SLIPSHOD ENGLISH.

Otago Witness, Issue 2660, 8 March 1905, Page 88

SLIPSHOD ENGLISH.

Some months ago I gave a good selection illustrating slipshod English. Here is an extract sent me by a friend, which almost equals my former quotation : —

Even the girl who should know better is given to a slipshod utterance, as indeed many people are in this age of express speed, -when time is" too valuable to be wasted upon a distinct delivery. Here is an amusing record of a conversation* between two girls engaged in the city. It looks like Choctaw, but "it's English, quite English, you know": — ' "Ainchungry?" "Sss." "So my. Less go neet." 1 "Where?" "Sleev go one place snutlier. "So dy. Ika neet mo stennywaie. Carn«hoo ?" "Sss. Gotny money?" *-Sss." "So vy. Got good aptite?" •'Sss. You go'oiy?" •'S=is. Howbout pl?cs crossstreel'" "iTotkia' l&a± tlisre. Lesss,uncund corner."

"Thattledoo zwell zennyware. Mighta thoughta that 'tfirst. Getcherat." "Ima gettinit. Gotny money?" "Sss. Dind' cheer me say I had? All ready?"' "Sss." "K'mon!" The three following selections may give you a hint not to air your learning. —A Lesson in Style. — A few months ago a son of a director of a lar j institution was, through his father's influence, given a position of some importance. He was fresh from college, and in the orders which he from time to time issued to the men under him always made use of the longest and most unusual words. This habit led to some rather expensive blunders, and the matter coming before the general manager, he wrote the young official the following letter: — "Tn promulgating your esoteric cogitations, and in articulating your superficial sentimentalities, beware of platitudinous ponderosity. Let your conversational communications, possess a clarified conciseness, a compacted comprehensibleness, and a concatenated cogency. Lat your extemporaneous descantings and unpremeditated expatiations have intelligibility and veracious vivacity without rodomontade or thrasonical bombast. Sedulously avoid all pollysyllabic profundity and pompous prolixity. In other words, talk plainly, briefly, naturally, sensibly, and truthfully. Don't put on airs; say what you mean ; mean what you say ; and don't use big words." The young official took the hint and changed his style. — Too Scientific — The -principal trustee of School District Number Sixteen was entertaining a youngman fresh from college who had driven cut to his house__lc^apply for the position of teacher of the school in that district. As they sat on the porch after cbr.ner the trustee casually called attention to a familiar little orange-coloured bug, with black spots on its back, that was crawling on the floor. \ "I suppose you know what that is? he said. "Yes," replied the / applicant, eager to show his technical knowledge. "That is a coceinella septempunciata." "Young man," was the rejoinder, "a fallow that don't know a ladybug when he sees it can't get my vote fur teacher in this district.'" — Youth's Companion. — Siamese English. — "S. I/. H.," in the Morning Leader, quotes from the Bangkok Times a notice which has been issued by the promoters of a Siamese- paper; — "The news of English, oh crumbs, "we tell the latest. Writ in perfectly style and most earliest. Do a murder git commit, we hear of and tell it-. Do a mighty chief die, oh crumbs, we publish it, and in borders of sombre. Staff has each, one been and write, oh crumbs, like the Kippling and the Dickens. We circle every town and extortionate not for advertisement. Buy it, oh crumbs. Buy it, Tell each of you its greatness for good. Oh crumbs. Ready on Friday, Number first."