Page:Ralcy H. Bell - The Mystery of Words (1924).pdf/198

 the conditions and the requirements of a tongue, they become capable of reacting on the mind, forcing it to submit in a measure, to its own creations. Words, like boomerangs launched forth from the mind, return to impinge upon the source of their power.

Language-change is a dual process simulating birth and death, growth and decay. Slang enters the phenomenon and plays its rôle in the art of meaning which, strictly speaking, has nothing to do with Semantics, since Semantics is the science of the explanation of meanings. As previously suggested, slang mirrors a vital element in the mental configuration of a community; and for that reason slang-words reveal less of themselves than of their users. Every slang-word is related to some fact vividly held in mind; some of these facts are more difficult to reflect than are others; and that is one cause of the death of many slang-words before reaching the state of dialect. Also slang very often is the product of fugitive sensations, emotions,