Deterioration of the meaning of words is not restricted to those used for appellation. Whenever we desire to convey any thought to others, we must make it appear important enough to have people give attention to it. We therefore choose terms which mean more than we intend to say, rather than terms which mean exactly as much or less. We call things lovely or horrid when we mean only agreeable or disagreeable, we speak of heaven or hell when we mean only a good or a bad place. The inevitable result is, of course, that the impressive words become insipid. We call a student fair who is only mediocre, merely because of our good will towards him. _Fair_ then comes to mean mediocre, and we call a student fair who is a poor student. Finally, a fair student comes to mean a poor student. Those who are particularly anxious to use impressive language--young people, students, soldiers--often use the other extreme for the same purpose. They use words which signify low or bad things and relations (slang) in order to refer to the things and relations of ordinary life to which they want to call attention. “Grub” comes to mean human food. “Being plucked” takes the place of “being rejected at an honor examination.” _Puritan_ and _quaker_ are slang terms of the seventeenth century which have entirely lost their original meaning of contempt and ridicule. In the same way words of low meaning are all the time being raised into the realm of good language. Speech depends as much on the totality of mental life as perception. A person’s choice of words, their forms and their connections, are determined by previous habits of using words, by experience concerning those qualities of things which are most important to his own interests, by his consciousness of his present needs and ends. The general purpose of communication between the members of society tends to obliterate differences between individuals and between generations. But it never does this perfectly. Individuality, circumstances, and special purpose give to the language of each person an individual stamp; and the succession of individuals, of historical conditions, of the varying needs of successive generations, brings about unavoidably alterations in the language. These alterations are retarded by the existence of a written language, of literature. They may also be retarded artificially by training and compelling the members of a community to use the same words and the same rules of grammar and syntax. Such artificial remedies, however, are not without serious disadvantages. They take the life out of language. Force, beauty, and particularly truthfulness in representation of thoughts are likely to be sacrificed unless we are willing to admit a certain amount of lawlessness, which, after all, is the outcome of the fundamental laws of the mind. 4. _The Significance of Language_