Gadzooks
Some of you may be misled, because the word, �Gadzooks!� sounds like a greeting used on special occasions ... ... �Merry Christmas!�; �Happy Birthday!�; �Where�s your Homework?�
There are lots of festivals in the UK. The Scots have �Burns Night�; the Irish have �Cuts and Bruises Night�; and so on.
Sadly, the English idea of a Night Out is for the husband to take a walk to the local Fish Restaurant in the freezing cold, to buy his wife�s supper.
�Fish and Chips, twice!� When the owner is the local comedian, he will reply �I heard you the first time!�
Possibly, if the proprietor is an amateur magician who does Card Tricks, he will put six fish on the counter in a row, and then perform his Cabaret Act.
�Pick a Cod, Sir! Any Cod! Don�t let me see your Cod, Sir!�
The husband trudges home to his wife, eats his Fish and Chips, then off to bed.
In Italy, the wife says, passionately: �L�Amore! L�Amore! S�! S�! L�Amore�. (�Love! Love!�)
In England, she says: �I think that Ceiling needs another coat of Emulsion Paint!�
So there we have, in a nutshell, (well, in newspaper, actually), a taste of a festive English evening, (with Salt and Vinegar), but without a �Gadzooks!� in sight.
Why? Because �Gadzooks!� is borrowed from the Dutch: �GAD � zoeken�. �GAD� is �General Anxiety Disorder�, or in Dutch, �Algemene Angststoomis!�
Because of the unpronounceable �st-st� in the middle of the word, the English prefer to say �GAD�.
�Zoeken� is the Dutch word, �search�, or �seek�.
�He searches, because he has a General Anxiety Disorder.�
(I�m sorry that this Post is so dolefully serious, but �We can�t laugh all the time!� as the constipated hyena said in the toilet.)
Do you notice how the English have borrowed so many words from Europe, particularly from the French? This is one of the reasons for our coolness, (or sang-froid, as we English say), towards the French. In the European Parliament, the French constantly ask if we will return the words that we have borrowed, because they are running short of vocabulary and are speaking less and less. However, the English don�t normally return things that they borrow!
Nevertheless, the French conveniently ignore the fact that they borrowed the Anglo-Saxon expression, �Reply Swiftly, Very Promptly!� (�R. S. V. P.�), and changed it to: �R�pondez S�il Vous Pl�it!�
Examples of �Gadzooks!� are ---- newly qualified Teachers who join ESLP, and immediately, lose the ability to read phrases such as, �RULES AND INSTRUCTIONS�.
These Members submit Worksheets, and then, 60 seconds later, become anxious, searching for their Points, and every one of them asks on the Forum for help, again and again and again!
So there we have it: �Gadzooks!� = �He/she searches, because of a General Anxiety Disorder.�
I have tried to lighten this very serious subject. Linguistics has many po-faced professors and consequently has many diacritics! (The word comes from the Latin, �dire critics�).
Les
