A "YELLOW JOURNAL" GLOSSARY.
This Sort of Language Doesn't Wear Any Dictionary Harness, So It Has to Be Put in a
Class by Itself, and Made the Subject of Special Study.
One of the characteristics of the "yellow journal" is that while it usually says what it means, it does not always mean just what it says. It has a system of phraseology that is peculiar to itself, and one who would read it intelligently must familiarize himself with the idiosyncrasies of "yellow" expression. Some of these idiosyncrasies have been carefully collected by the New York Sun:
PRETTY GIRL—Any unmarried human female less than thirty-five years old who gets into the news.
SOCIETY MATRON—Any married woman, from a bartender's wife up through the social grades, who gets into the news.
SOCIETY GIRL—Synonymous with "pretty girl." See above.
NOT EXPECTED TO RECOVER—Phrase applied to the condition of all persons injured in course of news story.
PROMINENT YALE GRADUATE—Any one wearing a boiled shirt, arrested for anything above a misdemeanor.
MULTIMILLIONAIRE—Person possessed of property worth fifty thousand dollars or over, or a relative of a person listed in the Social Register. Up to three years ago "millionaire" was used in the same sense.