THE COMMON ROUND
By Wayfarer
The Waihi Bench's ponderings on the origin and meaning of "shickered," with the libellous suggestion that the word was Scots in origin, brought prompt rebuttal and enlightenment in the correspondence columns. " Shickered," erudite philologists hastened to reveal, is another gift from the Hebrews. It is not, however, one of their benefactions which we most appreciate, for it is neither euphonious nor euphemistic, whereas both qualities, surely, are required of the term which is best to describe a state of so elevated a nature.
Why, we must ask, should we levy on the Hebrew, who, wise man, is always loth to lend without recompense, when our language has so many pure English (and AngloAmerican) terms to describe that condition in which a man is temporarily in liquidation? What excuse have we for linguistic pilferings when our vocabulary possesses such rich expressions? For instance: A dead loss Bandy Blotto Canned Cock-eyed Drunk Fou Flat-out Ginned-up Half-seas-over Happy Incapable Inebriated Inked Intoxicated Mellow Minus Mummified Ossified Paralytic Passed-out Pie-eyed Plastered • Salubrious Screwed Soaked Stonkered Stunned Tiddley Tight Tipsy Tonsils-awash Wozzled Wuddled The list is, of course, far from complete, but it will serve as a brief catalogue to those who are served.
Passing Note: A character in one of the novels of Mr Sinclair Lewis it was, if we remember, who expatiated upon the sensuous beauty of the word for moral misdemeanours, "SIN," and the harsh unattractiveness of its antonym '* RIGHTEOUSNESS," which strikes the ear coldly, forbiddingly. Take now the pleasing, ingenious varietv of expressions that denote the toper's state, and the mean paucity of its antithesis. Drunk, a man may be catalogued under a dozen lovely and expressive headings (see above), which add a little colour to life. Sober, he has no alternative to being discovered in a state of sobriety. How dull, how unimaginative, and how depressing is the word! In English, it would seem, we have been at no trouble to give glamour to the good, but generations of philologists, urged by the practical example of the sinner, have vied in decorating his defections from the path of righteousness with gaily devised pearls of speech.
The gratifying notification to the Temperance Collegiate Association that it. is permissible to toast the royal health in water suggests another point, the richly varied list of tipples, offered to the graceless, against' the sadly restricted choice of beverages allowed the righteous and abstemious. Awake and sing, sweet lyre: If we capitulate to sin, We may toast ourselves In gin: If the righteous world we shock. We may liquefy in hock; If our morals are astray. We may feast on vin" rose; If our way Is bad but merry, We may mark Its course in sherry; And 11 tainted cold we gain, We may wash ft with champagne. The Moral: The reward for being vicious Is to savour drinks delicious, But if we do what we oughter. We must celebrate in water.
But the quest, jn of real importance in the issue of temulency (a nice polite word, which may be added to our list) is not so much what you call it as how it takes you. Or\ to borrow from the recent Ministerial dictum on income tax it's not a question of how much you drink, but 'low it leaves you Very frequently, of course, dead broke; not infrequently, with the head broke. Some bibbers wa> to scale telegraph poles, and others can't climb the stairs; some have a desire to bust policemen and some to busk them. It's all really, an one might say. a matter of intemperament.
It is this aspect which now exercises the greatefc brains in the police world An investigation of the processes and characteristics of vinous illumination has produced some illuminating results. We quote from the Nfew Zealand Journalist: Police surgeons overseas are studying the effects .of alcohol taken in varying quantities by different types of people. Recently . . Chicago experimenters required pretty strong specimens for the "high alcohol content" test, which involved drinking a total of 68 ounce? of beer -and 48 ounces of \vhisky_ Two taxi-drivers, two journalists and two commercial travellers volunteered to undergo the ordeal. They went to police headquarters and drank for two hours. At the end of this time the taxi-men and the c.t.'s were incapable, and after examination were put to bed. The newspapermen quietly walked home. Just another little tribute to the power of the press. It is, of course, the proudest boast of the profession that the only thing in the office which has to be put to bed is the newspaper. And even it is up betimes next norning, looking as fresh as the latest rebel victory in Spain. More news from the scientific world: After seven years of research two unemployed ex-servicemen have invented a process for adding smells to talkies. The apparatus . can provide a smell to suit any scene on the screen. This is a much-needed innovation in the kinema, the possibilities of which can be only inadequately grasped on a first consideration. In the censor's office it should prove invaluable. Let us, for a minute, explore its promise. There are, for instance, too many screen situations of such a nature that they stink in the nostrils of the godly. Unfortunately up to the present the odour of them has not penetrated the consciousness of quite two-thirds of kinema audiences. Now, however, it will be possible to arrange that the morally objectionable sequence is equipped with an equally offensive smell, with the certainty that that part of the audience which cannot see through it will be debarred from sitting through it.
Then think of the pleasing effects to add to the present kinematic story. All voices on the screen are not, alas, as attractive as the faces which go with them, but now a blonde heroine may speak in a cracked contralto like an American mandrake shrieking for its young and still prove acceptable. All that will be required is the synchronisation with her speech of a sweet odour, and we will sink back, drowsed and soothed through her raucous rantings. And the villain. Now that his black moustache has been taken from him, he is not always easy to recognise, but the smellies will change all that. However seductive he may appear, ere he declares himself in his true colours, his identification will be plain. Reeking of infamy from his first appearance, he will be marked as obnoxious however he may seek to cloak his plans in guile, and there need be no longer any fear of kinematic betrayals. And how this device will assist screen humour. At present, too often we know a comedy more by the insistence of the advertisers upon its sidesplitting attractions than by the deed itself. But now, when the principals start throwing crockery at one another, a theatre can be bathed in laughing gas, and we will laugh whether we are amused or not. This, perhaps, will be the greatest contribution of all of the smellies to screen entertainment.
From a passing advertisement: " Faust's Immortal Opera ' The Bohemian Girl'." Personally we have always had a preference for his other great work, "Getting Goethe's Garter."
At a recent meeting of the W.C.T.U., we read, correspondence was received concerning the appointment of women policemen. If this sort of appointment becomes popular, there will soon be nothing for the rest of us to do but offer our services as male nursemaids.
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Bibliographic details
Otago Daily Times, Issue 23005, 7 October 1936, Page 2
Word Count
1,245THE COMMON ROUND Otago Daily Times, Issue 23005, 7 October 1936, Page 2
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