Word: slanging
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...Vassar girls have a peculiar phraseology of their own, as I noticed when I went to their annual "Phil" on Friday evening by invitation of a tempting "cousin." In addition to the ordinary slang of girlhood, their vocabulary is still further extended. I gazed wonderingly and rather vacuously perhaps when my cousin said: "Look at that cow. What do you think of its lace?" I could not see any cow, but only an extremely pretty girl with some transparent, interwoven. fluffy stuff around her neck. Later I found that in the Vassar girl's classification all males...
Complaint is made of the amount of "slang" used by one of the instructors...
...Slang, by whatever class of people it may be used, should not, of course, enter into the controversy. still, it is not always easy to draw the line between the irregular or distorted use of words or phrases (which is one definition of slang) and speech that may be said to have the hall mark...
...writer then makes the assertion that Matthew Arnold, the apostle of "sweetness and light," as well as Mrs. Langtry are both guilty of having used the phrase "pull myself together," but says in defence of its use that such a phrase is hardly slang when it "has passed as current by writers who have been set up as example of style." On the other hand, he continues: "It were to continue the discussion to an undue length to cite instances where certain words or phrases put under the ban, charged with being Americanisms, have been proved to be English...
American every-day speech is full of curious expressions now-a-days when "slang" is so very plentiful, and some of these, while not in the slightest ungramatical, are yet always condemned as "Americanisms." Nearly every one from childhood has heard the name, "Americanisms" applied to certain words or phrases, and gradually everyone learns to feel that all expressions so stamped ought at least to be avoided if not suppressed. And yet there are but comparatively few people who know what an "Americanism" really is. In a recent article Mr. Richard Grant White in referring to them, answers the question...