i34 POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY 



mitigated evil which ought to be forthwith extirpated from the lan- 

 guage. For, as an eminent authority has observed, slang is the recruit- 

 ing 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 considera- 

 tion, 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 ver- 

 nacular 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 edu- 

 cated and cultured speakers, much to the disgust of those who are 

 fastidious as to the propriety of usage. When it is employed in the 



