A Foreign Tongue

1900

On the strength of a story printed in the Washington Star, it may be said that it is a wise person that knows his own vernacular after the dialect-writer is done with it.

"What on earth is de matter wid yoh talk?" asked Piccaninny Jim's mother.

"Dat talk what I was jes' now talkin'?"

"Yassir."

"Oh, dat aint sho-nuff talk! Ev'ybody's gotter speak in school, an' de teacher is learnin' me a negro dialeck piece."


Unsettled

"Can you tell me what sort of weather we may expect next month?" wrote a subscriber to an editor; and according to the Cumberland Presbyterian, the editor replied as follows:

"It is my belief that the weather next month will be very much like your subscription."

The inquirer wondered what the editor meant, till he happened to think of the word "unsettled." — Youth's Companion.