Chapter 8

PECULIARITIES AND MANNERISMS

One finds it difficult to learn the language fluently because of a peculiar second language called "slang," which is in use even among the fashionable classes. I despair of conveying any clear idea of it, as we have no exact equivalent. As near as I can judge, it is first composed by professional actors on the stage. Some funny remark being constantly repeated, as a part of a taking song, becomes slang, conveying a certain meaning, and is at once adopted by the people, especially by a class who pose as leaders in all towns, but who are not exactly the best, but charming imitations of the best, we may say. To illustrate this "jargon," I took a drive with a young lady at Manchester--a seaside resort. Her father was a man of good family, an official, and she was an attendant at a fashionable school. The following occurred in the conversation. Her slang is italicized:

Heathen Chinee: "It is very dull this week, Miss ----."

Young lady, sententiously: "Bum."

Heathen Chinee: "I hope it will be less bum soon."

Young lady: "It's all off with me all right, if it don't change soon, and don't you forget it!"

Heathen Chinee: "I wish I could do something."

Young lady: "Well, you'll have to get a move on you, as I go back to school to-morrow; then there'll be something doing."

Heathen Chinee: "Have you seen ---- lately?"

Young lady: "Yes, and isn't he a peach? Ah, he's a peacharina, and don't you forget it!"

Young lady (passing a friend): "Ah, there! why so toppy? Nay, nay, Pauline," this in reply to remarks from a friend; then turning to me, "Isn't she a jim dandy? Say, have you any girls in China that can top her?"

These are only a few of the slang expressions which occur to me. They are countless and endless. Such a girl in meeting a friend, instead of saying good-morning, says, "Ah, there," which is the slang for this salutation. If she wished to express a difference of opinion with you she would say, "Oh, come off." This girl would probably outgrow this if she moved in the very best circle, but the shop-girl of a common type lives in a whirl of slang; it becomes second nature, while the young men of all classes seem to use nothing else, and we often see the jargon of the lowest class used by some of the best people. There has been compiled a dictionary of slang; books are written on it, and an adept, say a "rough" or "hoodlum," it is said can carry on a conversation with nothing else. Thus, "Hi, cully, what's on?" to which comes in answer, "Hunki dori." All this means that a man has said, "How do you do, how are you, and what are you doing?" and thus learned in reply that everything is all right. A number of gentlemen