'Geezer' is still in vogue, but mainly among certain suburban sets,
typically vocal, football-loving oiks who like to drink and drink some more,
mostly lager. Funnily enough, they're proud of the label and will often
apply it to someone who really fits the bill with the pre-fix 'diamond':
"tha' Arnie, 'is a reaw dimond geezer."
It's a south London thing. Or "it's a sairf Larnd'n fing".
Here's the Observer's identifit:
http://observer.guardian.co.uk/uk_news/story/0,6903,972875,00.html
Simon
Alok,
'Geezer' comes from 'guiser,' a 19th C word for mummer. From 'guise' = 'dress,'
or 'costume.' I read British trash novels set in the late 20th and early 21st
centuries, and the word seems to be in use among the lowlife that inhabit them.
A number of Oxford (always reliable!) references say that in the U.S. and
Canada, 'geezer' is used informally _and_ derogatively to refer to an elderly
person, usually male, whereas its use in British English carries no derogative
connotation: it's just 'informal.'
Robert Paul Reed College
I was puzzling over the provenance and usage of the Brit-English (?) word
"geezer" with some friends yesterday. Is it still in use? To my ear, it
belongs in 'Sixties Pinter, but my sense of it is that it must still be
around - because I can't think of another expression that quite does what it
does. Who (what?) better than this learned assembly to shed light on my
eastern darkness...
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