Strange Languages

Manawatu Times, Volume LIV, Issue 6619, 4 August 1931, Page 2

Strange Languages

CRIES OF THE STREET “ 'leket- ’unch-orss," shouted Harry, the Temple Bar newsboy. A representative of the “Morning Post' who was attracted by this cry writes as follows: For tlio first time I ignored Harry's unintelligible importunity; for the first time 1 was to learn what lie W'as really calking HDout; for the first time I was to discover the inner meaning, not only of “ 'icket-'unch-orss," but also of the equally familiar cries of “o-o-o-ohlo," ‘ 1 orl-ehnge-ouns-waiting,'' and the more mysterious “ink-oooo," which greets the returns of the belated reveller. The secret lies with Mr J. H. Young, secretary-superintendent of the Central Throat, Nose, and Ear Hospital in Gray's Inn Road. Out-patients to the number of 52,808 were treated at this hospital during last year. Of these fully half were throat cases—hundreds of them hawkers, newsboys, milkmen, and porters —who had lost their voices through that constant exercise of the lungs which is a part of the normal discharge of their duties. The patients —young, old, and mid-dle-aged—appear in never-failing sequence, and in a husky whisper Detray their plight. They are given advice and treatment —advised, above all, to take a few days' rest —and they rarely need to call again. For they have learnt the secret of all those who ply their trade by shouting. That secret is: “Rest the throat, shout from the roof of the mouth, and do not bo too particular about the result.'' “Hawkers, newspaper boys, and the like do not know that the mechanism behind their “Adam's apple'' is extremely delicate," said Mr. Young. “They shout until they are silent. Then they come to us. A few days' rest, and back comes the voice. “However, they soon learn to use their voices so as to avoid trouble.. They invent a language of their own. The 'milkman shouts from the roof of his mouth and scarcely uses his voice at all. Tho coalman never shouts ‘Coal'

in a deep, manly voice. A high-pitched ‘Oli-h' conveys his meaning without hurting his throat." Thus I learned that “ ’lcket-'unch-orss" was the translated “Cricket lunch scores," that “0-o-o-olile" incans “Coal," that “Inlt-ooooo" is equivalent to “Milk-oh," and that “Orl-ehnge-ouns-waiting" is well understood by travellers through Acton town station as “All change, Hounslow train waiting.” “We never lose our voices about here,” Harry said, “and we don’t have to worry about systems of shouting and such-like. You see, in Fleet street nobody is interested in anything but cricket and racing, and that’s fairly easy to shout about. I simply shout ‘lcket-unch-orss," just the same as you might say it, see?" . , Bill, a porter at Waterloo station, is a true convert. “Why, if we was to shout'mouthfuls like Leatherhead, Billingshurst, and so on all day without dropping a few letters where should we be?" he asked. I preferred to wonder where I might be.