Mind your language
I CANNOT say that it is always a plea- sure to receive your letters, though it was good to re-establish contact with that kind surgeon who told me about Jugulars.
Now Erin Pizzey has written to me about the phrase 'cheap, camey trash'. She has a special interest in this, since her father (apparently one of 17 chil- dren, and trained up to dance on occa- sion upon the bar of the Black Horse, Hounslow, his father's pub) was called Carney. There is a disease of horses called, since the 17th century, carney. I do not think that has anything to do with it. In the 19th and 20th century the usual meaning of camey (or carny) has been cunning, wheedling, hypocritical', as in carney sod. Stevenson wrote, 'the female dog, that mass of cameying affectations' (1884), which seems to come near what Evelyn Waugh meant in his private lan- guage by jaggering. The origin is unknown. It may be con- nected with cara (`dear') or came (`meat'). Old Partridge suggests an echo of blarney, which is some way from Mrs Pizzey's father's own origins in County Mayo. It certainly sheds no disgrace on her family. The Hon. Mrs James Drummond asks, 'Why has up become down? When taking or assigning responsibility or blame it used to be "up to Jim", now it Is "down to Jim". Can you chart the change?'
Well, no I can't, actually. Can anyone help?
Dot Wordsworth
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