Chapter IV: Part 4

It is perfectly absurd for the British critics to condemn Americanisms offhand and to attempt to read them out of the language, simply because they are not in accord with British usage. In so doing they give proof of their insularity and fail to exhibit a spirit of liberality and sweet reasonableness. Indeed, they seem disposed, at all events, to take themselves too seriously as guardians of the English language. It is well enough for a critic to throw his influence on the side of the preservation of the purity and propriety of speech. But it is sheer folly to allow one’s pedantry to go to such a length as Malherbe, that “tyrant of words and syllables,” who on his death-bed angrily rebuked his nurse for the solecisms of her language, exclaiming in extenuation of his act, “Sir, I will defend to my very last gasp the purity of the French language.” It is related of him that he was so fatal a precisian in the choice of words that he spent three years in composing an ode on the death of a friend’s wife, and when at last the ode was completed, his friend had married again, and the purist had only his labor for his pains. Now your true British pedant seems to think it his bounden duty to reject summarily every word or expression which does not bear the pure English hall-mark, and that as for Americanisms they are an abomination which must inevitably work the speedy corruption and ultimate decadence of the noble English tongue. Such an one, whether from his precisianism or his prejudice, fails utterly to recognize in Americanisms conclusive evidence of the inherent potency, vigor and vitality of the English language on American lips.

FOOTNOTES:

[12] See A Question of Preference in English Spelling.

[13] See Vulgarisms With A Pedigree.

WHAT IS SLANG?

To the purist slang is an unmitigated evil which makes for the gradual corruption and decadence of our vernacular. The pedant who is a martinet regards all slang with absolute contempt and abhors its use, because he believes slang spells deterioration for our noble tongue. Such an one takes his self-appointed guardianship of the language very seriously and deems it his bounden duty as a curator of our English speech, not only himself to spurn the use of slang, but also to inveigh against all those who employ it habitually or occasionally. The baneful influence of slang, he tells us, is sweeping like a mighty tidal wave over the English language, debasing it and corrupting its very sources.

Nor is the precisionist alone in entertaining this alarming view. For many others who are not sticklers for strict propriety and correctness of speech share, to some extent, the same opinion, although they feel no special concern as to the final outcome. However, it is reassuring to reflect that the best-informed among us and those whose thorough knowledge entitles them to speak with authority do not take so gloomy and pessimistic a view of the future of the English language. They inform us that the fears of the pedants and pedagogues--the half-educated--are never destined to be realized.

“Strictly speaking,” says Professor Lounsbury, than whom there is no higher authority in America on the history of English, “there is no such thing as a language becoming corrupt. It is an instrument which will be just what those who use it choose to make it. The words that constitute it have no real significance of their own. It is the meaning men put into them that gives them all the efficacy they possess. Language does nothing more than reflect the character and the characteristics of those who speak it. It mirrors their thoughts and feelings, their passions and prejudices, their hopes and aspirations, their aims, whether high or low. In the mouth of the bombastic it will be inflated; in the mouth of the illiterate it will be full of vulgarisms; in the mouth of the precise it will be formal and pedantic. The history of language is the history of corruptions--using that term in the sense in which it is constantly employed by those who are stigmatizing by it the new words and phrases and constructions to which they take exception. Every one of us is to-day employing expressions which either outrage the rules of strict grammar, or disregard the principles of analogy, or belong by their origin to what we now deem the worst sort of vulgarisms. These so-called corruptions are found everywhere in the vocabulary, and in nearly all the parts of speech.”

Yet the feeling of the pedants and purists reflects the traditional attitude of professional men of letters in respect to the so-called corruptions that have been creeping into English during the last few centuries. It may be worth while to give some of the utterances of our representative English authors on this subject, showing how great solicitude they felt for the purity of our language in consequence of the increasing slang introduced into English. But before doing this, let us make a brief digression, in order to discuss what is meant by slang, which appears to be the source of the alleged corruptions of our speech.

In the first place one must differentiate slang from cant. It is evident, on a careful analysis, that much of the reputed slang now current is really cant, not slang, in the proper sense of the term. Both cant and slang are closely allied and have a kindred origin. This is the reason for the confusion of the two in the popular mind.

Cant is the language of a certain class or sect of people. It is the phraseology, the dialect, so to say, of a certain craft or profession and is not readily understood save by the members of the craft concerned. It may be perfectly correct according to the rules of grammar, but it is not perfectly intelligible and is not understood by the people. It is an esoteric language which only the initiated fully comprehend and are familiar with. For example, the jargon of thieves is called cant, as is also the jargon of professional gamblers. Slang, on the other hand, belongs to no particular class. It is a collection of words and phrases, borrowed from whatever source, which everybody is acquainted with and readily understands. It is not uncouth gibberish intelligible only to a few. It is composed of colloquialisms everywhere current, but homely and not refined enough to be admitted into polite speech. Such expressions may be allowed a place in certain departments of literature, as familiar and humorous writing, but they are objectionable in grave and serious composition and speech.

Now, slang is reputed to have had its origin in cant, specifically “thieves’ Latin,” as the cant of this vagabond class is called. Indeed, this appears to have been the only meaning of slang till probably the second quarter of the last century. In “Red Gauntlet,” published in 1824, Scott refers to certain cant words and “thieves’ Latin called slang”; and the great romancer seems to have been fully aware that he was using a rather unknown term which required a gloss. Sometime during the middle of the last century, so Professor Brander Matthews informs us, slang lost this narrow limitation and came to signify a word or phrase used with a meaning not recognized in polite letters, either because it had just been invented or because it had passed out of memory. If it is true that slang had its beginning in the _argot_ of thieves, it soon lost all association with its vulgar source, and polite slang to-day bears hardly a remote suggestion of the lingo of this disreputable class. In so short a period--but little more than a half century--has the word, as well as the thing it signifies, separated itself from its unsavory early association and worked its way up into good society.

Of slang, however, there are several kinds. There is a slang attached to certain different professions and classes of society, such as college slang, political slang and racing slang. But it must be borne in mind that this differentiation has reference to the origin of the slang in the cant of these respective professions. It is of the nature of slang to circulate more or less freely among all classes of society. Yet there are several kinds of slang corresponding to the several classes of society, such as vulgar and polite, to mention only two general classes. Now, it is true of all slang, as a rule, that it is the result of an effort to express an idea in a more vigorous, piquant and terse manner than standard usage ordinarily admits. In proof of this it will suffice to cite _awfully_ for _very_, employed by every school-girl as “awfully cute”; _peach_ or _daisy_ for something or some one especially attractive or admirable, as “she’s a peach”; _a walk-over_ for any easy victory, _a dead cinch_ for a surety, and the like. But it is not necessary to multiply examples of a mode of expression which is perfectly familiar to all. Every man’s vocabulary contains slang terms and phrases, some more than others. Often the slang consists of words in good social standing which are arbitrarily misapplied. For although much current slang is of vulgar origin and bears upon its face the bend sinister of its vulgarity, still some of it is of good birth and is held in repute by writers and speakers even who are punctilious as to their English. Some slang expressions are of the nature of metaphors, and are highly figurative. Such are _to kick the bucket_, _to pass in your checks_, _to hold up_, _to pull the wool over your eyes_, _to talk through your hat_, _to fire out_, _to go back on_, _to make yourself solid with_, _to have a jag on_, _to be loaded_, _to freeze on to_, _to freeze out_, _to bark up the wrong tree_, _don’t monkey with the buzz-saw_, and _in the soup_. But of the different kinds of slang and of its vivid and picturesque character more anon.

Let us now, after this digression as to what constitutes slang, return to the former question of the historical aspect of slang, which was engaging our consideration. Though the name is modern, slang itself is, in reality, of venerable age, and was recognized in the plebeian speech of Petronius, the Beau Brummel of Nero’s time, whose “Trimalchio’s Dinner” is replete with the choicest slang of the Roman “smart set.” The humorous pages of François Rabelais, also, have a copious sprinkling of slang expressions and invite comparison with the productions of some of our own American humorists, who depend not a little upon the vigorous western slang to enhance the effectiveness of their humor. But it is more to the point to cite historical instances among our English authors, especially those who set themselves the burdensome, yet thankless, task of striving to preserve the primitive purity of our speech.

The greatest representative of this number in English literature, excepting Addison, is Swift, the famous dean of St. Patrick’s. He was impelled by a desire amounting almost to a passion, it is said, to hand down the English language to his successors with its vaunted purity and beauty absolutely unimpaired. In an essay in _The Tattler_ of September 28, 1710, he gives vehement utterance to his feelings on the shocking carelessness and woeful lack of taste in the use of the vernacular exhibited by his contemporaries. He affirms that the conscienceless, unrefined writers of his day were utterly indifferent as to the effect of their deplorable practice upon the future of the English tongue and brought forward, in proof of his contention, numerous examples of solecisms which he alleged were constantly employed, to the corruption and deterioration of the language.

Swift made a threefold division of the barbarous neologisms which were introduced in his day. It is interesting to observe his several classes of these locutions that were contrary to all rules of propriety. The first class was made up of abbreviations in which only the first syllable or part of the word had to do duty for the entire word, as _phiz_ for _physiognomy_, _hyp_ for _hypochondria_, _mob_ for _mobile vulgus_, _poz_ for _positive_, _rep_ for _reputation_, _incog_ for _incognito_ and _plenipo_ for _plenipotentiary_. The second class included polysyllables, such as _speculations_, _battalions_, _ambassadors_, _palisadoes_, _operations_, _communications_, _preliminaries_, _circumvallations_ and other ungraceful, mouth-filling words, which Swift alleged were introduced into the language as a result of the war of the Spanish succession then in progress. His third class embraced those terms which were, to quote his own words, “invented by certain pretty fellows, such as _banter_, _bamboozle_, _country put_ and _kidney_.” “I have done my utmost,” he pathetically remarks, “for some years past to stop the progress of _mob_ and _banter_, but have been plainly borne down by numbers and betrayed by those who promised to assist me.”

Two years later Swift addressed a public letter to the Earl of Oxford, the Lord High Treasurer, deprecating the approaching decadence of the English tongue and earnestly urging some sort of concerted action for correcting and improving the vernacular. The language, the letter recited, was very imperfect and daily deteriorating. The period of its greatest purity, Swift went on to say, was that from the beginning of Queen Elizabeth’s reign to the breaking out of the civil war of 1642. His perturbed mind was filled with mingled feelings of grief and indignation as he pointed out in this letter the growing corruptions then so apparent even in the writings of the best authors, and more especially as he was compelled to admit that not only the fanatics of the commonwealth, but also the court itself, had contributed to bring about the sad condition of the language.

It is not worth while to speak in detail of Swift’s fanciful and quixotic scheme for purging the language and keeping it pure. But it is interesting to observe, in passing, that his urgent appeal to the prime minister to become the guardian and curator of the English tongue was utterly fruitless and, what is more, that his direful predictions as to the speedy decay of English have never been verified. Furthermore, some of those very neologisms which Swift criticized so unrelentingly are now recognized in polite speech and bear the stamp of approval as the _jus et norma loquendi_. Of his second class of barbarisms well-nigh all are to-day accepted as standard English and are without a trace of slang. With his first and third classes, however, fate has not dealt so kindly, for these words are still under condemnation, save _mob_, which has forced its way to recognition in good usage as a necessary term.

Toward the end of the eighteenth century appeared another champion of the preservation of the purity and propriety of the English speech. This was James Beattie, a learned Scotchman. For some reason or other, the Scotch seemed extremely solicitous about the English language during the eighteenth century--a solicitude that was not appreciated by the British lexicographers and least of all by Dr. Johnson. In a letter written in 1790, Beattie took occasion to speak of the “new-fangled phrases and barbarous idioms that are now so much affected by those who form their style from political pamphlets and those pretended speeches in Parliament that appear in the newspapers.” “Should this jargon continue to gain ground among us,” he assures his correspondent, in a doleful mood, “English literature will go to ruin. During the last twenty years, especially since the breaking out of the American war, it has made alarming progress.... If I live to execute what I purpose on the writings and genius of Addison, I shall at least enter my protest against the practise; and by exhibiting a copious specimen of the new phraseology, endeavor to make my reader set his heart against it.”

In order to emphasize the damage resulting to the language from the neologisms which were creeping in, Beattie conceived the clever plan of privately printing a series of “Dialogues of the Dead,” which purported to be the production of his son deceased a few years before. The most interesting of these “Dialogues” is the report of an imaginary conversation between Dean Swift, a bookseller and Mercury, in which the worthy dean expresses himself as greatly shocked and disgusted at the outlandish English used by the bookseller; and he calls on Mercury to translate the _patois_ into good English. In response to Swift’s earnest request, Mercury says among other things: “Instead of _life_, _new_, _wish for_, _take_, _plunge_, etc., you must say _existence_, _novel_, _desiderate_, _capture_, _ingurgitate_, etc., as--a fever put an end to his existence.... Instead of a _new_ fashion, you will do well to say a _novel_ fashion.... You must on no account speak of _taking_ the enemy’s ships, towns, guns or baggage: it must be _capturing_.” Other words which were censured as improper by this phantom critic were _unfriendly_ and _hostile_ for which _inimical_ was recommended; _sort_ and _kind_, in place of each of which _description_ was to be used. Some of the locutions then in vogue which especially offended good taste, according to Beattie, were _to make up one’s mind_, _to scout the idea_, _to go to prove_, _line of conduct_, _in contemplation_, and _for the future_. Furthermore, the frequent use of _feel_, which threatened to supplant the verb _to be_ in such an idiom as “I am sick” and drive it from its rightful domain, aroused the learned Scotch purist’s apprehension as to the final outcome, as did also the growing tendency to employ _truism_ for _truth_, _committal_ for _commitment_, _pugilist_ for _boxer_, _approval_ for _approbation_ and _agriculturist_ for _husbandman_.

No doubt Beattie believed with Swift that the influx of such pedantic Latinisms as _desiderate_ and _ingurgitate_ and the like would result in impairing the purity of our speech and perhaps hasten its declension. Nor did he look with favor on the growing fashion to use monosyllables, though of pure Saxon origin, so much affected by some writers during that period. Both of these tendencies were of temporary vogue; yet they served to arouse the fears of the ultra-conservatives as to the fate of the English language. One might suppose that, dreading the then threatening invasion of Latin terms as they clearly did, they would have hailed with delight the revival of Saxon monosyllables as a favorable offset. But even this did not allay their fears and was rather interpreted as a harmful symptom. Time, however, has demonstrated fully that the fears of those purists were unwarranted and that their dire predictions as to the future of English were founded on a very imperfect knowledge of linguistic development. A cursory examination of Beattie’s lists reveals the fact that of the verbal innovations and offending phrases which he put under the ban, the genius of the language has adopted not a few, and that, too, without impairing in the least the purity of the English tongue or its capacity for expressing the finest shades of thought. So far from losing, the language has gained in its capacity for expressing nice distinctions of thought and feeling, as a result of its marvelous absorptive power.

It has thus been shown that in the eighteenth century there were not wanting those--purists or what not--who entertained and expressed no little concern as to the ultimate effect upon our speech of the multitude of neologisms and asserted improprieties that were introduced. Did space permit, utterances of a similar character by nineteenth-century writers, from Walter Savage Landon down to critics of far less renown, might be brought forward as evidence to show that the watch-dogs of our speech were as numerous and as alert as ever. Nor is their tribe yet extinct. Ever and anon, even in the last few years, some prophet of evil is heard to raise his voice in vigorous protest against the increasing use of slang as foreboding the decadence of our vernacular. But the warning is not heeded; and the English language, like the real living thing that it is, goes on developing according to the subtle principles of speech development.

The laws governing speech development are very imperfectly known. Consequently none can foretell how a given tongue may develop. The language appears to be independent of one’s individual habit of speech; yet it is the sum total of the individual habits of speech that constitutes the language. No man makes a language; no man can make it. Not even the greatest monarch on earth can, by decree or fiat, predetermine the course of development of the language of his subjects. Language is an involuntary product and does not result from any determined concert of action. Yet it is modified and changed by various influences. As long as it is alive and spoken, it is constantly changing and will not remain “fixed” according to the whimsical desire of the purist. When it ceases to be used upon the lips of the people as a medium of communication of their thoughts and feelings, then it will cease to change and grow and will become “fixed.” But when a language is no longer spoken, it is characterized as dead. It is in this sense that we call Latin and Greek dead languages, although they survive in modern Italian and modern Greek, respectively.

It follows, therefore, that it is the height of folly for any one, no matter how highly esteemed as an author, to attempt the rôle of reformer of the speech. Such an one is destined to have only his labor for his pains. He can not directly purge the language of its neologisms and improprieties of usage. These violations of standard usage which offend good taste, strange as it may seem, furnish indubitable evidence of the vitality of the speech; for from these contraband expressions come the new terms and idioms which are to take the place of the obsolete words which drop out of the vocabulary.

Viewed in this light, slang assumes a different aspect, and it becomes evident that it performs a certain necessary function in the development of language. It is no longer proper, therefore, to refer to slang with supreme contempt and to condemn it offhand as an unmitigated evil which ought to be forthwith extirpated from the language. For, as an eminent authority has observed, slang is the recruiting ground of language and is, in reality, idiom in the making. It has been pointed out how some of the slang expressions of the eighteenth century which fell under the censure of Swift and Beattie are now found upon the pages of our best authors and are heard upon the lips of our most polished and elegant speakers. Since this is true, no verbal critic can at the present time affirm of a polite slang expression now in vogue that it is destined never to work its way up into good usage, or of a foreign locution that it will never be domiciled in our speech. Nor can he determine, in the case of a new coinage which is a candidate for adoption into the literary language, just when it is taken over from that doubtful borderland between slang and standard usage.

Seeing, then, that slang really has a function to perform in the growth of speech and, therefore, that it is worthy of serious consideration, let us examine some of our modern English slang and study for a short while its origin and history.

Professor Brander Matthews, in an admirable paper on the subject, divides slang into four classes, and we can hardly do better than to follow his general classification. The first class embraces those vulgar cant expressions which are the survivals of thieves’ Latin or St. Giles’ Greek, and those uncouth, inelegant terms which constitute the vernacular of the lower orders of society. This is the kind of slang heard in the police courts, the kind the newspaper reporter too frequently resorts to, in order to give spice to his account. It has been introduced into literature by some of our recent novelists, notably Dickens. The second class of slang is not quite so coarse, and includes those ephemeral phrases and catchwords which have a fleeting popularity and which, because they meet no real need, are soon forgotten utterly. They live but a day and pass away, leaving behind no trace of their existence. Of this class are campaign slogans and such inane expressions as _where did you get that hat?_ _chestnut_, _rot_, _I should smile_ and many others equally stupid. It is these two classes of slang that have brought the term into disrepute and merited contempt. For this sort of slang is very offensive to delicate ears and justly deserves the speedy oblivion which overtakes it.

The other two classes of slang, on the contrary, are of a finer type and have a reason for their being, something to commend them to popular favor. It may well be that from this type new idioms and phrases are recruited into our literary language. However, a certain stigma attaches to this better variety of slang, also, in the judgment of many, simply because it is slang. Yet it is heard on the lips of educated and cultured speakers, much to the disgust of those who are fastidious as to the propriety of usage. When it is employed in the written speech, the more careful writers brand it with inverted commas, the barbarian earmarks which attest its social inferiority. Occasionally a bold writer like Mr. Howells breaks down these barriers which convention has set up and gives a polite slang expression the stamp of his approval and authority. In this way these social outcasts, the pariahs of our literary speech, are now and then elevated to the dignity and rank of good society, and finally establish themselves in standard English.

Of these two classes of slang serving some useful end as feeders to the vocabulary and idiom of our language by which its wasting energy is to be repaired, the first embraces those archaic phrases and terms which are revived after long disuse and again brought into service. Restored after several generations of neglect, they now appear to be entirely new coinages and are only received as other probationers. The second class is composed of absolutely new words and expressions, frequently the product of a happy invention and, generally, racy and forceful. As instances of the first class may be mentioned _to fire_, in the sense to expel forcibly or dismiss, _bloody_ in the sense of very, _deck_ in the sense _pack_ of cards and similar historic Elizabethan revivals. Such locutions have a good literary pedigree, now and then boasting the authority of Shakespearean usage. But this is not always apparent and such long-obsolete phrases are, therefore, accounted mere _parvenus_. For example, in King Henry VI. we read:

Whiles he thought to steal the single ten,
The king was slily fingered from the deck.--3 Pr.,v.1.

and again in Shakespeare’s 144th sonnet:

Till my good angel fire my bad one out.

The vulgar _bloody_, more common in England than in America, is an inheritance from the classic age of Dryden, who even uses the coarse phrase “bloody drunk” in his Prologue to “Southerne’s Disappointment.” Swift furnishes a slight variation from this in “bloody sick,” occurring in his “Poisoning of Curll.” The more fruitful province of polite slang is the second class, which is made up of the clever productions of the present age. It is from the best of these coinages, above all, that the worn-out energies of our vocabulary and idiom are repaired. These raw recruits of slang are severely disciplined and tested by hard preliminary service. If in this test an individual slang expression proves useful and is seen to fill an actual need, it is admitted eventually into the fellowship of standard English. But if, on the other hand, its utility is not established, it is relegated to the limbo of useless inventions where oblivion soon engulfs it.

Let us now review a few specimens of the best type of our modern slang. But perhaps it is safer simply to mention the alleged slang and not undertake to decide which of these expressions are slang and which standard English. For it is no easy matter to trace the line of cleavage between the legitimate technicality of a given craft or profession and polite slang. For instance, are _corner_, _bull_, _bear_ and _slump_, so familiar in financial parlance, mere technical phraseology or slang? How is one to classify such political terms as _mugwump_, _buncombe_, _gerrymander_, _scalawag_, _henchman_, _log-rolling_, _pulling the wires_, _machine_, _slate_ and _to take the stump_? If these are mere technical terms, surely _boycott_, _cab_, _humbug_, _boom_ and _blizzard_ have passed beyond the narrow bounds of technicality and are verging on that dubious borderland between slang and standard English. Furthermore, are _swell_, _fad_, _crank_, _spook_ and _stogy_ to be considered slang or good English? Each of these terms is supported by the authority of some of our best writers. _Swell_, to cite only one example, is bolstered up by the authority of Thackeray, who in his “Adventures of Philip” writes: “They narrate to him the advent and departure of the lady in the swell carriage, the mother of the young swell with the flower in his buttonhole.” Again, how is one to regard _fake_, _splurge_, _sand_, _swagger_, _blooming_ (idiot), _to go it blind_, _to catch on_, and that vast host of similar racy and vivid phrases which, if slang, still do duty for classic English in common parlance?

A glance at some of our slang idioms shows that they are borrowed from the cant of various crafts and callings. Some are borrowed from the technical vocabulary of the stage, some are taken over from the phraseology of sporting life, while some bear the stamp of various other vocations. Take as an illustration _fake_, or, better still, _greenhorn_, which has forced its way to recognition in standard English. At first _greenhorn_ was applied figuratively to a cow or deer or other horned animal when its horns are immature. In the “Towneley Mysteries” it is applied to an ox, for example. Later it was extended to signify an inexperienced person, or one who, from lack of acquaintance with the ways of the world, is easily imposed upon. The former application where the term was used in allusion to an immature horned animal is a legitimate metaphor. The latter use when applied to an inexperienced person was doubtless recognized as an extension of the metaphor and as slang. But the word filled a need in the vocabulary and was at length admitted into the guild of good usage. Another illustration is furnished by _mascot_, a recent importation from the French. This word originated in gambler’s cant and signified a talisman, a fetish, something designed to bestow good luck upon its possessor. The term, despite its unsavory association, somehow has commended itself to popular favor and now seems not to offend the most refined taste. _Slump_, though not so hackneyed, may serve as an example in point also. As a provincialism this word denotes soft swampy ground, or melting snow and slush. Later by transferred meaning it came to characterize in the financial world the melting away of prices, as a slump in the market--a vivid picture which is more interesting as a linguistic phenomenon than as an actual fact.

The history of slang teaches that words, like people, may be divided into two general classes, high and low, or refined and uncouth. “In language as in life,” as Professor Dowden puts it, “there is, so to speak, an aristocracy and a commonalty, words with a heritage of dignity, words which have been ennobled, and a rabble of words which are excluded from positions of honor and trust.” Now, some writers select only the choice and noble words to convey their ideas, leaving the coarse and vulgar words, terms without a pedigree, as it were, in the bottom of the inkhorn, for those who desire them. Other writers again have less cultured tastes and do not scruple to employ now and then plebeian words, to set forth their thoughts and feelings.

One might suppose on first blush that the dictionary ought to be a safe guide in the choice of words. A moment’s reflection, however, is sufficient to convince one that the dictionary can not be relied upon always for this desired knowledge. It is the lexicographer’s office to make a complete register of the vocabulary of the language; and so, to make his work exhaustive, he frequently records many slang words in his dictionary. Yet the practise of our dictionary-makers, it must be admitted, varies widely in this respect, some being far more exclusive than others. Our former lexicographers, as for instance Doctor Johnson, exercised a stricter censorship than is the custom at present. But it is not correct always to infer, in the case of an unrecorded word of questionable usage, that the author excluded it of set purpose. It may possibly be omitted from oversight. It seems to be the custom of our lexicographers now to make as complete a record as possible of all polite slang, but to brand it “slang.” This plan is, of course, altogether distasteful to the pedants and pedagogues who make a fruitless effort to curb and check the vocabulary of a language by rejecting all words of questionable usage. Whatever is not in harmony with established usage, whatever is not authorized by standard speech, the pedants and half-educated utterly reject. Now, heretofore our dictionary-makers have not been entirely above and beyond this narrow and circumscribed view. It was this fact that prompted Lowell, in the preface to his famous “Biglow Papers,” to express himself in these vigorous words: “There is death in the dictionary; and where language is too strictly limited by convention, the ground for expression to grow in is limited also, and we get a _potted_ literature--Chinese dwarfs instead of healthy trees.”

The truth is, it does not fall legitimately within the province of the lexicographer to settle the question whether a polite slang term of recognized fitness and utility should be deemed good English or not. No man, however competent a scholar he may be, has the right to determine the growth and development of our language. Yet such a practise means this in the last analysis. There are not a few words and idioms in English that have neither logic nor reason to commend them, but are the product of analogy, as _it_, _its_ and _you_, instead of the strictly correct _hit_, _his_ and _ye_, to use a familiar example; and yet these analogical formations, which at first were mere slang, long ago drove our proper pronouns from the field. This change took place in the last two or three centuries, and that, too, in the very face of the vaunted authority of Shakespeare and the King James Version. No doubt the pedants and purists opposed this change as utterly illogical and contrary to the natural order of development and growth of our English speech; but they were gradually borne down. It is the vast body of those who use the language, the people, not the lexicographers and scholars solely or chiefly, who are the final arbiters in a matter of this kind. It is the law of speech as registered in the usage of those who employ the language that decides ultimately whether a given phrase shall survive or perish; and this is done so unconsciously withal that the people are not aware that they are sealing the destiny of some particular vocable. This silent, indefinable, resistless force we call the genius of the language.

It is hoped that the spirit of this paper will not be misunderstood. The article, let it be distinctly and emphatically stated, is not intended as a brief for slang--far from it. It is written simply to call attention anew to the fact that slang is not to be absolutely condemned as the main source of corruption of our speech, as some assert, but that, contrariwise, it is an important factor in the growth of our vernacular and serves--at least, the best of it--a useful purpose in repairing the resulting waste which necessarily occurs in English as in every spoken language.

STANDARD ENGLISH--HOW IT AROSE AND HOW IT IS MAINTAINED.

Much is said and written nowadays as to the prevalence of slang and bad English. It is a matter of common regret both in academic circles and elsewhere that our English tongue is not now spoken and written with its traditional purity and propriety. As to the truth of this complaint there is probably some ground for doubt, but it is not proposed here to discuss this question. The mere fact of the existence of slang and bad English implies that there is a norm, a standard of propriety of English speech, to which polite usage ever aims to conform. It is this standard that ratifies a given idiom or locution and stamps it with the hall-mark of propriety, thus establishing its usage as approved. Any signal departure from this standard is at once branded a solecism and consequently recognized as a provincialism, or slang. It is here proposed to inquire what constitutes standard English, how it arose, how it is maintained.

The science of language comes to our aid in this inquiry and teaches us how a language grows and develops. Before the dawn of this new science it was supposed that the standard speech was determined by court usage as reflected in the language of the ruling class and the courtiers. This select body of people was believed to set the fashion in speech, as in other things, and the educated and cultured of the country were thought to follow their lead as a matter of course. The common people, according to this theory, accepted as final the standard set by the nobility, and all divergences therefrom were held to be the result of ignorance. Not only was the court dialect regarded as indicating absolute propriety of usage, but it was supposed to be the original form of the vernacular speech, which the masses were expected to imitate as perfectly as they could, in their habits of speaking and writing. The court itself, likewise holding this view, did not hesitate to condemn and stigmatize every departure in speech from the received dialect as a glaring solecism which made for the corruption and ultimate disintegration of the language.

This is now an exploded theory. Modern philology has demonstrated beyond a doubt that such an assumption is utterly false and untrue to nature. For philology teaches us clearly that the urban dialect, far from being the original tongue of which the rural dialects are mere corruptions, was itself once only a provincial, barbarous form of speech,--a lingo just as primitive and just as uncultivated as any of its fellows,--and that its supremacy is the result, not of any intrinsic superiority over its rivals, but of the political predominance of those who employed it as their vernacular. Those who used the urban dialect, by dint of their own intelligence and skill, surpassed their rivals in the race for the primacy and were the first, therefore, to establish the ascendency of their community. Their supremacy once established, the inhabitants of the more highly organized community proceeded at once to impose their rule upon their weaker neighbors. The latter, being unable to resist the more powerful and resourceful community, soon forfeited their independence and lost their identity and were gradually absorbed. It is thus that political pre-eminence of a primitive community over its rivals paves the way for the growth and development of its speech, which is gradually extended over the conquered until it finally supplants its fellows and itself becomes supreme as the accepted language of the victorious and the vanquished alike.

The philologists explain the several stages of the development of a language, distinctly marking off each, from the crude local _patois_ to the highly developed and polished speech of a cultured nation. The primitive tongue of a local tribe is termed a _patois_, a rudimentary speech ill adapted to the communication of the simplest ideas. If a _patois_ grows and develops so as to become available in vocabulary and syntax for the expression of thought, it is called a dialect. When a local _patois_ advances to the dialect stage, there is a marked tendency, on the part of those employing it, to crush out its rivals by conquest and assimilation. Consequently the triumphant dialect then becomes the only speech of a linguistic province, and is itself perhaps somewhat modified by the conflict from which it has emerged victorious.

Now, there may be several independent linguistic provinces. If so, a hard struggle for supremacy follows. Eventually some one of the provinces succeeds in establishing its political mastery over the others, and then begins the process of linguistic expansion and assimilation. Thus the dialect of the most powerful province or district is at length made the speech of the entire people. In this manner not only all the local _patois_, but all the competing dialects also, are either absorbed, or are crushed out by the dialect of the dominant political community.

A striking illustration of this process is furnished in the history of the development of the Latin tongue. This dominant language which still survives, more or less disguised, in the speech of a large part of Europe, as well as in the speech of Latin America, and which has so generously enriched our own English tongue, as Whitney tells us in his “Language and the Study of Language,” was the vernacular less than twenty-five centuries ago, of an insignificant district in central Italy, the inhabitants of which at that remote day were but little above savages. History is silent as to when and how this tribe found their way into that region of the Italian peninsula. Their speech was only one of a group of related dialects, “descendants and joint representatives of an older tongue, spoken by the first immigrants, which had grown apart by the effect of the usual dissimilating processes.” There still survive remains of at least two of the rival dialects, Oscan and Umbrian, which throw a flood of light on the prehistoric period of Italian speech. The Latin dialect was threatened on the north by the Etruscan, the vernacular of a civilized people dwelling beyond the Tiber; and it was likewise menaced on the south by the Greek language, spoken by the Hellenic colonies, long before settled in southern Italy and Sicily. Both of these tongues are assumed to have been superior in intrinsic character to the crude, primitive dialect of the early Romans. But the rudimentary Latin speech spread _pari passu_ with the extension of the Roman dominion. As the Roman arms brought one Italian district after another under Roman sway, the tongue of that mighty people grew apace and diffused itself throughout the whole of Italy, gradually absorbing all the rival dialects. Finally all the dialects of Italy were forced to acknowledge the predominance of the speech of the conquering city on the Tiber,--from the uncultivated Gaulish of the north to the facile and polished Greek of the south. Thus all Italy came at last to have one uniform language, to wit, Latin.

Yet there did not result, after all, absolute uniformity of speech throughout the whole of Italy. For though the rival dialects had one by one given place to the triumphant advance of the all-absorbing Latin, still in the remote rural districts relics of the native local dialects tenaciously maintained their foothold in the popular speech; and like paganism before the advance of Christianity, the local dialects were loth to relinquish their strongholds in the inaccessible country districts. Traces of the vanquished tongues were still to be discerned in the varying local dialects throughout the remote parts of the Italian peninsula. Nor was the common speech of Italy everywhere current the pure classic Latin of Cicero and Vergil. On the contrary, the vernacular of the ancient Romans, by and large, was a far less polished and graceful idiom, “containing already the germs of many of the changes exhibited by the modern Italian and the other Romanic tongues.”

A second shining example is found in the history of the rise of the French language. This marvelously lucid tongue had its origin in a little island in the Seine, at present the heart of the great city of Paris. The language of the inhabitants of that tiny isle, to be sure, was at first a rude lingo no whit superior to the various _patois_ of Romanized Gaul. But the inhabitants of that vigorous district soon gained the political ascendency over their neighbors and gradually extended their speech throughout the whole of _Ile-de-France_. The upshot was that the numerous local _patois_ speedily lost caste, sinking to a lower and lower level, till they all finally disappeared, and the dialect of Paris came to be recognized as the official language of the entire central part of France. But there were also other provinces of France besides that of _Ile-de-France_. Normandy, Provence and Burgundy had meantime risen to marked political distinction, and the speech of each of these provinces in due course attained to the dignity of a dialect with a considerable body of literature. But no one dialect was supreme. However, in the process of time the people of central France established their pre-eminence, extending their dominion over the entire country. Thus the sister provinces were, in turn, brought under the sway of the predominant _Ile-de-France_ which imposed its dialect upon its subdued rivals. In this manner the Parisian dialect spread over the whole of France and was destined speedily to become the accepted speech of the country. Naturally enough, as the Parisian dialect gained the ascendency, the Provençal, the Norman and the Burgundian dialect each fell into decay and finally ceased to exist as a spoken dialect, being preserved only in certain literary monuments.

Now, the Parisian dialect did not attain to the honor of the standard language of France without a long and hard struggle. During this struggle the language was in process of development and underwent some changes by attrition and contact with its strenuous rivals. In the conflict the Parisian dialect sloughed off some of its unessentials, its eccentricities of speech in the form of inflexions and syntax and came forth somewhat simplified in its grammar. At the same time it borrowed not a few idioms and phrases from its defeated rivals, thus enriching its vocabulary and simplifying its syntax by contact with the decadent dialects.

Thus arose modern French--a language beautifully transparent and precise and almost as untrammeled by inflections as English is and as admirably adapted for the conveyance of nice distinctions and fine shades of thought. It appears, then, that modern French is developed from one of the pristine provincial dialects which probably enjoyed no superior advantage over its sister dialects, but which owes its success as a literary medium to the happy circumstance that it was the vernacular of the most important political province. Furthermore, it is manifest that the Provençal, Norman and Burgundian dialects are in no sense a corrupt form of the standard speech. They are rather kindred dialects which by sheer force of political conditions were outstripped in the race for the distinction of being chosen as the national language.

Let us now consider the history of the English language. The development of the English tongue is quite similar, if not, indeed, parallel, to the story of Latin and French. It is in order to give here a brief survey of the origin and development of the English speech.

In the earliest period of our language it is assumed that there were numerous _patois_ spoken by the Jutes, the Angles and the Saxons who had settled in Britain as rovers and adventurers. True, we have no record preserved of these several _patois_; but philology warrants the inference that they existed. In the earliest stage of the Anglo-Saxon speech of which history furnishes a record, these various _patois_ had already given rise to some three or four distinct dialects commonly designated, according to their respective geographical positions, Kentish, Southern, Midland, and Northern. There are documents extant of each of these early English dialects which constitute our Anglo-Saxon literature. Now, each of these dialects (if Kentish is included in the Southern dialect) marks a separate period in the political history of Teutonic England. In the northern part of England, then known as Northumbria, where the Angles settled after migrating from the Continent, the Anglian dialect was first pre-eminent as the literary language. This was during the eighth century when the leading writers in that dialect were Caedmon and the Venerable Bede. In those early times the Angles appear to have extended their control over Mercia, too, even down to the northern banks of the Thames. However, this district later had a local dialect of its own, apart from the Northumbrian, and its chief literary monuments are a translation of the Psalter and a version of Matthew’s Gospel designated the “Rushworth.” The part of Britain south of the Thames and lying toward the west was settled by the Saxons. Their dialect which scholars call the West-Saxon was quite unlike the Anglian dialect; and it is distinguished above its fellows as the dialect in which the bulk of our earliest literature is written. The West-Saxon, therefore, from the grammatical point of view is by far the most important of our early English dialects, and is recognized by scholars as the standard for inflection and idiom. But the pre-eminence of West-Saxon was of later date than that of the Northumbrian dialect. From the death of Bede in 734 to the accession of King Alfred in 871, it is interesting to note that no one of the English dialects seems to have been supreme. However, from the accession of Ecgberht in 802 the West-Saxon had been gradually gaining its ascendency which was of course completed in the days of King Alfred. This good king signalized his reign by a great revival of learning, in which he himself was the leading figure. He summoned to his court an earnest and enthusiastic body of scholars from various parts of the world, and himself set them a worthy example of industry and scholarship by translating into the vernacular Pope Gregory’s “Pastoral Care,” Boethius’s “Consolations of Philosophy” and Orosius’s “Chronicle.”

After the death of King Alfred there was a sad decline in literature. But the prowess and overlordship of Wessex had made the West-Saxon dialect the standard literary language of England; and it continued so till the Norman Conquest destroyed the political prestige of that kingdom and consequently deprived that dialect of its evident advantage as the official language. While the West-Saxon dialect was recognized, it is true, as the literary language, still it did not entirely supplant the Anglian and the Mercian, both of which continued to be spoken and, to some extent, also written. But it is a significant fact that the earlier Northumbrian poetry was translated into this southern speech and is preserved to us only in the West-Saxon version.

West-Saxon lost its supremacy as the standard language when, as a result of the Conquest, Norman French was adopted by the ruling class as the cultivated speech of the realm. Still, “the native tongue,” to quote Professor Lounsbury (History of the English Language), “continued to be spoken by the great majority of the population, but it went out of use as the language of high culture. The educated classes, whether lay or ecclesiastical, preferred to write either in Latin or French--the latter steadily tending to become more and more the language of literature as well as of polite society.” The result was that West-Saxon, being supplanted as the literary language by Norman French, lost prestige and was reduced ultimately to the level of its sister dialects, Anglian and Mercian. After the loss of West-Saxon ascendency no one dialect was again pre-eminent in England till the fourteenth century. For two centuries prior to that date the several provincial dialects were employed in their respective territories; and each had an equal chance of becoming standard English. An author, therefore, was free to use his own local speech. To be sure, French was the accepted language at court and in high society; but this foreign tongue at no time enjoyed such a commanding position as to threaten the extinction of the native dialects.

Indeed, the relation of the Norman French to the English dialects has given rise to so much popular misconception and error that it seems worth while, at this juncture, to indicate the true relation explicitly. When the Normans conquered England, as the philologists tell us, they did not seek to impose their language upon the English people. Such a policy would have been very unwise for obvious reasons, and would have produced untold trouble and conflict between the two races. The Normans did not despise the English tongue. They were content to let the natives speak their several English dialects just as before the Conquest. Of course, the Normans retained their own French _patois_ and had no expectation of abandoning it in favor of English, as they had once before given up their Scandinavian vernacular for French. Yet in consequence of the overwhelming preponderance of the English natives over their Norman invaders it was inevitable, in the event of a struggle for supremacy between the two tongues, that the French should be forced to the wall. Fortunately, no such conflict was designed by either race, and it is quite reasonable to suppose that neither people ever seriously contemplated such a possibility.