Questions at Issue in Our English Speech

by Edwin W. Bowen

A glance at some of our slang idioms shows that they are borrowed from the cant of various crafts and callings. Some are borrowed from the technical vocabulary of the stage, some are taken over from the phraseology of sporting life, while some bear the stamp of various other vocations. Take as an illustration fake, or, better still, greenhorn, which has forced its way to recognition in standard English. At first greenhorn was applied figuratively to a cow or deer or other horned animal when its horns are immature. In the “Towneley Mysteries” it is applied to an ox, for example. Later it was extended to signify an inexperienced person, or one who, from lack of acquaintance with the ways of the world, is easily imposed upon. The former application where the term was used in allusion to an immature horned animal is a legitimate metaphor. The latter use when applied to an inexperienced person was doubtless recognized as an extension of the metaphor and as slang. But the word filled a need in the vocabulary and was at length admitted into the guild of good usage. Another illustration is furnished by mascot, a recent importation from the French. This word originated in gambler’s cant and signified a talisman, a fetish, something designed to bestow good luck upon its possessor. The term, despite its unsavory association, somehow has commended itself to popular favor and now seems not to offend the most refined taste. Slump, though not so hackneyed, may serve as an example in point also. As a provincialism this word denotes soft 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 excluded 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 Johnson, 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, altogether 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 established 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 circumscribed view. It was this fact that prompted Lowell, in the preface to his famous “Biglow Papers,” to express himself in these vigorous words: “There is death in the dictionary; and 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 recognized fitness and utility should be deemed good English or not. No man, however competent a scholar he may be, has the right to determine the growth and development of our language. Yet such a practise means this in the last analysis. There are not a few words and idioms in English that have neither logic nor reason to commend them, but are the product of analogy, as it, its and you, instead of the strictly correct hit, his and ye, to use a familiar example; and yet these analogical formations, which at first were mere slang, long ago drove our proper pronouns from the field. This change took place in the last two or three centuries, and that, too, in the very face of the vaunted authority of Shakespeare and the King James Version. No doubt the pedants and purists opposed this change as utterly illogical and contrary to the natural order of development and growth of our English speech; but they were gradually borne down. It is the vast body of those who use the language, the people, not the lexicographers and scholars solely or chiefly, who are the final arbiters in a matter of this kind. It is the law of speech as registered in the usage of those who employ the language that decides ultimately whether a given phrase shall survive or perish; and this is done so unconsciously withal that the people are not aware that they are sealing the destiny of some particular vocable. This silent, indefinable, resistless force we call the genius of the language.

It is hoped that the spirit of this paper will not be misunderstood. The article, let it be distinctly and emphatically stated, is not intended as a brief for slang—far from it. It is written simply to call attention anew to the fact that slang is not to be absolutely condemned as the main source of corruption of our speech, as some assert, but that, contrariwise, it is an important factor in the growth of our vernacular and serves—at least, the best of it—a useful purpose in repairing the resulting waste which necessarily occurs in English as in every spoken language.

STANDARD ENGLISH—HOW IT AROSE AND HOW IT IS MAINTAINED.

Much is said and written nowadays as to the prevalence of slang and bad English. It is a matter of common regret both in academic circles and elsewhere that our English tongue is not now spoken and written with its traditional purity and propriety. As to the truth of this complaint there is probably some ground for doubt, but it is not proposed here to discuss this question. The mere fact of the existence of slang and bad English implies that there is a norm, a standard of propriety of English speech, to which polite usage ever aims to conform. It is this standard that ratifies a given idiom or locution and stamps it with the hall-mark of propriety, thus establishing its usage as approved. Any signal departure from this standard is at once branded a solecism and consequently recognized as a provincialism, or slang. It is here proposed to inquire what constitutes standard English, how it arose, how it is maintained.

The science of language comes to our aid in this inquiry and teaches us how a language grows and develops. Before the dawn of this new science it was supposed that the standard speech was determined by court usage as reflected in the language of the ruling class and the courtiers. This select body of people was believed to set the fashion in speech, as in other things, and the educated and cultured of the country were thought to follow their lead as a matter of course. The common people, according to this theory, accepted as final the standard set by the nobility, and all divergences therefrom were held to be the result of ignorance. Not only was the court dialect regarded as indicating absolute propriety of usage, but it was supposed to be the original form of the vernacular speech, which the masses were expected to imitate as perfectly as they could, in their habits of speaking and writing. The court itself, likewise holding this view, did not hesitate to condemn and stigmatize every departure in speech from the received dialect as a glaring solecism which made for the corruption and ultimate disintegration of the language.

This is now an exploded theory. Modern philology has demonstrated beyond a doubt that such an assumption is utterly false and untrue to nature. For philology teaches us clearly that the urban dialect, far from being the original tongue of which the rural dialects are mere corruptions, was itself once only a provincial, barbarous form of speech,—a lingo just as primitive and just as uncultivated as any of its fellows,—and that its supremacy is the result, not of any intrinsic superiority over its rivals, but of the political predominance of those who employed it as their vernacular. Those who used the urban dialect, by dint of their own intelligence and skill, surpassed their rivals in the race for the primacy and were the first, therefore, to establish the ascendency of their community. Their supremacy once established, the inhabitants of the more highly organized community proceeded at once to impose their rule upon their weaker neighbors. The latter, being unable to resist the more powerful and resourceful community, soon forfeited their independence and lost their identity and were gradually absorbed. It is thus that political pre-eminence of a primitive community over its rivals paves the way for the growth and development of its speech, which is gradually extended over the conquered until it finally supplants its fellows and itself becomes supreme as the accepted language of the victorious and the vanquished alike.

The philologists explain the several stages of the development of a language, distinctly marking off each, from the crude local patois to the highly developed and polished speech of a cultured nation. The primitive tongue of a local tribe is termed a patois, a rudimentary speech ill adapted to the communication of the simplest ideas. If a patois grows and develops so as to become available in vocabulary and syntax for the expression of thought, it is called a dialect. When a local patois advances to the dialect stage, there is a marked tendency, on the part of those employing it, to crush out its rivals by conquest and assimilation. Consequently the triumphant dialect then becomes the only speech of a linguistic province, and is itself perhaps somewhat modified by the conflict from which it has emerged victorious.