Leland’s funny irony
Charles G. Leland inserted fake cussin’ in his otherwise fairly accurate 1888 article “Der Chinook-Jargon“.
CG Leland (image credit: Wikipedia)
This he did, probably because he perceived pidgins as earthy languages, maybe to increase readers’ interest level, and surely because he lacked any firsthand information on Chinuk Wawa.
Since he only knew Jargon from published sources, which left out the real cussin’ that went on in Chinook, he had to use his very active imagination.
So the irony is, Leland put imaginary expletives into a language that turns out to have actual expletives!
And because he was known as a humorist, I find this amusing.
