Jasper County Democrat, Volume 22, Number 87, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 28 January 1920 — USE PLAIN WORDS [ARTICLE]

USE PLAIN WORDS

Up-to-Date Young People Do Not Apply Soft Pedal. Ancient Fashion of Vagus Allusion to Things Is Passe and All Bay What They Mean About Things. Americans used to come in for a good deni of teasing and "Joshing” by Englishmen because of their tendency to show an exaggerated delicacy In rholr choice of words. Especially was this .squeamishness apparent among American women 40 or 50 years ago, when so far from ever speaking of their own legs they actually called the uprights of a square piano limbs and would have blushed with mortification if you had mentioned the chair legs. In England they said that an American woman would never refer to the breasf of a chicken, but referred to thnt portion of the bird as the bosom. Some who laughed at this overniceness made the comment that people who condemned so many harmless words must have evil minds or they would see no harm in them. But really It did not indicate evll-mlndedness. It was Just a natural phase of the general oversqueamlsbness of the time. No wonder that the young woman who was cautioned' never to show more than the tip of her toe beneath her voluminous hoopsklrts and who couldn’t tp save her life have taken a deep breath —no wonder jdie was overfastldious in the choice of her words. It was pnrt of the fashion of the time. It really was bad form ns manners were then framed to speak with even moderate frankness. But now the pendulum has swung far In the other direction, and it Is the well-bred tiling to avoid those circumlocutions used once to soften words of too great realism. It Is considered a little old-fashioned or countrified now to say that you ,nre going to retire whep you might say simply thnt you are going to bed. Likewise we speak of bedrooms, whereas our cureful grandmothers would never have used so frank a word. They spoke of chambers or sleeping apartments. Sometime ago It was considered *the well-bred thing to use circumlocutions when speaking of death. To a certain extent this Is still done, but In general the progressive young American avoid* such euphemisms as.“pass beyond” and “pass away.” People more frequently •>sed to sov “If anything should hap-

pen to me* or "In case I should bo called beyond” when they meant limply “if I should die,” which meana exactly the aame thing Just aa vividly and haa the advantage of being straight Anglo-Saxon. Old-fashioned folk used to use softened words to Indicate poverty. Tbay spoke about being “in reduced circumstances.” They would have considered it rude to say a friend was poor, though they might have said that ho was a “person of moderate means.” If a woman found herself in a position where she had to earn her owa living they said that “she bad Joined the army of toilers,” never that she had “gone to work.” People spoke of salaries, remunerations, compensations and honorariums; seldom of wage* or pay. They npoks of positions and posts. Nowadays the thoroughly up-to-date young person speak* of her Job. —Philadelphia Inquirer.