PASSING NOTES

Otago Daily Times, Issue 22546, 13 April 1935, Page 6

PASSING NOTES

Moving up and down the calendar at the will of the inconstant moon, Easter in the nature of things will always bring disorder into our holiday scheme and bewilderment to the mind of the inquiring layman. For, to the mind of the layman, a fixed date for this feast of the Church would lose none of its solemnity, while a movable date does. No waxing or waning moon, no such world symbol of restless mutability, determines the date of our Anniversary Day or of Anzac Day. These are firmly anchored to the events they commemorate. But Easter, which should be a beacon light of divine constancy, has for seventeen centuries bben tossed about by astronomers and ecclesiastical authorities, and finally attached to any old date at which the changeable moon may take it into her feminine head to become full. Bad enough is this in itself. But when the inconstant moon is not the actual living moon of our romantic nights, but a mere figment of the imagination, our bewilderment becomes worse bemused. The moon has gone, but its inconstancy is left —like the Cheshire cat that vanished leaving behind it nothing but its smile. No illtimed jest is this. Says a clerical authority : It was deference to ancient custom that led the ecclesiastical authorities to adhere to the method of determination by the moon. It is not, however, the actual moon in the heavens, nor even the mean moon of the astronomers, that regulates the time of Easter, but an altogether imaginary moon whose periods are so contrived that the new (calendar) moon always follows the real new moon (sometimes by two, or even three, days). The effect of this is that the 14th day of the calendar moon —which had from the time of Moses been considered " full moon" for ecclesiastical purposes—falls generally on the 15th or 16th of the real moon, and thus • after the real moon, which is generally on the 14th or 15 th day. The shoe of the Nicene Council pinches us with special severity when its movable Easter comes into uncomfortable proximity to our national holidays. On such occasion we really don't know where we are.

Five years ago, at the close of a troubled session of our New Zealand House of Commons, Mr Speaker made a sensational promise, which so far he has not kept. On that occasion he said: " I intend, when I have time, to compile a small compendium of unparliamentary words and phrases." Rash in the extreme was such a promise; and wiser second thoughts have no doubt postponed its fulfilment until, from a well-earned retirement, he may view with equanimity the embarrassments of his successor. Such a text book would have been his life's mistake. It would have bound him hand and foot with the shackles of his own regulations. Gone would have bee a the whip-hand which now exercises its threat over every bench. The master wculd have surrendered his power, to his own serfs. Far less to be feared is a set of regulations through which a member may ingeniously wriggle his w J than a vague unformulated menace of something that may come at you at unsuspected moments and from unexpected sides. For this will cramp the style of your violent loquacity and reduce your incipient turbulence to a state of inarticulate verbal continence. Much wiser is it to order a man to avoid intoxicating drinks than to list the names of poisons he must not drink—he will soon concoct a new unmentioned brew. Like the ancient primitive amoeba .many an M.P. at present is driven to the method of "trial and error." That is, he tries it on, and soon finds his error. Who can fight effectively with an invisible enemy? Amazing is it that no enterprising M.P. has not long before this made his own compilation of the Speaker's rulings. Among his recent condemnations have been:

The Acting Premier is a spineless leader. . ~ The Government is a miserable tool of the forces of capitalism. The Government is so weak that it is afraid to stand up against the powers from outside. The Reform Party could not be worse, but it might be a little more honourable. It makes one ashamed of Parliament. Only last week have come valuable additions to the suggested compilation: Mr A. Ei Jull (after a speech by Mr Semple, sui generis): During the years I have been in the House I have never experienced such an exhibition of bad taste as that which has just been displayed by the honourable gentleman who is aspiring to become the chief magistrate of the Empire City. The remarks he has made are most disgraceful . . . Mr Speaker: Order! The term disgraceful is not parliamentary. Mr Jull: I am sorry it is not. Mr Speaker: The honourable gentleman must not put it that way. Mr Jull: I am sorry and I will withdraw it. Again, in the same debate:, Mr Atmore: I want to say, Mr Speaker, that this House has become something of a farce. Mr Speaker: Order! The honourable gentleman is not in order in using such an expression. Mr Atmore: Very well, I will withdraw it. A third addition: Mr Coates: I do not think New Zealand would be paying the compliment it ought to pay to his Majesty if New Zealand's chief citizen absented himself from the celebrations. Mr Speaker: Order! It is not competent for the honourable gentleman to bring his Majesty's name into the debate. Innocuous expressions these—in appearance? Every day expressions? Possibly Mr Speaker "smelt a storm brewing; he saw it floating in the air before him, and he sought to nip it betimes in the bud." Perhaps, too, Mr Speaker was guided in his judgment by the facial expressions of the debaters. A hiss or a snarl may add venom to the most harmless word, and a kindly grin may sweeten a bitter insult. "When you say that, smile," says Arizona Bill, as he pulls out his gun. A scene some time ago in the Victorian Legislative Assembly adds more intricacies to tills non-parlia-mentary lexicon:— Scene: The No-confidence debate. Mr A. speaking: The Labour Minister: Oh, talk sense. Mr A •: If I did talk sense, the honourable gentleman would not understand mc. The Chief Secretary: You seem to be getting angry. Mr A- (heatedly): It would take somebody of more importance to make me angry. The honourable the Minister for Labour is only like a poodle yapping round everybody. Mr S : Is the hon. member in order in calling an hon. gentleman a poodle? Mr Speaker: He would be out of order if he had called the hon. member a poodle, but he merely said he was like a poodle. Mr A : Well, I will withdraw the poodle. The Labour Minister (later, as Mr A continued his speech): Oh! 1 can't sit and listen to an old tripe-hound like that. Mr Speaker: Order, order! Yon must withdraw the remark. The L.M.: Very well. I withdraw it. .But I should like to point out that I raised no objection when the hon. gentleman called me a poodle. Xow you can see what Sir Charles's proposed' text book would have let him in for. He would have had to take cognisance of a hierarchy among animals. He

would have to decide if and why a tripehound is more offensive than a poodle, a pig than a monkey, a blooming as-s than a horse full of blood, and so on. And there are further complexities. If you call an honourable member "a gay old dog " he will coo at you like a dove and strut like a peacock. Call him simply a dog, and he will snarl at you like a wolf. Interrupt a lady member of the House (absit omen!) with the remark, " The lion, member is clucking like a chicken," and Mr Speaker pulls you up. You withdraw handsomely and say, " The lion, member is no chicken." Would Sir Charles accept such a withdrawal? I await his text book in an agony of impatience.

When Mr Atmore applied the description " something of a farce " to our New Zealand Parliament, was he struck by the contrast between the comedy around him and the tragedy of his own presence? What, after all, is a farce? Etymologically it means something " stuffed" (Latin farcire, to stuff). In olden times a " farce" was a dish " stuffed with force-meat, herbs and spices." You could eat it; and then you might be said to have " farced " yourself. From the same source has come its dramatic meaning-—a playlet stuffed With'all kinds of odds and ends intended merely to excite laughter. To apply either its dramatic or non-dramatic meaning to our House of Representatives should have made the whole Chamber rise up in protest. What would Mr Speaker have said had the debate been described as a fiasco? A fiasco is etymologically nothing but a " flask " or bottle. The connection between a flask and an ignominious failure is obscure. But an authority has tried his hand at it—the professor of Italian at King's College: A gentleman visiting an Italian glass manufactory was struck by the apparent simplicity of the work. He tried his hand at glass blowing, but found the operation more difficult than he expected. All that he could produce was the common flask (fiasco). The amused workmen crowded round him and greeted each successive failure with laughter and the cry of "Altro fiasco" (another fiasco). An example of a quick retort quoted in a London weekly inspires many comments :

Some years ago in an action in the Calcutta High Court the plaintiff claimed the exclusive right to the use of the name " camel hair belting " as a trade name, which he alleged the defendant had wrongly infringed. The learned judge at the trial asked counsel for the plaintiff whether his client's belting actually contained any camel hair, or whether the name was merely a fancy name. Counsel promptly replied: "There is as much camel hair in camel hair belting, m' hid, as there are monkeys in Monkey Brand soap." His Honor might in his turn have replied, "That excuse won't wash." But it will. No monkeys are present in Monkey Brand soap, and no camel's hair 'in camel hair. Camel hair, we are told, comes from squirrels' tails, and the name is derived from Camel, the man who first dressed such hair for use. Industry is full of these misnomers. Briar pipes are not made of the roots of sweet briar. Cork legs are not made of cork. Dresden china is not made in Dresden, but at Meissen, and the china is merely porcelain. Chinese rice-paper used by Chinese and Japanese artists is neither rice-paper nor paper, but pith. Indian ink does not come from India, and never did. It is really Chinese ink, and so the French and other nations call it. India-rubber comes from America, as well as from other places, but is no more Indian than the Red Indian himself. Nor is the latter red; when washed—which is not often—his skin is brown. And so on, through a lengthy list. If a man, justifiably exasperated at all this hoodwinking, vents his feelings in "a good old-fashioned Anglo-Saxon damn," he is not using Anglo-Saxon at all, but Latin —one of the most cosmopolitan words in European speech.

When schoolboy "howlers" grow up, as they must do, they become adults, and are then called " malapropisms." Mrs Malaprop's malapropisms are really howlers of sorts, or species of the genus howler. She talks of "a Derbyshire putrefaction," an " allegory of the Nile," "a barbarous Vandyke," requests that "no delusions to the past" be made, talks of "flying with the utmost felicity," and would say " precipitate one down the prejudice." All the rules of howlers apply here also. The best malapropisms are often the worst, and the worst often the best. For artificiality kills their merit, and a sparkle of wit makes them suspect. Examine the following, recently quoted: A village friend told the vicar that Mrs X, her neighbour, was suffering from a chronicle abyss. The Bengalee Baboo is , a pastmaster at malapropisms: "Here a divinity that rough hews our ends, no matter how much we endeavour to preserve our shapeliness." . . . "Please, sir, will you give me an order for the mortification of the flue." A maid, discussing a visitor, said, "He must bo fond of dogs; he is secretary of the Cayenne Society." I never want to travel on the sea; I much prefer Terra Cotta. The birth of the Prince of Wales was a suspicions event. Between you and me, it's my opinion that her rich uncle is a perfect nymph. . An elderly lady visited a Roman Catholic cathedral for the first time, and, when describing it afterwards, she told her friends of the "professional boxers dotted about the building-" • -i , i i.An employee, reprimanded by his foreman for making a mistake, replied, "Everyone is not inflammable." After all, most mistakes made by a foreign student learning English are just malapropisms. Thus: The amount is very due. Awaiting the favour of a replay. My curse of instruction is shorthand. We regret to consign you to our lawyers. „ Civts.