(no subject)

The silly season is upon us again; all the odd little bits of news get sieved to the surface to fill newspaper columns, inconsequential items like the Israeli pull out from Gaza hide behind the enormity of Madge falling off her horse on her birthday, the Torygraph reports Cthuloid wars in and around Antarctica (courtesy princeofcairo, via pax_draconis). Yesterday the Times ran an article about growing spare faces in jars for when you need a face lift. They refrained from making a pun on Eleanor Rigby.

Times has attoned for this by forgetting to publish its T2 supplement – the important bit with the crossword and stuff, not to mention the telly listings – today, which makes me feel as though I should get a rebate on my 55p.

In the meantime, the members of the Athenaeum Club’s Thursday night role-play group have started emailing around Mouseketeer theme tune parodies based around the name of Yours Truly, just because I asked for a head count of who’s attending tomorrow.

And it’s hot.

It’s going to be a long day.

(no subject)

The silly season is upon us again; all the odd little bits of news get sieved to the surface to fill newspaper columns, inconsequential items like the Israeli pull out from Gaza hide behind the enormity of Madge falling off her horse on her birthday, the Torygraph reports Cthuloid wars in and around Antarctica (courtesy princeofcairo, via pax_draconis). Yesterday the Times ran an article about growing spare faces in jars for when you need a face lift. They refrained from making a pun on Eleanor Rigby.

Times has attoned for this by forgetting to publish its T2 supplement – the important bit with the crossword and stuff, not to mention the telly listings – today, which makes me feel as though I should get a rebate on my 55p.

In the meantime, the members of the Athenaeum Club’s Thursday night role-play group have started emailing around Mouseketeer theme tune parodies based around the name of Yours Truly, just because I asked for a head count of who’s attending tomorrow.

And it’s hot.

It’s going to be a long day.

and another thing...

My bafflement with the early 21st century continues apace and unabated.

You may have noticed that from time to time, my prose is littered with slang more likely to have been used in the '60s and '70s. Most of the time I edit it out, but now and again, it creeps through unnoticed and unremarked, marking me out as a man of my time. I'm 46: it's the language I grew up with.

Not all of the slang of that time has survived in my daily vocabulary; I could only use the word groovy in a light-hearted, jesting manner, and I can't think of a case for calling something fab without irony. Neither do I suffix sentences with man, man.

I do, however, remark upon things as being a drag when they are boring, and a good or pleasant thing or idea may still be cool.

So my usage has moved on, but equally, it has failed to keep up with current trends. I know what a minger is, but I'm less clear on munter. I only recently (last November, I think) learnt about chavs. Never, in a month of Sundays would I say something was wicked if I thought it was good or clever, and even before the Michael Jackson case, I'd never use bad as a synonym for good. I'm not even sure if these slang usages survived the late '80s and mid '90s, to be honest. I think the kids (especially city kids) still refer to things as 'wicked', but I think 'bad' may have gone the way of all flesh.

These are all examples of pretty much day-to-day phrases which may or may not be more or less current or outmoded¹. By which I mean that they crop up (or used to crop up) regularly in daily conversation.

There are, of course, other pieces of slang which are more specialised, and it's these that are so hard to keep track of.

I can't recall right now if I mentioned in this LJ that I am considering the acquisition of a DAB Radio. I quite like the thought of the additional stations and clearer reception – that aspect is a bit of a no-brainer. I am less convinced about the going price for digital radios. As far as I am concerned, £25-£30 is a good price to pay for a decent sized radio, £15-£25 should buy a smaller portable, and £5 to £15 should let you acquire a tiny clip on portable with an ear piece for when you are on the train or out walking. So the general spread of digital radio prices at £35 for tat, moving up to a couple of hundred for something more fancy has me pondering the level of expenditure and weighing it against actual need.

That last paragraph isn't so much the latest entry for the August non sequitur of the month award that it may at first appear. Stick with me.

Now when I was a kid, and well before the Walkman tape player was invented, there was only really the radio available if you wanted truly portable music. Portable record decks were, frankly, a pain. And let's not even get started with lugging 12" LPs around the place. Similarly, although the tape cassette was around from quite early in the '70s, they were rather feeble and prone to break, stretch and/or tangle, although they did get better in the latter part of the decade. Cassette players were quite clumsy and offered very poor sound reproduction for many years prior to the advent of the Walkman, and even these were hideously expensive and bizarrely large for many years. Let us not forget, also, that the tape cassette's development was slowed down for three or four years by the brief top-end dalliance with 8 track cartridges.

Never could afford one of those, and by the time I could, they had joined the 78rpm record and betamax video tapes on the scrap heap of consumer history.

But I am digressing.

No, for my childhood, and early youth, portable music meant the radio. The transistor radio. A wireless was something rather less portable, and may even have had valves in it – especially if it belonged to your grandparents. No, it was the transistor radio every time. Generally speaking, the batteries were bigger than they are now, and I fondly remember my old Roberts which took the big, square 9v battery (a PP9, I think...).

Anyway, the upshot of it all is, that when you announced to anyone you may be talking to, that you intended to wander off down the high street and see if you could pick up a tranny, they knew what you meant, and might even suggest a brand name.

What they wouldn't do is make ribald jokes about blokes in frocks, who may or may not have had bits 'edited' off their personages.

And that is why there should be a regular, free bulletin about trends in spoken language.

I’m going home. I'm not sure I want a radio, now.


¹Let’s cover our options, why don’t we?

and another thing...

My bafflement with the early 21st century continues apace and unabated.

You may have noticed that from time to time, my prose is littered with slang more likely to have been used in the '60s and '70s. Most of the time I edit it out, but now and again, it creeps through unnoticed and unremarked, marking me out as a man of my time. I'm 46: it's the language I grew up with.

Not all of the slang of that time has survived in my daily vocabulary; I could only use the word groovy in a light-hearted, jesting manner, and I can't think of a case for calling something fab without irony. Neither do I suffix sentences with man, man.

I do, however, remark upon things as being a drag when they are boring, and a good or pleasant thing or idea may still be cool.

So my usage has moved on, but equally, it has failed to keep up with current trends. I know what a minger is, but I'm less clear on munter. I only recently (last November, I think) learnt about chavs. Never, in a month of Sundays would I say something was wicked if I thought it was good or clever, and even before the Michael Jackson case, I'd never use bad as a synonym for good. I'm not even sure if these slang usages survived the late '80s and mid '90s, to be honest. I think the kids (especially city kids) still refer to things as 'wicked', but I think 'bad' may have gone the way of all flesh.

These are all examples of pretty much day-to-day phrases which may or may not be more or less current or outmoded¹. By which I mean that they crop up (or used to crop up) regularly in daily conversation.

There are, of course, other pieces of slang which are more specialised, and it's these that are so hard to keep track of.

I can't recall right now if I mentioned in this LJ that I am considering the acquisition of a DAB Radio. I quite like the thought of the additional stations and clearer reception – that aspect is a bit of a no-brainer. I am less convinced about the going price for digital radios. As far as I am concerned, £25-£30 is a good price to pay for a decent sized radio, £15-£25 should buy a smaller portable, and £5 to £15 should let you acquire a tiny clip on portable with an ear piece for when you are on the train or out walking. So the general spread of digital radio prices at £35 for tat, moving up to a couple of hundred for something more fancy has me pondering the level of expenditure and weighing it against actual need.

That last paragraph isn't so much the latest entry for the August non sequitur of the month award that it may at first appear. Stick with me.

Now when I was a kid, and well before the Walkman tape player was invented, there was only really the radio available if you wanted truly portable music. Portable record decks were, frankly, a pain. And let's not even get started with lugging 12" LPs around the place. Similarly, although the tape cassette was around from quite early in the '70s, they were rather feeble and prone to break, stretch and/or tangle, although they did get better in the latter part of the decade. Cassette players were quite clumsy and offered very poor sound reproduction for many years prior to the advent of the Walkman, and even these were hideously expensive and bizarrely large for many years. Let us not forget, also, that the tape cassette's development was slowed down for three or four years by the brief top-end dalliance with 8 track cartridges.

Never could afford one of those, and by the time I could, they had joined the 78rpm record and betamax video tapes on the scrap heap of consumer history.

But I am digressing.

No, for my childhood, and early youth, portable music meant the radio. The transistor radio. A wireless was something rather less portable, and may even have had valves in it – especially if it belonged to your grandparents. No, it was the transistor radio every time. Generally speaking, the batteries were bigger than they are now, and I fondly remember my old Roberts which took the big, square 9v battery (a PP9, I think...).

Anyway, the upshot of it all is, that when you announced to anyone you may be talking to, that you intended to wander off down the high street and see if you could pick up a tranny, they knew what you meant, and might even suggest a brand name.

What they wouldn't do is make ribald jokes about blokes in frocks, who may or may not have had bits 'edited' off their personages.

And that is why there should be a regular, free bulletin about trends in spoken language.

I’m going home. I'm not sure I want a radio, now.


¹Let’s cover our options, why don’t we?