A gallimaufry of the old and new

WATCH YOUR LANGUAGE - DIANNE BARDSLEY

The  interest in the English language that has snowballed over the past decade is reflected in the number of "populist" books that have arrived on retailers' shelves.

In a previous column I mentioned Lynne Truss' book Eats, Shoots & Leaves, in which she deplores the misuse of punctuation. David Crystal has written a series of popular texts on language change and the history of language use.

Another series, The Language Report prepared by Susie Dent, looks at new words and usages: Larpers and Shroomers, and Fanboys and Overdogs.

The titles of these books are as intriguing as their contents.

Cheerio Tom, Dick and Harry: Despatches from the Hospice of Fading Words is an amusing and very readable account of words that fall into misuse and go into the "obsolete" basket.

But though this book is readable and written for an international audience, Australian author Ruth Wajnryb appears not to be totally conversant with terms used in New Zealand.

Yes, we do still use "Tom, Dick and Harry" here and we still use "cheerio" and "chew the fat", which she is "writing off". These examples, and others with lively histories, are far from being given the pension in New Zealand.

A text with a similar theme, but which in addition examines the way old words are recycled, is Gallimaufry: A Hodgepodge of Our Vanishing Vocabulary by Michael Quinion.

Here, Quinion discusses words such as skilligalee, caudle, thimblerigger and joculator, to name but a few with interesting origins.

"Burgoo" was one that caught the eye, as it has its own sense in New Zealand English, which Quinion failed to mention. The term has been recycled several times, coming into English in the 18th century from the Turkish bulgur, the word for cooked, dried and crushed wheat.

It has been used in seamanship for a thin porridge, served hot. In the United States its new use was for a wild game dish cooked outdoors, and later it became used more generally for a slow-cooked meat and vegetable stew.

In New Zealand the term was used in the 19th century during the years of the wheat bonanza, later during the cocksfoot age, and it was still documented in use in the drive for increased agricultural production during World War II.

It is a term associated with harvesting and shearing, and is the name given to a refreshing cold drink made of oatmeal and lemon.

Lexicographers are increasingly reluctant to use labels such as "obsolete" in dictionary compilation, for the reason that it is the referent or object that is obsolete, rather than the word, which is so often recycled with a new sense. We often settle for "historical use" instead.

Recently, Robert Vanderplank and Stephen Dodson published Uglier than a Monkey's Armpit: The Best Curses, Put- downs and Invectives From Around the World.

The book is full of words that are reserved for our enemies and detractors, and presents a lively examination of Shakespeare's highly imaginative terms of abuse.

But how many are included from New Zealand English? Just one: munter. Indeed, there is a paucity of terms of abuse that have originated in New Zealand.

On the occasion of the launch of this book, we were asked to provide some insulting terms from New Zealand English.

Few, other than "howlybag", "munter" and "morepork", came to mind.

Does that mean that we lack imagination, we exercise restraint, or we are happier borrowing rather than generating such terms? It certainly does not mean that we don't emote.

In compiling the Oxford New Zealand Mini Thesaurus, we noted that we borrow and use at least 31 alternative terms for "angry" and 41 alternative verbal forms for "to become angry".

In contributing 500 distinctive New Zealand slang and unusual terms to the ninth edition of the New Partridge Dictionary of Slang and Unconventional English, terms of abuse, ridicule or denigration were notably infrequent on our list.

No, we tend to leave invention to other varieties of English when we are set on abusive intent, and we borrow from them.

Vanderplank and Dodson found that insults about appearance, character, clumsiness, behaviour, family and legitimacy, one's strengths and weaknesses, and sexual prowess or lack of it, are ubiquitous, with the cuckolded male and the "dim-witted" person being the two most common targets of abusive language across all languages and cultures.

They claim that Polish and Spanish have very strong cursing cultures and that, in many cultures, insults are limited to use by males.

While on the subject of insults, David Armstrong of Upper Hutt writes that his pet hate is the increasingly common "whoa to go" which makes no sense, and he asks for illustrations of similar terms that New Zealanders have "got wrong".

One that is increasingly common is "a hard road to hoe" (now often modified as "She's a hard road") rather than "a hard row to hoe".

But the use of the feminine pronoun here is a subject that we should perhaps save for another column.

* Dianne Bardsley is the director of the New Zealand Dictionary Centre at Victoria University's school of linguistics and applied language studies.

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