I know this might sound as if I spend all my time daydreaming or deep in thought, but recently I have been amused and fascinated by turns of phrase and our language. It was partly due to listening to a couple of Radio 4 programmes, but I've always been fascinated by words and names and their origins and meanings. Not sure how we got onto the subject, but Sid and I were this morning discussing how someone trying to learn English might be totally confused by our assorted turns of phrase and colloqialisms (not sure if that was spelt right!!). The Victorians had lots of amusing words to describe things that were considered rude or disgusting by polite society, and certainly lots of those phrases have continued...like 'Going to visit the vicar', 'Powder your nose', 'Pointing Peter at the porcelain' etc, and of course there are some much ruder ones, too! Think our predilection for these might be something to do with our rather stiff upper lipped society in the past, but it's interesting to see that these phrases and modern versions of them are still in use. And other countries and societies all have their own versions of these too. And do countries like India or Africa have phrases that they have inherited from us? I also find it fascinating that language is continuously developing and changing, and I heard the other day that it's very trendy in India to speak in a hybrid of 20th century English with some Indian phrases thrown in...so there's lots of 'Super' and 'Jolly Good', and when you consider that black American culture is also affecting especially British Asians you could potentially have a rather wild and exotic mix! Lots of the words in our culture come from other countries- pukka, bungalow and camping come from India, and most of our language comes originally from French. We still have sayings like 'Je Ne Se Qua', and 'Coup D'Etat', 'Fait Accompli'. But I'm especially intrigued by words or terms that have come directly from an event or famous person, and the habit of using these with current names of people is still with us. It's a witty way of making a comment on what's happenning in the news, and makes you seem very 'cool' and 'up to the minute'. I heard the other day that the term 'Gordon Bennett' was about a real man from the Victorian period who was engaged and went out and got very drunk. He then turned up at his fiance's house where she was having a very posh party, and promptly peed in the fireplace in front of everyone! Needless to say the engagement was broken off and his name went down in history ! And 'Your name is mud' comes from the fact that the man who assasinated President Lincoln was called Mr Mudd.
Although I have many more msuings on the subject I'm fast running out of time as I need to go and teach a class...so don't go away- 'I'll be back'!!
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