[stylist] A fun article on how language has changed in ourlifetimes

Mon Jul 20 20:39:22 UTC 2015

Thanks, fascinating.

Bridgit

-----Original Message-----
From: stylist [mailto:stylist-bounces at nfbnet.org] On Behalf Of Applebutter
Hill via stylist
Sent: Monday, July 20, 2015 10:04 AM
To: 'Writers' Division Mailing List'
Cc: Applebutter Hill
Subject: Re: [stylist] A fun article on how language has changed in
ourlifetimes

Bridgit,
As for "in like Flynn," I've actually heard people say, "in like flint."
Just another way language changes
The Reilly expression I am familiar with from my youth is "living the life
of Reilly." Below my name is a little essay about its possible origins.
Donna
From:
http://www.phrases.org.uk/meanings/the-life-of-riley.html
Block quote
The phrase originated in the Irish/American community of the USA, in the
early part of the 20th century. The first printed citation of it that I have
found is from the Connecticut newspaper The Hartford Courant, December 1911
- in a piece headed 'Bullet Ends Life of Famous Wild Cow':

The famous wild cow of Cromwell is no more. After "living the life of Riley"
for over a year, successfully evading the pitchforks and the bullets of the
farmers, whose fields she ravaged in all four seasons.

The quote marks that the writer added around the phrase are often an
indication that the phrase in question isn't familiar to the readership,
which is an indication of it being newly coined.

The phrase was much used in the military, especially in WWI. The first known
citation in that context is in a letter from a Sergeant Leonard A. Monzert
of the American Expeditionary Forces 'somewhere in France', an extract of
which was published in The Brooklyn Daily Eagle on 26th May 1918. In the
letter Monzert wrote that he and his pals were 'living the life of Reilly'.
Other similar letters from US servicemen claimed to have been living the
life of Reilly while at war in France. How much truth there was in the
letters and how much was propaganda to reassure the folks back home isn't
clear. With hindsight we can be sure that any soldier's life during the
First World War was no picnic.

Later that year, on 22nd October, The Bridgeport Telegram published a letter
from Private Samuel S. Polley, 102 Regiment, stationed in France.

"They [German officers] must have led the life of Reilly as we caught them
all asleep in beds..."

Who Riley (or Reilly, or Reiley) was isn't clear. If he had been a known
individual then it surely would have been recorded. The lack of any such
records points to the name being chosen as that of a generic Irishman, much
as Paddy is used now.

The phrase may have been brought to America by Irish immigrants, although
there's no known use of it in Ireland prior to 1918, or, more likely, it
originated in the Irish community in the USA.

There had been various Victorian music hall songs that had referred to a
Reilly who had a comfortable and prosperous life; for example, there's the
1883 song, popularised by the Irish/American singer Pat Rooney - Is That Mr.
Reilly? It included in the chorus "Is that Mr. Reilly, of whom they speak so
highly?". Like most other Irish songs of the era, it played to the Irish
audience - this one with a dash of anti-Chinese racism thrown in for luck
(the Chinese were 'Reilly's' principal competitors for manual work in the
USA at the time):

I'll have nothing but Irishman on the police  Patrick's Day will be the
fourth of July;  I'll get me a thousand infernal machines,  To teach the
Chinese how to die,  I'll defend working men's cause, Manufacture the laws,
New York would be swimming in wine,  A hundred a day will be very small pay,
When the White House and Capital are mine.

Another Irish/American sing, George Gaskin, was popular in New York around
the same time. He was called 'The Silver-Voiced Irish Tenor", although
audiences must have been rather forgiving in those days, as surviving
recordings of him sound like a knife being drawn across a plate. 1897 song,
The Best in the House is None Too Good for Reilly, elaborated on the
whimsical idea of a wealthy Irishman being treated lavishly:

He's money for to pay,
 So they let him have his way,
 The best in the house is none too good for Reilly.

So, while the idea of a notional Irishman living the high life was current
in late 19th century America, the phrase 'the life of Riley' isn't found
until the early 20th century. It was clearly circulating in the language, by
1911, but it was probably the lyric of Howard Pease's popular song, My Name
is Kelly, 1919, that brought it to the wider public:

Faith and my name is Kelly, Michael Kelly, but I'm living the life of Reiley
just the same.
Block quote end

-----Original Message-----
From: stylist [mailto:stylist-bounces at nfbnet.org] On Behalf Of Bridgit
Kuenning-Pollpeter via stylist
Sent: Sunday, July 19, 2015 2:30 PM
To: 'Writers' Division Mailing List'
Cc: Bridgit Kuenning-Pollpeter
Subject: Re: [stylist] A fun article on how language has changed in
ourlifetimes

Donna,

Thanks for sharing, fun. I have not ever heard the expression, "Life like
Riley," that's new to me. And I found out where the expression, "In like
Flynn," derived from a few years ago and was shocked. My dad, a minister,
often uses the expression, and I was like, "Dad, you need to stop saying
that," LOL! For those in the dark, in like Flynn was an expression that
developed in the 30's and 40's about actor Errol Flynn because he was quite
known for his, shall we say varied romantic flings, grin. Crude, yet most
people use this term without having any clue of its origins.

Bridgit

-----Original Message-----
From: stylist [mailto:stylist-bounces at nfbnet.org] On Behalf Of Applebutter
Hill via stylist
Sent: Sunday, July 19, 2015 11:59 AM
To: 'Writers' Division Mailing List'
Cc: Applebutter Hill
Subject: [stylist] A fun article on how language has changed in our
lifetimes

Just found this an thought some would enjoy.

Donna

WORDS   AND PHRASES REMIND Us OF THE WAY   WE WORD.
by Richard Lederer

http://verbivore.com/wordpress/old-words-and-phrases-remind-us-of-the-way-we
-word/

About a month ago, I illuminated some old expressions that have become
obsolete because of the inexorable march of technology. These phrases
included "Don't touch that dial," "Carbon copy," "You sound like a broken
record" and "Hung out to dry." A bevy of readers have asked me to shine
light on more faded words and expressions, and I am happy to oblige:

Back in the olden days we had a lot of moxie. We'd put on our best bib and
tucker and straighten up and fly right. Hubba-hubba! We'd cut a rug in some
juke joint and then go necking and petting and smooching and spooning and
billing and cooing and pitching woo in hot rods and jalopies in some passion
pit or lovers' lane. Heavens to Betsy! Gee whillikers! Jumpin' Jehoshaphat!
Holy moley! We were in like Flynn and living the life of Riley, and even a
regular guy couldn't accuse us of being a knucklehead, a nincompoop or a
pill. Not for all the tea in China !

Back in the olden days, life used to be swell, but when's the last time
anything was swell? Swell has gone the way of beehives, pageboys and the
D.A.; of spats, knickers, fedoras, poodle skirts, saddle shoes and pedal
pushers. Oh, my aching back. Kilroy was here, but he isn't anymore.

Like Washington Irving's Rip Van Winkle and Kurt Vonnegut's Billy Pilgrim,
we have become unstuck in time. We wake up from what surely has been just a
short nap, and before we can say, "I'll be a monkey's uncle!" or "This is a
fine kettle of fish!" we discover that the words we grew up with, the words
that seemed omnipresent as oxygen, have vanished with scarcely a notice from
our tongues and our pens and our keyboards.

Poof, poof, poof go the words of our youth, the words we've left behind. We
blink, and they're gone, evanesced from the landscape and wordscape of our
perception, like Mickey Mouse wristwatches, hula hoops, skate keys, candy
cigarettes, little wax bottles of colored sugar water and an organ grinder's
monkey.

Where have all those phrases gone? Long time passing. Where have all those
phrases gone? Long time ago: Pshaw. The milkman did it. Think about the
starving Armenians. Bigger than a bread box. Banned in Boston . The very
idea! It's your nickel. Don't forget to pull the chain. Knee high to a
grasshopper. Turn-of-the-century. Iron curtain. Domino theory. Fail safe.
Civil defense. Fiddlesticks! You look like the wreck of the Hesperus.
Cooties. Going like sixty. I'll see you in the funny papers. Don't take any
wooden nickels. Heavens to Murgatroyd! And awa-a-ay we go!

Oh, my stars and garters! It turns out there are more of these lost words
and expressions than Carter had liver pills.  This can be disturbing stuff,
this winking out of the words of our youth, these words that lodge in our
heart's deep core. But just as one never steps into the same river twice,
one cannot step into the same language twice. Even as one enters, words are
swept downstream into the past, forever making a different river.

We of a certain age have been blessed to live in changeful times. For a
child each new word is like a shiny toy, a toy that has no age. We at the
other end of the chronological arc have the advantage of remembering there
are words that once did not exist and there were words that once strutted
their hour upon the earthly stage and now are heard no more, except in our
collective memory. It's one of the greatest advantages of aging. We can have
archaic and eat it, too.

See 'ya later, alligator!

-- The Heart of Applebutter Hill - a novel on a mission:

http://DonnaWHill.com <http://donnawhill.com/>

_______________________________________________
Writers Division web site
http://writers.nfb.org/
stylist mailing list
stylist at nfbnet.org
http://nfbnet.org/mailman/listinfo/stylist_nfbnet.org
To unsubscribe, change your list options or get your account info for
stylist:
http://nfbnet.org/mailman/options/stylist_nfbnet.org/bkpollpeter%40gmail.com

_______________________________________________
Writers Division web site
http://writers.nfb.org/
stylist mailing list
stylist at nfbnet.org
http://nfbnet.org/mailman/listinfo/stylist_nfbnet.org
To unsubscribe, change your list options or get your account info for
stylist:
http://nfbnet.org/mailman/options/stylist_nfbnet.org/applebutterhill%40gmail
.com

_______________________________________________
Writers Division web site
http://writers.nfb.org/
stylist mailing list
stylist at nfbnet.org
http://nfbnet.org/mailman/listinfo/stylist_nfbnet.org
To unsubscribe, change your list options or get your account info for
stylist:
http://nfbnet.org/mailman/options/stylist_nfbnet.org/bkpollpeter%40gmail.com