SLADE 



SLANG 



495 



79 sq. m. Skyros is very mountainous in the 

 south, the mountains being covered with forests of 

 oaks, firs, and beeches ; hut the northern part, 

 though also hilly, has several fertile plains, which 

 produce fine wheat and grapes for wine. The only 

 town is Skyrp, or St George, on the east coast. 

 This island is associated with the legends of 

 Achilles and Theseus. In 469 B.C. Cimon the 

 Athenian conquered it and carried off to his native 

 city the bones of the hero Theseus. It was like- 

 wise celebrated for its goats and its variegated 

 marble. Pop. 3250. 



Slade, FELIX (1789 1868), of Halsteads, York- 

 shire, was an antiquary and art collector, and 

 bequeathed to the British Museum his valuable 

 collections of engravings and of Venetian glass. 

 He also left by will money to found art professor- 

 ships at Oxford, Cambridge, and at University 

 College, London. Amongst Slade professors have 

 been Ruskin, Sidney Colvin, and \V. B. Richmond. 



Slates, sometimes called Scorue, are fused com- 

 pounds of silica with lime, alumina, and other sub- 

 stances. Blast-furnace slag is usually little else 

 than a silicate of lime and alumina. In smelting 

 processes the slag floats on the top of the molten 

 metal , and is run off or raked off as ' waste material , ' 

 provided that the metal has been practically all 

 extracted from it. Many slags which were thrown 

 away in early times have been profitably smelted 

 again in modern days, owing to the amount of 

 metal left in them. Some slags form an opaque 

 glass, but other varieties are more stone-like in 

 appearance, while some are beautifully crystallised. 

 In Great Britain about 18,000,000 tons of iron blast- 

 furnace slag are annually produced. Until com- 

 paratively recent times this was considered useless 

 material, but it is now utilised in several ways. 

 By the action of steam upon it in the melted state 

 it is made into fine threads or filaments called ' slag 

 wool ' or ' silicate cotton. ' This is a bad conductor 

 of heat and sound, and is used as a covering to 

 boilers, and to prevent sound passing through 

 floors. It is also employed for fireproof netting. 

 In some cases blast-furnace slag has been made 

 into serviceable bricks and large blocks for build- 

 ing, as well as into paving sette. On the Continent 

 a useful building cement, or substitute for mortar, 

 has been made from it. The slag from the manu- 

 facture of steel from Cleveland pig-iron by the 

 basic process contains about 17 per cent, of phos- 

 phoric acid, and forms a valuable fertiliser for 

 sour, peaty, and clay soils. 



Slander is an injury to a person's character 

 and reputation caused by spoken words. It is to 

 be noticed that oral unlike written defamation is 

 only actionable ( 1 ) on proof of actual, or, as it is 

 technically termed, special damage; (2) in the 

 following specific cases: (a) statement that the 

 plaintiff has committed a criminal offence, (6) an 

 assertion that he is suffering from an unclean and 

 contagions disease, (c) defamatory words spoken 

 in the way of his business or profession. To impute 

 nnchaatity to a woman was not in itself actionable 

 unless (it is said ) the words were spoken in London, 

 when by the custom of the city an action would lie 

 thereon ; but the Slander of Women Act ( 1891 ) 

 makes the mere imputation a ground of proced- 

 ure. The remedy for slander is an action at 

 law for damages. To prove the truth of the 

 alleged slander is a complete answer, and the 

 defence of privilege may also be set up. The 

 criminal law affords no protection against slander, 

 nor will any 'indictment lie for mere words not 

 ri'iluri-d into writing, unless they be seditious, 

 blasphemous, grossly immoral, or uttered to a 

 magistrate in the execution of his office, or uttered 

 tut a challenge to fight a duel, or with an intention 



Copyright 1892, 1897, and 

 1900 in the U. S. by J. B. 

 Lippincott Company. 



to provoke the other party to send a challenge.' 

 This radical distinction between written and 

 spoken defamation is not recognised in Scots law. 

 See LIBEL. 



Slang, a term in regard to the usual meaning 

 of which the best authorities differ widely. It is 

 defined by Webster as 'low, vul- 

 gar, unauthorised language ;' by 

 Skeatas 'low, vulgar languageor 

 a colloquial and familiar mode of expression ; ' by 

 the Globe Encyclopedia as 'the secret jargon of 

 thieves and vagabonds, otherwise known, as Cant 

 or Flash ; ' and by Wedgwood as ' to give bad 

 words, to make insulting allusions.' But any 

 large collection of words universally recognised 

 as slang embraces not only vulgar, abusive, 

 familiar, and classically unrecognised terms, as 

 well as those of peculiar jargons or dialects, such 

 as Gypsy, Canting or Flash, Back-slang, and 

 Shelta or Tinkers' Talk, but also a vast number 

 characteristic of trades, pursuits, and positions in 

 every class of society ; so that we may agree with 

 Professor A. Barrere, that perhaps the best general 

 definition at which one can arrive is that ' Slang is 

 a conventional tongue with many dialects, which 

 are, as a rule, unintelligible to outsiders.' This 

 confusion of definitions appears to be due to the 

 fact that the word is derived from two sources, each 

 with a separate meaning. According to the gener- 

 ally received popular tradition, which is supported 

 by the Gypsies themselves, and recognised as such 

 by J. C. Hotten (Slang Dictionary, 1885), Slang 

 is a Romany or Gypsy word. It was originally 

 applied to everything relating to theatres or shows 

 in Hindustani Swangi, also, often, slangi. The 

 peculiar jargon or tongue spoken among such show- 

 people, also stage or theatrical language itself, 

 doubtless gave nse to 'slang.' It is also applied 

 as a means of expression by these people to ' licenses 

 to exhibit,' while to be 'on the slang' signifies in 

 circus-dialect to be in any way connected with ' the 

 profession.' Slang in this sense, means therefore a 

 peculiar or secret language. But as a term of 

 abuse, as in ' slanging ' or ' slang- whanging ' a man, 

 Skeat properly derives it from the Norwegian sleng, 

 a ' slinging or throwing ; ' hence slengja kjeften, ' to 

 sling the jaw ;' slengjeord, a ' slang or abusive word. ' 

 Thieves' slang, or a jargon deliberately intended to 

 protect criminals, is known in India as bhat, hence 

 the Gypsy pat, or patter, erroneously derived by 

 mere conjecture from paternoster. In its extended 

 sense it is difficult to draw the line between techni- 

 cal terms as for instance those used on the turf or 

 in sport and slang, especially when equivalents for 

 them are wanting in correct English. Any kind of 

 shibboleth used to distinguish a class, l>c it of 

 students, clergymen, authors, or the most fashion- 

 able circles, is correctly called slang, and is recog- 

 nised as such in the best and last works on the 

 subject 



The chief elements of all slang consist first 

 of absolutely foreign words, including those manu- 

 factured ; as when a costermonger says ' molty 

 kerteever,' from the Ital. molto cattivo, for 'very 

 bad,' or a street- vagabond uses the Romany Idled 

 ('taken'), for 'arrested.' The other is the sub- 

 stitution of English words for equivalents, as when 

 we hear 'brass' for impudence, 'timbers' and 

 'pins' for legs, 'claret 'for blood, and 'tile 'for a, 

 hat. Thus it is often in a rough form simile or 

 poetry ; ' brass ' being indeed or classical origin 

 as applied to the hardness which defies attack. 

 'A certain proportion of slang words after per- 

 forming, as it were, quarantine, receive a clean 

 bill of nealth, and are admitted to that great port 

 the dictionary.' Some even make a reappearance 

 in gjood language. Thus humbug, which meant 

 originally a night-terror or delusion (Hum, 'tenebnr' 



