imagination.

And while the American language is collecting those dried and shrivelled
specimens of verbiage, it does not disdain the many-coloured flowers of
lively speech. In other words, it gives as ready a welcome to the last
experiment in Slang as to its false and pompous Latinisms. Nor is the
welcome given in vain. Never before in the world's history has Slang
flourished as it has flourished in America. And its triumph is not
surprising. It is more than any artifice of speech the mark of a various
and changing people. America has a natural love of metaphor and imagery;
its pride delights in the mysteries of a technical vocabulary; it is
happiest when it can fence itself about by the privilege of an exclusive
and obscure tongue. And what is Slang but metaphor? There is no class,
no cult, no trade, no sport which will not provide some strange words or
images to the general stock of language, and America's variety has been
a quick encouragement to the growth of Slang. She levies contributions
upon every batch of immigrants. The old world has thus come to the aid
of the new. Spanish, Chinese, German, and Yiddish have all paid their
toll. The aboriginal speech of the Indians, and its debased lingo,
Chinook, have given freely of their wealth. And not only many tongues
but many employments have enhanced the picturesqueness of American
Slang. America has not lost touch with her beginnings. The spirit of
adventure is still strong within her. There is no country within
whose borders so many lives are led. The pioneer still jostles the
millionaire. The backwoods are not far distant from Wall Street.
The farmers of Ohio, the cowboys of Texas, the miners of Nevada, owe
allegiance to the same Government, and shape the same speech to their
own purpose. Every State is a separate country, and cultivates a
separate dialect. Then come baseball, poker, and the racecourse, each
with its own metaphors to swell the hoard. And the result is a language
of the street and camp, brilliant in colour, multiform in character,
which has not a rival in the history of speech.

There remains the Cant of the grafters and guns, the coves that work
upon the cross in the great cities. In England, as in France, this
strange gibberish is the oldest and richest form of Slang. Whence
it came is still a puzzle of the philologists. Harrison, in his
'Description of England' (1577), with a dogmatism which is not
justified, sets a precise date upon its inventi