TALK IN TALKIES

Sun (Auckland), Volume III, Issue 732, 3 August 1929, Page 25

TALK IN TALKIES

Queer Phrases Puzzle Britishers AN ORDER TRANSLATED The silent film caption has been responsible for the introduction of a good deal of American slang in the course of the last ten years, but the few months which have seen the advent of the talkie show that we are in for a real inundation of Americanisms. There Is much talk in these days about the two greatest English speaking peoples in the world, but the fact remains that the American language as spoken today Is vastly different from the English, comments a writer in the London “Daily Mall.” In the American talkie the difference is so great that English audiences are left aghast. Such words as “gotten,” ..sure,” “okay,” are easily understandable, but fully 25 per cent, of the conversation is foreign to English ears. “These Suckers” In a recent talkie a man playing the part of a financier says, “These suckers are pie,” and proceeds to demonstrate to a crowd of Wall Street operators how he will “knock ’em for a row.” Now, a sucker is a little fish which nibbles at everything, but his reference to “knock ’em for a row” could only be grasped by an American audience, who know the meaning of the term, which, briefly translated, means “that will get ’em.” Going “For a Ride”

In “crook” pictures the bad man very often declares to his associates

that he will take his proposed victim “for a ride.” That is gunmen’s talk. To take a man “for a ride” Is to inveigle him into a motor-car on a false pretext and, having got him there, to drive him out to the country and "bump him off”—kill him! Bootleggers have a little habit of taking their rivals for “rides,” and these have caused no little scare among the more peace-loving elements of the popula tions of the big cities. Here is a typical talkie conversation. We will translate it afterwards. “Lissen, Kid! Hold everything. When you lamp these birds making a get-away, hop to a call-box and shoot quick. If the tabs get the low down first they’ll break the dope all over the town. Got that? Okay.” Which means: “When you see these people escaping, run to a telephone booth and dictate your story to the news department as fast as you can. If the picture papers (the ‘tabs') get this story first they will publish it all over the city. Is that all clear? Very well then.”