Some Misused Words.
HPHE WRITER who said that a certain nonagenarian gold-digger was a link with “ the roaring fifties" was picturesque if nothing else. He meant to take the mind back to the carousals of the earl}' gold-diggings, but he became confused, in a literary sense, between time and space. The “ roaring forties ” were the seas south of the fortieth meridian through which the old wind-jammers were driven, often under bare masts. You may speak of the “ gay nineties ” but hardly of the “ roaring fifties,” though for that matter every decade has had its roarings. Pepys tells of hi 9 quest for a bed late at night in London, and how, at last, he came to a place where some revellers were Still “ roaring.” “ Decade,” by the way, is pronounced dek-ade, with the accent on the “ dek.” It means a group of ten, especially ten years. “ Decadence,” and “ decadent,” on the other hand, have the accent on the middle syllable TOUCHSTONE.
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https://paperspast.natlib.govt.nz/newspapers/TS19311028.2.66
Bibliographic details
Star (Christchurch), Volume XLIV, Issue 256, 28 October 1931, Page 6
Word Count
161Some Misused Words. Star (Christchurch), Volume XLIV, Issue 256, 28 October 1931, Page 6
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