Hi Tweets

Janet Hardin writes:

>May be showing my age a bit here, but I believe there was a movie entitled
>"The Mudlark," starring (now Sir) Alec Guiness. I think it was a story
>involving an orphaned street waif in London, and at some point he had a
>meeting with Queen Victoria.

Janet, you never want to put the phrases 'showing my age' and 'Queen
Victoria' in the same sentence. '-)

My early years were mostly in a working-class neighborhood of Brighton,
England (yep, gritty alleyways, row-houses as in the opening scenes of
'Coronation Street', and my pals all scruffy dead-end guttersnipes like
meself, mate). In this milieu, people used the phrase 'happy as a mudlark'
(as in "Cor! 'E woz 'appy as a mudlark, 'e woz!') as a simile to describe
exultation, most often in children.

So, I'm inclined to think that the term originally meant some kind of bird,
perhaps something seen out in the Colonies (perhaps Greg Toffic's Australian
magpie-lark, Grallina cyanaleuca), the sailor's/soldier's slang for which
returned to England when he did and then, in the spirit of Bill Lawrence's
'gutter children', appropriated for some local usage. Such as knockabout
kids mucking around in the river mud at low tide looking for--and
occasionally finding in among the less-romantic detritus--Roman coins,
Viking treasure-trove, a Cavalier's' sabre, an unexploded German bomb.

Michael Price A brave world, Sir,
Vancouver BC Canada full of religion, knavery and change;
mprice at mindlink.net we shall shortly see better days.
Aphra Behn (1640-1689)