The words that were

The names of things evolve through time. Take sneakers, for example. They were once sports shoes, sandshoes and plimsolls, named after the plimsoll line, a reference mark located on a ship's hull which indicates the maximum depth to which the vessel may be safely immersed when loaded with cargo (explanation courtesy of Google). Presumably plimsolls were invented for wearing aboard ship, possibly on those interminable journeys between England and India. Speaking of which, one of the explanations for the origins of the word “posh” comes from the same slice of history. Apparently, the upper-class types who peopled the British raj had “POSH” stencilled on their luggage meaning “Port Out, Starboard Home” so their cabins would always face the shore.

Another word with older iterations is bedspread which was coverlet which was counterpane; doona was originally duvet and eiderdown (named for the down of eider ducks). Knitwear was jumpers was jerseys was guernseys. Nail polish was nail varnish. Then for Australians, movie was cinema was flicks was filums was pitchers. Servo was service station was garage; garages had real people in them who came out to fill up your car and put pressure in your tires.

Then there are sayings which are falling into disuse like “out at woop woop”, meaning very far away or “back o’ Bourke”, even further away. The dog might still be on the tucker box somewhere near Gundagai, but the word tucker has almost disappeared. In an effort to support the continued use of Aussie slang, tucker is what I provide to our cockatoo flock, the dog and occasionally the grandchildren.

There are also habits which possibly should die but haven’t. For example, when forced to a sudden stop when driving, my left hand lashes out and thumps the person sitting in the passenger seat across the chest. Or the car seat itself when unoccupied. Obviously this habit came from the days without seat-belts but it is so hard-wired I simply can’t stop. What I have thankfully grown out of is being sick on car trips. As a small child I vomited my way to a holiday in Surfers Paradise, as a result of which my brother and I were sent up by plane the next Christmas.

People in my family held fast to some pieces of folk wisdom. If you spilled salt, you had to throw a pinch over your shoulder; I think the devil came into this somehow. You were never to walk under ladders but only around them, a relatively sensible dictum. It was bad luck to open an umbrella inside the house, possibly because it would be bad luck to have a spoke in your eye.

 

If someone sneezed, someone else would say “God bless” or “bless you”. One explanation also refers to the devil that you sneezed out! Triskaidekaphobia, or fear of the number 13, was not marked in my family but I just thought I’d show off by knowing the word for it!

 

What was very common in my family and indeed among everyone I knew was the need to knock on wood, or say knock on wood, whenever you spoke about something positive or hoped for good luck to continue. Frequently my family and those Jewish people around us, used another phrase, in Yiddish/Hebrew: Kein ayin hara. Run together in the way in was by English Yiddish-speakers, it came out as keneinahora (k’nayn a hora). Kein means no or without in German and Yiddish, whilst ayin hara refers to the evil eye in Hebrew. So conversation would go like this: she’s got a real talent for the piano, keneinahora; he’s growing up to be a real mensh (a good man in Yiddish), keneinahora. My English-born grandmother, who lived with us, used this phrase all the time. According to British rabbi, Rabbi Julian Sinclair, the evil eye is an ancient Jewish superstition. Good fortune should not be celebrated too loudly and ostentatiously, lest it draw the attention of the evil eye, a spiritual force that would snatch away our blessings.

 

Other sayings and habits were much more domestic along the lines of “An apple a day keeps the doctor away”. Did this, I wonder, emanate from some early apple marketing board? We didn’t eat watermelon after swimming (or possibly swam after eating watermelon), we were “happy little Vegemites” from the advertising slogan, a watched pot didn’t boil, our Sunday shouldn’t be longer than our Monday (your slip/petticoat shouldn’t hang below your skirt) and as you grew older, if you were female, you shouldn’t look like “mutton dressed up like lamb”

 

Quote of the week from Chambers Dictionary of Modern Quotations.

US Comedian George Burns: “The secret of acting is sincerity. If you can fake that, you’ve got it made.”