From The Kitchen Table

Once upon a time I nursed in France with a wonderful French nurse who had trained in the UK about 20 years before. Her English, as one might expect, was perfect but her idioms betrayed the years since training. She would, for example, talk of elderly patients as “zis old bird” which outdated slang I used to find slightly unsettling and rather amusing.

I now find myself trying to check my own language. Not for ****!!! type expletives (which have remained encouragingly unchanging I find) but for arcane language or references revealing my own antiquity. It’s a bit challenging sometimes because I also try to avoid current slang despite being surrounded by people whose universal mark of approval is “cool”. There is definitely a time to abandon “cool” and I’m there. This limits my vocabulary a bit but I try to make “fab” sound post modern ironic (whatever that is)

I read a story decades ago about a time in the future, a time of great pressure and little joy, where citizens were given a fortnight to holiday where they would in the past. They were however absolutely required to return at the end of the two weeks or the state would send out officers to take them back. The couple in this story went back to the late 50s England and decided to stay and attempt to fool the hunters. How they were found out was through a small error; the man did not hitch his trousers up slightly from just above the knee before he sat down as, apparently, everyone else in the 50s did. I fear that, like him, it will be the unforeseen verbal error will get me.

Heigh Ho.