1656 Les Miserables
and we restrict slang to slang. The veritable slang and the
slang that is pre-eminently slang, if the two words can be
coupled thus, the slang immemorial which was a kingdom,
is nothing else, we repeat, than the homely, uneasy, crafty,
treacherous, venomous, cruel, equivocal, vile, profound, fa-
tal tongue of wretchedness. There exists, at the extremity of
all abasement and all misfortunes, a last misery which re-
volts and makes up its mind to enter into conflict with the
whole mass of fortunate facts and reigning rights; a fear-
ful conflict, where, now cunning, now violent, unhealthy
and ferocious at one and the same time, it attacks the social
order with pin-pricks through vice, and with club-blows
through crime. To meet the needs of this conflict, wretch-
edness has invented a language of combat, which is slang.
To keep afloat and to rescue from oblivion, to hold above
the gulf, were it but a fragment of some language which man
has spoken and which would, otherwise, be lost, that is to
say, one of the elements, good or bad, of which civilization
is composed, or by which it is complicated, to extend the
records of social observation; is to serve civilization itself.
This service Plautus rendered, consciously or unconsciously,
by making two Carthaginian soldiers talk Phoenician; that
service Moliere rendered, by making so many of his charac-
ters talk Levantine and all sorts of dialects. Here objections
spring up afresh. Phoenician, very good! Levantine, quite
right! Even dialect, let that pass! They are tongues which
have belonged to nations or provinces; but slang! What is
the use of preserving slang? What is the good of assisting
slang ‘to survive’?