You probably know that I like oldies stuff. I read Agatha Christie which was written since 1920. My favourite music is still ABBA. *roll eyes*
What I find interesting are the words used in Agatha Christie books. Most of them are now obsolete. It's a good thing my vocabulary has not caught up with the times so I do get what the great madame of crime is trying to say.
For example when she says 'making love' in the book it means as it would have meant in the 1920s : verbal flirtation. Not the definition we have for it today. Ehem.
Another example is the word queer. It means weird or bizarre. At least that's what I knew it meant until just a few years ago when I discovered that one of my University's student council portfolio was The Queer Officer. Yes, queer means gay now. And not the gay that Agatha Christie meant; for which being gay meant being happy and lively.
I don't know about you but it's quite common for the English to use 'queer' to describe something being weird. "Isn't that queer?" or "How queer was that?". We probably can't use this word anymore without running the risk of being offensive or crude.
Despite some of the obsolete vocabulary I still love novels set in times when it was still considered outrageous for a woman to go hatless in public or show her ankles to men. Or when unmarried women need a chaperone present to be in the same room as a man. Polite society it was called. Though that's now obsolete too.
9 comments:
I luuuurrrrrrve antic novels!! AbbA too but of course you need to add a significant number to your age to get mine :) but when I was ehem younger dulu pun suka lagu2 lama..
nnd yes queer means weird and acorrding to the old meaning, gay = happy..
what? why are they evolving these perfectly good words into into into some other meaning.
ohh now I get it. queer eye for the straight guys. do you know the show? a bunch of homo guys making a makeover to some straight guys. also buat makeover their house, advising them on their love life.
OO- hahaha! kak wani takde ler tua mana :p
lollies- i'm calling it word hijacking. hehe
yes i know the show. it was quite enjoyable. at the time i still thought queer meant "weird". after all the guys on the show were kinda weird. later on i realised they were gay. gay gay not happy gay.
thanks aliya for enlightening me. duh, i love stories set out in the polite society. still do though :P
i like abba too! ini pengaruh siapa nie? hehehe..i remember reading geisha in heavean n earth, even nampak lengan kira sexy lah, that's how 'modest' they go when entertaining men.
zan- sebab lagu2 zmn skrg bosan kot huhu
gay replaces gay becoz gays (sotong) are often gay (ceria) kot. pahe dok ni?
gay in the olden days may also refer to one's vibrancy i.e. colourful clothes. and we all know how stylish gays like to dress these days yaknowwhuddumsayin?
zaid- sotong?? whaddya mean?
yes, gay clothes used to mean nice, colourful clothes. now though it sorta means pondan.
oh and why are only gays are stylish or only the stylish are gay?
why cant men be stylish and not gay?
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