The sun., 1919-09-28

such lists would merely illustrate m.
English. 1t is a perfect tide beatinv
perpetually on the work of the school,
and crumbling 1t away. Hard indeed
Is 1t for the teachers to secure pooa
English even In the SB grade af,.,
pupils have had eight years of school.
ing. Few recognize how important /,
thing good English is and how error,
learned In youth will stick. Soma
men achieve high education and va,
retain some gaucheries of expires.
sion-learned in childhood and never
corrected-that are infinitely shock.
ing to cultured friends and that pro.
claim in plainest manner the speak.
er's humble origin. When Abraham
Lincoln first came to New York city
and spoke at Cooper Union some pro.
fessors from the great universitie,
were among those who heard him. tn
them the most astonishing thing about
this rugged Westerner was his Eng.
lish. ItNwas beautiful, simple, pure.
, Where did he get it? they asked.
Where did Shakespeare get his Eng.
fish. /or Burns or Keats or Poe
where did Morphy get his knowledg,
of chess?
Lincoln taught himself, but thers
was only one Lincoln, and many an.
other self-taught man drags about
with him some dreadful verbal de.
formity that now and then intrudes
when he Is discoursing like an angel,
and spoils the effect of what he ia
saying. The other day on the baseball
ground of large city the players OF
one team were shouting opprobrium
at one of their opponents when the
umpire, who has a good opinion Of
himself. took hand, calling across
the diamond to the manager of the
disorderly players:
Mr.. Billings, Mr.. Billings! In
struct your men to cut out them per.
sonalities! Cut out them PERSONAL
ties. ! say!"
A shrill voice came from the FIRE.
stand:
"Mr. Umpire, Mr.. Umpire! Cut
out them grammar! Cut out them
grammar. ! say!"
Our Rawr NJ Yawk "R.,
One of the worst specimens of lip
laziness as practised in New York is
the abuse of the letter "r." 1t is
omitted from its rlghtful place and
put where 1t does not belong Thus
girl and "curl' and hurt" become
"goil and coil" and "hoit" while
raw and law" and Jamaica"
become ''rawr" and "lawr' and
"Jamaiker." 1t is too much trouble
to say this. that, them these those
So those words become dis, dat, desc,
dem, does.
The hardest thing the teacher mas
to deal with is perversity. pupils who
know how but will not use correct
English. To them apparently verbal
carelessness is attractive. They seem
to resent good English, to identify It
as teachers English. They seem TO
look upon 1t as too stiff, stilted,
bookish and formal for ordinary use
Often a boy on the playground will
address a teacher correctly and then
turn and shout at a comrade in the
argot of the street. They seem afraid
that the dis, dat and dem boys will
class them as dudes and molycoddles
II they speak correctly. In order 10
demonstrate virility they ,resort to
argot.
And this sort of revolt against good
English is not by any means con-
fined to boys OF the primary schools.
Some girls are fond of demonstrating
informality in the same way. and II
does not appear at high school;
yea, even the lordly college students
by preference often use bad English
while the social smart set is saturated
with 1t.
Slang seems to be the wit Of thu
otherwise witless. Whether captured
from grooms or from vaudeville or
picked up in the Sums, its success
seems to be perennial with those who
have nothing to do but amuse Them
selves and who make such heavy
labor of it.