The Rationale of Slang [pp. 187-190]

THE RW TIO}AVLE OF SLANVG.
THE RATIONALE OF SLANG.
r HERE is much lurking wisdom in
the corruption of words, nor is it
productive of any great evil, for words, if
left alone, are apt to become corrupt of
themselves. It almost seems that language is continually undergoing a sort of
fermentation. But what is language?
Wilhelm von Humboldt best defines it
as "the breaking forth of the power of
speech, according to the mental cast of
a people; " and there really does seem to
be something in the phonetic differences
of tongues significant of the character
of the nations which use them. The
stateliness of the Roman; the volatile
quickness of the Greek; the confused
philosophy of the German; the coarse
directness of the Celt, and the gabbling
readiness of the Gaul, find echoes in the
sounds of their respective tongues. English and Chinese are beyond the reach
of inference.
The grammar of a language is supposed to embody or sanction all possible
methods of using that language correctly: that is, in accordance with established precedents. But the mind naturally seeks relief from fetters which would
chain it to a tread-mill path of expression
through all eternity, and breaks for itself
new paths. The most generally used of
these is that by purists stigmatized as
"Slang," but which may respectfully be
defined as the spontaneous outburst of
the thought-power become vocal. When
genuine, it is no perversion of language,
and rather a refinement than an innovation, consisting of old words in new
senses, or new words in senses heretofore
difficult of expression. It is spoken poetry, entirely dependent for its effect upon
comparison and metaphor, and replete
with invention-which is a truer test of
song than rhyme or metre-and by its
freshness carries us back to the childhood of the human race.
Grammar itself is but Slang agreed
upon, while Slang conceals the rudiments
of future grammar. Call it a parasite, if
you will: the mistletoe is greener than
the oak, and enlivens the leafless winter
of the trunk which nourishes it. Slang
is the antithesis of pedantry and the
illustration of history, while it often consists of words that say themselves, as it
were, and thus enrich the language they
are thought to deform.
The inventions of Slang, unlike the
innovations of Neology, are spontaneous, and grow upward; they are found
in all languages but most abound in
those of the Te'tonic stock. The innate Norse love for the grotesque appears as plainly in the Gothic moldings
of language as in the fantastic decorations of architecture. The mazy arabesque of the Saracenic order is, in like
manner, the type and result of the intricate and aimless convolutions of Oriental
subtlety.
I have termed Slang the illustration
of history; but it illustrates much more.
Give me the slang expressions of a people, and I will have some inkling, not
only of their social habits, their customs,
and their government, but even of their
geographic and climatic conditions. Let
a man say, disparagingly, of another,
whose sagacity has been commended,
"That's all very well, but he has no back
country," and I am at no loss to imagine
the physical aspects under which his life
has been cast. When I read, in the essays of a transcendentalist, of "the thin
rinds of the finite," I do not need to be
told that the author has been nurtured
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