OUR CHANGING SPEECH.

Dunstan Times, Issue 3333, 9 August 1926, Page 7

OUR CHANGING SPEECH.

it is surprising how many a word loses its meaning in the course of much less than a lifetime. When you young folks poke fun at me and declare, behind my back, that Pm a bit potty von mean that I’m weak in the head, or touched. Fifty years ago it was people in the. early stages of consumption whom we spoke of as touched, and potty was the slang term for which you now term fishy.

If yen' say that Smith is a gorger vou mean that he does himself, too well at table. A gorger in my young days was a gorgeously-dressed young fellow —a kuut. as he was called a few years ago. When,ye'' say that a thing was a scream, or .creaming, you mean that it was splendid or first-rate. _ A mull - to yon signifies an effeminate sort of person with a marked distaste for any athletic pursuit to entail danger. Muffs in our days wore weakminded people. Who minds being spoken of as a chap nowadays? Chap in my youth was a term of contempt, as fellow used to bo

a century previously. Jlnggennugger meant underhand or deceitful to ns mid-Victorians. Nowadays all huggermugger means is a muddle.

‘‘.lie has got a screw loose” is a term yon use when implying that a man is eccentric or a little xveak in the head. 11 meant something totally different to ns. Wc used it to suggest that a man's financial position or reputation was unsound, or of 1 xvo former friends between whom a coolness had arisen.

A snob to ns by no means applied onlr to any person xvlio attached exaggerated importance to social distinctions. The term signified a nou-collegl ale (ownswan at Oxford or Cambridge. A blackguard did not mean a man of any moral turpitude: it signified a very poor, dirty, and ragged person, often a regular churchgoer, of exemplary life and principles. Nor was a end a man who broke what a celebrated sporting nobleman called “the laws that do matter.” He was merely a fellow xvho was always borrowing money and xvorming tips out of his acquaintances.

The American craze lor giving cars names lias reached England. Two cars, both of the smart semi-racer aluminium type, were recently seen ir Piccadilly w th names painted on the outside. One was called “Atta Bov.” and was driven by an obviously American young man, byt the occupant of “The Nonsuch” was a pretty English looking girl.