But if a peach pie is
almost "divine," and the Hudson River "awfully lovely," what can be
said of the New Testament and Niagara Falls? What is to become of the
poor innocent words in the English language which mean only delicious
and beautiful? By a girl's words know her; but, oh! never by the slang
she uses. This use of slang is really a serious matter. Honest words
are so misconstrued, and propriety in the employment of them so
injured,--phrases are capable of so many interpretations,--that even
serious people use slang in a very pathetic way without ever knowing the
words are slang. Girls not only hurt themselves, but go to work to
defame the very English language and the people who speak English.
When a young woman, who makes much pretension to fine manners and an
elegant education, takes the steam-car for a rostrum, and exclaims
about her French teacher as "awfully funny but awfully horrid, don't
you know; awfully lovely sometimes, but awfully awful at others!" we
wonder why she gives so much attention to French when her English
vocabulary seems to have reduced itself to the scanty proportions of
one word. Oh, I know how pertinent certain kinds of slang are! I
acknowledge that a few peculiar expressions convey ideas more
emphatically than whole pages of classical English.
The dangers from the habitual use of slang cannot be too strongly
presented.
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