The Story of English in 100 Words (32 page)

a comic effect (20th century)

In 1964 the
Sydney Morning Herald
carried a story about what had happened to the English author Monica Dickens while she was signing copies of her latest book in a Sydney bookshop. A woman handed her a copy and said, ‘Emma Chisit’. Dickens thought this was the woman’s name, so she wrote ‘To Emma Chisit’ on the flyleaf. The would-be purchaser was puzzled. ‘No. Emma Chisit’, she repeated. Eventually it transpired that what she was saying was ‘How much is it?’ in an Australian accent. And Strine was born.

The story is told at the beginning of
Strine: The Complete Works of Professor Afferbeck Lauder
(real name: Alistair Morrison).
Strine
is the supposed Australian pronunciation of the word
Australian
.
Let Stalk Strine
was a best-seller when it appeared in 1965, and it’s still in print. It contained such fine examples as
ebb tide
for ‘appetite’ (as in
I jess got no ebb tide these dyes
) and
cheque etcher
for ‘did you get your’ (as in
Where cheque etcher big blue wise?
). The idea caught on, and several compilations of supposed regional dialect speech were published in other parts of the world, such as
Lern Yerself Scouse
(for the dialect of Liverpool).

Words coined for comic effect don’t usually become a permanent part of the language. If I start speaking in a mock way, putting on a dialect voice or pretending to use an old spelling-pronunciation (such as saying
yee oldee tea shoppee
), the effects are of the moment. Nobody would expect
oldee
to become a recognised pronunciation. But if a humorous form is used often enough, and begins to appear in novels and other literature, then it may well eventually enter the dictionary (with a warning that it is jocular). This is what has happened to
stoopid
(for
stupid
), recorded since Thackeray used it in
Vanity Fair
(1848), and
velly
(mock-Chinese ‘very’), first recorded in the 1890s. Thanks to Rudyard Kipling and others,
squat-tez-vous
(mock-French for ‘sit down’) has achieved some usage. So has
el cheapo
(mock-Spanish for ‘very cheap’), recorded since the 1950s. They’re all in the
Oxford English Dictionary
.

Baby-talk can sometimes make its mark:
toothy-pegs, wakey-wakey, pussy-cat, beddy-byes, din-din, ickle
(‘little’),
diddums
and
oopsie-daisy
are all examples of nursery language which adults use when they’re being playful. Comic proper names can get into the language too. Dr Seuss introduced everyone to a
grinch
in
How the Grinch Stole Christmas
(1957), and the word is now quite common for a spoilsport or ill-tempered person. Cartoon characters can introduce or popularise a comic word, such as Homer Simpson’s
D’oh
, Elmer Fudd’s
wabbit
, the Flintstones’
Yabba dabba doo
and Mr Jinx’s
I’ll tear you meeces to pieces
.

18. The cover of the first ‘strine’ book, published in 1965.

Jocular forms of grammatically irregular verbs also sometimes achieve a widespread use. How often have you heard people say they’re
fruz
or
froz
, instead of
frozen
? Or: Shakespeare
thought every thought that’s ever been thunk
. Here too, literature can give these usages a blessing. Mark Twain is one of many whose characters
smole a smile
. James Joyce used
thunk
in
Finnegans Wake
. And so did Tigger in
Winnie-the-Pooh
.

Alzheimer’s

surname into word (20th century)

Names are important in word-making. We’ve already seen how place-names can make words (
§80
) and first names (
§28
). Now it’s the turn of surnames.

A remarkable variety of everyday objects come from the names of the people who invented them or who are closely associated with them. We find them in such areas as clothing (
cardigan, leotard, mackintosh
), including hats (
stetson
) and boots (
wellingtons
), food (
garibaldi, pavlova, sandwich
), flowers (
begonia, dahlia, magnolia
), musical instruments (
saxophone, sousaphone
) and guns (
colt, derringer, mauser
). Creative people, especially (if they’re famous enough), can have their surname turn into a general word. Film buffs talk about a movie being
Hitchcockian
, and similar coinages are found in other areas of the arts, such as
Dickensian
,
Mozartian
and
Turnerian
. Language buffs who admire Henry Fowler’s
Dictionary of Modern English Usage
have created no fewer than three adjectives to characterise his approach –
Fowlerian
,
Fowlerish
and
Fowleresque
.

Science, in particular, recognises achievements in this way. Think of all the names of physical constants that come from scientists, such as
ampere, celsius, hertz, ohm
and
watt
. Many terms in anatomy, physiology and medicine reflect their discoverers, such as the
Rolandic
and
Sylvian fissures
in the brain or the
Eustachian tube
between throat and ear. When diseases are person-named, they are usually shortened. So
Ménière’s disease
becomes
Ménière’s
,
Parkinson’s disease
becomes
Parkinson’s
and
Alzheimer’s disease
becomes
Alzheimer’s
.

Derived uses soon follow, as the case of Alzheimer’s shows. The disease was first described by the German pathologist Alois Alzheimer in 1907, and the name was soon used as an adjective in such phrases as
Alzheimer patients
and
Alzheimer sufferers
,
sometimes with an
’s
and sometimes not. By the 1930s, the name of the disease was being abbreviated to
Alzheimer’s
or (especially in the USA)
Alzheimer
, even in medical journals. Concern over the effect of the disease grew in the early 2000s, so much so that it became one of the few diseases to be identified by an initial letter:
the big A
. (
The big C
– cancer – is another.)

Surnames that become common nouns and adjectives don’t have to belong to a real person. English literature has provided several examples of characters who have given their name to a general situation. What would it mean to call someone
a Scrooge, a Cinderella, a Girl Friday, a Romeo
? In each case the situation described in the original book has been left behind, and the words are even sometimes written without the capital letters. Rather less usual is the use of two surnames together.
A Jekyll and Hyde personality. A David and Goliath situation. A Holmes and Watson relationship
. There aren’t many of these.

Several fields go in for first name + surname. The world of roses, for example, has hundreds of examples of cultivars named after the whole name of an individual, including such well-known personalities as
Cary Grant
and
Bing Crosby
. And we’ll find whole names in such domains as dog breeds (
Jack Russell
), ships (
USS Ronald Reagan
), locomotives (
Winston Churchill
), cocktails (
Rose Kennedy
) and cakes (
Sarah Bernhardt
). Titles are not ruled out (
Earl Grey
tea). These do lead to some unusual English sentences: ‘Just smell that Cary Grant’; ‘Would you like some Earl Grey?’; ‘I’ll have two Rose Kennedies.’

Grand

money slang (20th century)

Some areas of vocabulary are more productive than others. I once went through a dictionary pulling out all the ways there are in English for saying ‘good’ things about the world (such as
wonderful, happily, a marvel
) and all the ways there are for saying ‘bad’ things (such as
awful, clumsily, a disaster
). I found 1,772 expressions of positive sentiment and 3,158 expressions of negative sentiment. It’s almost twice as easy to be critical in English, it seems.

Everyday concerns attract the largest vocabularies, especially as slang. Drugs, sex and booze have each generated hundreds of expressions. And so has money, both for the general meaning and for specific units and amounts. The different currency systems of English-speaking countries have added to the diversity (
§31
). Even old terms can live on in idioms: people still say in Britain that someone is
worth a few bob
, even though
bob
for a shilling (‘12 old pence’) disappeared decades ago. In Australian English we find
buckaroo
(‘a dollar coin’),
brick
(‘$10’) and
shrapnel
(‘small change’). In Jamaica, a
coil
is a ‘roll of banknotes’. In Trinidad, a
dog
is a ‘$20 bill’ – perhaps an echo of the days when people
used
dog dollars
(‘dollar coins where an original lion design had been worn away into something resembling a dog’).

Slang words for ‘money’ vary greatly. Some go back hundreds of years. In Britain,
brass
, associated with the colour of gold coins, is found from the late 16th century.
Ready
(= ‘ready money’) is recorded from the 17th, now heard only in the plural
readies
. Also from the 17th century is
quid
, originally referring to a sovereign or guinea. It probably comes from the Latin word for ‘what’ (
quid
), which transmuted into a jocular sense of ‘the wherewithal’ at a time when Latin was widely known.

Cockney rhyming slang has given us several expressions.
Bread
is from
bread and honey
(= ‘money’).
Five
(‘£5’) produces
beehive
; a
fiver
is a
lady
(from
Lady Godiva
).
Ten
(‘£10’) gives us
Big Ben
as well as
cock and hen
.
Eight
(‘£8’) is a
garden
, thanks to
garden gate
. Amounts and numerals sometimes appear as back-slang:
dunop, evif, nevis, yennep
. The rhyming practice crossed the sea. In Australia we find
Oscar Asche
(an Australian actor of the early 20th century) for
cash
,
Oxford scholar
for
dollar
and
bugs bunny
for
money
. In South Africa, ‘money’ is sometimes called
tom
(from
tomfoolery
= ‘jewellery’). And new rhyming slang is still being coined. In the late 20th century, we find
ayrton
as a word for ‘£10’, Why? Racing driver
Ayrton Senna
=
tenner
.

The USA has a huge range of slang expressions, some widely known thanks to their regular use in
films and television, such as (for dollars)
bucks
and
greenbacks
, and (for money in general)
dough
,
potatoes
,
lettuce
and
cabbage
(the last two from the green colour of the banknotes). The origin of some of the words is a real puzzle. There has been plenty of speculation, but no firm conclusion, over
moolah
and
spondulicks
(both occurring in various spellings). And if I offer you
fifty smackers
, is this because people often kissed banknotes or plonked them down on the table?
Mazooma
is from Yiddish. So is
motza
(also in various spellings), used chiefly in Australia.