RANDOM NOTES

Dominion, Volume 30, Issue 130, 26 February 1937, Page 10

RANDOM NOTES

Sidelights on Current

Events

(By Kickshaws. - )

If it be true that all baby talk should be cut out, it’s going to render quite a lot of people speechless. • * • Wheat-growers, it is contended, must do their part. Let us hope that the harder they work the more perfect the loaf. « * * News that 30/- seats for the fifth Test are being sold for £7, seems to show that the final match has degenerated into a means test. “ ‘G.W.R.’s ’ explanation of ’Levitation's’ experiment is so ingenious that it almost deserves to be true,” says “E.H.S.M.” “Actually, all this talk of pushes on the head affecting the nerves of the spinal column is (to be polite) ‘my eye and Betty Martin.’ Levitation as a parlour game can be achieved in a number of ways, all of which have one common object, namely, the achievement of rhythm and unity of action among those who take part and the establishment between the ‘subject’ and the ‘lifters’ of a sort of sympathy of purpose. One effective method is for the subject and the lifters to take a number of deep breaths in unisou. I have never seen a laying on of hands used as a preliminary, but ‘Levitation's’ description of the result is familiar enough. I have performed these amusing experiments often enough to prove to my own satisfaction that a peculiar aud very puzzling reduction of weight can 'be achieved if the performers give their minds to it. The phenomenon lasts only a second or two at first, but ■this is long enough to ‘hoist the subject.’ Then if the same group of people repeat the experiment several times, the period during which the subject’s weight can be ‘reduced’ increases to three or perhaps four seconds.”

Now that we appear to have a competitor for theatrical honours ou a par with Mussolini, we may expect some interesting contests. The honour at the moment rests with New Zealand. Mussolini will have to think out how be can better driving over wheelbarrows. The only knock-out gesture will be for him to discover that tractors themselves are out of date. At the wheel of some super-type of laud dredge, we shall read, Mussoliui drove over a 1937 model tractor, crushing it fiat. This should start a running-over craze. We shall have liners running over row-boats, railway engines running over donkey carts, accountants running over Government methods of keeping accounts, caravans running over Mr. Lee's houses, Mr. Lee running over the merits of State factories, aud the taxpayers running over the few remaining pennies in their pockets. Indeed the time is coming when every thing not post-1937 will be squashed flat. Pity the poor old wheelbarrow —but there is no time, our garden variety is waiting to be filled with last year's leaves, before we burn our boats and buy a tractor.

No sooner had we read in the news that babies must not be allowed to speak baby language than an interview was arranged forthwith with a baby. Kickshaws had no need to start the proceedings, because as soou as the baby saw him it spoke the forbidden word “Goo.” This will be duly reported to the proper source. Kickshaws, however, immediately pointed out to the child the terrible mistake that was being made. “I do not know whether to call you just plain- ‘it’ or what,” said Kickshaws, “but I must stress emphatically the fact that great exception is taken to the word ‘goo’ which you were heard to articulate. There are, so those lexicographers best calculated to know tell us, 400.000 words in the English language. It seems incomprehensible that you should select the word ‘goo’ above all others. For one thing it finds uo place in the Oxford Dictionary. Possibly your vocabulary is small, but, then, so is that of the old-time farm labourer in the British Isles. He had command of a possible 300 words, including 250 swear words. Nevertheless, he never found use for this word ‘goo.’ The average man who uses perhaps a couple of thousand words to express himself never uses 'goo.' Shakespeare, who rose to fame ou 15,000 assorted words, avoided 'goo.” You will see. therefore, that it is a total waste of time to say ‘goo.’ ” “Goo” said the baby.

Seriously, though, what are babies to do now that the word "goo” has been banned? One by one their vocabulary, never very large, is being cut from under their tongues. Only a month or two ago the Japanese authorities, in their wisdom, banned the word “papa” and “mama” as being hateful to Japanese traditions. All young babies were immediately ordered to avoid these two repugnant words. The recent banning of “goo” means that, at any rate in Japan, babies must remain silent until they can command other words. In Russia nearly every word of a bourbourgeois nature was removed from baby talk in 1924. Indeed, the Russians, in their enthusiasm, went even farther and removed all the old-fashioned dolls, the traditional toys of babyhood, including teddy bears, substituting such useful things as Soviet machine guns and Soviet tanks that had been made in England. It will be seen, therefore, that the modern tendency is to have babies born grown up. Whether it will be possible to improve on that remains to be heard.

Kickshaws was naturally a little surprised to receive the following letter from the Associated Union of Babies, who, he understands, have just had the usual award from Mr. Justice Page. This letter ran : “Sir. or Madam. We note that the word 'goo’ is to be eradicated from the idle chatter with which we babies while away the fleeting moments during which we are trying to regiment our thoughts and reorient ourselves to the curious human beings that surround our cots. If we are to be deprived of our daily ‘goo’ we respectfully would add that we also take strong exception to some of the words we hear. It is our considered opinion that the word ‘definitely’ might well be allowed a long overdue rest. We maybe ‘definitely' like our father or even our mother. Yet this word does not amuse us any more. Moreover, the word ’nice’ may pander to our vanity. We are all ‘nice babies.' Of that there is no doubt, because we have asked our mothers. Nevertheless this never-end-ing ‘nice’ from dawn until dusk gets our goat. There are other words we dislike, but if you can stop only those two you will have earned the respect of we babies.”—Diddleums.

“In the course of a conversation recently, that daring raid at Ostend or Zeebrugge came up for discussion,” says “N. 8. ‘‘One said no one was killed iu the raid, that it was carried out without being discovered: another said that it was carried mil under heavy tire and that there were numerous casualties. If you would answer through your most interesting column you would oblige.” [Casualties amounted to 637, including 197 killed.]