Word: dialect
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Dates: during 1870-1879
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...make the lowliest position honorable and useful. I have not been disappointed. The post-office is near the bar-room of the village tavern. I there delivered the letters alternately with short but pithy essays on philosophic and classical subjects. At first I translated these effusions into the "flash" dialect peculiar to these regions; but, gradually introducing words of a more refined nature, I brought the villagers to a proper use of their mother tongue...
...being familiar with the coin of the country, I am obliged to let him take his pay from a handful of silver, which I hold out to him. He considerately leaves me one small coin, value unknown. Several men gather around, and talk to me in the heathenish dialect of the country. I conclude to go no farther to-day, and tell them so. They seem satisfied, yet make no reply. Splendid scenery, although a thick fog, which has suddenly settled down upon us, renders the prospect somewhat indistinct...
...earlier times, of guessing at an etymology, or of establishing his own tongue as the "language of Paradise." Romance, besides the purely philological interest it presents, has a rich literature. The Troubadours, whose love and chivalry found their highest expression in Dante, are the children of the Provencal, a dialect of the Romance. Their songs and stories live to-day; but the "glory has departed out of Juda," and their volumes often lie dusty and worm eaten on the shelf. They abound, however, in poetry, - legendary, amorous, humorous, - and are well worthy of perusal...
...most striking feature of college-life is its dialect. One unskilled in the student's phraseology hears a conversation carried on in which occur words apparently so distorted that he is unable to intelligently understand its purport, and at first is inclined to call it mere jargon. There is in most cases, however, a remarkable aptness of these words to their end, though many are not long-lived, and usually not more than two or three colleges at once use the same word to express the same thing...
...class of these words sprang into an immense use as a consequence of the Chicago fire, and have retained their place in the journalist's dialect ever since. Doubtless the man who invented the expression "Fire-Fiend" thought he had done a good thing in the way of personification, and the first six or seven editorials on the great fire were perhaps strengthened by the use of that bold figure. At any rate, its popularity was insured by the indorsement thus received. The "Phoenix" had also manifested himself to a few hopeful minds at this time, and these two some...