The dreary _ennui_ of the
heart, _ennui_ that revolts at truth, that is nauseated by earnestness,
expresses itself in what we call slang, and slang is the sign of mental
disease.
I have no fault to find with the broad, racy, slap-dash language of the
American frontier, with its picturesque perversions and its droll
exaggeration. The inspired person who chose to call a coffin an
"eternity box" and whisky "blue ruin" was too innocent to sneer. The
slang of Mark Twain's Mr. Scott when he goes to make arrangements for
the funeral of the lamented Buck Fanshawe is excruciatingly funny and
totally inoffensive. Then the story of Jim Baker and the jays in "A
Tramp Abroad" is told almost entirely in frontier slang, yet it is one
of the most exquisite, tender, lovable pieces of work ever set down in
our tongue. The grace and fun of the story, the odd effects produced by
bad grammar, the gentle humour, all combine to make this decidedly
slangy chapter a literary masterpiece. A miner or rancheman will talk to
you for an hour and delight you, because his slang somehow fits his
peculiar thought accurately; an English sailor will tell a story, and he
will use one slang word in every three that come out of his mouth, yet
he is delightful, for the simple reason that his distorted dialect
enables him to express and not to suppress truth.
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