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( \ V~v ^ homers COLLECTION Per Copy qrii ~ i Li" Per Year 5 Gts. Inc Future Citizen $1.00 A Paper With a Purpose, Printed by the Reformatory Boys Doi ng the Best They Can. Volume III. MiUedgevide, Ga., Saturday, Ju ? v 15, 1916. Number 14 GUARD YOUR MflGf. AGAINST SLANG A Few of the Ways That Slang is Robbing the American Lang uage of its Euphony and its Harmony Slant', in its truest sense, means a low, vulgar, popular, but un authorized language , the jargon of some particular calling or class in sr.cietv, and it is more or less common in nearly every walk of life at the present day. Slang words and expressions have crept into our every day languages, and so insidiously, that they have not been delected by the great majority of spe ikers, and so have become part and parcel of their vocabulary and on an equal footing with the legiti in ate words of speach. They are called upon to do similar service a-i ordinary words used in conver sat ion, to express thoughts and desired and to convey meaning from one to another. In fact, in some cases, slang has become so useful that it has far outstripped classic speech and made for itself such a position in the vernacular that it would be hard in some cases to get along without it. Slang expressions consist of words and phases which pass cur rent, but are not elegant enough to be admitted into polite speech or literature whenever they are re cognized as such. 13ut, as has been said, a great many people use slang without knowing it is slang and incorporate it into eve r y day speech ; just as a child uses profane words without' consciousness of their being so. In all cases the object of slang is to express an idea : .n a more vigorous,piquant, and terse man ner than standard usage ordinarily admits. Some authors purposely use slang to give emphasis and spice in familiar and humorous writing, but they should not be imitated by the tyro. We should try to avoid the use of slang as much as possible, even when it serves to convey our ideas in a forceful manner. A master such as Dickens is forgivable, but in the novice it is unp irdon tble. A< times it would be difficult to j condemn some slang words as; they convey such a vidid meaning j that it would be almost impossible j to substitute another for them, and j if above all they are refined and! can stand the muster of the timej they will eventualy, if they have! successfully stood this test, be j taken into the American language, J | but it has now gone to the point where slang words have usurped the place of our regular words of j language .in many instances and now reign supreme in their own j strength and influence. Remember that most all slang is! of vulgar origin and bears upon itsj face the bend sinister ol vulgarity, j Of slang that is of good birth ; pass) it by for it is like the broken down* gentleman. Of little good to any-j one. Imitate the great masters in classic literature, but when it comes to their slang—draw the line. Are you going to let a new world an insulting words that has no just reason for being so, rob your lan guage of its euphony and harmony? If you use slang, use the refined kind, and use it so like a gentleman that'it will not hurt or give offense to anyone. Cardinal Newman de fined a gentleman as lie who never inflicts pain, “lie a gentleman: never inflict pain.”—The Electron The Flag as Adopted by the Con gress of 1777. Taken from the Coat-of Arms of Washington A fac simile of the first Ameri can flag is still preserved in the Betsy Ross house in Philadelpha. “Old Glory” is a growth rather than a creation and several sugges tion ^ have been advanced relative to its composition.lt has been con tended by some that the idea of the stars and .-.tripe- was derived from the coat of arms of the family of George Washington , but noth, ing has ever been found to sub stantiate the theory except the sim ilarity between the two designs. Washington spoke of flag ,»s follows. “We take lhe stars from Heaven, the red from our mother country, separating it by white stripes, thus showing that we have ‘■eperated from her, and the while stripes shall go down to posterity tepre- senting liberty.” It was not until a year subsequent to the Declaration ol Independence that the first legislation relative lo the establishment of a national (lag was enacted. On June 14, 1777, Congress in session at Philadelphia, adopted the following resolution : * Resolved, That the flag of the thirteen United States be thirteen stripes, alternate red and white: that the union be thirteen stars, white in a blue field representing a new conslellation. ’’ The recorc»sof Congress are silent as to who introduced the resolution, 1 and there is no record of the dis cussion that may have taken place at the time. Little is also known of ; of the committee which designed the llag, except that John Adams was its master spirit. The first tlag displayed under the resolution adopted by Congress bore (Continued on page 8. column i. ) HAVF YOU » lJTTJ F nmu{F . \T\7.W JN YOUR HOMF.?—WELL. YOU SHOULD.