Word Speak - Back in the day…

Kathleen Anderson

I think it was around the early sixties that the English language began to change. The use of slang became bolder and more frequent. Prior to this time people were often judged by their dialect, pronunciation, and use of our language.

Golly Gee Whiz, Woo Hoo, and Oh My, were replaced by groovy, cool, and in the beach communities where I was growing up bitchin, a term that horrified my mother, each time it came out of my mouth.

By the seventies, slang was often replaced by swear words, which I will leave to your imagination. Suffice it to say it is was even more shocking to the older generation when the female gender was using it.

More judgments were handed out and my parents often used the term “Not our kind of people” to describe my high school friends. But of course, they were my kind of people…

Time marches on, and changes in fashion, hair styles and expressions continued to expand and contract. But one thing never changed…wit.

While I may not have recognized it by that name as a youngster, I knew it when I heard it.

So, I thought it might be fun to share with you of some of the language from the good old days. Quotes from those whose use of the English language defined a generation – and brought a smile to our faces minus the four-letter words so commonly used today.

1. "I am enclosing two tickets to the first night of my new play;

 Bring a friend, if you have one."

   George Bernard Shaw to Winston Churchill. 

 "Cannot possibly attend first night, I will attend the second...If there is one."

     -  Winston Churchill, in response.  

2. "He had delusions of adequacy."

     -  Walter Kerr

3. "I have never killed a man, but I have read many obituaries with great pleasure."

     -  Clarence Darrow

4. "He has never been known to use a word that might send a reader to the dictionary."

     -  William Faulkner (about Ernest Hemingway).

5. "Thank you for sending me a copy of your book; I'll waste no time reading it."

     -  Moses Hadas

6. "I didn't attend the funeral, but I sent a nice letter saying I approved of it."

     -  Mark Twain

7. "He has no enemies, but is intensely disliked by his friends."

     -  Oscar Wilde

8. "I feel so miserable without you; it's almost like having you here."

     -  Stephen Bishop

9. "He is a self-made man and worships his creator."

     -  John Bright

10. "I've just learned about his illness. Let's hope it's nothing trivial."

     -  Irvin S. Cobb

11. "He is not only dull himself; he is the cause of dullness in others."

     -  Samuel Johnson

12. "He is simply a shiver looking for a spine to run up."

     -  Paul Keating

13. "In order to avoid being called a flirt, she always yielded easily."

     -  Charles, Count Talleyrand

14. "He loves nature in spite of what it did to him."

     -  Forrest Tucker

15. "Why do you sit there looking like an envelope without any address on it?"

     -  Mark Twain

16. "His mother should have thrown him away and kept the stork."

     -  Mae West

17. "Some cause happiness wherever they go; others, whenever they go."

     -  Oscar Wilde

18. "He uses statistics as a drunken man uses lamp-posts... For support rather than illumination."

     -  Andrew Lang (1844-1912)

19. "He has Van Gogh's ear for music."

     -  Billy Wilder

20. "I've had a perfectly wonderful evening. But this wasn't it."

     -  Groucho Marx.

21."He has all the virtues I dislike and none of the vices I admire."

     -  Winston Churchill

22. “If you want to know what God thinks of money, just look at the people he gave it to.”

     -  Dorothy Parker

Kathleen Anderson writes this column each week from her home in Olympia.  Contact her at  kathleen@theJOLTnews.com or post your comment below.