RANDOM REMINDER

Press, Volume CVIII, Issue 31676, 11 May 1968, Page 24

RANDOM REMINDER

(WORDS) There have been a couple of further reminders of the need to be careful in the choice of words. Last month we were rambling on about colourful West Coast names and pondered on the derivation of Dirty Mary Creek. We simply said it was easy to picture a bedraggled hag, ekeing out a living by telling fortunes to those on their way to the goldfields; or that perhaps she simply did not use the detergents of the day. From Reefton comes a letter explaining that once again we have lost touch with history. “Dirty Mary," the writer said, was an Irish woman named Mary Boyle, noted for her extreme cleanliness. She kept

a small licensed house on the river bank. She complained bitterly when the stream was used as a sludge channel for tailings, and its clear waters became dirty and discoloured. So, the writer says, Mary’s Creek became Mary’s Dirty Creek and then. Dirty Mary’s Creek. For this information we, and no doubt all the Boyles, are extremely grateful. The other note today on the use of words concerns the lack of them. From Fendalton a woman writes to say that she was watching television and Just after the weather report her teenage daughter rushed out, hair wrapped in a towel, to ask what the wea-

ther would be next day. “What does It matter?” her mother said, “you’re only going to college—there’s nothing special on is there?” “No,” her daughter said, “but I don’t know what sort of curlers to wear.” So we have to ask whether CHTV3 would consider making a change. They have abandoned those delightful little sun, frost and cloud labels. Would they find room at the bottom of the screen for a picture of the right size and style of hair-cur-ler for the next day’s weather? We’re not too sure that they will.