Los Angeles herald., 1909-05-18
LONDON WORRIED BY
SLANG OF AMERICANS
One Literary Authority Suggests Re-
turn to Words In Use in Early
Seventeenth Century to En-
rich Vocabulary

LONDON, May 16.-The recent pro-
duetion IN London of more than one
play containing a large amount of
American slang has led in literary
circles to increased discussion Of a
subject which has long exercised those
who endeavor to convey ideas by
means of tine pen.
1t is coming to be recognized that
while potentially the English language
is probably richer than any other Ian
guage except old Greek, the words now
in general use are becoming every year
more colorless; are, in other words,
becoming vulgarized to a degree which
makes it more and more difficult to
express fine shades of meaning.
Take as an instance the reports in
the newspapers of the opening night
of the opera at Covent Garden. The
word brilliant" occurs in almost every
one, as do the adjectives charming"
beautiful" Splendid fine" de
lightful" magnificent" The writer's,
it would seem, had to use these words
because none others were available.
One author on being asked for an
expression of his views wrote the fol-
lowing: Consult Roget's 'Thesaurus;
look up the synonyms for beautiful
One finds 'beauteous,' handsome,
pretty lovely, graceful elegant,
delicate dainty refined fair per-
sonable, 'courtly.' 'seemly' 'bonny,'
'good-looking,
Every one of these words is hack
neyed, done to death. Not so long ago
elegant was a quite superior adjec-
tive. 1t has come down i'll life until
now it carries with it suggestions of
shoddy snobbishness, hobby ready
mades. In America it has descended
quite to the gutter and is used i'm
partially to describe gown, a person,
view, or a well-cooked steak.
New Words Unnecessary
"And then, fair Even as late as
Rossetti's time it was word of good
repute. Within a copse I met a beg
gar maid, more fair, / said, than any
star to see," sang the leader of the
nineteenth century romantic renais-
sance. But fair nowadays, even if it
has not been absolutely vulgarized,
has been thrown into the two-penny
Wardour street English box along
with dainty and 'chaste' and deli
cate and bright.
MANY of the old words have lost
their SAVIOR, and writer's, if they would
be original, are now driven to the use
of roundabout expressions, new SMILES.
Even in this respect they are handi-
capped, for the extension of education
means the increase of critics, and if a
writer of today were to dare take the
liberties with the language which were
taken, for instance, by Sir Thomas
Browne, he would be very much
Jumped on
"Supposing, merely for example, that
I wanted to criticise the present cab
met and 7 called them a lot of Squa-
nous heads Of scabious knapweed?'
That is cut of Cyrus Garden but it
would not do now. The fact is we want
new blood in the language-new or
renewed words The Americans are
The problem in a manner that
hardly attracts us-many of their
are now written in dia-
lect that can hardly be understood by
an Englishman. There is, as matter
of fact, no need to coin new words;
all we have to do is to make use of
the store of English that has come to
us from the early seventeenth century.
the great period of English prose-"