Rensselaer Semi-Weekly Republican, Volume 39, Number 100, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 23 August 1907 — ENGLISH AS SHE IS SPOKE. [ARTICLE]

ENGLISH AS SHE IS SPOKE.

Danger of Vainff Slang; th Business Intercourse with Foreigners. Illustrations of the disadvantages of cultivating local vernacular and slang in one’s own language are sometimes brought sharply (home to business men, an was the case In a letter received tihe other day by a New York Ann from one of their own correspondents in the far east, which read In part as follows, says Shipping Illustrated: “Will you kindly send us a modern dictionary of American language, as we are unable to understand some of the phrases in your letter. Writing on the —th ultimo, you say, for Instance: ‘Do not let Messrs. hand you a lemon In this deal. If they try it on pitch one for fair right over the plate to Mr. , and if he foozles cable J for a solar plexuk’ The terms used are foreign to us and we entirely flail to comprehend their significance.” Another incident similarly lllustra-' ttve occurred on iboara\a big liner in New York a short time ago when a representative of Shipping Illustrated was conversing with one of the officers: "Have you been often In New York?” aSked the visitor. “No. This is my first trip,” was the reply. “You have 'been running to other porta then. You speak very good English,” suggested the visitor. "No. This is the first English-speak-Ing place to which I ever oarne." “May I ask where you learned English?” “In school at Sebastopol. We had a good professor and I understand you very well, but many of the people here with, whom I speak I cannot understand, so that I have supposed the American language Is different. I am told by some of the other officers who do not speak English, but who sj>eak French or ■German, that people here who speak those English languages speak the some as at home, but English here seems too large a language. •One cannot understand the words. People say things and laugh and I am puzsled, but do not comprehend.” The moral of such Incidents is obvious. If business men are to take advantage of the fact that English is now more widely spoken abroad than any other language, they must be at pains not to becloud their meanings by the une, especially in correspondence, of slang ptirnses which have merely local algnlflcanca ‘