ON SLOPPINESS OF EXPRESSION.

Manawatu Herald, Volume XXXV, Issue 1149, 23 September 1913, Page 4

ON SLOPPINESS OF EXPRESSION.

(By Uplander.)

Sitting behind two young women of apparently good social position, you catch, in the. lucid intervals the following words: — “Awfull3' . . . dreadful . . terrible . . . ghastly.” II you were a foreigner, you might be concerned, but being a New Zealander, you know that the conversation has been something like this:—

‘‘Wasn’t it awfully crowded at the dance last night, Mamie ?” ‘‘Yes, wasn’t it dreadful ? And the rough floor, wasn’t it too terrible for words ? And the supper ! Why, the whole thing was ghastly!” As a matter of fact Mamie and her partner collided two or three times with other Mamies and their partners, and the floor might have had a little more wax on it, and the supper was only cold chicken, trifle, cakes and coffee. Of course, women are not the only offenders in this respect, though I believe they are the worst. The vice of exaggeration has spread through all classes, until now it is rare to find a man or a woman with sufficient selfrespect, self-control, and regard for the language to weigh words before using them, and make them express some approximation to thought. For when we say that we had an ‘‘appalling” time at our dentist’s, we don’t mean that it was ‘‘appalling” at all. We merely mean that we bad a little discomfort. If we ever did have a really appalling experience—if we were in the horrors of shipwreck, or in a bad train accident, we should have no stronger word to describe what happened to us. We would use the same word, but our hearers would not be so deeply impressed as they would have beeu some years before, because the power of the woid would have been weakened.

This, is happening to many words. They do not mean what they ought to mean, because we use them far too olten. For instance, no true poet uses the word “grand” now. The word has become a common coin, and conveys no definite and unusual impression, Everything is “grand”— boots, and sunsets, afternoon tea and pictures, dogs, roads, actors, and pork pies. A batsman makes a “grand” cut, and a three-quarter scores a “grand” try. “Splendid” is suffering the same fate, and if we are not careful, “brilliant” will be depreciated to the same extent. That expression “slops over” well describes much modern speech. And if this is the result of thirty or forty years of compulsory education, what will speech be like in anottier fifty years ?