Oddments

Greymouth Evening Star, 16 December 1947, Page 6

Oddments

Leading Washington’s Save Food campaign is a Mr Colliflower. Truman Felt, a Missouri Author, has been asked to write an article to fit the headline “How Truman felt, by Truman Felt.” J ** * * * Most of us are now familiar with the word “spiv” as applied to an over-dressed, flashy fraternity which hovers on the fringe of the criminal world, has no visible means of support, yet is seldom short of money, and apparently acts as a liaison service between the storm troops of the black market and those not overscrupulous citizens who are willing to acquire scarce goods without inquiring into their origin, says the Yorkshire Post. There appears to be a general idea that the name “spiv” is of modern coinage, but it seems to have a lineage more respectable than its present significance. The omniscient Dr Joseph Wright’s dialect dictionary ’ gives “spiff” as a dialect word used from Yorkshire to Cornwall with the meanings: smart, fine, neat, dandified. Phrases given by Dr Wright in illustration of these meanings are “William Geordie’s hoose’ll be spiff if he’s Lib for a wife” (Yorkshire), and “Her’s so spiff as they make urn” (Devon). The link between the dialect “spiff” and the modern “spiv” is in the idea of smartness or dandyism, and seems too close to be accidental. The word “spiffing,” so popular some years back, is obviously connected with “spiff.” —The Seeker