WHAT IS SLANG? 137 



swampy ground, or melting snow and slush. Later by transferred 

 meaning it came to characterize in the financial world the melting away 

 of prices, as a slump in the market — a vivid picture which is more 

 interesting as a linguistic phenomenon than as an actual fact. 



The history of slang teaches that words, like people, may be divided 

 into two general classes, high and low, or refined and uncouth. " In 

 language as in life," as Professor Dowden puts it, " there is, so to speak, 

 an aristocracy and a commonalty, words with a heritage of dignity, 

 words which have been ennobled, and a rabble of words which are ex- 

 cluded from positions of honor and trust." Now, some writers select 

 only the choice and noble words to convey their ideas, leaving the 

 coarse and vulgar words, terms without a pedigree, as it were, in the 

 bottom of the inkhorn, for those who desire them. Other writers again 

 have less cultured tastes and do not scruple to employ now and then 

 plebeian words, to set forth their thoughts and feelings. 



One might suppose on first blush that the dictionary ought to be 

 a safe guide in the choice of words. A moment's reflection, however, 

 is sufficient to convince one that the dictionary can not be relied upon 

 always for this desired knowledge. It is the lexicographer's office to 

 make a complete register of the vocabulary of the language; and so, to 

 make his work exhaustive, he frequently records many slang words in 

 his dictionary. Yet the practise of our dictionary-makers, it must be 

 admitted, varies widely in this respect, some being far more exclusive 

 than others. Our former lexicographers, as for instance Doctor John- 

 son, exercised a stricter censorship than is the custom at present. But 

 it is not correct always to infer, in the case of an unrecorded word of 

 questionable usage, that the author excluded it of set purpose. It may 

 possibly be omitted from oversight. It seems to be the custom of our 

 lexicographers now to make as complete a record as possible of all 

 polite slang, but to brand it ' slang.' This plan is, of course, alto- 

 gether distasteful to the pedants and pedagogues who make a fruitless 

 effort to curb and check the vocabulary of a language by rejecting all 

 words of questionable usage. Whatever is not in harmony with estab- 

 lished usage, whatever is not authorized by standard speech, the pedants 

 and half-educated utterly reject. Now, heretofore our dictionary- 

 makers have not been entirely above and beyond this narrow and cir- 

 cumscribed view. It was this fact that prompted Lowell, in the preface 

 to his famous i Biglow Papers,' to express himself in these vigorous 

 words: "There is death in the dictionary; ?nd where language is too 

 strictly limited by convention, the ground for expression to grow in 

 is limited also, and we get a potted literature — Chinese dwarfs instead 

 of healthy trees." 



The truth is, it does not fall legitimately within the province of 

 the lexicographer to settle the question whether a polite slang term of 



