It is wrong to say that certain articles of food are healthy or unhealthy. Wholesome and unwholesome are the right words. A pig may be healthy or unhealthy while alive; but after he is killed and becomes pork, he can enjoy no health, and suffer no sickness.
If you have been accustomed to pronounce the word “does” as “doos,” get rid of the custom as soon as you can. Also, give up saying “pint” for “point,” “jint” for “joint,” “anint” for “anoint,” &c. Above all, cease saying “featur, creatur, natur, and raptur.”
In New England it is not uncommon to hear the word “ugly” applied to a bad temper. We have heard, “He will never do for president, because he is so ugly.” On our observing that we had always considered the gentleman in question, as rather a handsome man, it was explained that he was considered ugly in disposition.
A British traveller, walking one day in a suburb of Boston, saw a woman out on a door-step whipping a screaming child. “Good woman,” said the stranger, “why do you whip that boy so severely.” She answered, “I will whip him, because he is so ugly.” The Englishman walked on; but put down in his journal that “American mothers are so cruel as to beat their children, merely because they are not handsome.”
No genteel Bostonian should call Faneuil Hall, “Old Funnel,” or talk of the “Quinsey market,” instead of Quincy, or speak of “Bacon street,” or “Bacon Hill.” That place was so called from a beacon, or signal-pole with a light at the top, and never was particularly celebrated for the pickling and smoking of pork.
The word “slump,” or “slumped,” has too coarse a sound to be used by a lady.
When you have exchanged one article for another, say so, and not that you have “traded it.”
Do not say, “I should admire to read that book,” “I should admire to hear that song,” “I should admire to see the president.” Substitute, “I should like to read that book,” “I should like to hear that song,” “I should like to see the president.”
Using the word “love” instead of “like” is not peculiar to the ladies of any section of the Union. But they may assure themselves it is wrong to talk of loving any thing that is eatable. They may like terrapins, oysters, chicken-salad, or ice-cream; but they need not love terrapins or oysters, or love chicken-salad.
We remember, in the farce of Modern Antiques, laughing at an awkward servant-girl bringing in a dish of salad to a supper-table, before the company had assembled, and, after taking a large bite, turning her foolish face toward the audience, and saying, “I loves beet-root.”