New-York tribune. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1866-1924, 1917-05-26
"Our Upstart Speech


Professor Robert Utter goes to great
lengths in defending what he calls "our
upstart speech" in the current number OF
"Harper's Magazine" He speaks OF slang
as if it were form of ornament peculiar
TO democracies. "Order and uniformity IN
language are" he confesses, desirable
oualities: we should and do seek them
ever. We may have them when we are
willing to pay the price, but the price is
one which Americans are unwilling to pay
It's name is aristocracy.'
The implication is that those who are
sticklers for "the Kings English" are
questionable critics, yet it may interest
Professor Utter to learn that most dis
tinguished British philologist held that we
give to our slang that measure of respec-
liability which is inseparable from practi-
cal usefulness"
What is the test of practical usefulness!
This is one of the points Professor Utter
plays with, but it can hardly be said that
he reaches a useful conclusion. He runs
lightly over much old ground, and cannot
even resist the temptation that so many
professors succumb to of discovering
American slang in the English literature
of other centuries. "Chaucer," he says,
fuses come off and go sit down. Shake
speare has mot in it, Sheridan has cut
it out The list might be prolonged
At this rate it might indeed be pro-
longed indefinitely. Sheridan uses the
words "cut it out" but is there anything
in the context to indicate that he was using
slang? If the quotation from Shakespeare
is fragment of the passage dealing with
his country's relation to the rest of the
world, we may be very sure he had no
thought of our idomatic use Of mot In 1t.
AS to Chaucer is Professor Utter sure
that his "come off, did not mean, las we
should say come on? He might at least
have given his readers the reference and
let them Judge for themselves.
His guesses at the permanency of GER
tain slang phrases and terms are in any
case somewhat arbitrary. He puts chest
nut" "sheeny" and "cheese it, among the
obsoletes. or at least obsolescents, and
speaks of them as the boyhood slang of
men now in middle age. Is he right in as
suming chestnut" to be a chestnut already
discarded? Or "sheeny'? At any rate,
"sheeny" was very old when he was boy
and Cheese it" was in use more than a
hundred years ago. If "artificlally
charged" as he maintains the treatment
was sufficient to keep it sweet for a full
century, and what right have we to pre-
sumo that any of our really modern slang
will survive longer? For the rest, there
is little reason to suppose that "sheeny'
and Cheese it" are of American origin.
The clipping of words attributed by Ad-
olson to the humor Of speaking no more
than we need is probably an incurable
habit, though Professor Utter quotes some
eighteenth century examples from Swift,
and remarks that only mob" (for mobile
Uulqus) survives. But is he right in think
ing that "incog" is no longer used, or that
"hipps" is gone out because 1t might
stand for any one of hundred words?
Is it not rather true that we hear less OF
"hipps" to-day because hypochondria (un-
der that title) is less popular? We find
short cuts enough to describe ailments still
in vogue. The pandemic grip" under
that title cannot be curtailed, but in Eng
land, where influenza is the commoner
word. they have their pet abbreviation,
"hu" Upon the whole, it cannot be said
that Professor Utter has added much to
our knowledge Of how the upstairs gain
footing in the language.