Rainy day. Down after Hayes. To Church and S.S. [Sunday School]. Merlin Finch here in P.M. Chewed the rag. Down to Hayes room. To Epworth League. Walked around with Dot Gallup, H.H. and Ruth. To bed 10:30 P.M.
**********
Chewed the rag is an expression people don't hear much anymore. I used to hear chew the fat quite often when I was young, but not often now. I looked on the internet for a theory of the expression's origin, but was unable to come up with anything conclusive. One person said he'd heard it refers to soldiers talking while chewing pieces of cloth to be used for wadding in their rifles, but someone else doubted a person could talk very well with cloth wads in his mouth. One website speculated that it meant whatever you were talking about was trivial, in the way that fat or a rag is non-nutritious food (or not food at all).
In any case, I think it's remarkable how little slang Stanford uses in his diary. Most of the entries could easily be mistaken for contemporary writing. Only when we hear a word or phrase like chored around or punk do we remember that it's been almost 100 years since Stanford wrote these daily narratives.
No comments:
Post a Comment