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Typo: A Monthly Newspaper and Literary Review, Volume 3
[miscellaneous paragraphs]
We need scarcely draw attention to the new feature our paper presents this month—its neat wrapper, printed in two colors. Typo no longer appears, as our American cousins quaintly put it, « in shirtsleeves. » The advertisements on the wrapper will be indexed at the close of the volume, and those who bind the monthly parts are recommended to preserve the wrappers and bind them together at the end as an appendix. The printing is by the celebrated firm of Raithby & Lawrence, Leicester; and all orders and communications relating to advertisements in this department must be addressed to our London agents, Messrs John Haddon & Co., 3-4 Bouverie-street Fleet-street, London.
In the days when the British army « swore terribly in Flanders, » profanity in daily speech was as prevalent in England as it is to-day on the continent. There has been a marked improvement in our own day, both in literature and conversation, and open profanity is now a grave offence against the ordinary rules of social intercourse. But society is still far from observing the dictum, « Swear not at all," and most, if not all. of the common expletives are as profane as the old English oaths that have gone out of fashion. « The deuce, » popularly identified with the devil, is really the Latin word Deus = God. To use the terms « Goodness » and « Gracious » as expletives, is to swear by the Divine attributes—else what meaning is there in the vulgar exclamation « Goodness knows » ? « Dear me! » is the Italian Dio mio! = « My God. » « Dear knows, » is in itself meaningless, but compared with the Italian expletives is easily understood. Cant expressions such as these are incompatible with correctness or grace of language, and should be carefully avoided on that account alone—quite apart from their half-concealed profanity.
Since the establishment of the County system, a very ugly and objectionable abbreviation has come into common use— « Cr. » for « Councillor. » In the old Provincial Council days, none of the members were described as « Cr. » They were then « Mr Jones, » « Dr Smith, » « Capt. Brown, » as the the case might be. Legislative Councillors are never called « Crs., » and why should county councillors be so distinguished? A country contemporary, in a district where there is a town board, has gone farther still, and prefixes « Cmr. » (commissioner) to the names of the members! If this unsightly practice continues, we shall yet see uncouth abbreviations devised for harbor board members, members of licensing committees, of education boards, and the score of other local bodies. We hope that the leading journals will combine to exclude all these hideous and useless prefixes. Otherwise, the wearied reader will probably discover, in the colonial paper of the future, abbreviations like these: « The remarks of Lcmr. Jones about the hotel were uncalled for. » « Rbdmr. Johnson was in error. » « Mhr. Williamson's resignation is reported. » « Hbrdmr. Collins opposed the purchase of the new dredge as a waste of the ratepayers' money. »