Wallace Irwin

“ It has won many a verb and substantive, it has conquered idiom and diction, and now it is strong enough to assault the very syntax of our Anglo-Saxon tongue. [*]
[*] Note, for instance, the potential mood used indicatively in the current colloquial, "Wouldn't that jar you!"
Slang, the illegitimate sister of Poetry, makes with her a common cause against the utilitarian economy of Prose. They both stand for lavish luxuriance in trope and involution, for floriation and adornment of thought. It is their boast to make two words bloom where one grew before. ”

“ Irwin's sonnet cycle, however, we have slang idealized, or as perhaps one might better say, sublimated. Evolution in the argot of the streets works by a process of substitution. A phrase of two terms goes through a system of permutation before it is discarded or adopted into authorized metaphor. ”

“ But this odium given to Slang by superficial minds is undeserved. In other days, before the language was crystallized into the idiom and verbiage of the doctrinaire, prose, too, was untrammeled. Indeed, a cursory glance at the Elizabethan poets discloses a kinship with the rebellious fancies of our modern colloquial talk. Mr. Irwin's sonnets may be taken as an indication of this revolt, and how nearly they approach the incisive phrases of the seventeenth century may easily be shown in a few exemplars. For instance, in Sonnet XX, "You're the real tan bark!" ”

“ For she, too, was of the caste of the articulate; did she not
"Cough up loops of kindergarten chin?"
and could we hear Mame's side of the quarrel, no doubt our Hoodlum would be convicted by every reader. But Kid Murphy, the pusillanimous rival, was even less worthy of the superb Amazon who bore him to the altar. "See how that Murphy cake-walks in his pride!" is the cri-du-coeur the gentlest reader must inevitably render.
But "the Peach crops come and go," as Mr. George Ade so eloquently observes. We must not take our hero's gloomy threats too seriously. ”

“ It's cruelty to insects—honest, Mame,—
So won't you join me in a tie-up match?
If you'll talk business I'm your lemon pie.
Please answer and relieve
An Anxious Guy."
XVII
Woman, you are indeed a false alarm;
You offer trips to heaven at tourist's rates
And publish fairy tales about the dates
You're going to keep (not meaning any harm) ,
Then get some poor old Rube fresh from the farm,
As graceful as a kangaroo on skates,
Trying to transfer at the Pearly Gates—
For instance, note this jolt that smashed the charm:—
"P.S.—You are all right, but you won't do. ”