The Salt Lake herald. [volume] (Salt Lake City [Utah]) 1870-1909, 1906-01-07
Needed for Precision.

g 'Slanguage' as someone has called it,
does possess distince value. 1t is far
too good to be killed, nor will its use ever
die out. On the contrary, the very fact
that it means so much must lead to some
thing which shall answer it's purpose for
flexibility. Our language is too free Ian
guage for precision. 1t is fast losing it's
old ideas as to form and use, and live
people are fast seeing that their ideas
'of the old precise lines about certain
uses must undergo changes just as their
old ideas OF theology must undergo
changes. No two men can use the Eng
lish language in the same way. There
must be individuality in order that there
be style. As the language grows it gets
more and more flexible, until the people
who attempt to follow the style of older
writer's like Macauley are ponderOus and
heavy.
"A great deal of the growth of the
language is due to slang, almost as much
as to outside influences. Since our Ian
guage is such a summarizes language,
it must be less precise than the others,
and the boy and girl who live and move
and have their being in such a great, big
language must have a great deal of lib
erty in order to express themselves free
~.
Conrad has written a small book
which points out pretty thoroughly the
moral distinctions plainly brought out in
some slang. Some of these require study
to see the distinction, but it takes little
thought to see the full meaning in such
expressions as 'trolley's off, up against
it, catch on bats in your belfry,' 'bub-
bic in your think tank and countless
others. Such expressions are witty
they're full of meaning and the meaning
is always on the side of right and of
SaneneSS.
Has Come to Stay.
THE last edition of the Century die
tiOnary shows 9 total of 10000 words
while the French academy dictionary
shows only 2Na09 and the German about
the same numDer- Those languages are
not growing, while ours is growing at
such rate that William D. Whitney
the editor in chief of the Century saws
he can furnish 1000 900 good American
words for 100000 good American
dollars This would of course include all
the sciences. However, as our language
is the greatest in extension, so il is the
greatest in power and it should be the
freest in use. Educators have got to face
the question of having a sort of dialect
of slang and kindred words for the use
of young people, and it is hardly fair to
call this characteristic language bv the
name or slang Tor in many respects it is
as good as much that is more highly rec
ogniZed.
In regard to the growth of language
ana the language question nothing could
be more interesting than the recent eff
forts to make another universal language
For this purpose nothing has yet been
found to equal the new ESperantos in
vented by DR.. Zamenhof a Russian Dhv-
stefan. The need of a language by means
of which men of different nationaIities
can make themselves understood is great
er today than at any period in the
worlds history, and the new idea has
taken hold of a number Of truly great
men in England and on the continent
While on the subject of slang, it would
be well to note that many of the words
to be embodied are of plebian origin and
properly belonged at one time to the
slang class"