[lit-ideas] "Geezer" versus "Codger"
- From: Eric Yost <eyost1132@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- To: lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
- Date: Tue, 17 Oct 2006 12:56:51 -0400
"Geezer" versus "Codger"
Merriam-Webster's 11th gives:
Geezer
: a queer, odd, or eccentric person — used especially of
elderly men
–geezerhood \-*hood\ noun
Codger
: an often mildly eccentric and usually elderly fellow
*old codger*
Simpson's Quotations:
Codger
The cunning old codger knows that no emphasis often
constitutes the most powerful emphasis of all.
Cleanth Brooks, On Robert Frost, Christian Science Monitor
13 May 85
Geezer, et al.
Many of these, and of the new compounds with them, belong to
the vocabulary of disparagement, e. g., bone-head, skunk,
bug, jay, lobster, boob, mutt, gas (empty talk), geezer,
piker, baggage-smasher, hash-slinger, clock-watcher,
four-flusher, coffin-nail, chin-music, batty and one-horse.
Here an essential character of the American shows itself:
his tendency to combat the disagreeable with irony, to heap
ridicule upon what he is suspicious of or doesn’t
understand. -H.L. Mencken, The American Language, 1921.
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