PASSING NOTES

Otago Daily Times, Issue 22742, 30 November 1935, Page 6

PASSING NOTES

In every political contest much may be said on both sides. There generally is. But cyclones pass, with their noise and bluster, and soon we shall return to less disturbing topics —the fate of the All Black footballers and that _of the all black Ethiopians. Meanwhile, from Awarua to the Bay of Islands every New Zealand man in the street is ruminating on the subject of political landslides, and why such things should be. He is chewing the cud of recollection, and studying as best he can the philosophy of political changes. Greater men even than he have done this already. “ The pendulum has swung, as it must swing,” said Mr Forbes. And eighteenthcentury Junius hinted that the “ ominous vibration of the pendulum ” was the motive principle of all Fraught with gloom and despair is this symbol of the pendulum. Pessimistic philosophers of all seeing in man nothing but an aimless and soulless oscillation, have doomed him to sway to and fro for ever and ever without end, till he ceases to oscillate in the tomb. “Omne corpus est mutabile,” said Cicero. “ Omnia mutantur,” said Ovid. And Dr Johnson:

Such is the state of life that none are happy but by the anticipation of change. The change itself is nothing; when we have made it the next wish is to change it again. “ Man is as changeful as the wind-waved flame,” said Lowell. “Man is as inconstant as the sparrow which stops not long on one twig,” says the Mahometan proverb. Lastly Washington Irving: There is a certain relief in change, y even though it be for the worse; as I have found when travelling in a stage coach, when it is often a comfort to shift one’s position and be bruised in a new place. The optimist, on the other hand, faced with the everlasting swaying of humanity to and fro, says: “A pendulum? No. Bather a spiral staircase, winding backwards and forwards, but ever ascending. In politics every year and every generation we are getting better and better. Every Government we get is better tlian the last, which in its turn was better than the one before.” In time, therefore, we shall reach the very pink of ■perfection, if pink be the colour. Moving round in circles up these winding stairs we shall in time arrive at the dizzy limit, with heads aawim, and all sense of direction lost. Neither a pendulum nor a winding staircase was the symbol favoured by Carlyle in his “ Philosophy of Clothes.” In “Sartor Resartus ” (the tailor repatched) we have the speculations of old Professor Teufelsdrockh that all symbols, forms, human institutions are merely clothes, and as such are temporary. All visible things are emblems. What thou seest is not there on its own account; strictly taken, is not there at all. Matter exists only spiritually, and to represent some idea, and to body it forth. Hence clothes, as despicable as we think them, are so unspeakably significant , . . Thus in this one pregnant subject of clothes, rightly understood, is included all that men have thought, dreamed, done and been. The whole external universe and what it holds is’ but cloth-

ing, and the essence of all science is the Philosophy of Clothes. The Nationalist suit could not last for ever. Four years of hard wear had dulled its gloss and finish. New Zealand democracy has now a brand-new suit of startling colour and texture which will last until it becomes threadbare, but not a moment longer.

In due time will arrive in New Zealand a Hollywooden version of Shakespeare’s “Midsummer Night’s Dream.” Full details of its structure arc as yet unknown here, but the customary brutal frankness of a London film critic describes it ns “ a splendiferous kinematic German-American version of the * Babes in the Wood ’ with harlequinade complete.” If you know your “Midsummer Night’s Dream '• you will remember that there is a character of a little Indian boy who is referred to in the text but who never appears. Reinhardt, with his well-known love of Oriental decoration, brings this little blackamoor into the picture, makes him the centre of a grand kidnapping adventure, and the pivot of the story. The boy is pursued by the demon king (Oberon) on horseback, protected by . the fairy queen (Titania), and is eventually displaced in her affections by an American gunman called Bottom. Bottom, as the head of a gang let loose from the Palladium Crazy Week, goes off into the woods with a real donkey and cart, is watched from the trees by a Tom Sawyer Puck, while in the backwoods Columbine Theilade disports with a troupe of smoke-screen dancers. No expense has been spared with either costumes or scenery completely to eliminate Shakespeare from the picture. There is no mincing of words in the criticism: A frightful nightmare of crudity and childishness, a restless phantasmagoria of mingled Teutonic and transatlantic buffoonery. The rhythm of Shakespeare’s verse is so broken up, so disconnected by intervening photographic shots intended to relieve the tedium of speech, that the metre is completely destroyed. Small wonder that we judge the film producer as we do, for by his works wa know him. He • has become our Public Enemy No. 1- “ Youth at the prow and pleasure at the helm ” is a world-wide symbol for insecurity and head-long over-confidence. Youth at the steering wheel of a motor car, with or without pleasure on the driver’s scat beside it, is now being called before British traffic authorities to show reason why it should not be warned off the highroad. A national census of all accidents that occur on the roads is at present being undertaken by the Ministry of Transport. All over the country chief constables are compiling for the Ministry vital statistics concerning motor drivers involved in these accidents. The statistics are to be analysed in relation to what the experts describe as “ accident proneness.” “Accident proneness,” say the exports, obeys definite laws —laws that are constant, so that from the distribution of accidents in one occupation it is now possible to predict the likelihood of accidents being similarly distributed in another. The London Passenger Traffic Board make it a rule not to employ drivers of under 27 years of a£e . . . for not fill 27 is a man accepted as having reached the age of discretion. . . . The most accident-

prone drivers are these of under 23 years of age and over 60. The modern youth movement is too rapid. If youth is proved to be a danger to the road, it should be required to make a choice between the back seat and its feet.

Dear “ Civis,” — May I refer to you a question on the origin of the swear words “bloody" and “damn”? You may know al! about them, even if only at second hand. As regards " bloody,” a friend of mine will have it that the word is an abbreviation of “ By our Lady.” Is he right?—T am, etc.. Enquirer. ’Od's Bodikins —a strange request. Discussion of the subject of swear words, with appropriate examples, might be blue-pencilled by the censorious editor, lest the linotype be fused. As everybody knows, there are oaths —and oaths. Obscene oaths are used merely because obscene, and for no other reason. Profane oaths introduce the names of the Deity and of holy things in order to add emphasis to an asseveration. And, naturally enough, expressions used reverently

in the Bible are seized upon and twisted to profane purposes. The word “profane” itself means “before or outside the fane or temple.” A third class of oath is intended, by a lack of intelligence and a perversion of taste, merely to adorn the speech. As in sixteenth century Rabelais: “ How now,” said Ponocrates, “ you swear, Friar John.” “ It- is,” said the monk, “ but to add grace and adornment to my speech, for oaths are the colours of Ciceronian rhetoric.”

In point of chronology, the origin of oaths is lost in the night of time. Oaths, alas, are co-eval with humanity. Prehistoric ships’ mates and boatswains swore at prehistoric oath-hardened crewe. The Chaldean ox-driver on the banks of the Tigris drove his beasts with a goad and a strong vocabulary. No ancient nation was without such vents to superheated feelings. Pythagoras, for some mysterious reason, swore by the number “four.” Socrates swore by the “dog.” According to Aristophanes there had been a time when men swore not by the gods but by birds. Truly, a pretty custom! The Romans used such oaths as “Mehercule,” “ Edepol,” “ Ecastor,” “ Mecastor.” Old English oaths, by a kind of linguistic taboo, show mutilations and disguisements of the name of God — Gad, Egad, Dod, ’Scush (God’s Curse), ’Slight (God’s Light), Zounds (God’s Wounds), Charles the Second_ had his favourite “ ’Od’s Fish.” The “ infamous custom of swearing ” is notoriously English. Don Juan, in Byron’s poem, innocently believed that the universal English shibboleth was “Goddam.” Beaumarchais, in 18th century France, says: With “Goddam” in England you need want for nothing. The English, it is true, use ’■ other but it is easy to see that “ Goddam is the foundation of the language. Even Joan of Arc believed that “ Goddam ” was a synonym for Englishman. And in modern, times the West African native servant proudly boasts, “Me speak English, me say ‘Goddam.’” As regards my correspondent’s suggestion of By our Lady ”as the origin of “ bloody ’’—there is nothing in it. How the idea arose passes comprehension. It is a mere unphonetic and unphilological guess. “ Bloody ” conies from “ blood,” used in its derived sense of physical vigour, forcefulness, violence. Thus the early nineteenth century “ man of blood,” “ a young blood,” “ a bloody deed.” Extension of the meaning to the present meaningless but forceful adjective and adverb is easy. Such extensions are common. Everyone knows, for example, the meaning” of “ dead slow.” But “ dead ” has now become a synonym of “ very,” and we hear “ dead sure,” “ dead easy,” and even “ dead quick ”!

in spite of attempts to increase the respectability of the word “damn,” this wors in all its senses is simply the Latin “ damnare.” “To damn” is to condemn, to denounce, to be the ruin of, to condemn to hell, to curse. Its use in these senses dates right from Middle English. “ Not worth a damn,” “ not to care a damn” seem at first sight to present a different meaning, and efforts have been made to trace the word to an Irish or Indian coin—a “dam,” meaning a halfpenny. For this there is no authority. The gradual progress of old time curses and swear words towards innocence and innoenousness is well illustrated by the English exclamations “ Oh, clear! ” “ Dear, dear! ” “ Dear Me! ” These arose in Middle English from Italian “ Dio ” or. French “ Dieu,” both meaning “ God.” “ Oh, dear ” means “Oh, God,” “Dear me” means “My God,” and “ Dear knows ” means “ God Knows.” , Givis.