1942
THURSDAY, APRIL 9, 1942
UNIVERSITY DAILY KANSAN, LAWRENCE, KANSAS
PAGE FIV
English Professor Likes To 'Call a Drip a Drip'
Pittsburgh, Pa.—(UP)You're "cooking with gas" when you call a drip a "drip," and, what is more, you are contributing toward a fresher and livelier language, a Duquesne University English professor advises.
The newly-found defender of "slanguage," Dr. Martin I. J. Griffith, professor of English and dean of the College of Arts and Sciences at Duquesne University, believes that "it's great fun to call a drin a drin."
"Slang," Dr. Griffith said, "represents a continuous attempt upon the part of normal people everywhere to freshen and liven the living speech."
He explained that there is a weakness in language which makes common words, especially when overused, weak and ineffective. To freshen up our speech, therefore, we must lapse into slang, he said.
Beware of "Cant"
"S lang is justified on another score," he added. "English is particularly a fluid tongue, and we constantly seek euphemisms to express more elegantly words which represent the facts of life."
But the educator and authority on "jabber-wacky" cautioned linguists to distinguish between slang—the "solid" stuff—and "cant," which is merely the jargon of a special profession, trade or occupation.
The specialized terms used by a pilot, gangster, newpaperman, or garagemen would, he pointed out, not qualify as the "real thing."
"Slang is permissable—indeed desirable—so long as it is not overstrained for effect, not homemade, that is, unintelligible to everyone else," Dr. Griffith said.
Urgens Judicious Use
He listed such words as "drip," "lousy," "grind," as desirable "when incorporated" in the easy flow of colloquial speech.
Particularly, he declared, is slang necessary to fill a void in the English language, which, he said, "is singularly arid in certain words to express familiar relationships."
" 'Fiance' is too stiff and formal; 'boy friend' and 'girl friend' too colloquial," he said. " 'Sweetheart' is too strong and almost any other expression than the current slang one is too expressive or stilted. Slang fills a needed gap in the language. The over-precise, over-nice speaker is to be abrehed quite as much as the person whose speech is incomprehensible with slang," the professor declared.
But he warned that siang should be used "as any other condiment is used—sparingly but judiciously."
Divorce Ends As Kids Plead
Columbus, Ohio — (UP) — True love, aided by four small children, brought Mr. and Mrs. Clyde Rist together after the couple had been divorced for 30 minutes.
Mrs. Rist recently obtained a divorce from her husband on grounds of neglect and her husband was ordered to pay $100 a month for support and alimony.
The couple and their four children walked out of the courtroom but met in the hall to say goodbye. Rist made a final plea to his wife for a reconciliation and the children took up the cry.
A few moments later the couple walked back into the courtroom and found Common Pleas Judge Dana F. Reynolds.
"We've changed our minds," Rist said. "We're going back together."
Judge Reynolds agreed to strike the divorce and alimony from the court record.
South Gets Portable School
Atlanta, Ga. — (UP) — The South, caught in the middle of the national defense program, is adding one more war-time innovation—the portable school house.
Lester M. Marx, regional engineer of the Federal Works agency here, has recommended that over-crowded sectors be supplied with portable school houses. As families of workers follow spreading defense jobs, "the little red schoolhouse" would trail along.
The mushroom growth of cantoments and industrial centers has skyrocketed school populations in many areas beyond the capacity of the regular schools.
The plan is for sturdy, prefabricated wooden units, capable of being easily assembled or dismantled. This, said Marx, would relieve the overcrowded conditions of regular schools and assure uninterrupted study by children of migrant war workers.
More than 200 new permanent school houses are under construction now in the South but only a few of them will be ready for use this fall. Kerr thinks that the portable school, successfully tried in Vallejo, Calif., would be the answer.
Kerr pointed out that erection of a complete prefabricated school would run only between $15,000 to $30.00. These schools would be built in units and the entire school, or as many units as necessary would follow right behind the migrating population.
The University volley ball championship will be decided in a game between the Faculty and the Phi Gamma Delta fraternity at 5:10 this afternoon.
Phi Gam, Faculty Play For Intramural Crown
Bellefontaine, Ohio - (UP) Members of the Anti-Horse Thief Association of West Mansfield have organized a civilian defense unit.
Horse Thief Unit Modernizes
Eleven Men To Be Pledged By Military Frat
Eleven men will be pledged by Scabbard and Blade, national honorary military fraternity, at a dinner to be held tomorrow night preceding the annual ROTC ball, according to an announcement made this morning by Ben Matassarin, president of the fraternity. Formal pledging ceremonies will be held at the ball, at which time active members of the chapter will form an arch of sabers for the pledges.
Men pledged are: James Hayward Gillie, Frederick Griffith Bohannon, Frank Henry Emerson, William H. Duke, Howell Hill, Louis Frederick Lafferty, Burt Gustav Larson, E. Artell Metcalf, Selby Strong Soward, Paul Addison Trower, and Frank Ernest Wilcox, jr.
Pledges will undergo a week of training, after which initiation ceremonies will be held. Informal initiation will take place Friday evening, April 17, and formal initiation at sunrise on Sunday morning, April 19, on the parade grounds before Fowler shops. Pledge duties during the week will include interior guard duty on the campus, and walking post.
Principal speaker at the pledging dinner tomorrow will be Major B. L. Roberts, of the Army command and general staff school at Fort Leavenworth. Over eighty will attend the dinner, including dates of acts and pledges, alumni, associate members and guests.
Only students in advanced R.O.T. C. training are pledged to the fraternity, the first chapter of which was founded in 1803 at Wisconsin University.
April 13 Deadline On Carruth Poetry
Poems to be entered in the William Herbert Carruth Memorial poetry contest for 1941-42 must be submitted to the Chancellor's office by 12 noon on April 13.
Prizes for the contest will be:
first, $60; second, $40; third, $20.
A volume of poetry will be given to each contestant awarded honorable mention. Announcement of awards will be made about May 11.
Names of prize winners will also appear on the commencement program.
Dinner Bells to Signal Raids
Springfield, Ohio - (UP) - Farmers in Mad River Township have gone back to the old-fashioned farm dinner bell. Trustees of the township have obtained 25 such bells to be sounded as air raid warnings.
Colorado School of Mines Summer Session July 6-Sept.2
Engineering Courses May Be Completed Equivalent to Half a Semester's Work
Because of rain and unfavorable weather the intramural track meet will be held on the indoor track under the stadium this afternoon and tomorrow.
The track meet will start at 4:30 this afternoon. The schedule of events is as follows:
90 yard low hurdles, preliminary.
90 yard dash preliminary.
Chemistry; Civil, Electrical, Mechanical, Petroleum Engineering;
Descriptive Geometry; Engineering Drawing; Economics; English;
Geology; Mathematics; Mining; Physics; Metallurgy.
Also Field Courses in Geology, Metallurgy, Mining, Petroleum May 25 to July 3; and Plane Surveying May 25 to July 3 and July 27 to Sept. 5.
For further information write
Director of the Summer Session
Colorado School of Mines, Golden, Colo.
90 yard low hurdles, semi-finals.
220 yard dash preliminary and semi-final.
90 yard dash, semi-final.
Weather Drives Intramural Meet To Indoor Track
440 yard dash preliminary.
Finals in the preceding events will be held at 4:30 tomorrow afternoon.
Field events which will be run off at 4:30 this afternoon are:
Shot put
High jump.
Broad jump.
There are no "rookie" dollars. Send yours to the front! Buy U.S. Defense Savings Bonds and Stamps!
Women's Intramurals BY PAT BOWMAN
W. A.A. will meet this afternoon at 4:30 to elect officers.
Peggy Davis, Theta, defeated Kathryn Schaake, independent, for the championship in the badminton singles.
The play-offs of the first rounds of the archery and tennis tournaments have been extended a week due to the rain.
WEATHER CANCELS----
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wood (outfield), Warren Hodges,
Lawrence (catcher).
T.P. Hunter, Centralia, Ill. (pitcher,
1st base, fielder), Forrest Hill, Casper,
Wyo. (3rd base, infield), Bob Innis,
Pittsburg (outfield), Larry Johnson,
Ft. Scott (outfield), Forrest Kresie, Topeka (pitcher, infield, outfield), John Krum, Lawrence, 3rd base, shortstop, Denzel Gibbens, Lecompton (2nd base, outfield), Dean Martin, Princeton (outfield), Otto Teichgraeber, Gypsum (shortstop, outfield), Calvert Winter, Lawrence (pitcher).
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