Words and Phrases.

Star (Christchurch), Volume LXVI, Issue 20653, 29 June 1935, Page 10

Words and Phrases.

“ ANXIOUS” writes: —My boy has come home from school with a new phrase. “ the heads,” which he applies to all and sundry—the Rugby Union, the Government and even the school teachers. Is this -slang or is it good English? I never heard it in my younger days. As the boy uses it, it is slang, with a slightly derogatory meaning. Occasionally this is intensified by referring to “ the fishheads.” There is ample authority for the use of “ heads,” where there is no doubt of the meaning. Webster quotes “ their princes and heads ” from More’s “ Utopia,” and “ the heads of the chief sects of philosophy,” but “ the heads ’* by itself is slangy. The head of a bed takes its name from the place where the head lies, but the head of the table is arrived at in a more roundabout way, from the head of the household. or -what used to be the head of the household, until daughters began to get about in the world. Nowadays we speak of the head of an army, of a procession, of a river, and of a head of cabbage, or the headlights of a car. A note on the variant meanings of words like head, eye, mouth, arms, neck and so on will appear on Monday. TOUCHSTONE.