Daily Kennebec journal. [microfilm reel] (Augusta, Me.) 1870-1975, 1914-03-24
OLD cOlLoQuiALiSMS.
Words and Expressions of Other Days
Now Obsolete or lnfrequently Used.

Our forefathers brought from Eng
land number of colloquial expires
sions and pithy phrases whaeh they
did not fail to use on the proper &C.
casions. Many of these have gone
out of use or are heard SO rarely that
they are marked obsolete" in the
dictionaries. The immense increase
of reading, which used to be confin-
ed to the Bible and Pilgrims Prog
ress.. has brought the everyday speech
of New Englanders to dull uniform
ity except perhaps in remote districts.
1t is calculated that every person
reads on the average three thousand
words day, and this can hardly fail
to influence his vocabulary towards
what is considered proper in print and
the disuse of words essentially coll
loquial. We rarely hear the old words
describing personal appearance or
manner, like "biggety,1 .tnppety,"
.'meeching," and the like; nor that
excellent word, "pernickety." used by
one woman to indicate the manner
Of another who was little snappish
and particular about trifles. Per
niekety" disappeared with hundreds
of other words about the time that
the last passenger pigeon left New
England. How much more expressive
it is than the normal school-teacher'
equivalent suffering from nervous de-
preston" "Peart,'' entirely distinct
from pert and implying no egotisrn,
is not entirely out of use. "Trapse'
is occasionally heard, but an equally
strong verb, to 'scrooge, meaning
to crowd or press. is substantially OBJ
solete. Proverbial expressions like
dark as a pocket" to run like six
ty," or he lis not all there" have a
more tenacious life than the old YER
nacular words, but they. except in
the mouths of persons fond Of odd
expressions, are used less than form
erly.
Mrs Stowe had a full command of
these expressive folk words, and her
Sam Lawson used them with excellent
effect. Rose Terry Cooke was a past
mistress Of New England colloquial-
isms and never failed to appropriate
one that she heard. Walter Scott of
course was unmatched in rendering
Scottish vernacular, which, indeed,
was his mother-tongue. But modern
writers who try to put on paper the
speech Of pioneers or Western miners
and cowboys fail to catch the spirit
of vernacular speech. They make it
all slang and artificial distortions, and
bring in oddities some of which may
be funny but are entirely forced and
unnatural The bad example was set
by Bret Harte, whose Californians
talk in dialect never used by from
tiersmen, because plain men are never
affected in language. Our own Mark
Twain followed Bret Harte in this
regard, though his dialect is far more
like human speech. To hit it exactly
a writer would have to invent life
like character, because peculiarities
of speech are based on character, But
to invent a character and give it the
attributes of life is the task of gem
ius. so it is not to be wondered at
that most modern dialect writing is
artificial and depends on grotesque
spelling. But the strength of vernac-
ular talk lies in the words more than
in the pronunciation.
To return to the point; it seems
pity that so many of our old New
England words are passing into OBJ
livion. They put things right before
the mind and gave a Zest to talk it
misses in the mouth of the college
professor. You cannot combine the
old force and modern correctness
Hartford Times.