jay@umd5.UUCP (03/14/85)
I spend a lot of my free time watching old films on television and one of the things I find most interesting is the way certain phrases pass in and out of vogue or change meaning as time goes on. Two items particularly fascinate me and I hope there is someone out there who can shed light on them. The first is the rejoinder "swell" which seems to have been around at the dawn of talkies (1927-1929) and died somewhere just after World War II. Anybody have any idea exactly when and why this quaint word went out of fashion? The other expression I'm curious about is "making love" which until recently meant something akin to "pitching woo". Its current sordid overtones always make students in film courses titter when they hear some innocuous male or female lead say something like "make love to me darling" in an otherwise above board scene of romantic dialogue. Does anybody know how this innocent phrase got "corrupted" into its current meaning? -- Jay Elvove ..!seismo!rlgvax!cvl!umd5!jay