Slang
more than orthographic change, grammatic loss, and historic speculation. It must deal with the phenomena of the mind, and it must approach them through the field of human interest.
Through the science of language, we assemble data on subjects enabling us to make rules that shall help us in our most practical affairs. We discover laws that enlighten us in various ways, but particularly in the method employed, consciously or not, for the modification and the preservation of the most important instrument ever invented. This science enables us to discredit with reason a good deal that has been written on the subject of language. It permits us to see the fallacy of the contention that perfected language was indigenous to prehistoric human soil; that as soon as the soil became productive of cultivated literature, decadence in language became active; and that this was the rule. The mythical “fall” of man is equalled only by the “fall” of his language.
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