Faynights: Happy new year

Sunday, January 01, 2006

Happy new year

I almost downloaded 'New Year's Day' by U2 this morning. Instead, I've sort of resolved to celebrate 2006 by blogging more, and to this end I've started a whole side-blog, The Hit Parade, a sort of shadow Top 40 that hopes to highlight some overlooked hit singles. I've started at Number 40 with David McAlmont and will gradually work up (or down?) to a Number One single of my choice. All the tracks are drawn from my own collection, which also makes this a substitute for the currently-in-stasis Random Single Project.

I'll be posting on here more too, so there really is no escape. I hope everyone's enjoying the year so far.

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Perhaps the most important word in the schoolchild's vocabulary is his truce term. Certainly to the adult observer it is his most interesting word, for when a child seeks respite he uses a term to which there is now no exact equivalent in adult speech. If, when engaged in some boisterous activity with his fellows, a child is exhausted or out of breath, or cuts himself, or has a shoelace undone, or fears his clothes are getting torn, or wants to know if it is time to go home, he makes a sign with his hands, and calls out a word which brings him immediate but temporary relief from the strife .... It will be appreciated that uttering a truce term does not of itself imply that a child has given in or surrendered, although it may sometimes be used preparatory to surrendering. A London urchin when fighting may cry 'faynights', whereupon his opponent, on ceasing to belabour him, may inquire 'Wanna give in?' and the boy will perhaps do so ('Okay, you win, leave me alone'). But more often, if a boy says 'faynights' or 'faynights -- hang on a sec' in the middle of a struggle, he does so because he wants to take off his jacket or his glasses before continuing the combat. And before we ourselves appreciated that children were sensitive to the difference between making a truce and surrendering, we were puzzled by the number of boys who declared stoutly (and correctly) that they had no term for giving in.

-- Peter and Iona Opie, The Lore and Language of Schoolchildren (Oxford University Press, 1959)

Faynights

Sunday, January 01, 2006

Happy new year

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