ANCIENT MODERNISMS

Evening Post, Volume CXIII, Issue 1, 3 January 1927, Page 2

ANCIENT MODERNISMS

SAM WELLER. SAID "I DON'T

THINK!"

_ In the course of miscellaneous leading. it is remarkable how. often: one comes across.a," word or .phrase in some old book which, strikes brie.'as. incongruous'because it seems a modern piece of slang. Thus Shakespeare, in "The Merry Wives bf Windsor," writes, "What the- .dickens "— a phrase found also in Heywood and others. More odd still: If there is a phrase which appears to be pure American slang it is to *'fire,*' in the * sense of turning out.. But in Shakespeare's 144 th sonnet we have the same .use of the word: "Till my bad angel fire my good one out." The fact.-is (says "John o J London's, Weekly") that a largo number of words which have become obsolete in England, but were common in the I7th century, have been, retained in America, and, newly- imported, here, appear strange tons.- -Lowell's entertaining "Bigelow Papers," for example, reek with Americanisms, yet the learned author states that they'wore all in. use in England in the time of James 11. Thus "slick" was used by Fuller; "rile" and "snag "are old. English; "fall" for autumn is found in Raleigh, Drydeu, and others; Milton used "I guess," as tJid^Lockoia the sentence,. "Nobody I guess'will; think,?' etc. "Across the herring-pond"'.is-.in Gay's "Polly" (the sequel to the "Beggar's Opera"), "He shall not have my daughter, that is pos," might be taken from some recent burlesque, but it appears in Henry.. Fielding's "Tom Thumb the Gr.eat" (1730). Sam Weller says, "I don't think! ".Many words now barred in serious writing can be founcj. in old writers. In Pope's "Epistle to Arbuthnbt'.' we find the expression "go snacks." In.one of Swift's letters to Knightley Shetwode (0.724) he writes, "As to company, I think you must endeavour to cotton with tho neighbouring clergy and squires." In another letter is found, "It was nuts to them. "A few more instances' of ancient modernisms may be interesting. 'To join the majority," as a euphemism for dying, is tfs old as Petroiiius. Most poeple would judge 'the phrase, "What I lose on the swings I make up on the round-abouts," to be modern, but it is used by Figaro in "The Barber of Seville," who apologises for quoting a proverb. Not long ago in a farce we laughed at the exclamation, ."Not for the wealth of all the Rothschildren!"., The same joke appeared in a burlesque letter in the "Observer" a 100 years ago. The list could be easily extended, but enough examples have been given to justify the.: old assertion that there is nothing new under the.sun.