Lang

“ Surely that style, so fresh, so rich, so full of surprises—that style which stamps as classical your fragments of slang, and perpetually astonishes and delights—would alone give immortality to an author, even had he little to say. ”

“ Lang's attitude toward the authors he translates. To him Homer, and Theocritus, and the old man who sang of "Aucassin and Nicolette," are still living, and their works are alive. Scholar as he is, his interest is never grammatical or philological, but always literary and human. He never regards these writings as verse to scan, or as prose to parse, but poetry to be enjoyed. ”

“ Here the student of language has a word to say, and I say that language is something that, even in its most rudimentary form, puts an impassable barrier between beast and man.”
Soon after, when I had been asked to give a new course of lectures at the Royal Institution, I had selected this very point, the barrier which language forms between man and brute, for my subject, and as Darwin’s “Descent of Man” was then occupying the thoughts of philosophers, I promised to give a course of lectures on “Darwin’s Philosophy of Language.” ”

“ A lang tongue has a short hand.
"They who are lavish in their promises, are often short in their performances."—Kelly.
A lass that has mony wooers aft wails the warst.
A laughing-faced lad often maks a lither servant.
A layin' hen is better than a standin' mill. ”

“ If we consider how different the trend of native thought really is from our own, we shall have to confess that few, if any, European scholars have ever mastered any Oriental language to the same extent as the writer of this letter has mastered English, or have adapted their thoughts so cleverly to English models as this old Râjah. ”

“ Lang, a shallow basket for carrying Sĕurĕuh leaves to market, or other articles of merchandise.
Langganan, a constant customer, or a person who constanly supplies any article at a fixed rate or on fixed terms. Langganan béas, a person who is in the habit of supplying us with rice or to whom we regularly sell rice.
Langgar, to attack, to assail; to encroach upon, to interfere with; to break a law or regulation. (Jav. Mal. idem.) Langgar, a small house set apart for reading the Koran or for saying prayers, where there is no regular mosque; may be thus translated- a Mohammedan private chapel. ”

“ The science of language has large and close analogies in geological science, with its ceaseless evolution, its fossils, and its numberless submerged layers and hidden strata, the infinite go-before of the present. Or, perhaps Language is more like some vast living body, or perennial body of bodies. And slang not only brings the first feeders of it, but is afterward the start of fancy, imagination and humor, breathing into its nostrils the breath of life. ”

“ Some etymologists, misled simply by the similarity of sound, have connected Lenz with lang (Gothic laggs) , and opined that it was so named from the lengthening of the days; such a derivation is at all events uncertain. ”

“ One of the elementary principles of linguistics is the tendency and ability of every living language to absorb words and phrases from outside sources, including other languages, without losing its individuality and its essential characteritsics. There is no fact better known than the fact that in all languages additions are continually made to the vocabulary by the legitimization of slang and dialectic words and phrases. Among the thousands of slang words that live for a day, there are some that have sprung into favor and have become immortal. ”

“ I know of no age or nation that has been without its slang, and the study is amongst the most curious that a scholar can take up; but our own age, after all, must be reckoned as the palmy time of slang, for we have gone beyond mere words, and our vulgarizations of language are significant of degradation of soul. ”

“ Both Cant and Slang, but Slang to a more determinate degree, are mirrors in which those who look may see reflected a picture of the age, with its failings, foibles, and idiosyncrasies. They reflect the social life of the people, the mirror rarely being held to truth so faithfully—hence the present interest, and may be future value, of these songs and rhymes. ”

“ From this state of grammatical numbness, languages recover by a secondary formation, which grows up slowly and imperceptibly at first in the speech of the people; till at last the reviving spirit rises upwards, and sweeps away, like the waters in spring, the frozen surface of an effete government, priesthood, literature, and grammar. ”

“ In Old High German, besides langsam, ‘lasting a long time,’ there exists a form langseimi, ‘lingering,’ and in Middle High German lancsam, adjective and adverb, ‘slow,’ as well as lancseime, ‘lingering, slow’ ”

“ A writer in Notes and Queries has well remarked that “the investigation of the origin and principles of cant and slang language opens a curious field of inquiry, replete with considerable interest to the philologist and the philosopher. It affords a remarkable instance of lingual contrivance, which, without the introduction of much arbitrary matter, has developed a system of communicating ideas, having all the advantages of a foreign language.” ”

“ America and England alike are too much given to slang and to clipping old words. Nothing in the speech of the former country, so far as I know, can match our ‘awfully nice,’ or our ‘what say?’ but one comfort is, that slang takes hundreds of years before it can creep into Standard English. ”

“ A good linguist will have an advantage here, by being able to trace the words through the original language up to nature; for every word is, in the last analysis, either a picture, whose original in nature is its definition, or a poem, which can be recognized by the general imagination. A child whose vernacular is English will easily see that a bit is something bitten off, and so is smaller than the mouth; but that morsel means a bit is not so obvious to one who does not know that morsus, also, is the perfect participle of the Latin verb for bite. ”

“ Some recent German authors of note suppose language to have sprung up among men of itself, like spontaneous combustion in oiled cotton; and seem to think, that people of strong feelings and acute minds must necessarily or naturally utter their conceptions by words--and even by words both spoken and written. ”

“ Among the many signs of the corruption of the English language, one, which is not the least remarkable, is the prevalent use of slang words and phrases. That certain terms should be peculiar to certain callings, trades, or professions, may be naturally expected, but that these should be extended into general conversation, is a corroborative proof of the strong liking people now have for any thing unusual or out-of-the-way. ”

“ By slang, I mean the easy, natural, semi-technical language of special classes of society.
In English, as well as in most other languages, there are a great many terms and expressions which are chiefly used in certain trades and professions, and which are often unintelligible to outsiders. ”

“ Had you received my former letters, you would have known that your adding German to the list of your acquirements gives me great pleasure. En apprenant les langues on exerce et on fortifie son esprit. On élargit le cercle de ses idées, et on les rend [295] plus nettes et plus précises. Rien n’est plus faux que l’opinion banale qu’en étudiant les langues on ne s’occupe que des mots. ”

“ A new language, says the proverb, is a new sense; but a multiplicity of dialects means, for the possessors of the main language, an enlargement of the pleasures of the linguistic sense without the fatigue of learning a totally new grammar and vocabulary. ”

“ Unless, therefore, you wish your intellectual processes to be as hazy and haphazard as those of mental shirkers and loafers, you must eschew, not necessarily all slang, but all heedless, all habitual use of it. Now and then a touch of slang, judiciously chosen, is effective; now and then it fulfils a legitimate purpose of language. But normally you should express yourself as befits one who has at his disposal the rich treasuries of the dictionary instead of a mere stock of greasy counterfeit phrases. ”

“ As soon as I could find time I examined more of my verses and discovered the same unevenness in their construction.
When I met my friend out on the balcony (I am not sure whether accidentally or otherwise) a few days later, he handed me two books, a large one and a small one. "This one here is a grammar of the German language because—"and now he smiled a kind indulgent smile—"you can't spell your own language yet ... and this is a book on the construction of poems. It will tell you more clearly than I am able what you have to do, and what you must not do in writing your poems." ”

“ The one stream of poetry which is continually flowing is slang. Every day a nameless poet weaves some fairy tracery of popular language. It may be said that the fashionable world talks slang as much as the democratic; this is true, and it strongly supports the view under consideration. Nothing is more startling than the contrast between the heavy, formal, lifeless slang of the man-about-town and the light, living, and flexible slang of the coster. ”

“ Many of the slang words are our best; slang words among fighting men, gamblers, thieves, are powerful words.... Much of America is shown in these and in newspaper names, and in names of characteristic amusements and games.... Our tongue is full of strong words, native or adopted, to express the blood-born passion of the race for rudeness and resistance, as against mere polish.... ”

“ Was it not as unhappy a thing, Sir, for you, as it was fortunate for Letters and for Scotland, that you were born at the meeting of two ages and of two worlds—precisely in the moment when bookish literature was beginning to reach the people, and when Society was first learning to admit the low-born to her Minor Mysteries? Before you how many singers not less truly poets than yourself—though less versatile not less passionate, though less sensuous not less simple—had been born and had died in poor men’s cottages! ”

“ To the ordinary man, of average intelligence and middle-class position, slang comes from every direction, from above, from below, and from all sides, as well as from the centre. What comes from some directions he will know for slang, what comes from others he may not. He may be expected to recognize words from below. Some of these are shortenings, by the lower classes, of words whose full form conveys no clear meaning, and is therefore useless, to them. ”

“ Besides the fact that slang often becomes good English, we have to notice that good English often becomes slang. One of the most common forms of slang is to use words, and especially adjectives, which mean a great deal in themselves to describe quite small and ordinary things. ”

“ A word or an expression, having been long in use exclusively among the working classes, or in the easy talk of certain trades, gradually penetrates into the colloquial speech of the cultivated—sometimes with a slight change of the sense—and suddenly appears one day in refined literary language. In actual English, there are many such expressions, originating partly from cant, partly from slang [2] . ”

“ Apart from these hours of so sweet, restful, and contemplative a nature, every day was given up to work. I did all in my power to acquaint myself most thoroughly with a knowledge of the English language, and made such good progress that I began to compose my verses in English. It is true that these poems will most probably never secure me the gratitude of the English people, but nevertheless they pleased me much, and my friend too expressed his satisfaction with them. ”

“ But though it may be allowed to use some of these terms occasionally in familiar discourse, no one of any sense or good taste will ever think of indulging in slang language, either spoken or written. It is, no doubt, a bad sign of the times, and much to be deplored, that it is so common. Some writers have calculated that there are, at least, three thousand slang terms in common use. The above are but a few examples of this widespread corruption. ”

“ Now in England, where I spent Two Weeks once, the Ladies never use Slang. They simply say that a Thing is either Perfectly Charming or Most Extraordinary and let it go at that. They may be Short on Vocabulary, but they are Long on Respectability. Besides, I was reading in a Magazine the other Day that Slang is Vulgar and that no one should take up with a Slang Word until Long Usage has given it the right to break into the Lexicon. ”

“ Off a gold dish or plate, If a king, and I had ‘em, I could dine in great state. With your own father’s daughter I’d be sure to agree, But to drink the salt water Wouldn’t do so with me!
The lady looked at him quite amazed, and swinging her head from side to side like a great scholar, ‘Well,’ says she, ‘Maurice, if you’re not a poet, where is poetry to be found?’
In this way they kept on at it, framing high compliments; one answering the other, and their feet going with the music as fast as their tongues. All the fish kept dancing, too ”

“ On the forest boughs above me, my face being turned from the road, somewhat passed, or seemed to pass, like a soft golden light, such as in the Scots tongue we call a “boyn,” that ofttimes, men say, travels with the blessed saints. ”

“ Concerning a subject so changeable as cant and slang, it is evidently of importance to know the acceptation of every expression at every period of the development of the language. As a matter of course, therefore, I have tried to discover, in the language of our author, the exact shade of sense of the different slang and cant-expressions, especially in cases where it does not coincide with the common usage, or where it concerns rare expressions. ”