MAKING OUR OWN SLANG

New Zealand Listener, Volume 3, Issue 58, 2 August 1940, Page 10

MAKING OUR OWN SLANG

ET’S be firm about this matter from the start. New Zealand has her own slang, just as Australia has, and America and England, and there’s no sense in our being snobbish about it and saying we’re too English to have our own slang. Far from it, This country is young enough and vigorous enough to have enriched the English language with some remarkably colourful terms. It is only a couple of days since I was initiated into the mysteries of what, in New Zealand at least, is known as the Hokitika Swindle. This Hokitika Swindle is a complicated matter to explain, but, as numerous listeners doubtless know, it concerns a method whereby drinks may be shouted at one’s own or another person’s expense. An expensive institution, maybe-but an interesting new slang expression. While on the subject of institutions there is the word shout itself-to pay for drinks-which has a long and perhaps I may say honourable history both in this country and in Australia. It probably originated in the early goldmining days in New South Wales or Victoria, somewhere about 1855 or before.

Ringing The Changes Anyway, after 1857, to shout and its derivative shouting frequently appear in literature concerning the two countries, Shouting, which obviously comes from shouting for a waiter to bring drinks or shouting for attention at a_ bar, appears first in a small book entitled " Australia, Tasmania and New Zealand," published in 1857, The term is now heard even in England, but in spite of its long currency it has not yet been fully accredited as standard use. Consider how the changes are rung on the noun, a shout. Originally it meant a "free round of drinks." Later it signified "one’s turn to buy drinks for others." Later still it meant "one’s turn to pay for anything in which two or more people participate, as for instance, a shout to a picture show." The most modern development is "a gesture of payment for ‘anything on behalf of another person, without expectation of recompense," as when a friend wishes to buy a packet of envelopes and you say magnanimously, "Oh, I'll shout you that." This is one of the ways in which language grows. Pigs And Pig Islanders Let us take a simple New Zealand use-a Captain Cooker. Most people know that this signified a wild pig and that it is so-named because Cook introduced pigs into New Zealand. We do not have to stretch our imaginations unduly to link it with the oft-used term Pig-Islander, for a New Zealander, and Pig-Islands for New Zealand itself. Can there be any doubt as to what are the Shaky Isles, the All Blacks, Fernleaves, or, if it is in good taste to mention it, the Windy City? It doesn’t take long for an expression which we use casually in our daily lives to become current. Here are a few others: peter school, a gambling den; pie at (or on) good or efficient at; to show a point to. someone, to swindle a person; poled for stolen; shelfer, a police informer; and tussocker, a tramp. Only the other day I heard a prominent member of the National Broadcasting Service staff speaking about a person

having the wood on someone else in a certain matter. That is another popular New Zealand phrase. So is over the edge or over the fence, for unreasonable, when we talk aboyt the injustice of some proposition or the action of a person, Slang 100 Years Ago It would be a great mistake to believe that we in this country have been creating a new slang only in recent years, Actually we may go back to the whaling days. Two interesting terms that come to my mind are fonguer and go-ashore. As may be seen by referring to the log of the whaler, Mary Mitchell, in 1836, tonguers were Maoris or white people who furnished a boat’s crew to assist in cutting up whales and to act as interpreters. The term referred, however, not to the act of interpreting, but to the fact that these persons were given the whale’s carcass and tongue to dispose of as they wished. The second expression, a go-ashore, was used for an iron pot or cauldron, with three feet and two ears from which it was suspended by a wire handle over the fire, It is believed that it is a core ruption of the Maori word kohua. Identity And Iniquity Of somewhat later date, but of particular note, is Old Identity, one of the most interesting of all New Zealand expressions. How an old identity came to be synonymous with a resident of long standing in any place, is an unusual story. It was originated by a song writer named R, Thatcher, in Dunedin, in 1862, when the Old Identity, a former citizen of Dunedin, was distinguished from the New Iniquity, as immigrants from Australia were called. To-day, the song and the expression New Iniquity have been forgotten, but old identity and the word identity alone, which carried the same meaning, remain, symbols of the strange way in which language is developed, It was in New Zealand that a new meaning was given to the term cadet, Ninety-eight years ago-probably before -cadet was used to describe a young English settler in this country. And here is a much more recent example in which a new meaning has been given to an old term-echelon. Though it has had a long military history, mever before has echelon been used to describe an expeditionary force, as it has in New Zealand since the outbreak of war last September. "On The Compo" I was in the Wellington Magistrate’s Court the other day and I heard a defendant speak of being on the compo, What he meant was that he was receiving worker’s compensation, In Australia there is in use the slang term, on the susso, meaning "on sustenance," or receiving unemployment relief. Quite apart from that fact, it serves as further evidence of the widespread use in these two countries of the final suffic "-o." Here are some other examples: arvo, for afternoon; evo, for

evening; abo, for aboriginal; whacko! a hearty exclamation. I read in an English paper the other day that the Australian soldiers overseas had adopted whacko! as their war cry. (The word has some circulation also among New Zealand troops.-Ed.) What Our Writers Are Doing At the moment, however, we are concerned primarily with what has been happening in New Zealand, and with its effect on our everyday life. It is not without point therefore that we should pause a moment to consider what our writers are doing about it. G. H, Scholefield; writing in the Cambridge History of the British Empire (1933), observes: "It may be said that New Zealand writers both of verse and prose have failed to create a distinctive literature, not from lack of matter, but for want of individuality in treatment. They have fashioned their expression so closely upon approved English models as to rob it of any distinction." Why should that be so? To no small degree it is because our writers and poets have not accommodated themselves to: their own environment. They have attempted to interpret the New Zealand scene in ‘terms of England. I have often heard the word AustraJasian resented in New Zealand because it would seem to ignore the existence of this country. In spite of popular belief to the contrary, New Zealand has put into common usage hundreds of Australian slang and colloquial terms and has, in fact, departed a long way from traditions and modes of English speech. I think that Professor Arnold Wall, a leading authority on pronunciation, has shown convincingly that we do not generally speak as the English do. .There is little use in bewailing this fact, though, of course, the better our standard of speech the less slipshod our habits of thought and pronunciation. N.Z. Words in Australia But I think we should admit the cold facts of geography that have placed us close to Australia and distant from England, If we find occasion to use Australian slang and colloquial expressions-such as wowser, Pommy, larrikin, tucker, billy, barrack, swagman, belltopper — it is equally certain that very many New Zealand terms have currency across the Tasman-as I found during the course of research I conducted in Australia. At least so far as slang is concerned, we people should not attempt to ignore our own characteristics, For one reason, our slang is here to stay, As the histories of England and America have shown, slang is one of the most persistent features of everyday life. It can neither be ignored nor legislated out of existence. At one time, for instance, the term barrack, to jeer at or chaff a person, was ruled unparliamentary in Victoria. To-day it is almost as widely used in Britain as it is in the southern hemisphere. I should be glad to hear from listeners who have recorded any vg _ expressions, especially of an or New " A letter or ‘a postcard to Sidney Baker, C/o National Broadcasting Service, and marked " Slang,’ will reach me.