USE GOOD ENGLISH
Use Good English This is Lesson XVII in a series of short, simple lessons in English, by C. R. Rounds, Inspector of English, Wisconsin Stoic Normal Schools.) SLANG Everybody pays attention when a...
...We sometimes hear people say: "Never use slang...
...Once, a student of mine handed in a theme containing several slang phrases...
...Then don't allow your conversation to become like that of our two girl friends of last week...
...If you were to tell her that her cat had died, or her hat was lost, or the roof had blown off the church, or a foot of snow had fallen, or that she would be expected at rehearsal at five o'clock, or that her salary would be raised, or that her dress was torn—no matter what you might tell her, she would have just one reply to make, and it would be this: "What do you know about that...
...Bkown (a visitor) what a disagreeable neighbor you have next door...
...That is where we get expressions like bone-head, I should worry, That's going some, etc...
...Language is not a dead thing, but a living thing...
...He is trying to exasperate me so I'll put up a spite fence that they can use for a backstop...
...Whenever I find more than two sharps or flats I scratch them out with my penknife...
...But, mademoiselle," suggested the clerk, "will not this piece in five sharps per...
...The worst dangers, mischiefs, and errors, aside from the discourtesy ot vulgar or cruel expressions, come in when one uses these phrases in an utterly meaningless, empty, lazy way...
...SLANG Everybody pays attention when a school teacher talks about slang, for everybody knows that slang is a very difficult subject for a school teacher to handle...
...I once heard a teacher say: "We are up against the slang problem in our school...
...Ai gcnaut...
...for whatsoever is more than these cometh of evil...
...but I don't condemn the man...
...Do you have a stock phrase or set of phrases, that make up nine-tenths of your conversation...
...He is disagreeable for the sake of his boys...
...Let your yea be yea and your nay,-nay...
...haps be rather difficult...
...People strive for interesting, striking, and funny ways in which to say things...
...she replied disdainfully, "That is all one to me...
...Without thinking, I said to him: "Here...
...It is useless for anyone to try to make people stop the use of slang altogether...
...by C. R. Rounds * * V Fixed 'Em Berlioz used to tell a story about a young woman in a music store...
...Puck...
...You must cut,that out...
...White: Yes...
...It is something fierce...
...There is a certain young woman who has but one reply in her vocabulary...
...Mrs...
...You do not want your minds to become feeble, do you...
...Dear friends who are interested in the happiness and usefulness of your lives, don't allow these empty, simpering, silly, babyish expressions to take the place of real speech in your conversation...
...it grows and changes...
...Copyright, 1914...
...Yet we know that these same people use some slang phrases themselves...
...Are you that young woman...
...Pooh...
...For instance, a certain little boy that I know has the habit of making this one reply no matter what is said to him: "I should worry...
...Parental Love Mas...
...It has come to be purely an empty, meaningless phrase with him...
...The phrases they use are caught up by others, and so come into more or less common use...
...Say what you mean...
Vol. 6 • November 1914 • No. 45
