DO YOU UNDERSTAND AMERICAN?

Mount Ida Chronicle, Volume XLV, Issue XLV, 28 July 1922, Page 4

DO YOU UNDERSTAND AMERICAN?

The American newtpapeiß are tryi»g to keep pace, with the developments in the evolution of the* language by publishing frequent lists of hew words which are slipping into the American vocabulary.. An iingneh-American dictionary is becoming more and more of a necessity to Transatlantic l travellers.

It is true that the more hardy of the new American words' and phrases reach Europe eventually. But by that time many of them are obsolescent, if not already obsolete. A "lounge lizard" ana n "tea hound" were talked about a y-tar ago, but these phrases have been supplanted, and it is somewhat pedantic tu use them. .. ,

Some of the things which a traveller should learn, if he hopes to take an intelligent part in the conversation of young society in America, are:— . That a "goof" is a flapper's sweeth: art.

Mad money" is the flapper's carfare home, carried to meet the eventuality oi a fight with her "goof." A "rug hopper", is a young fellow v.-iio call© often but who never takes the girl out. The !terni is the modern lyndenng of the. ancient American "parlor hound."

Finale hopper" varies in meanhioaccording to the sex which it. designates. Of a, girl it means; one who ts ?T£ rs 1 read; \ to Promise the last wrestle {u.xl. dance), but who is never in sight w:ien it is announced'. A male "finale licpper - is a. person who: arrives at tie turnstile when the ticket-takers nave departed. A "cellar, smeller" is alwavs on the f'-irf whe " lu l" or is being 'dispensed jutfaoirc cost, and a "crasher" one who turns up at. parties .uninvited Low hd" is the antithesis'of highbrow; a. "dudd" a boy or girl addicted to reading or study. A dance to which no admission is charged is described as an " egK harbour ; and a man who takes his girl to sucli an economical entertainment is a i!at wheeler."

A girl cigarette smoker is a "smoke cuter.

llie highest of all possible praise is j>t stowed variously. A few months ago U was' proper to call a thing "the" berries, and one would be understood as Ji'vamng "it's great." Now. in order \! , bo comprehensible, one has f 0 sav " lt f the. cat's . pyjamas," or alternatively 'the duck's quack." or again "the frog's eyebrows," . lf ,the compiler of the periodically revised bi-lingual dictionary wliieh I have suggested should happen to be an Ame- - man it might be as well for him to guard against the error of presuming too much upon the Englishman's knowledge of even pre-war slang. An American paper defines an "apple knocker" ns "a hick, a hayshaker," both of which explanations niight fail to convey thelinpression that the "apple knocker" is an unsophisticated person from rural parts.