A prominent journal has recently published a sarcastic article on "Harvard slang" tending to show that although we are versed in many strange tongues and, strange to say, even in our own, we never speak in any of them, but express our ripest ideas for the most part in the questionable dialect of Romany. It is true, as the writer claims, that the use of slang at Harvard is almost universal. To illustrate. Let us drop from the college vocabulary that long list of slang words and phrases beginning with the ubiquitous "chestnut" and ending with the non-committal "rot" and we at once appreciate the sphere which slang has come to assume in Harvard life. Our conversation would henceforth lose its elegance, its pungency, its accuracy. Yes, slang is prevalent at Harvard. It is in the class-room, the dormitory, on the field. You hear it on the river; in the gymnasium, - everywhere. But its use has such proportions that comment upon it is unexpected, and for any human power to abolish it is impossible.
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The Princeton Cage.
