The morning news. [volume] (Savannah, Ga.) 1887-1900, 1897-04-25

not foot" A person who is always listening
70 other peoples conversation is called a
rubber-neck." The word push" mean
ing n crowd, is occasionally seen In the
newspapers. To be arrested is to be
plhched; TO be convicted is to fall" To
refuse persons appeal is to give him the
marble heart." Such expressions REQUIRE
no explanation
rms dialect has mutilated the mother
tongue; it has also borrowed Hberallv fron,
other languages, but without method or
etymoiogy. Criminals are not gramma-
rams Neither are they linguists, and at
nrst sight IL would seem strange that thew
should import words from other countries
we VIII md, however, that In any prison
the percentage of inmates of foreign birth
VIII be large; in America Il is about Is per
cent. "A foreign expression which seems
apt or an improvement on the one in
present use Is rapidly diffused through the
prison. In cases where it Is especially de-
scriptive it may become permanent. but
ITS lie Is usually short. The argot of the
crime class changes materially every two
or three years. 1t is ephemeral, as shift
ing as its users. Victor Hugo exaggerateS
only slightly when he says: THE argot
changes more In ten years than the Ian
suage does In ten centuries" Thus in the
last three years there have been three diff
terent words for ''watch'-"suner
''thimble" and yellow and white"-each
OF which was. In its turn, the only term
used.
Every writer on the subject has noticed
the argot Is rich in expressions to danota
certain common actions. This ia a necu-
liarity shared by all primitive languages,
the only difference being in the selection
of the common acts. Thus In Sanscrit
there are nearly 100 roots which express
the idea of killing or wounding, without
counting secondary derivations Some of
these NH a In l..
to-day. In the dialect of the thieves there
arc nearly 100 expressions 10 signify theft.
II was necessary for the plckpocket TO
describe the various pockets In a man a
clothing and In a womans dress The av-
erage man does not often need to specify
particular pocket; when he does he lays
ms hand on 1t to assist the poverty OF his
language; the thief has a separate name
for each separate pocket
But In spite of this richness OF syno-
nymes, which Is In itself a marked sign
OF degeneracy, for the tendency OF a Ian
guage Is to eliminate Its synonymes Civ
ing to each a different shade of meaning
the argot is poor language. 1t has not
a single expression for abstract emotion /:
to attempt to render a philosophic thought
a moral emotion, synthetic or aesthetic
idea into the dialect of the thief would
be like attempting to translate electric
ity' or steam engine into Latin. It Is
hiposSiDAes UecduSs the WOfdS DO not exist.
They are not needed. The criminal has no
more conception OF abstract emotion than
a blind man has OF color.
fact which does not seem to ally the
argot TO primitive language is It's ability
to form additional words from its own re-
sources, power Of acknowledgements which
we find In the old Anglo-Saxon and espe-
cially in the German of to-day. This trait
is the more striking as II seems in direct
contradiction to the impotence of the Eng
lish language in this respect The Eng
fish has little formative power; It relies
on the Greek and Latin languages for the
extension of its vocabulary