4th April. Few of us have not suffered in our time from coming into contact with that most trying of all social bores, the would-be wit, whose idea of achieving success is to contort our beautiful English language into an almost unrecognizable medley of bad puns; and who re-introduces to his friends the most ancient of Joe Millers, and regales his unfortunate "chestnuts " till they long to cry out juaintances with a perpetual feast of
for mercy. There yet remains to be discovered a remedy for a disease that is _unluckily so very prevalent; once seized by the malady it is almost impossible to shake it off, and hoary age and callow youth are equally likely to be attacked by an epidemic from which, sad to relate, his neighbours endure infinitely more discomfort than the patient himself. 'I'here is no doubt that it rages in its worst form chiefly amongst masculine humanity; but of late years its symptoms have spread so rapidly, and its distinguishing features have become so generally known, that even the gentler sex has caught the infection, and it is no uncommon experience to hear a respectable British matron advising her son to" get outside a good square meal," or urging her daughter to instruct. herself in some recently evolved fashionable folly, on the ground that palmistry and skirt-dancing " take the cake" nowa-days.
There is a clever and pointed article in a late number of the Spectator treating of this very topic, and giving utterance to what we think must be nearly universal regret at the disfigurement of a language whose archaic loveliness threatens to be entirely destroyed by the insertion of the odious cant phrases and popular expressions with which ordinary conversation is interlarded at the present time. 'I'he writer remarks that nothing is so calculated to produce such an utter sense of intellectual nausea, nor so bad an attack of mental indigestion, as what he rightly calls the use of inane jocularities of speech and he adds that whilst the people who adorn their conversation with these verbal atrocities, imagining them to be a form of wit, deserve to be shot, others who adopt them unconsciously merit all our pity, and are fitting objects of comnuiseration. 'I'he man who obtrudes the "brevity of his coat upon your notice with the obvious intention of profiting by the "opportunity thus afforded of saying with a suggestive chuckle that it will be long jocosely alludes to "maternal relatives," before he gets another, and who
"fine growing weather," and people of "the masculine persuasion " is 2 person, whose acquaintance one would willingly dispense with; for it is the severest test of friendship to be obliged to summon up a laugh on hearing one of these dreary witticisms, and the listener has a conscious feeling of having lost his self-respect entirely, in a hypocritical attempt to al amused at what really only excites his disgust.
It is a matter of wonder that these weeds of rhetoric do not come to an untimely end almost immediately after their flowering; for the mirth at first excited by their originality rarely survives their earliest appearance, and we should have thought it was next. to impossible for those who indulge in them to be wholly unobservant of the forced smile with which they are greeted after constant repetition, or fail to notice the look of scarcely veiled contempt which a few unfortunate hearers are unable altogether to suppress. It must be acknowledged that the practice is cultivated by many with the idea that it is a cheap way of being entertaining, and if the misguided individuals who labour under this impression could only be shown what a distressing and pitiful exhibition they make of themselves, there might be some hope of improvement in the future. When we remember what a rare gift real wit is—how it sparkles and scintillates and brightens up conversation with a light whose radiance illuminates the centuries, and whose glory can never be dimmed, it is positively pathetic to see otherwise well-meaning and harmless human beings drifting into the delusion of fancying that their daily reiteration of some villainous joke laces them on a level with great humourist like the inimitable Sydney Smith, and Dean Swift of immortal memory. We do not wish to rob conversation absolutely of those subtle tours de phrases which, if appropriately and tactfully introduced, delight instead of irritating by their presence; but we must emphatically protest against the forcible intrusion of the well-worn jocu-rarities whose edge has become blunted by frequent service, and whose lustre has vanished as entirely as the silvered surface of electro-plate after hard usage. Doubtless even the most trivial jokelet may present a certain charm on its debut; but its constant appearance soon renders it as faded and haggard as a garrison hack, or an antique belle, and we are convinced that most of these comic catch-words and expressions ought to be put out of sight as speedily as possible after their invention—early enough to admit of their being buried under a shower of flowers, instead of reduced to ashes by the fire of unfavourable criticism. Io people who cultivate such forms of speech from a wish to shine in Society, we can only give Punck's advice to those about to marry Don't," and we regard their condition as so completely hopeless that we feel any rational hint would be thrown away upon them. But to others, who have merely fallen into the disgraceful habit from a familiarity that is so apt to induce unconscious imitation, we would offer a word of warning, and beg them to draw back before it is too late. We should feel that our mission in life had. not been in vain if we could persuade these erring mortals to realise that their conversation would be a thousand times more attractive if they would condescend to speak in plain English, instead of distorting what is in reality a most expressive language, by the introduction of lingual horrors that are neither graceful nor satisfactory. The writer in the Spectator assures us wisely that there are many venerable and historic phrases, that will always be welcomed on account of their classic interest, and against these he utters no reprobation for such hackneyed and complaint. But he has nothing but
jaded witticisms as the description of an unmarried mau as a "gay bachelor of the unfathomable majestic ocean as "the briny" or the "herring-pond of the coin of the realm as "oot," and broken down cab-horse as a "fiery steed," and many similar phrases to which we who live in the Bast might add numerous examples, including that oft-repeated " pernicious cocktail," which ought to have been decently interred years ago. For such inanities as these surely no sensible man could express anything but loathing and repugnance, and there is no doubt that our language will be vastly improved when these spots on the sun are obliterated. At present they are a distinct eye-sore, and one that we fear will be with us, at all events as long as an audience can be found to applaud their appearance. A stony stare and absolute refusal to give way to a smile on their introduction might have some effect in hastening their decease but such a line of action would be a refinement of cruelty towards the unfortunate perpetrator that few of us would be sutlicieutly hard-hearted to take. Our only resource, therefore, is to make a direct appeal to the offeuders themselves, begging them to understand that they are absolutely ruining all prospect of enjoyable conversation by undue indulgence in feeble jests that will certainly tiver secure for them the satisfaction of hearing themselves characterised as being possessed of "a nimble wit" that " might have been made of Atalanta's heels."
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.