148 POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY 



used repetition to a fine effect in several of his characters. We recall 

 Mr. Totts', " of no consequence," and Joey Bagstock who is " devilishly 

 sly." Provincialisms and foreign accents enter into the humor of 

 daily life rather than that of literature. 



The unconscious distortion of words by the illiterate, the naive and 

 the pretentious adds to the quality of this sort of humor. In fact, 

 whether the distortions are " made " or are unconscious, their humor 

 depends on our apprehending them as such. A farmer who made 

 daily business trips to Eichmond assured his neighbor that he always 

 dined at a " first-class reservoir." A colored servant in my own home 

 asked for a half holiday in order to go on a " railroad squashin " 

 (excursion). (What irony in the light of recent events!) 



Language much more than custom and manners requires a civiliza- 

 tion of some age and stability in order to furnish both the conditions 

 and material for humor. George Meredith 5 has urged that it requires a 

 society of cultivated men and women, wherein ideas are current and of 

 some duration and perceptions quick, that the humorist may be fur- 

 nished with matter and an audience. " The semibarbarism of merely 

 giddy communities and feverish emotional periods " creates no humor. 



Quaintness in language as in other things possesses a tinge of 

 humor. A description of the table manners of a nun or a lady of 

 culture in modern language would be sorry business, but when Chaucer 



says of the nun 



At mete wel y-taught was she with-alle; 

 She leet no morsel from hir lippes falle, 

 Ne wette hir fingres in hir sauce depe. 



He stimulates our sense of humor. Here too belong the grave and 



serious in connection with trivial and prosaic matters, for example the 



records of colonial legislative enactments and the minutes of their 



town meetings. Many of the failures of language to fit the thought 



yield humor ; a common type is verbosity. In this connection I give the 



following : 



Mt. Sterling (Ky.) Reporter. (Colored) 



Dear Editor: Please allow me a space in your momentous Gazette to recip- 

 rocate my gratitude to the indefatigably workers of the Evergreen Baptist 

 Church. While sitting in my studio last Friday evening greatly obsorbed in 

 the monotonous problem so-called Negro problem I were interposed by the 

 anthem, " There shall be showers of blessing " which rendered me surprisal 

 happy. . . . After a general parlance I were divinely impressed to descant on 

 the altronistic spirit that should characterize the christiandom. A sumptuous 

 repast followed and all present shaiated their gastronomic desire. Bro. Ben 

 Mitchell distinguished himself by his implacable vorasity. May God bless the 

 members of the Evergreen Baptist Church. Many thanks. F. B. — Pastor. 



Opposed to the quaint is the ultra-slang, brusque catch-words and 

 phrases of common life ; witness the monologues of " Chimmie Faddin " 

 and the writings of George Ade. 



6 Meredith, George, " An Essay on Comedy," p. 8, London, 1905. 



