FASHONABLE SLANG.

Temuka Leader, Issue 205, 29 November 1879, Page 2

FASHONABLE SLANG.

There are several varieties of slang ill the English as well as in the French, German, and other European languages. Slang, or cant—-sometimes called pedlar’s French—was originally the speech ot an alien race, the gipsies or Romanny folk. From the gipsies many of their peculiar words were borrowed by tramps, vagrants, vagabonds, beggars, and thieves ; and from this class again the words ascended into that higher stratum oi our complex civilisation composed of small traders and working men—such as costermongers, daylabourers, navvies, and the servants and frequenters of the stable, grooms, jockeys betting men, and others* of that too numerous class. In our day slang has ascended several degrees higher, till it has reached at last the lips of the wealthy the high-born, and the beautiful. The slang of the gipsies is genuine and real, and merits as much a certain amount of respect. The slang of the educated classes is unreal and detestable. It is of this latter slang that I desire tospeak and to raise my voice on behalf of the purity of our noble English tongue—the. most copious, the most energetic, ond the most poetical at this time spoken oS globe, and that promises to be, in n*> very distant future, if it be not bo already,, the paramount speech of the civilised world. That the dirty cesspools of slangshould empty themselves into the clear river of classical English is a result of our modern manners whicli is much to be deplored, and against which the leaders of society should set themselves, as resolutely as they do against other breaches of decorum and good manners.

The vulgar among the middle and upper classes affect exaggeration in their expletives. “ Ycry good” and “ very bad” are phrases that are seldom heard,, having been superseded by »uch words as “ awful” and “ dreadful.” A very pretty girl is an awfully pretty girl, or a dreadfully fine woman. Our golden youth, male and female, as well as the* lower grade of people who ape their manners and language, are at sometimes “ awfully jolly,” at other times “ dreadfully bored.” “ I was at an awfully nice dinner party last night, ,r says one. “ You should see the new farce,” says another, “it is screamingly' funny,” “ I am going down to Brighton next week,” says a third ; “It is* so jolly to be by the , bring” While a young lady accepting a bouquet from am admirer graciously acknowledges the gift with the words, “ Oh, thank you somuch 1 Ta 1 awfully ta I ” It is another characteristic of the: present time that young people—at-' least in company or in the ordinary current of conversation—never talk o£ “friendship ” or “ love.” These honest old words are antiquated, and it i& almost as contrary to good manners to mention them as it would be to speak of the commonest functions of nature. Fashion often disguises what it has to say in this respect un ler synonyms. derived from the gutter. “I am awfullybored in general society,” said a lady of title, “ but I enjoy myself immensely! among my pals” “ He is a great a dy of mine,” said one member of Parliament to another, as if he were afraid of believing in frendship, and loth to utter its name. Love faros still worse tham friendship in the year 1878. “ Smith isawtully spoony upon Miss Jones,”' say one. “ Well,” replies his companion. “ she is an immensely fine girl, but shehas no tin.” “ I can’t understand,”’says-. Snob the first to Snob the second, “ how a fellow can go spooning about a girl that hasn’t got a penny to bless, herself with ; ” ai d Snob the second replies, “ Nor I either, Neither can I understand how that awful ass” (Jone& or Robinson, as the case may be) “ can spoon about his own wife as he does after being married two years.” It is not surprising that the Divorce Court should have an overthrow of business if the word Love has lost not only the sanctity of its name but its meaning, or if people who in their uncontaminated youth have felt the gentle passion are ashamed at a later time of having once been natural. If courtship be a thing forridicule, it is no wonder that matrimony ,—which ought to be its ciown, its consultation, and its glory—should fdl in the fruit into the contempt which accompanied it in the blossom.' Two words derived from the stable are constantly heard from the mouths of. men who may have studied at Oxford or Cambridge, who may hold commissions in the army or the navy, or be high in the civil service of the Crown, or who may otherwise rank honourably in theestimation of the world and of society.. These words are “ groom ” and “ fonn. A fashionable newspaper, noted for, its excellent caricatures of the notables of the day, writes of a lady n-me shall not be repeated, “ She is fair and. splendid, and has a profusion of hair,. which she grooms in the plainest way, without fringe.” “/Look at that little filly,” says a vulgar man in a bah room “ how nicely she is groomed.” in the stable signifies the state pi diealth and general condition of a hoise. e word is of such modern acceptance as tobe unknown not only to. Captain Grose in the last century, but to the compilers of Hotten’s Slang Dictionary, published so lately as 1861. It is no longer confined to the racecourse, to Tatterpalls, or to the stables where it originated but ig. constautly employed to convey the idea of fashion, manners, customs, and polite observance. It is hot good “ form to arrive too late to dinner, to dance wi animation, or to applaud heartily at the opera, etc. it is good “ form ” to cad a hat a tile, a child a kid, money tubs, a father a relieving officer, a raothei oi a

wife ( i/i old woman , a cigar aw; d, clothes toys, a pocket-han>iherein'-* a wipe, a cravat a choker , a sail ling a h< b, Lo a pony, &c., &c. Tii.it men of superior culture, by frequ nting low society, should pick up tin- words of their associates is intelligible ; bu; that when, out of such society they should rep.-atund be proud of such vulgarity, ■vvh.ichCpj>y have caught as they would !; scarlet fever, is no more to bo than that a gentleman should : like to be considered a costermonger or a chimney-sweep. Corruption of language, if it does not precede and produce, very certainly accompanies, the corruption of manners. If the upper classes abdicate a function which should belong to them, of preserving the purity of the mother tongue, all the more imperative should be the duty of the Forum, the Pulpit, and the Senate —imitating in this respect the example of all great writers and poets—to preserve it as it came down to the past, and to add to its wealth and beauty by all the means, as the great Chatham said bn a different occasion, “which God and Nature have placed at their disposal.” —-By Charles Mackay.