Slang and cant in Jerome K. Jerome's works

The academical degree of doctor brings with it so many practical advantages in Sweden that it is widely sought by the more gifted and ambitious students of Swedish Universities and University Colleges. The coveted prize is no less difficult than desirable. The essential condition for its attainment is the publication of an adequate work of original research, which shall form the coping-stone of the writer’s academical career. This original treatise cannot be undertaken until the aspirant has gone through a far more prolonged and systematic course of academical study than is required at most British Universities; while in the making, it undergoes much criticism, both formal and informal, both from the writer’s fellow-students and from the Professor with whose sanction it is essayed; and, lastly, it is subjected to a severe final examination on the day when the author publicly defends his work against the opponents chosen or approved by the appropriate Faculty of the University. Owing to the severe training and rigid scrutiny exacted, a large proportion of Swedish doctoral treatises attain a high standard of thoroughness; they are not mere scholastic exercises, testing and training the investigator for serious work in the future, but rather accumulations of valuable material, handled in a manner which is at once original, careful, systematic, illuminating and interesting.

Svea English Treatises.

Many of these dissertations, properly enough, deal with highly technical matters in a highly technical manner; and consequently most of them appeal exclusively to a limited class. In the department of Modern Languages there has been a marked preference for dealing with the dead and therefore more stable aspects of those languages; but of late years would-be doctors who have chosen a scholastic career have shown a tendency to choose modern subjects of general interest which are likely to prove directly profitable in their school-work. This tendency is aptly illustrated in two treatises included in the present Series: of which Dr. Leeb-Lundberg’s deals with one single aspect of the living author who, whatever may be his ultimate place in English Literature, stands preeminent to-day in his appeal to all classes and to all nations of the English-speaking world; while Dr. Serner’s deals with Mr. Kipling’s chief master in the art of poetry, who has also been the subject of a recent dissertation in Swedish by Dr. Svanberg.

The appended select list of recent dissertations dealing with English subjects and written in English illustrates the wide range of subjects handled in such treatises in Sweden. Should the works now issued prove acceptable to the British public, an endeavour will be made to arrange for the production in England of similar treatises bearing on English subjects in such a form that they may be likely to come within the cognizance not only of special students of Philology but of all persons interested in English Language and Literature.

Recent Swedish Treatises on English Subjects.

[In Order of Publication.]

Ekwall, Eilert. Shakespere’s Vocabulary in its Etymological Elements. Part I. [Native Scandinavian and Continental Germanic Elements]. 250 × 165 mm., pp. xx. + 99. Upsala, 1903.

Reinius, Josef. On Transferred Appellations of Human Beings, chiefly in English and German: Studies in Historical Sematology. (Göteborgs K. Vetenskaps- och Vitterhetsamhälles skrifter.) 255 × 180 mm., pp. xvi. + 296. Göteborg, 1903.

Palmgren, Carl. English Gradation-Nouns in their relation to Strong Verbs. 240 × 165 mm., pp. iv. + 92. Upsala, 1904.

Sunden, Karl. Contributions to the Study of Elliptical Words in Modern English. 250 × 165 mm., pp. iv. + 233. Upsala, 1904.

Knutson, Arthur. The Gender of Words denoting Living Beings in English and the Different Ways of Expressing Difference in Sex. 220 × 145 mm., pp. xvi. + 96. Lund, 1905.

Koch, Carl O. Contributions to an Historical Study of the Adjectives of Size in English. (Göteborgs Högskolas Årskrift.) 250 × 170 mm., pp. xii + 164. Göteborg, 1906.

Bergström, G. A. On Blendings of Synonyms or Cognate Expressions in English: a Contribution to the Study of Contamination. 240 × 165 mm., pp. xvi. + 211. Lund, 1906.

Uhrström, Wilhelm. Studies on the Language of Samuel Richardson. 225 × 145 mm., pp. vii + 180. Upsala, 1907.

Borgström, Edvard. The Proverbs of Alfred, re-edited from the Manuscripts, with an Introduction, Notes and Glossary. 240 × 165 mm., pp. xc. + 100. Lund, 1908.

Gabrielson, Arvid. Rime as a Criterion of the Pronunciation of Spenser, Pope, Byron and Swinburne. 240 × 160 mm., pp. xvi. + 211. Upsala, 1909.

Zachrisson, Robert. Anglo-Norman Influence on English Place-Names. 240 × 165 mm., pp. xv. + 169. Lund, 1909.

Messrs. W. Heffer and Sons Ltd., of Cambridge, England, having special connections in Sweden, will be pleased to procure for British purchasers copies of such of these treatises as are still in print.

Svea English Treatises.

Price (bound in cloth), 2s. 6d. net. each.

Each Work has a bibliography, list of works consulted, and (usually) an index.

W. LEEB-LUNDBERG. Word Formation in Kipling: a Stylistic-Philological Study. 210 × 130 mm., pp. viii. + 116. 1909.

CARL EFVERGREN. Names of Places in a Transferred Sense in English: a Sematological Study. 235 × 155 mm., pp. xii + 123. 1909.

GUSTAF L. LANNERT. An Investigation into the Language of Robinson Crusoe as compared with that of other Eighteenth-Century Works. 235 × 155 mm., pp. xxxvii. + 124. 1910.

GUNNAR SERNER. On the Language of Swinburne’s Lyrics and Epics. 235 × 155 mm., pp. viii. + 138. 1910.

W. HEFFER & SONS Ltd., 4, Petty Cury, Cambridge, England