Rensselaer Republican, Volume 17, Number 3, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 25 September 1884 — Slang up to Date. [ARTICLE]

Slang up to Date.

The slang word of the moment is “elegant.” Every thing is “elegant” now, from a cheap cigar to a thunder storm. A business man came bustling into a restaurant recently. “How is the kidney stew to-day?” he yelled to a friend. “Elegant, elegant,” said his friend, enthusiastically. People talk about an elegant sail down the hay, and it is only a day or two ago that a dispatch from Boston, in one of the New York papers, spoke of the “elegant base-ball” playing of the champion team. Such expressions as “a perfectly elegant sail” to Coney Island, the “elegant music”.at the beach, and so on, are common. So much has the word been abused that “elegant is no longer elegant, but an adjective that lias become threadbare and commonplace through unmerited nb.use. The regular slang of the moment hitches on the words: “What's the matter with— ?” For instance, two shabbily-dressed young men, without a .penny between them, decide to go uptown. One of them drawls : “I say, me boy, let’s take a cab and go up-town.” ' - “What’s the matter with walking?” “Nothin’.” And they walked. ‘ What’s the matter” means almost 1 anything nowadays. It is said that it was started by Schoolcraft, the minstrel, who has a scene with his partner, Coes, in which they indulge in the “what’s the matter with”. 1 ngo to an extraordinary extent. Mr. Coes threatens t<? thrdjv Mr. Schoolcraft out of the window, and the latter asks: “What's the matter with the door?” In the same way, when lie threatens to stand his companion on his head, the latter wishes to know again what’s the matter with standing on his feet, and so od indefinitely. The expression has become very common now, but has not, and probably never will, reach the point attained by probably the most popular bit of slang, since the war—the expression “I should smile,” with the various changes of “tittering.” “gasping,” “gurgling,” and “snickering” that are constantly rung on it. —New York Sun.