Word: wordings
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: during 1940-1949
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
With alarm, the Daily Mail's Correspondent G. Ward Price reported that the horrid word "spiv" was "on every lip." He thought that it had something to do with people observed carrying large sums of cash, presumably to dodge taxes. A gentleman sardonically signing himself Sam Johnson asked in the Daily Telegraph: "Is 'spiv' . . . an abbreviation; if so, of what? Is it an importation; if so, from whence? Or is it perchance compounded from initials-'Social Parasites in Vehicles' . . . or the 'Society for the Promotion of Illegal Ventures...
...Very Important Persons) spelled backwards. "With demobilization, the term came into civvy street [and] received its demob suit with all its original connotation-that of a person having a good time at the expense of others." Gossip Writer Charles Graves claimed: "My deep research into the source of the word shows that it was originally used colloquially by race-gangs [for] a shady character who lives by his wits, but without the physical or mental courage to show violence or turn burglar." A bookish reporter for the Daily Mail delved into a forgotten volume called The Autobiography of a Spiv...
Whatever its origin, whatever its meaning, the word "spiv" had definitely become a part of the King's English. Last week the Right Honorable Ralph Assheton, M.P., escorted it formally into Hansard's (the British Congressional Record) and immortality. Britain, he said on the floor of Parliament, was sinking into a socialist swamp of "spiv-economy...
...last week, on his gist birthday, his beard bristled as of old. "Get out! Go!" he railed at a London Evening Standard newsman who had distantly referred to his birthday. "The man who even utters the word 'birthday' . . . is no friend of mine. . . . Good afternoon. Don't come again...
...last week the undertaker had the last word with WQQW. "The station for intelligent listeners," like many another good idea in radio, died young; after losing money steadily during the station's six months of operation, WQQW's 125 owners (editors, doctors, housewives, etc.) put their property on the block...