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Views on Slang, Lost Property, and Dentists
“The Gentler View,” Harper’s Weekly (August 28, 1909) : 29
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      As we make a more or less conscientious effort to speak French when we are in France, it is only showing a decent impartiality to speak as much English as one knows when in England. Some Americans are creditably fluent in English and manage to make themselves, not exactly understood, but at least observed; others are so overwhelmed by the difficulties of the language that they weakly relapse into their own speech and feel humbly grateful that we are each endowed with a native tongue. Italians give enthusiastic aid to the blindest stumbler among phrases, the French conceal as best they can their pain at the damage you do their proudest possession, but the English remark that a town is “one-eyed,” ask what is the use of “spooling” such a “flaccid-footer,” adding that all the “trippers” in the place were “boskie,” and on top of it they mention that Americans use a great deal of slang. This is modestly denied by all representatives of our usually alert nation. We have always bowed to those above us and there is not the slightest use in our attempting to rival the English in their wealth of slang. We have a few expressions, but we use them badly, making the mistake of looking either ashamed, tough, or fresh, as we flaunt the latest idioms. We cannot, as do these delightful people, utter an unintelligible phrase and by our tone make it reflect credit on ourselves and shame on the dully uninitiated who fail to understand us. The English raise phrases of questionable origin to high positions beside “ascertain,” “sapience,” and other words unsoiled by common use. It is all most democratic; and we who are so well accustomed to an unassorted bumping cannot help feeling distinct surprise at “unmitigated scugging” and “an unconscionable blimmer.” Any child can see by our happy, dissipated air that we are using slang, and know it, but the sternest investigator would never feel quite sure that an English matron was not using erudite words unknown to the rest of the world, or perhaps chatting colloquially in pure Saxon. The English raise phrases of questionable origin to high positions beside “ascertain,” “sapience,” and other words unsoiled by common use. It is all most democratic; and we who are so well accustomed to an unassorted bumping cannot help feeling distinct surprise at “unmitigated scugging” and “an unconscionable blimmer.” These climbers bear themselves very well in the high places to which they have risen, they take a pertinent part in goodly phrases, and carry sturdily the meaning of those who raised them. But for all that they are vagabonds, they wink audaciously, cock their hats, and know they have not the slightest business to be where they are. Just cast a glance at the word “spoofing.” It hangs its head the moment you look at it, a palpable tramp for an instant enjoying the notice of its betters. All the words of its breed admit their roving, disreputable ways when they pass on, as they of course do, coming from nowhere and vanishing into nowhere. It is not to be expected they should remain with us long. They are strolling players, and their draggle-tail backs of necessity disappear around the bend of the road.
      It is with an amused swell of pride that, after more listening, one realizes the English language is sufficiently spacious to accommodate two garrulous nations. It is amazing how comfortably America and England roam around among the adjectives without ever stepping on each other’s toes and with very little need for turn and turn about. With slang put outside the question, the difference between a London and New York vocabulary is astonishingly marked. All these words fresh to our ears and no reason why we should not make them our own — why, it is intoxicating! The most unexpected windfall, and no need of seeking out the original owner and returning him the thing we so delightedly picked up. The stale words we have said until they trail threadbare from our lips are discarded with a rush. Something has been found to replace them, and we become frankly inebriated in the first half-hour. We will not have to pay duty on them; they will last us for months. It is incomprehensible why the two countries have not established a systematized exchange. What if before our eyes one language is in the process of splitting into two, and the third generation will have to include English in its study of foreign languages? Let the world come to an end, but prevent this greater cataclysm. A yearly trip to England is imperative for all earnest-minded Americans, Lord love the luck of it, with a determined use during the winter of “ragging the mater” “fearfully topping” and “abominably slack.”

      Every family should be provided with a locked box to which the key has been irretrievably lost. On first thoughts it may appear a particularly provoking thing to have about, but that quality passes away and it becomes an important member of the household. Apart from the innate romance of the thing, the uses of a locked box are unbelievable. No one remembers exactly what was put into the box, and as time passes every one develops different and clearly defined theories regarding the contents. Whenever anything is lost, from a brooch to a pair of rubbers, the box is at once suspected and the irritated searcher goes and shakes the box inquiringly. The date of losing the key is forgotten and articles in use long after and only lately lost are unanimously believed to be inside that diabolical box. It does not in the least matter that they are far too large to ever have been squeezed in. They are there, and no other place is one-half as likely. Matters reach such a pitch that if an ancient relative disappeared one would immediately glance at the box, if one did not actually sound it in passing. After a while it is regarded as a treasure-chest containing the most precious possessions of the united family, and a sense of comfort steals over one. If all the things ever lost are really in there they are not in reality lost at all, and it is doubtful if greater safety for them could possibly be secured. Gloating comes next and is only brought to a jolting end by the suggestion that absurdity has gone far enough, common sense demanding an opening of the thing at once. It is a dreadful idea, opening a box that has meant everything for months and months, no longer trusting it, prying into secrets that have almost ceased to concern you. It is a shocking business and one with which you do not wish to be connected. But finally your objections are overridden and that good little box is roughly opened by a callous person who earns his living by such mean exposures. And what does one find? In fact, the box contains almost the only articles one had failed to accuse it of having. Ah, the blow of it! Neither the ancient relative, the fountain pen, nor the missing rubber, but instead two clean handkerchiefs, a stray glove, a broken monkey-wrench, and some photographs. With a most unpleasantly dashed feeling one recognizes these as things one never dreamed of being lost at all. In fact, the box contains almost the only articles one had failed to accuse it of having. For days one goes about with flattened enthusiasms which are most difficult to endure.

      Dentists do more toward giving one a distorted idea of modern fiction than any ether men of their times. They seem to know to a minute the point you have reached in your perusal of the magazines, and they are ready for you just as you feel the full necessity of going on. They always give you time to begin, they treacherously make you wait so long that you are sure you stand a very good chance of finishing Carlyle’s French Revolution before the awful moment of being ushered into the inner office comes. A lifetime of this means that endless stirring articles and stories talked about to the verge of mania are for you nothing but beginnings. But, having led you to this point, they never fail to prevent your going farther. A lifetime of this means that endless stirring articles and stories talked about to the verge of mania are for you nothing but beginnings. You remember clearly up to the middle, then a nightmare of strained jaws follows, and never to your dying day will you know what the future of Africa is in the opinion of a certain writer, or why the hero of a short story always limped on Tuesdays. You are a blighted reader, and it is the dentist’s fault. The same things never come into one’s hands twice, unless the little gods have taken a tremendous fancy to one and are keen on details. Many of us would have been partially educated if it had not been for the dentist, and some of us — though this does seem a wild statement — might have been up on current affairs. As it is — well, as it is, it is not a thing to write calmly on.
 

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