»Well, you know what I mean. What is the proper word? Give it me.»
»I suppose you mean ‘cant’», I suggested. »No, I don’t. Cant is something that you don’t believe in yourself. It’s ‘Tommy rot’; there isn’t any other word.»
The young lady who makes the above remark is quite right. There are many words in the English language that say about the same, but there is not a single word in the ‘normal’, literary language, that tells us exactly what she wants to get said; not another word forming a concise expression of her thought, and giving us at the same time a clue to her character.
Quite naturally, modern literature has made ample use of this »vulgar» language, and, at the same time, the philologists have striven to investigate its resources. Thus, France possesses about half a dozen Dictionnaires d’Argot, and the English-speaking world has at its disposal about the same number of modern Slang and Cant Dictionaries. Linguistic studies and essays treating this subject are as yet rather few, but no doubt they will appear in greater number in the future.
No other literature has been influenced by this language to such an extent as the English. In Great Britain, there have been no Academy, no »salons littéraires», fettering and regulating the literary language. Being allowed to develop itself in perfect liberty, it has gathered its method of expression from different ranges of language and society. Ever since the days of Shakespeare, English authors have made ample use of the easy every-day language of the lower classes; and, from the beginning of the 15th century, a rich, independent literature of slang and vulgar tongue has been developing[1]. Modern English realists have attained a real virtuosity in rendering with almost photographic, or rather phonographic, accuracy the talk of different classes and individuals. It may be truly said that it is impossible to acquire a thorough knowledge of English without being familiar with slang and vulgarism. Whoever is uninitiated into this special language will be at a loss to understand many of the masterpieces of English literature. Nay, without any knowledge of it, he will scarcely be able even to understand an English paper.
»If you will allow me the use of slang» is a phrase often heard in English conversation; but in reality a considerable number of original slang and cant expressions are used without any special permission—often without the speaker’s knowing it. There is—as in all languages, and in English much more than in any other—a constant flow from »low class» into »high class» language. A word or an expression, having been long in use exclusively among the working classes, or in the easy talk of certain trades, gradually penetrates into the colloquial speech of the cultivated—sometimes with a slight change of the sense—and suddenly appears one day in refined literary language. In actual English, there are many such expressions, originating partly from cant, partly from slang[2].
Now, what is slang, and what is cant?
When the average Englishman employs the word »slang», he usually means all that he does not regard as »correct» English, all that sounds to his ears more or less vulgar. In reality, a certain confusion seems to have been long prevailing in English conception and English literature concerning »flash» and »cant» (vulgarism) on one side, and »slang» on the other[3].
By slang, I mean the easy, natural, semi-technical language of special classes of society.