Conversation: Its Faults and Its Graces

by Unknown

Let me next beg you to shun all the ungrammatical vulgarisms which are often heard, but which never fail to grate harshly on a well-tuned ear. If you permit yourselves to use them now, you will never get rid of them. I know a venerable and accomplished lawyer, who has stood at the head of his profession in this State, and has moved in the most refined society for half a century, who to this day says haint for has not, having acquired the habit when a schoolboy. I have known persons who have for years tried unsuccessfully to break themselves of saying done for did, and you and I for you and me. Many well-educated persons, through the power of long habit, persist in saying shew for showed, while they know perfectly well that they might, with equal propriety, substitute snew for snowed; and there is not far hence a clergyman, marvellously precise and fastidious in his choice of words, who is very apt to commence his sermon by saying, "I shew you in a recent discourse." A false delicacy has very generally introduced drank as the perfect participle of drink, instead of drunk, which alone has any respectable authority in its favor; and the imperfect tense and perfect participle have been similarly confounded in many other cases. I know not what grammar you use in this school. I trust that it is an old one; for some of the new grammars sanction these vulgarisms, and in looking over their tables of irregular verbs, I have sometimes half expected to have the book dashed from my hand by the indignant ghost of Lindley Murray. Great care and discretion should be employed in the use of the common abbreviations of the negative forms of the substantive and auxiliary verbs. Can't, don't, and haven't, are admissible in rapid conversation on trivial subjects. Isn't and hasn't are more harsh, yet tolerated by respectable usage. Didn't, couldn't, wouldn't, and shouldn't, make as unpleasant combinations of consonants as can well be uttered, and fall short but by one remove of those unutterable names of Polish gentlemen which sometimes excite our wonder in the columns of a newspaper. Won't for will not, and aint for is not or are not, are absolutely vulgar; and aint, for has not or have not, is utterly intolerable.

Nearly akin to these offences against good grammar is another untasteful practice, into which you are probably more in danger of falling, and which is a crying sin among young ladies,—I mean the use of exaggerated, extravagant forms of speech,—saying splendid for pretty, magnificent for handsome, horrid for very, horrible for unpleasant, immense for large, thousands or myriads for any number greater than two. Were I to write down, for one day, the conversation of some young ladies of my acquaintance, and then to interpret it literally, it would imply that, within the compass of twelve or fourteen hours, they had met with more marvellous adventures and hair-breadth escapes, had passed through more distressing experiences, had seen more imposing spectacles, had endured more fright, and enjoyed more rapture, than would suffice for half a dozen common lives. This habit is attended with many inconveniences. It deprives you of the intelligible use of strong expressions when you need them. If you use them all the time, nobody understands or believes you when you use them in earnest. You are in the same predicament with the boy who cried wolf so often, when there was no wolf, that nobody would go to his relief when the wolf came. This habit has also a very bad moral bearing. Our words have a reflex influence upon our characters. Exaggerated speech makes one careless of the truth. The habit of using words without regard to their rightful meaning, often leads one to distort facts, to misreport conversations, and to magnify statements, in matters in which the literal truth is important to be told. You can never trust the testimony of one who in common conversation is indifferent to the import, and regardless of the power, of words. I am acquainted with persons whose representations of facts always need translation and correction, and who have utterly lost their reputation for veracity, solely through this habit of overstrained and extravagant speech. They do not mean to lie; but they have a dialect of their own, in which words bear an entirely different sense from that given to them in the daily intercourse of discreet and sober people.

In this connection, it may not be amiss to notice a certain class of phrases, often employed to fill out and dilute sentences, such as, I'm sure,—I declare,—That's a fact,—You know,—I want to know,—Did you ever?—Well! I never,—and the like. All these forms of speech disfigure conversation, weaken the force of the assertions or statements with which they are connected, and give unfavorable impressions as to the good breeding of the person that uses them.

You will be surprised, young ladies, to hear me add to these counsels,—"Above all things, swear not at all." Yet there is a great deal of swearing among those who would shudder at the very thought of being profane. The Jews, who were afraid to use the most sacred names in common speech, were accustomed to swear by the temple, by the altar, and by their own heads; and these oaths were rebuked and forbidden by divine authority. I know not why the rebuke and prohibition apply not with full force to the numerous oaths by goodness, faith, patience, and mercy, which we hear from lips that mean to be neither coarse nor irreverent, in the schoolroom, street, and parlor; and a moment's reflection will convince any well-disposed person, that, in the exclamation Lor, the cutting off of a single letter from a consecrated word can hardly save one from the censure and the penalty written in the third commandment. I do not regard these expressions as harmless. I believe them inconsistent with Christian laws of speech. Nor do they accord with the simple, quiet habit of mind and tone of feeling which are the most favorable to happiness and usefulness, and which sit as gracefully on gay and buoyant youth as on the sedateness of maturer years. The frame of mind in which a young lady says, in reply to a question, Mercy! no, is very different from that which prompts the simple, modest no. Were there any room for doubt, I should have some doubt of the truth of the former answer; for the unnatural, excited, fluttered state of mind implied in the use of the oath, might indicate either an unfitness to weigh the truth, or an unwillingness to acknowledge it.

In fine, transparency is an essential attribute of all graceful and becoming speech. Language ought to represent the speaker's ideas, and neither more nor less. Exclamations, needless expletives, unmeaning extravagances, are as untasteful as the streamers of tattered finery which you sometimes see fluttering about the person of a dilapidated belle. Let your thoughts be as strong, as witty, as brilliant, as you can make them; but never seek to atone for feeble thought by large words, or to rig out foolish conceits in the spangled robe of genuine wit. Speak as you think and feel; and let the tongue always be an honest interpreter to the heart.

But it is time that we passed to higher considerations. There are great laws of duty and religion which should govern our conversation; and the divine Teacher assures us that even for our idle words we are accountable to Him who has given us the power of speech. Now, I by no means believe that there is any principle of our religion which frowns upon wit or merriment, or forbids playful speech at fit seasons and within due limits. The very fact that the Almighty has created the muscles which produce the smile and the laugh, is a perpetual rebuke to those who would call all laughter madness, and all mirth folly. Amusement, in its time and place, is a great good; and I know of no amusement so refined, so worthy an intellectual being, as that conversation which is witty and still kind, playful, yet always reverent, which recreates from toil and care, but leaves no sting, and violates no principle of brotherly love or religious duty.

Evil speaking, slander, detraction, gossip, scandal, are different names for one of the chief dangers to be guarded against in conversation; and you are doing much towards defending yourselves against it by the generous mental culture which you enjoy in this seminary. The demon of slander loves an empty house. A taste for scandal betrays a vacant mind. Furnish your minds, then, by useful reading and study, and by habits of reflection and mental industry, that you may be able to talk about subjects as well as about people,—about events too long past or too remote to be interwoven with slander. But, if you must talk about people, why not about their good traits and deeds? The truest ingenuity is that which brings hidden excellences to light; for virtue is in her very nature modest and retiring, while faults lie on the surface and are detected with half an eye.

You will undoubtedly be careful to have your words always just and kind, if you will only take a sufficiently thorough view of the influence of your habits of conversation, both in the formation of your own characters and in determining the happiness of others. But how low an estimate do many of us make of the power of the tongue! How little account we are apt to take of our words! Have we not all at times said to ourselves, "Oh! it is only a word!" when it may have been sharp as a drawn sword, have given more pain than a score of blows, and done more harm than our hands could have wrought in a month? Why is it that the slanderer and the tale-bearer regard themselves as honest and worthy people, instead of feeling that they are accursed of God and man? It is because they deal in evil words only, and they consider words as mere nought. Why is it that the carping tongue, which filches a little from everybody's good name, can hardly utter itself without a sneer, and makes every fair character its prey, thinks better of itself than a petty pilferer would? It is because by long, though baseless prescription, the tongue has claimed for itself a license denied to every other member and faculty.

But, in point of fact, your words not only express, but help create, your characters. Speech gives definiteness and permanence to your thoughts and feelings. The unuttered thought may fade from the memory,—may be chased away by better thoughts,—may, indeed, hardly be a part of your own mind; for, if suggested from without, and met without a welcome, and with disapproval and resistance, it is not yours. But by speech you adopt thoughts, and the voice that utters them is as a pen that engraves them indelibly on the soul. If you can suppress unkind thoughts, so that, when they rise in your breast, and mount to your very lips, you leave them unuttered, you are not on the whole unkind,—your better nature has the supremacy. But if these wrong feelings often find utterance, though you call it hasty utterance, there is reason to fear that they flow from a bitter fountain within.

Consider, also, how large a portion speech makes up of the lives of all. It occupies the greater part of the waking hours of many of us; while express acts of a moral bearing, compared with our words, are rare and few. Indeed, in many departments of duty, words are our only possible deeds,—it is by words alone that we can perform or violate our duty. Many of the most important forms of charity are those of speech. Alms-giving is almost the only expression of charity of which the voice is not the chief minister; and alms, conferred in silent coldness, or with chiding or disdainful speech, freeze the spirit, though they may warm the body. Speech, too, is the sole medium of a countless host of domestic duties and observances. There are, indeed, in every community many whose only activity seems to be in words. There are many young ladies, released from the restraints of school, and many older ladies, with few or no domestic burdens, with no worldly avocation and no taste for reading, whose whole waking life, either at their own homes or from house to house, is given to the exercise, for good or evil, of the tongue,—that unruly member. And how blessed might they make that exercise,—for how many holy ministries of love, sympathy, and charity might it suffice,—how many wounds might it prevent or heal,—did they only believe and feel that they were writing out their own characters in their daily speech! But too many of them forget this. So long as they do not knowingly and absolutely lie, they feel no responsibility for their words. They deem themselves virtuous, because they refrain from vices to which they have not the shadow of a temptation; but carp, backbite, and carry ill reports from house to house, with an apostle's zeal and a martyr's devotedness. To say nothing of the social effect of such a life, is not the tongue thus employed working out spiritual death for the soul in whose service it is busy? I know of no images too vile to portray such a character. The dissection of a slanderer's or talebearer's heart would present the most loathsome specimen of morbid anatomy conceivable. It is full of the most malignant poison. Its life is all mean, low, serpent-like,—a life that cannot bear the light, but finds all its nourishment and growth in darkness. Were these foul and odious forms of speech incapable of harming others,—did human reptiles of this class creep about in some outward guise, in which they could be recognized by all, and their words be taken for what they are worth, and no more,—still I would beg them, for their own sakes, not to degrade God's image, in which they were created, into the likeness of a creeping thing; I would entreat them not to be guilty of the meanest and most miserable of all forms of spiritual suicide; I would beseech them, if they are determined to sell their souls, to get some better price for them than the scorn and dread of all whose esteem is worth having.