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LANGUAGE AND LITERATURE

THERE has been recently organized in New York City a "Society for the Improvement of American Speech," the object of which, as the name indicates, is to urge a purer, richer, more correct use of the mother tongue. The necessity of some effort to awaken an appreciation of the importance and value of grammatically correct and well selected language for the expression of thought, has at last impressed itself on a few earnest persons, and the consideration is a worthy one.

A striking weakness of the English language as used in this country is its extreme poverty, the very limited vocabulary that belongs to the average boy and girl. Everything that satisfies the boy's physical, mental or moral taste is "fine;" everything that dissatisfies it is "rank." With girls, every quality of excellence is expressed in "splendid" or "elegant" and the reverse is "horrid; " between a well rendered opera and an ice cream soda there is no distinction; they and all their intermediates are "elegant." The inherent quality of an article is never analyzed to ascertain its true

distinction and really to define it, but the general nomination of "splendid" is supposed to convey the fullest description. The elderly principal of a "Young Ladies' Seminary" arose in a meeting of the society before mentioned and told of the difficulties he had experienced in his efforts to enrich the vocabulary of the pupils of his seminary. He said he had once shown a young girl a picture of the "Falls of Lodore," and asked her what she thought of them; she said they were "very pretty;" he asked her if that was all she could think to say of them; she replied, "Yes, that is all; they are very pretty;" whereupon the old gentleman gave the eloquent, characteristic description of the falls with which we are all familiar. It was most striking,-the contrast of that little girl's poor "pretty," with the flow of words and glowing description that followed.

It is not only desirable to have words promptly at command, but one should endeavor to find the word that best conveys the meaning.

Benjamin Franklin, in his " Autobiography," tells us that when he discovered his need of a larger vocabulary, he took some of the tales of the "Spectator" and turned them into verse, and after a time when he had forgotten the prose he turned them back into prose again. Such patience and determined effort for the en

richment of one's power of expression must be followed by definite results. Where can one find a more accurate definition of a bat than that given by a little boy to his teacher: "He's a nasty little mouse with ingy rubber wings and shoe string tail, and bites like the devil." No biologist could better enumerate the characteristics of the little creature.

Emerson said of Montaigne's words that they were so rich that if you cut them they would bleed.

Slang words and expressions are the barnacles that cling to a language, and should be discouraged for several reasons. Their use is inelegant, they impoverish the language because one depends on a few slang phrases to express many various thoughts; and the objection of most importance, they rarely originate correctly and therefore cannot qualify appropriately the subject to which they belong. For instance: take the expression, "that is a chestnut," meaning a stale thought; there is no connection or appropriateness between the word "chestnut" and a stale topic; it is not derived from any radical that bears on the condition to which it is applied. It is only when a new word, or a new application of a word, is properly derived and enhances the quality, or gives a better description of a subject, that its use is permissible. Such words are only slang be

cause they have not been authoritatively recognized, but they gradually become incorporated in the language, because of their adaptability, and are the means by which a language grows and is enriched. For example: the word "spicy" conversation, indicates a highly flavored conversation, and the word "trap" meaning to ensnare are words that, while deflected from their original use, are so well applied as to be unobjectionable.

There are many teachers and otherwise well educated persons at whose ungrammatical use of the English language one is astounded; they are perfectly familiar with the rules that prohibit the faults they make, but the contagion of early surroundings or illiterate associates bears more fruit than their knowledge, and they have acquired the habit of saying, "I seen" and "I done" until it is almost ineradicable. How few there are of even the well educated class whose conversation is absolutely free from error, and who use really good, wellconstructed English, while the language of the average person is replete with the grossest mistakes. If the vernacular were given more consideration, and the art of expression inserted and maintained in the child's curriculum from the beginning, how many more correct conversationalists there would be, and how the pleasure of conversation would be increased.

Next to the practice of speaking and narrating, composing is the best means of acquiring a command of well selected words and fluency in expression; and the reading of good literature is also essential to the accomplishment.

One secret of literary power is the art of putting the right word in the right place, and White's "Words and Their Uses" and Matthew's similar work are excellent books on the use and fine distinction of words. A mean diction weakens any verbal or written production, while the right use of words elevates and adorns the simplest tale. To enlarge one's vocabulary, one must note the new, unfamiliar words that one hears in conversation, or meets with in reading. From the time a child is old enough to handle a dictionary, he should make constant use of it to ascertain the meaning, origin, and pronunciation of unfamiliar words. It is, however, chiefly by associating with intelligent, cultivated persons, and by attending to their language that one gains a cultured diction. A knowledge of rules avails little if one does not see the rules exemplified in models, therefore one's models should be sought in the best literature. The essentials of good diction are purity, propriety, and precision.

In pronunciation, one of the common errors of uncultivated persons is the omission of the final "g;" they say "readin'," "eatin'," "ridin'."