A Cure for Bad Language.

Feilding Star, Volume XIV, Issue 115, 18 March 1893, Page 4

A Cure for Bad Language.

We live in days when the reforming spirit is active and, therefore, little surprise will be felt at the announcement that a plan for the reform of popular adjectives has been originated by a person who has tried it himself with complete success. Unthinking people may imagine that the best way for reforming bad language is to stop the use of it, but this is hardly making sufficient allowance for the extraordinary state of irritation which occasionally overcomes the best and wisest of human beings. Obviously, thd proper plan would b© to act ou the principle on which habitual drunkards are treated. The medical antagonist of inebriety begins by reducing the daily quantity of alcoholic liquor, at the same time substituting for it strong nourishment in the shape of soups and other nitrogenous preparations. In precisely the same way the vice of swearing can be successfully treated. The patient is not merely told that he must desist from saying certain words but he is given other words almost as vigorous, though less objectionable, which he is permitted, and even encouraged, to enunciate. In the days of our youth we have most of us been advised to 'count twenty 1 before replying to an irritating remark ; but if, instead of this difficult mental process, we were permitted at once to 'let the steam off' by a string of loud, strongsounding, but perfectly meaningless ejaculations, the fit of ill-temper would be of much shorter duration. The reform to which we have called attention, of course, emanates from America, and the plan for curing habitual swearers is the copyright of a Baptist ministef who has a chapel in West Twenty-Fifth Street, in New York. Unlike most owners of copyright, however, this gentleman invites the whole world to make use of the property in his invention. The beauty of most great discoveries lies in their simplicity, and nothing can be more delightfully simple than the Baptist clergyman's method of banishing bad language from Society. "When he is unexpectedly stung by a wasp, or encounters a tack on the floor when denuded of boots, barks his shins against the leg of a table, he at once remarks in a loud tone, 'Beefsteak and onions ! ' proceeding directly afterward to observe 'Ham and eggs !' and if the tendency to swear has not by that time passed off he adds, 'Bread and butter, and a plate of ice cream ! '