"SOCIAL TEST-WORDS."
[An American writer in The Critic has an article on this subject.]
Two "social questions" soon, we may expect.
Will, in two continents, raise a social storm:—
"Is it correct to say a thing's 'correct'"?
"Is it good form to use the phrase 'good form'"?
Or will both go, with those who finely feel,
The way of "gentlemanly," and "genteel"?
Shall Punch attempt to settle it? No, thankee!
He rather thinks he'll leave it to the Yankee.
What matters it about our played-out tongue?
(In which some good things have been said and sung.)
Let those the war of "Saxon versus Slang" wage,
Who have the charge of "the American Language."
That has a future (Howell's law, and Fate's!)
"The language of the Great United States"
(Unless through cant and coarseness it goes rotten)
The world will speak when "English" is forgotten.