I'm reading "That State of Life" written in 1938 by British author and broadcaster Hilton Brown. The theme is people dissatisfied with their work and relationships.
I've read other novels by Brown and never noted anything strange. Well-written, well-researched, and spiced with the right amount of humour.
For some reason the current novel has got me consulting my favourite dictionary (Chambers) every few minutes. Words, expressions, acronyms, and abbreviations I've never come across. Chambers, which is excellent for dialect, tells me that some of the problem words are First Word War slang and corruptions of French picked up by British soldiers. Many of the acronyms and abbreviations have to do with the Spanish Civil War, which plays a significant part in the narrative. The thing is, I'm sure the people who read this book when it was published had no difficulty deciphering these cryptic items.
Coming across books like this makes me think of the power of current events to mould vocabulary and change language. I tell myself that I'm better off not knowing the meaning of "napoo" (from the French il n'y en a plus) or "gaby" (dialect for simpleton). But it still irks me that I'm struggling with fairly straightforward text that was abundantly clear to the readers of 85 years ago. George Steiner wrote a lengthy study of this very phenomenon. After Babel: Aspects of Language and Translation (1975).
I had absolutely no luck finding a meaning for "airwoman". Dictionaries tell me it's a female flier, but the context is ". . . except for charwomen, airwomen and fallen women, there were no women in [her] world"
Women who air washing, or air rooms, or air something? Women who come and go like air, i.e. unreliable? Women who daydream and are up in the air? Can anyone help?
And while I'm on the subject of the Spanish Civil War, there's a scene in the book that made my skin crawl. A bunch of International Brigade volunteers are billeted in a deserted convent. Two of them come back drunk from a visit to the nearest town. One of them points to a small gateway at the entrance to the convent and asks his companion if he knows what's in there. "Sure, it's a cemetery," his friend replies. "Do you know what's buried there?" "The nuns?" "No, babies!"
Dear oh dear. Memories of the Magdalene Sisters scandal in Ireland. And the same thing happening in Spain decades earlier.