{
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 "run_at": "2026-09-10T16:24:14Z",
 "hypothesis": "Chapter 1. Origin. It engenders a whole world, la p\u00e8gre, for which red theft. and a hal la pgrne for which red hunger thus idleness is the mother she has a son theft and a daughter hunger what is slang we have never understood this sort of objections slang is odious slang makes one shudder Who denies that? Of course it does. When it is a question of probing a wound, a gulf, a society, since when has it been considered wrong to go too far, to go to the bottom? We have always thought that it was sometimes a courageous act, and, at least, a simple and useful deed, worthy of the sympathetic attention which duty accepted in fulfilled merits. why should one not explore everything and study everything why should one halt on the way nothing is more lugubrious than the contemplation thus in its nudity in the broad light of thought of the horrible swarming of slang now when has horror ever excluded study since when has malady banished medicine can one imagine a naturalist refusing to study the viper the bat the scorpion the centipede the tarantula and one who would cast them back into their darkness saying oh how ugly that is he would be like a philologist refusing to examine a fact in language a philosopher hesitating to scrutinize a fact in humanity what is slang properly speaking it is the language of wretchedness we may be stopped the fact may be put to us in general terms which is one way of attenuating it we may be told that all trades professions it may be added All the accidents of the social hierarchy and all forms of intelligence have their own slang. The painter who says, my grinder. the notary who says my skip the gutter the hairdresser who says my mealy back the cobbler who says my cub talks slang there is the slang of the affected lady as well as of the pressuses the sugar manufacturer who says loaf clarified lumps bastard common burnt this honest manufacturer talks slang algebra medicine botany have each their slang to meet the needs of this conflict wretchedness 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 phoenician very good even dialect let that pass to this we reply in one word only assuredly if the tongue which a nation or a province has spoken is worthy of interest the language which has been spoken by a misery is still more worthy of attention and study and then we insist upon it the study of social deformities and infirmities and the task of pointing them out with a view to remedy is not a business in which choice is permitted he must descend with his heart full of charity and severity at the same time as a brother and as a judge to those impenetrable casemates where crawl pell-mell those who bleed and those who deal the blow those who weep and those who curse those who fast and those who devour those who endure evil and those who inflict it Do we really know the mountain well when we are not acquainted with the cavern? they constitute two different orders of facts which correspond to each other which are always interlaced and which often bring forth results true history being a mixture of all things the true historian mingles in everything facts form one of these and ideas the other there it clothes itself in word masks in metaphor rags in this guise it becomes horrible one perceives without understanding it a hideous murmur sounding almost like human accents but more nearly resembling a howl than an articulate word One thinks one hears Hydra's talking. It is unintelligible in the dark. It is black in misfortune. it is blacker still in crime these two blacknesses amalgamated compose slang the earth is not devoid of resemblance to a jail look closely at life it is so made that everywhere we feel the sense of punishment each day has its own great grief or its little care yesterday you were trembling for a health that is dear to you today you fear for your own tomorrow it will be anxiety about money the day after tomorrow the diatribe of a slanderer the day after that the misfortune of some friend then the prevailing weather then something that has been broken or lost then a pleasure with which your conscience and your vertebral column reproach you again the course of public affairs this without reckoning in the pains of the heart and so it goes on there is hardly one day out of a hundred which is wholly joyous and sunny and you belong to that small class who are happy in this world's evidently the vestibule of another there are no fortunate the real human division is this the luminous and the shady to diminish the number of the shady to augment the number of the luminous that is the object that is why we cry education science to teach reading means to light the fire every syllable spelled out sparkles however he who says light does not necessarily say joy people suffer in the light excess burns The flame is the enemy of the wing, to burn without ceasing to fly. Therein lies the marvel of genius."
}