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Show I I m SOCIAL AMENITIES FOR M I I 1 51 - THE SCHOOL GIRL H IF a younx girl would once stop for a' few minutes in conversation and listen aaai to the way her friends recklessly use M the English language, she -would realize H the truth of tho remark of older women M who sigh and say that the rising gen era - H tion hasn't even time to talk correctly H nowadays. Good English Is sacrified to H tlie rush and tear of modern life, and H there is no time to stop and think of H grammar. Girls feel that If they have M to waste precious moments in consider- H ing whether "what they say is correct M there will ot be time to say all they aVB WMMUiUUUltilUliUUIMltltv wish to say, eo for this reason sentences are slurred and one word Is made -to suffice where years ago It would have taken two or three to convey the meaning mean-ing Intended. How frequently Is heard, "My dear, I haven't seen you in months, but 1 cnu only stay a moment!" So the gossip of an entire season must be told iu ten minutes, min-utes, and in order to do this every word that is not actually necessary is left out. As a result the art of conversation has been forgotten, any times when a girl is telling an anecdote one hears, "Oh, please spare the details and get to the point!" In order to do this the narrator cuts and shortens as much as possible, , Bince her audience has not time to listen If the tale is to be long, and tho girl loses every chance of being able to enlarge her vocabulary or to tell a good story. Another fault of the modern girl which results from her shortened sentences Is the uso of exaggeration and tho abuse of superlatives. Take, for instance, the much tried words "awful" and "terrible," which tho dictionary tells us mean to "fill with awe or terror," How seldom are they correctly used? They are the most common words in a schoolgirl's vocabulary, vo-cabulary, and yet they are meant to express ex-press great emotions. If employed in correct form they would sound flat and tame and be utterly inadequate to express what Is meant, simply because they nre constantly misused. In order to make ; herself understood she must resort to j superlatives or adjectives. Wero the words not 6o abused they would be quite ' sufllcicnt in themselves. This is a habit ( of which a girl should try to break herself. her-self. One of many misfortunes that must be endured by the girl who has acquired this habit of exaggeration lies In the fact that her fault ib soon widely known, and no matter how true tho story she tells it will be grudgingly accepted, if credited at all. Yet were that girl told that she was not telling the truth she would be indignant and hotly deny the accusation. She should stop and think a minute before making an exaggerated statement and see how ridiculous it sounds. When a girl says, "It was the most wou-derful wou-derful thing I have ever seen!" In describing describ-ing a trivial incident the listener may well be sceptical. Again Is this exaggeration foolibh, because It leaves nothing left to be said when there Is something really remarknblo to be related. Yet how many girls use that expression "Wonderful!" not once, but ten times a day. Slang- is another bad habit unfortunately unfortunate-ly acquired by tho modem girl, and it must seem that she cannot realize how vulgar it is pr she would not use Jt to such au extent. "Bully!" "Kipping!"' "Corking!" "Cork-ing!" &c, ure used so frequently that they have almost ceased to be considered slang, although in our grandmothers' time girls would have been shocked had their brothers made use of such words in polite converse. Soma girls think slang boyish and smart, but while slang terms on a girl's lips may be amusing at the moment in the long run they cheapen her aud detract de-tract from her f eurinino charms. 9 J |