Translation Please

Translate from American into English:

"All striders must be checked." [Answer tomorrow.]

Words words words Hamlet 2:2

There has been a correspondence in the papers about slang and bad English and I caught the discussion getting into Any Answers on the wireless in the car on the way to collect boys from school on Saturday. Haileybury slang seems to change all the time. The Grubber is still current. The San is now officially the "Health Centre" but generally called the San among the young. Chits are still given by San and Bookroom. But groize is no longer served in the dining hall. I am told that word for butter was current only in some Houses anyway. We used to 'keep chips' at the door of DC or dormitory - other schools called that 'keeping cave' - meaning a lookout. Oips, as I have noted before is now defunct. But what of other words?

The great compiler of English slang was Eric Partridge. His Dictionary of Slang and Unconventional English has recently been updated. I am the happy owner of a little book by Morris Marples called University Slang. I have never been able to find the companion volume of Public School Slang, but maybe Amazon - which has taken so much of the fun out of scouring second hand bookshops - will help. I was sure that University Slang had a mention of Haileybury but I cannot find it now. Marples, writing in 1950 notes that transport and communications mean that 'the days when schools, colleges and universities could develop a peculiar speech almost in isolation' were coming to an end. But he is no less right to observe that any group will develop their 'own distinctive vocabularies… tending to hold the group together and by emphasizing its individuality.'

So - what words do you use? And can you work out my translation test?

oips revisited

The post on oips has excited a number of memories. Hugo Bagnall-Oakeley (Ha 51.1-55.2) e-mailed to say 'when I was at school oips referred to a game of rugger/cricket which took place on Wednesdays when the rest of the school were marching about, stripping brens etc in the CCF. You had to be 14 before you could join the Corps so most boys would only have been eligible for oips for their first one or two terms. Thereafter it was obligatory to join the CCF. The blog suggests that oips meant everyone who wasn’t in the XV or XXX but this certainly wasn’t the case in the 1950s.'


This is corroborated by Will Harte (C 80 - 85) who posted a comment to say oips were Wednesday afternoon activities for Removes before they joined the CCF. By the time Will and I arrived CCF was not compulsory for Middles and Vths as it was in the generation above, but there were other activities including Duke of Edinburgh on Wednesdays for those who chose not to join. I have a feeling the lack of compulsion may have been quite a new thing.

Meanwhile George Staple (M 54.2 - 57.3), the current President of the Haileybury Society, confirms that 'hoips was (is) definitely pronounced oips, or it was when I was there. But it was cool to drop your 'h's in the 1950's. In fact the more of a toff you were, the more you dropped them.'