customer, placing two
pieces of worsted diagonal side by side.
Whats the difference?" asked the Gus
toner.
WELL said the tailor, 1.-The other is
good part cotton"
"And mines all wool?" asked the Gus
toner.
Yours is mostly WOOL" replied the tailor,
looking at the customer with evident sur
prise at his innocence.
The cant phrase 'all wool and a yard
wide has come to mean half cotton and
twenty-seven inches wide. Some persons
believe that the difference between phrase
and fact Is to be attributed to the high
tariff on woolens. and worsteds, but such
discrepancies run through all branches OF
trade whether they are affected by the
tariff or not. Every real thing has come
through modern ingenuity to have an ad-
mirable counterfeit bearing the real things
name, and so meaningless have names be-
come in trade that the retailer sells the
counterfeit under the name OF the real
with little or no consciousness OF untruth-
fulness. Male customers usually fall 10 I'M
derstand this, snd are outraged on diScoV-
ering that the thing does not correspond
to Its name. but women who are born shop
pers long ago accepted the SITUATION ana
adopted the false nomenclature. Ihey 90
not resent as dishonest the conduct of the
grocer that offers fresh eggs at so much
and strictly fresh new laid eggs at 90
per cent more. Every woman knows that
the shops sell for silk material that mas
cleverly made surface of pure SILK on a
back of cotton. Women judge not by the
name. but by the price, the feel and
other indications to which men are blind.
1t was discovered few years ago that
many imported silks were made with only
a small percentage Of real silk along with
clay for weight and soap for luster, while
American manufacturers were turning out
the real thing and finding 1t despised.
There is a regularly recognized set OF
substitutes in every department OF trade,
just as the druggists have substitutes that
are made to serve when some unimportant
ingredient in a prescription is not at hand.
The word porcelain has actually lost Its
true significance, save, perhaps, IN the nne
arts. and cooking utensils are gl1bly sold
as porcelain lined" that have merely an
inner surface of coarse glazed clay. A
Philadelphia invented good many years
ago a sort Of white glass for lamp shades
and called 1t hot-cast porcelain and now
many forms of white glass are sold as
porcelain. 1t has ceased to be a lie, because
all the world knows that the term is pure
ly conventional.
The phrase antique oak" has gradually
come to mean, in the language of the
cheap furniture makers, stained ash. or
even poorer material, and the rug import
ers have contributed to trade the verb Ito
antique, with Its past partlclple an
tiQued, the form commonly used. Ma
hogany" will soon mean in the language OF
the cheap furniture trade any wood stained
into a distant imitation of new mahogany.
OF course, the latter, in turn, Is stained to
initiate old ma hpgahy, and is sold as such.
Celluloid has become counterfeit for al
most anything, and its prOtean devices are
unreasonable. 1t goes as often as not as
ivory, and doubtless there are shopkeeperS
that sell it as such with no sense of fraud.
The Technology Of the hardware trade
Is in a chaotic state by reason of the way
in which counterfeits have obtained cur
rency. steel hatchets," made of cheap
iron. are sold at . cents, and the substi-
tuition of iron for steel runs all through
the trade. The merchant gauges his GUS
toner, and offers the counterfeit or the
real, as the case seems to demand, without
any sense of dishonesty. Electro-plated
iron goes for bronze, and cast iron goes for
wrought IRON The fraud is so transparent
to any one buying with his eyes open that
1t scarcely seems worth quarreling about.
The merchant acknowledges the nature of
the counterfeit when pressed, and takes no
shame in the acknowledgment Perhaps
some of them never see the real thing, and
are innocent of even constructive fraud.
When it comes to leather goods the same
system Of counterfeiting prevails You may
get what Is technically called an ..alliga-
tor skin" travelling bag at any price you
wish to pay, but man with an eye in his
head is ever deceived by the transparent
device, and the dealers deem it an innocent
trick to please persons in search Of what
they cannot buy.
You find the far east side shops a gro
tesGue mimicry of fashionable shops in
Broadway and 9Th avenue Things in the
latter are reproduced in counterfeit in the
former at prices to suit customers.
1t is possible to furnish an east side house
and clothe an east side family in the queer
est counterfeits Of the articles that go to
furnish fashionable home and clothe it's
inmates. The thing long ago ceased to be
a reprehensible fraud because it was too
transparent, and when the east side Gus
toner wishes the real thing he pays the
real price without grumbling. The lam
guage of trade has ceased to be lie and
L.. lono h,1ya nlca