Wheeling register. [volume] (Wheeling, W. Va.) 1878-1935, 1898-01-29
FOR SLANG.S SINGERS.
This Man Expressed Ideas That VIII Make
Prof. Hill. of Harvard, Throw Fits, But
There is Sense in Them.

This Man Expressed Ideas That VIII Make
Prof. Hill. of Harvard Throw Fits, But
There is Sense in Them.
A prominent member of the Serb
blers' Club, of Buffalo, second city of
imperial New York State, was shocked
one day coming into the office of the
newspaper she worked on to hear the
city editor say to the deputy horse re-
porter concerning a summer shirt:
That's pretty hot stuff. How much
did you cough up for it,"
Al hour later she was telling a SYM
pathetic friend of the failure of a pro-
jected League OF Womens Clubs, and
how Miss Mulligan turned EN- down
and they all threw fits X
A certain club of very new women
recently labored long with the word
Swell and finally tabooded it, There
wasn't a member who could offer a
substitute for the word, but heresy
hunters have no choice. The book is
their barricade. The happy descrip-
tive must go. 1t had no authority
HCiS ID HCfCi IOl Cl4uHSC
In scholarship precedent is all, and in
language precedent is stagnation.
A defense of slang by rote is mean
ingless. Slang is growth, a product of
the hour and the mind, like all intellec-
tual creation.
A century ago Benjamin Franklin
denounced the verb notice as bar
barism. He could not tolerate real
ize' and only the exigencies of poll
tics made him accept caucus" as a
substantive-now developed into a rec
ognized verb, with a brood of partici-
pies. hro c~.
Doubtless King David threw 'fits,"
in the language of the Scribblers, when
Asaph, chief musician, or somebody
else, proposed to write up the glory
of the LORDS doings with Israel.
In the days of our great national
quickening, a generation ago, the war
gave an active turn to slang 1t was
descriptive before. Things were bully"
or dusty in the language of the
streets Adjectives mark a reflective
age, even in slang, but verbs are the
language of emotion and keen life.
The "saber cuts of Saxon speech" are
not confined to camps or the sidewalks.
We telescope trains. We put up"
resistance We Wholesale goods
We monkey" with things better let
alone The language of science is en-
riched in a similar way. The doctors
most of all put vivid action in their
discussions.
Everyw1c*e but in the dialogue Of
precisions words are the language Of
life The quest of active minds reach
ing out for a vocabulary is the quick
need that mothers all inventions. The
talk of the drawing room is void and
helpless when contrasted with the talk
Of the street Verbal restraint is not
all the difference. Social refinement
is a leveler 1t harmonizes, adjusts
differences, frowns on eccentricities
with tailor-made standard, in the
place of individuality He must be
genius who dare be original in good
company.
The talk of the street is expression.
1t is from within outward. 1t is free
from self-consciousness, like child's
play.
Slang is the democracy of epigram.
1t is born no one knows how, and is
innocent of inherited rights and
wrongs.
Slang casts its false blossoms like
many natural growth. but the sound
core survives. Fitness is its test. The
byword that means nothing but whim
lives if it is expressive. 1t serves its
apprenticeship with Chimmie Fadden
till the great public recognizes it as the
coinage of a thought. 1t asks no leave
CT the dictionary. Custom which cur
tesies to great kings" conquers prece-
dent. The new word is naturalized
when it has proved residence for q