The Birmingham age-herald., 1915-10-17

power of some Christian and cussful race.
 This extravaganza in cusses raises trou- ble. Langwidge is being spoiled for the higher purposes of life. When a man s tailor spells his brooches, or when dinner is cold, the European can no longer re- leve his feelings by an expressive cuss. pecause cusses have ceased to annoy. There Is no use screaming damn" or 'donnerwetter' at a man who for IA months has been saying every minute things 100000 times stronger His sen sibility to cusses is blunted. You might just as well try to put General linden burg to flight by calling him a silly fool, or donkey. There is no longer left a single cuss word which has the least eff feet. So Europe must have new blood in its effete cuss language. Otherwise 1t will be as badly off as Heinrich Heine' s neighbor who took poison when he had shot off all known profanity at his wife and had too little imagination to invest something new.
 Worst of all the results of war cussing is the degeneration of the cusser. Like the eroded gun, he loses his ability to aim his cusses as he ought He cannot use his cusses In moderation. He cusses always at highest pitch, and if you re- mind him that true art means cussing with discrimination, using fine shades of cuss, he Is as angry as Thick Bertha"
 
 Maxim gun. Cussing is becoming the normal way of argument. Before another year is out, all the citizens of belligerent states will be cussing quite as hard at one another as they now cuss at their foes.
 This discovery is made by M. Alois Duchaine, a speculative Swiss. In Switz- erland is Christian minded society which has the aim of smoothing down wars animosites and preparing for reconcilia- ton after peace. The society runs a jour nal The society's method is to refute impartially all the abusive lies and even the abusive truths told by the belligerents about one another M. Duchaine Is it's ''langwidge' expert. M Duchaine set him. self to make list of all the cuss words, swear words, and epithets of opprobrium used in the war. That compelled him to read about 100000 speeches and 5,OOO,O0o newspaper articles. This work led the Swiss to discovery. There is general demoralization and perversion,' he says, 'of the human tongue. This Is not con- fined to viifying. The sense for all kinds Of language, for the meaning and value of words, is lost The war will leave behind a general intemperance of lan- guage which would shock our forefath- ers."
 M. Duchaine sets himself to prove ths While he was making his lists of cuss words and epithets in publications of all the belligerents. he catne upon a speech by we'll known Blankland politician which was as thick with vituperation as the Milky Way is with stars Brood of satan and ''abaddons of the nether- most pit said the politician about the Dashlanders. NJ. Duchaine noted them down in his list of things said by Blank landers about Dashlanders. He looked further down the speech and came upon 'Unspeakable infamy" and .Unexam- pied hellishness." The cuss-ologist noted these down too. Looking closer at the speech he made a discovery He discov- cred that 'Unspeakable infamy'' and ''Un- exampled hellishness" were not used by the Blankanders about Dashland at all. They were used about brother Blankland- CTS. The Banlllander had called the Dashlanders Brood of satan,'' because he believed they tortured prisoners and he had said ''UneXampled helishness' about a rival Blanklander politician whose opn- ion differed from his about the state s rights to appropriate land for building barracks on.
 NJ. Duchaine further discovered that certain socialist of belligerent state called the enemy "Vultures who want to tear our flesh and that in the same speech he called the capitalists of his own country 'Vultures who want to suck our blood" This because they were mak-
 
 He ended his speech by procaiming that all men and women in his country were at one in their desire to extermine the Dashand vultures. '' What does this prove?" says M. Duchaine. Tt proves that the debauch of language robs the debauchee of discrimination. He has got so used to saying the fiercest things he can invent that no other form of argu- ment has any value. Soon differences between friends about the weather pros poets will be solved by a torrent of wretch 'fiend and 'scoundrel'
 This degeneration of language has grim possibilities. If the war lasts another year, language will have lost all it's force and if the war lasts a couple of years, language may even be twisted round to mean something it never used to mean. Having already become colorless and in expressive. the cuss words may even be- come complimentary. The philologist Grimm discovered that in the Middle Ages thcusands of European words radically transformed their meaning. They turned themselves inside out; and began to mean the opposite of what they originally meant. So it is with war. Murder er, 'fend' and "hyaena' now mean nothing. They have been used with so little reason and provocation that even the most provocative minded man finds them no offense If Europe keeps on so, such words may become ordinary means of address, and may even become caress- h.s apostrophes and epithets of love and adoration. Five years hence, love-siclI Europeans may be writing to My Adorable Vampire My Profoundly Worshipped Reptile and signing their letters With kisses from your satanic monster'' t rttt
 Things may even get worse. Europe may come to have no language at all When cuss and combination words arc all worn threadbare, nobody will be able to say what he really thinks This stage is nearly reached. When a European statesman or newspaper writer has fired off at the Dashandeds as many "fends and 'hyaenas' as he can think of. ht nearly always ends: 'The human speech fails when s,'' "The tongue refuses its duty =" There is no word to ex- press our loathing '" This is an un- conscious confession that the best GUS: words have grown rusty, and have ceas sed to function a means of express ing real thought If there is no language left worth using. people will keep silent This will have bad effects. Philosophers trace to articulate speech all mankind