Year: 1874

As the newspapers have it in their power to
control to great extent the application Of
certain words which have acquired meaning
apart from their original Specification, it would
be well, perhaps, for the leading Journals to
discountenancs their use. For instance, the
same page Of the dictionary contains two
words which have acquired secondary mean
ing that is very offensive to large bodies of
people One of these is 'Jesuit, defined as ga
crafty person and intriguer," and the other is
"Jew, used as verb, and signifying "to
cheat or defraud to swindle" The popular
use of the latter word, however, is 'to beat
down the price of an article" We learn
from the Je,oish Messenger that, through
the efforts of Mr.. A. S. Solomons, Of
Washington, the publishers of "Websters s
Dictionary" have agreed to discontinue
the opprobriOus use of the word Sew,
but that ''they have positively turned a deaf
ear to the immense Catholic influence brought
to bear upon them in the endeavor to induce
them to alter their definition OF the word
Jesuitical. This the Messenger thinks q
simple act of justice ''more especially" as
they have refused to the Catholics what they
accorded to the Jews; but the truth is
that both words stand in exactly the same
category. They had their opprobrious origin
in factious bitterness and prejudices; but
there is no longer any excuse for their use.
There is no need to offend sensitive Catholics
by saying that man is "JesuiticaI' when he
can be better described as crafty or cunning,
nor is there any reason for using the term
slew" when there are two or three better words
to convey its implied meaning


The use Of opprobrious opithets is very COM
mon in every language. Generally they have
little real application to the persons or things
to which they are applied. Protestants speak
of the Catholic Church as Romish and OF
Catholics as Paps.s, while Catholics are very
apt to talk of ''canting hypocrites' when they
only mean difference in religious belief. At
one time the Mohammedan talked about "dog
of Christian" and the Christian about ''dog
of jew" Much of this bitterness has passed
away, but there are occasional traces of it in
current speech. If German is brought be-
fore police court the world is almost sure to
hear Of him as q 'Dutchman," and if the
offender happens to be q Hebrew the reporter
seldom fails to mention that he is Jew. No
body ever thinks of remarking that the cul-
prit was ON Irishman, Frenchman or Span
lard in an opprobrious sense. We believe it
was never remarked by any of the papers
that Catholic, o Presbyterian or Metho-
dist was arraigned at the Tombs, the only
object of the remark being to call attention to
the prisoners religion. Why, then, should the
Jews be treated differently? Maccaroni is q
term of contempt among the Italians, but we
have not the word in our dictionaries in its
contemptuous sense. The Spanish language
is full of terms of reproach, but we have not
naturalized any of them for common speech.
We can speak of tho French and the Scotch
without reference to the supposed frog eating
propensities of the one or the bibulous quail
ties Of the other. Even the cant word
'Frenchy," meaning the same thing as that
other can't word ''fast" does not appear in
the dictionaries or the newspapers. Why,
then, should other terms equally Objectionable
be held sacred because they have been long in
useP We make these remarks because re-
form in this direction is necessary, and it is
to the press and not to the compileJs of ab-
surd American dictionaries that we must look
for it.