All the odd Words they have picked up in a Coffee-House

Jonathan Swift (Gulliver's Travels) is always rewarding to read. Here is his A Proposal for Correcting, Improving and Ascertaining the English Tongue, an analysis of the faults of the England tongue, how it came about and what to do about it. Gloriously, English has remained one of the most free-range tar-baby languages, always adding and shedding words and phrases in a most unconstrained manner.

Among the culprits fingered by Swift:

Several young Men at the Universities, terribly possed with the fear of Pedantry, run into a worse Extream, and think all Politeness to consist in reading the daily Trash sent down to them from hence: This they call knowing the World, and reading Men and Manners. Thus furnished they come up to Town, reckon all their Errors for Accomplishments, borrow the newest Sett of Phrases, and if they take a Pen into their Hands, all the odd Words they have picked up in a Coffee-House, or a Gaming Ordinary, are produced as Flowers of Style; and the Orthography refined to the utmost. To this we owe those monstrous Productions, which under the Names of Trips, Spies, Amusements, and other conceited Appellations, have over-run us for some Years past. To this we owe that strange Race of Wits, who tell us, they Write to the Humour of the Age: And I wish I could say, these quaint Fopperies were wholly absent from graver Subjects. In short, I would undertake to shew Your Lordship several Pieces, where the Beauties of this kind are so prominent, that with all your Skill in Languages, you could never be able either to read or understand them.