[Vwoolf] "Old bird"

[Jeremy Hawthorn]

Also in KM's "Ma Parker" we get "Poor old bird." But both of these are said dismissively / patronisingly by a self-important man about an old woman. The British slang of the 60s / 70s summed up in the title of the 1969 film film "The Smashing Bird I Used to Know" (retitled in the US!) is quite different. Clarissa is surely neither a poor old bird nor a smashing young one.

Slang terms can shift meanings treacherously. Joseph Conrad has a number of characters use the term "coon", and a lot of editions of his works gloss this in explanatory notes as a racist term - which it is in the US. But there is an older British usage that has nothing to do with race at all, and as nearly all of the Conrad examples are uttered by white characters about other white characters it is this older usage that is relevant.

Jeremy H
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From: vwoolf-bounces+jeremy.hawthorn=ntnu.no at lists.service.ohio-state.edu [vwoolf-bounces+jeremy.hawthorn=ntnu.no at lists.service.ohio-state.edu] on behalf of Stuart N. Clarke [stuart.n.clarke at btinternet.com]
Sent: 20 September 2013 14:54
To: woolf list
Subject: [Vwoolf] "Old bird"

“Doctor Malcolm snapped his bag together.  ‘It’s no good talking to the old bird,’ he thought, she doesn’t take in half I say. ...’”
KM, “New Dresses” (1910)


Stuart
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