Open Writing

It appears to have long been the practice -- probably through the history of humankind -- for children to copy the behaviour patterns of grownups. Small girls with their dolls, tea sets and mud pies aped their mothers, whilst boys mimicked their fathers by ‘smoking’ cigarettes or pipes which were replicas of the real ones, the cigarettes being sugary confections, whilst pipes were made of chocolate. Nevertheless, both boys and girls imagined they were grownups and felt quite sophisticated in their make-belief.

Of course it was inevitable that uncouth practices should be followed as well as the more civilised ones. Hence the habit of spitting developed among boys. There was a time when the nauseating procedure became so prevalent that notices were painted permanently on the interiors of trams and buses, prohibiting the custom with the threat of a prosecution carrying a fine of forty shillings. Today the custom is demonstrated on the field of play by professional footballers, who again are imitated by their young devotees.

Moving on to a more healthy and palatable subject yet remaining with the young ones and their desire to be ‘old before their time’ as some might say. Then the adult usage of standard grammar, diction and pronunciation -- neither of which were strong points in conversation amongst the older members of the community of my young days -- were nevertheless repeated with pride by the juveniles, it being ‘grownup talk’.

It is not simply local dialect that is referred to here but rather individual words which had either been altered from their original context or were spelled or pronounced differently.

As children we would be fascinated with some of the words or ‘speiks’ used by our elders. We thought it amusing when, as a result of some misdemeanour on our part, we would be threatened by one character with having our ‘ear-oils tinselled’, either that or some other region of our anatomy. How, I wonder, did the word ‘tinsel’ get from a Christmas tree to someone’s ‘lug-oil’? Perhaps it was the lustre and the glitter which created a tingling sensation. Who knows?

At other times, again because we had annoyed our elders, we would be referred to as ‘young besoms’. A besom is what is regarded as a witch’s broom. I fail to make the connection. Then again we might have been referred to as ‘young scopperills’. What is a ‘scopperill’, and is it spelled with two p’s?

In the village where I was born a T-road junction is formed where a side road meets with the main road. And for pedestrian safety a barrier was erected that consisted of a short double row of horizontal tubing supported by three uprights, the whole structure being known to some as ‘t’ railin’s’, which provided us young ones with a climbing frame or simply somewhere to sit and ‘cal’. One boy’s mother never referred to that structure as ‘t’ railin’s’. For her they were always ‘t’ palisades’, and we considered that to be a grand title. It was an adult word, one to be oft repeated and employed at every opportunity. ‘We’re off t’ play on t’ palisades’. Very mature, making us bilingual almost, or so we thought.

It was the same good lady who provided us with another expressive word which, needless to say, we again enjoyed employing at every opportunity.

Situated at one end of our row of houses lay the local park where immediately behind its boundary wall, trees and shrubs were and still are grown in a border several yards in width prior to the commencement of lawns and flowerbeds. What name we young ones gave initially to that area I have no recall, but I do remember the word applied by the mother referred to earlier -- ‘plantation’.

Even today I cannot supply a more apt word. ‘Shrubbery’ would not suit because trees grew there. ‘Trees’ would be misleading since bushes are present. Consequently ‘plantation’ seems to fill the bill admirably. That was one time we never mutilated the word’s pronunciation, an event occurring in many instances.

For example, bananas were a plentiful commodity in my pre-World War II days, always being readily obtainable from greengrocer’s shops and market stalls. Such fruits were commonly referred to as ‘binanas’ or ‘binanis’. Who thought those words up? It was the same with the word ‘chimney’. To many people it was always ‘chimley’. Where the L came from is a mystery.

Children of course have their own vocabulary. At times the words they use are created by a means of trial and error, variants of a word spoken until one is found which suits the purpose, when the two main attributes are firstly descriptive, then pleasurable in pronunciation.

What young child, boy or girl, of the 1920s and 1930s generations did not play at marbles? The word ‘marbles’ never varied, they, to my clique, being the ones made from baked clay. But there was also the coloured glass variety, and it was on these that the fertile-minded junior linguists practised their art. ‘Glassies’ was in common usage, descriptive, attractive to the ear, generally understood. But what about ‘gluggies’, that word the result no doubt of much trial and error in the search to find an attractive sounding word to both tongue and ear.

Another word we used was ‘jowoo’, an encouragement used whilst riding imaginary horses in pursuit of imaginary wrong-doers, the working class boy’s equivalent of the squirearchy’s hunting field cry of ’tally-ho’ but to me far more evocative of the chase. ’Jowoo.’

Today when young people are pleased with a situation or a product, they use the words ‘ace’ or ‘brill’. ‘Super’ seems to have fallen from usage. Years ago myself and my associates had our own word to describe such -- ‘jedder’, origin unknown. I’m not even sure of the spelling, nor do I ever hear it being used today. Perhaps it perished during the last war or simply passed from fashion as we one-time users passed into adolescence and adulthood, learning other expressions when in the armed forces.

Language is such a conveniently mobile commodity. Children demonstrate that. Here as a final offering is a composition we would chant in our younger days:

Eena meena mina macker
Air air domi racker
Chicka picka lacka packa
Pom pom puss.