1937-04-06 — Page 18

THE HONGKONG Telegraph, TUESDAY, APRIL 6, 1987.

ВАН

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Eau De Cologne

Triple Extract

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The Hongkong Dispensary.

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MOUTRIE PIANOS

1. We have been manufacturing pianos, specially designed

for this climate, for over half a century.

2.

3.

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Every piano is built in the most modern of factories under the personal supervision of European exports.

.

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There are over 10,000 satisfied Moutrio- piano owners in the Far East,

SOLD ON THE

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York Building

Chater Road.

HOME DELIVERY

of tho

now

1937

Vauxhalls

If you are going home on leave, this will interest you.

You can arrange now to stop ashore at home and drive away in a new Vauxhall.

We assist you in this connection without any trouble or complica- tion to yourself delivered

to you at home and subsequently in Hongkong.

Catalogue & Full Particulars from

Hongkong Hotel Garage

Stubbs Rd.

The

Phone 27778/9.

Hongkong Telegraph.

TUESDAY, Arnit 6, 1937.

710

EIGHT SORTS OF SLANG

RHIM Flowery, Dell

for Prison Cell.

ZOOLOGICAL Fenland Nightingale for a Frog.

VERYBODY'S using it now. Hats, caps and #mortar-boards off to slang! The taboo is raised. Words and phrases are accepted in polite conver-. sallon everywhere to-day which would have sent their users to Coventry a hundred years ago..

That's a way slang hins. It was once well described as "a pecu- Har kind of vagabond speech, nlways hanging on the outskirts of legitimate speech, but con- tinually straying or forcing its way into the most respectable company."

The oldest nlang still in general circulation comes from the dust- heaps and the cellars of history, From thieves and vagabonds, from

reputable men and women, from flash coves and covesses who in- vented words that after centuries.

still take the car and the tongue.

You speak the English language. Yes, but whose English? Chau-

cer's,

Spenser's, Shakespeare's, Burke's, Gladstone's, Mr. Bald- win's, the B.B.C.'s or Hollywood's? You probably speak most of them

PHYSICAL TRAINING AND NUTRITION: Whilst the main features of the British Government's physi- cal training scheme, especially its non-compulsory character, are generally welcomed, it is being pointed out in certain quarters that it has its limita-long-forgotten and utterly dis- tions. Lord Baden-Powell de- clared recently that "it is gout-tmposing on winter-fed, mal-nurtured boys hard physical exercise. The thing is to got them to feed properly on good plain food." Thus to advance a physical training programme |before a nutrition scheme, may be to put the cart before the

A year to year, sometimes a day. horse. The Parliamentary Secreto day, language. And it is largely tary to the Board of Education

kept alive by slang.

Why, the verb "walk" derives recently agreed that physical from the Anglo-Saxon realcan, training given to under- meaning to roll. And it apparently nourished--children--would-do-came down to us by way of a slang

extension of the older word. more harm than good and promised that where symptoms of under-nourishment were ob- served by those in authority, physical training would be nc- companied by feeding. Sir Frederick Gowland Hopkins has asserted that there can be a degree of under-nourishment which will. gravely undermine the future health of children and yet not be observed by

A TYPICAL STORY! physical instructors, teachers

"When I arrived Home on leave I bought

a second-hand car. It looked fine, but after 6 weeks I became so "fed up" with all the trouble and expense I was having with it, I sold it and bought

a NEW FORD and brought it back with me. Never had the least trouble with the new car and the rest of my leave was the most enjoyable I've ever had.”

THIS STORY IS NOT ONLY TYPICAL · IT'S TRUE. WE COULD GIVE THE NAMES OF MANY PEOPLE IN THE COLONY WHO HAVE HAD JUST SUCH AN EXPERIENCE.

LET US PROVIDE YOU WITH A LETTER TO THE FORD MOTOR CO. OF ENGLAND, LTD. WHEN YOU GO ON.' LEAVE IN CASE YOU BECOME INTERESTED IN A CAR - WHILE AT HOME, IT DOES NOT OBLIGATE YOU IN. ANY WAY. IT SIMPLY MEANS YOU WILL RECEIVE PREFERENTIAL TREATMENT.

in a language which, in its accents, derivations, habits and routine, is all your own.

!@? @? @!

than

Well, slang has just achieved its greatest dignity with the appear- ance of a handsome blue-covered volume, containing more forty thousand words and phrases used from the Afteenth century to the present day (A Dictionary of Slang and Unconventional English, by Erie Partridge. Rout- ledge, 425.).

19

The Arst phrase in the book's "A.A, of the G.G.". In other words, the Institute of the Horse and Pony Club, founded six years ago. “Literally," says Mr. Partridge, the Automobile Association of the Gee-Gee (or horse)."

And the last phrase is " the Zulu Express,"

;" which was a certain Great Western afternoon train. "Rallwayman's slang at the time of the Zulu War (1870). Probably

WHAT

RIPARIAN Dock Pheasant. for a Bloater.

ANATOMICAL,

· Pow-Opener's 'Muscle for Palm of the Hand.

SEMINEVERSED

On Pinurt Pots Jor No Turnip Tops.

NAUTICAL Pint of Mahogany for Cup of Coffee.

SPORTING? Curse of Scotland

for Nine of Diamonds.

CRIMINAL Starring the Glaze

Jor Breaking a Window.

a circus performance, short weight. from

a costermonger, a watch-

English W

with its

Coat Off

by ROGER PIPPETT

because the train ran to ‘Zunimer- zett,"

I began to read this dictionary with tire-best-of-intentions. — I- even set out to trace different sorts of alang-rhyming along, Great War slang, workshop slang, pro- fessional clang.... But Mr. Part- ridge soon put paid to that. There are far too many exciting words on a page for calculated or persistent. Inquiry.

! @? @ ? «!:

So I simply hared after any word in sight.

+

Page 280 kept me busy for an “nour:-- Flop-over "*~~and~~ dop round "I knew. But "flounder and dab," as rhyming slang for a cab, was new to me. So was "nowery dell" for prison cell. And "flue- faker," meaning a chimney-sweep or a "low sporting man, because be used to bet on the great sweeps."

"To be up one's fiue," or in an awkward predicament, was com- mon eighty years ago. Say it with nowers! " (say it nicely!) came across the Atlantic for tho first time in 1925. "Fluff” ́has several meanings-from theatrical slang (to forget your part) to rull- wayman's slang for giving short change or for porters "langing about in the hope of getting a tip."

Then I turned two hundred and fifty pages and Ut on * movies," Which may mean the films, flicks or pictures, or certain eighty-foot launches bullt in the United States during the War, or the searchlights of a battleship. And

"movies" is followed immediately by "Moving Picture Blang."

If you over hear a film director thout " Gertrude?" he is less-ilkely

to be calling for Miss Lawrence than for that giant steel crane with a camera at its head, which enables shots to be taken of players going up and down stairs. And "Dollies"

are low, rubber-tyred

trucks on which cameras chase the stars as they hurry through hotel corridors or along the decks of ocean liners.

chain or any chain whatsoever; And, Incidentally, "knock-out" has. four meanings, from an egal auction to a man who does aston- Ishing things.

Bome slang words have turned turtle in the flood of time. The

adjectivo **rum." for instance, originally meant fine, good, valu.... able, handsome, great. But it bo- came comparatively raro in. that

And after 1810,

** rum cove for a rogue was in circula- tion as carly as the seventeenth" century.

Mr. Partridge is pleasantly up to date. He gives us "Ring up the Duchess" and "I must ring the Duchess." And everyone who, a' year or so ago, saw that uninten- tionally hilarious play, "Young England." will know that the phrase is "applicable to the reso- lution of a doubt or the settlement Or, rather, WUS, of a problem." since it is now obsolete.

onc's

..bobble.

The words race past delo nammow. holk, Jack Adams, kickate, Lord Muck, monaker, Dow..... opener's musele, pontic, squint→ minded, scabby neck. soam- squirrel, swatchel, tavariah, tighton galableh, tusheroon, go cross- less homo by Woodcock's Cross. K-legs, yurse, zigzag, zooks and zoom.

Bome slang looks like living for over. Some dies almost overnight. That's slang, that was! But slang itself will persist as long as there.

"To do a Gaynor” signifies to sinfic upwards through swim-· ming eyes, a tribute to Misa Gaynor's ability to switch on "the sunshine through the tears.” "To do a Garbo," as everyono should guess, means to be proud.-are-quick-witted,-tolerant,-unson- aloof

and unbending. Hundreds

of Mr. Partridge's words and phrases are now obso leto. Once the catchwords of the town, they are to-day dead na a doornall, dead as a herring, dead as mutton, dead as a tent-peg. dead as Julius Omsor

! * 7 * ? *!

You don't hear people saying, "There's a deal of glass about" when they mean that someone or. something is showy. "Go hand- somely over the brickst" is no Bo care- longer synonymous for fuli Nor to come after with the salt and spoons" for dawdle. And starring the glaze." for breaking a window, went out too many years ago.

The word 'slang" itself is a knock-out. It can also mean non- sense, humbug; a line of work, a hawker's licence, a travelling show,

DO WE KNOW ABOUT

GHOSTS?

timental, secretive, light-hearted It men, women and children. keeps the language moving, defy- ing hypocrisy, byperbola and high- falutin.

As an American poet has put it. "Slang is language which takes off its cont, spits on its hands and goes to work."

A. DYING RHYME Flounder and Dab for a Hansom Cab.

Seen By the Mind's Eye

Similar theories apply equally well to ghostly occurrences that take place in everyday life. It Is possible to ace a ghost, but many of the reported I have seen fully formed phantoms coses of ghosts are, I am sure, pro- bably not ceen at all by the appear in a room in which, owing to observer save in the mind's the strict electrical control, move- The imaginative person can conjure ment on the part of anyone present up a phantasm as real as life itself was absolutely impossible;

certain that he has seen quite

But this is purely sub

touched By STUART DEVANT

the

have

be

vyc.

"What if the phantom is seen by

and medical men. If the health of young people is to be safe- guarded and if they are to be made capable of profiting by physical instruction, their need for special feeding must be as- sessed on an income basis. The minimum expenditure on which a person can maintain average health has been placed by the Britian Medical Association ut 6s. per head per week whilst full physical fitness," according to Sir John Orr, can only be guaranteed by a weekly ex- penditure of 10s. The greatest AR there such things as “ghosts," and if there are, is it possible single stride which could be to seg them, touch them, speak with taken towards the improvement them? These and similar questions or the physique of the nation have always been of great interest to

humanity.

or and "teleplasm would be to keep children out

"ectoplasm" which has issued from feculve

a ghost. I do not propose that this article of mills, factories and mines un- should be in any way an answer to

the medium and formed into the til their bodies are fully do them. It is merely a brief statement definition is: "An exteriorisation of seen objects meve apparently of their two or more pubble to suppose

semblance of human imba; I have valoped. It is. felt in some of the theories and beliefs formulated the medium'a subconscious

by one who has spent E quarters that nothing could be investigating psychic phenomena by the conditions of the sennco room,other; 1 have known other abfects two people imagine the same thing lifetime secondary personality mundo, possible own volition from one spot to an "It is not reasonable to suppose that more retrograde. than the many countries, who has come into and the self-induced trance."

to appear apparently from nowhere; at the same time. Therefore, the Government's decision to pass contact and held scances with

I have witnessed a hundred and ghost actually does appear. What This may an Education Bill which sends practically every noted medium of technical. I'm sorry. It is the only one of these, can I attribute to

Bound somewhat

one similar manifestations. Yet not

then?**

I reply recent years, and who has Investway in which I can

the Spiritualistic 50 per cent. of school children gated many of the hauntings alleged actual meaning the word has for me.

beings express the

hypothesis certainly appears to At the of another world, prematurely into industry. to occur in certain houses,

facts in more admirable manner, Further, it Indicales practically all

It appears to me more probable to but there are other theories which In the first place, what is a ghost? the theories which I have adopted suppose that the human mind hasnt equally well. One could assume, too exhausted to benefit by the Government's scheme. under strict test conditions,

within the senace room, sometimes sumcient reason or proof of their given the right conditions and the sible to stamp a part of

necessary nervous energy,

of one's could this

Incorrectucas be given me. connection, public

imitate the peculiar activities of the sonality or "ego" upon places where one has lived or even upon the air being drawn require measures such as re- Power of Mind Over Matter

medium. to the necessity for physical medial exercises and open-alr

two breathe, and it is not stretching : There may be a certain amount

a point to say that under certain education

It is my opinion that the great of "teleplasm" inherent to Our as distinct from holidays with pay. Any realis-powers of the human mind are as yet systems which each one of 'tis coit's conditions this scrap, of human shell physical recreation, which is the tic consideration of the problem but Ittle understood, and were in be able to materialise and mould to be able to principal pre-occupation of the of national physique indicates ancients than they are by ourselves. I believe that it is quite possible for ghost of, say, the former resident of

truth more appreciated by

wills; given the right conditions, in UPS Bun" and sp the our

It is absurd to imagine the

that voluntary organisations. Cleri- the urgent need for a compre. The spiritualists claim that most of a medium to do this, and to make an old castle has to appear regularly, cal workers do need recreation hensive national health policy the phenomena brought about in objects move, even to deliver mess-year in year out and tele-equally at the end of their working day dealing with nutrition, leisure, their properly controlled seance ares and speak in a foreign tongue, futtle to imagine that murderers must but Industrial workers, too tired physical training and the dead. I say that they are probably what i transpiring. This has nothing the after-life

rooms are due to the agency of the without being in the least aware of continually slaughter their victins, in for ordinary physical exercise, scientific prevention of disenze. due to the medium alone.

| to do with Spiritui:ilları.

in

or

and

that

Those children will be much with regard to those which appear but am quite willing to change it power over, matter, and that anyone, for instance, that in lifa

WALLACE HARPER & Co., LTD. |attention

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Sord

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the