Almost five years ago, in this post, I mentioned Alistair Morrison’s 1965 book Let Stalk Strine, written under the pseudonym Afferbeck Lauder (“alphabetical order”); now it’s online, courtesy of textfiles.com. A sample should give the idea:
Dingo: A word with two separate, unrelated meanings. When intoned with equal emphasis on the syllables it is the negative response to the question ‘Jeggoda?’ As in:
Q: Jeggoda the tennis?
A: Nar, dingo. Sorten TV.
When, however, the emphasis is on the first syllable, dingo becomes a parliamentary term of mild reproof.
Thanks, Dinesh!
Ah yes, a well-known classic. I think we owe the term Strine to it.
O yes, of course. As documented.
When I was a kid on the West Side in Manhattan my friends in the neighborhood referred to the basic arithmetical operations as “add, take away, times, and gazinta.” (That’s as in “two gazinta four, five gazinta ten” etc.)
One of Strine’s major figures is the perennially evil Dame Lauren Order as in ‘Without the death penalty, Lauren Order would collapse’.
“Emma Chizzit?” remains my favorite.
J. Del col
Alas, the excerpt leaves out one of my favorites: “lairnch cheh,” lounge chair.