p. 3 | Correct Speaking

Publishing Committee · Battle Creek, Mich. · Nov 24, 1859

Correct Speaking.

We advise all young people to acquire, in early life, the habit of using good language both in speaking and writing, and to abandon as early as possible, any use of slang words and phrases. The longer they live the more difficult the acquisition of correct language will be; and if the golden age of youth the proper season for the acquisition of language be passed in, its abuse, the unfortunate victim of neglected education is, very properly, doomed to talk slang for life. Money is not necessary to procure this education. Every man has it in his power. He has merely to use the language which he reads instead of the slang which he hears; to form his taste from the best speakers and poets of the country, to treasure up choice phrases in his memory, and habituate himself to their use—avoiding at the same time, that pedantic precision and bombast, which show rather the weakness of a vain ambition, than the polish of an educated mind.