ASK SUE-BELINDA

YOU regular readers may remember last week I proudly trumpeted the fact I was up to date with my questions. Quick as a flash, early on Monday morning, there were a handful of emails promising to address my lack of questions ASAP.

At 9.02am Dennis had emailed and as his was “first cab off the rank”, I’ll address it first.

Dennis had been watching television and had heard the word “malarky”. He was sure that he knew the meaning – he was correct, we’ll come back to that later – but could not guess at its origin. As a person with Irish ancestry, and possessed of a much-loved Irish mother, he wondered if it might be Irish as it was one of her favourites.

It was one of my Dar’s favourites too and, like about 30 per cent of Australians, there’s Irish in us also. I used to use this word when I was primary teaching. As a means of stamping out swearing, I explained to the children that they could use any word that they heard me say – so it was not uncommon to hear children stating that something was “codswallop” or that a story was a load of “malarky”.

“Malarky” is a word that may have may arrived in England (there have been several waves of Greek migration to England) with the arrival of Theodore of Tarsus, who served as the Archbishop of Canterbury from 668 to 690. Theodore was, by all accounts, a most controlled man but if his temper threatened to overwhelm him, he would speak Greek and one of the words he used is pronounced “malakia” and means “stupidity, idiocy” and a few other words I’ll not use.

It’s a short step from “malakia” to “malarky” especially when those hearing and repeating it were not themselves native Greek speakers.

The word travelled to America with early settlement by the British and continued to be used by patches of the population. It almost stopped being used in Britain, surviving only in northern England, some parts of Scotland’s east coast and part of Ireland. Nowadays, it’s listed in the UK as “extinct” … how sad.

It may well have become extinct in America too, but for the efforts of Thomas Aloysius (pronounced Al-a-wish-shus) Dorgan. Dorgan was one of a large family of Irish origin – he was one of six sons and he had five sisters. As a child, Thomas had a serious accident in which he lost four of the fingers of his right hand when shyacking about – as to whether it happened when helping with a job for his father or with mates, or even at a sawmill, that’s told many ways by many tellers.

This meant the right-hander had to learn to use his left hand and as he did, he reawakened a drawing skill evident at school, which, when partnered with his Irish “gift of the gab”, would serve him well. With his left-handed drawings skilful and amusing, he found himself at age 14 joining the art department at the San Francisco Bulletin in 1891.

At the paper he served as an “in-fill” and “cell” artist completing the backgrounds and fine details of the cartoon strips of other cartoonists. He was content to do this for some time, but by 1902 his first cartoon strip, “Johnny Wise”, ran in the San Francisco Bulletin. The strip gained a firm following with readers taken by his quirky sense of humour.

He was also popular for creating new expressions and reinvigorating old ones.

By 1905 Thomas had gained a post at the New York Journal where he not only worked on his many cartoon strips, but also took on sports writing. While there, he developed a “one panel” cartoon called Inside Sports. It would become the cartoon for which he would become most famous.

During this time, Dorgan developed his persona as “TAD” – Thomas Aloysius Dorgan – and his work became syndicated across America.

TAD, like his parents, loved the word “malarky” and it featured in many of his cartoons. America waited to see what expressions he would come up with and he certainly gave me some of my favourites – “for crying out loud” (an exclamation of amazement); ”dumb bell” (used to describe someone thick or dense … not very bright); “hard boiled” (a person made tough by experience); “applesauce” (poppycock, nonsense, rubbish); “as busy as a one-armed paper hanger” (one of my favourites – no need for explanation); and “yes, we have no bananas” (which became a very popular song and was used to respond to what was perceived as a silly question).

Creating so many expressions led some writers to think he’d created all the odd words he used. This was not so. Some were part of his heritage and some he resurrected from the past. TAD was raised by parents who would not tolerate swearing and many of his expressions are substitutes for profanity.

When America joined World War I, TAD’S expressions spread out from the GIS to young men from Britain, Australia, Canada and New Zealand and these expressions made new homes with them. As to how Dennis came to hear it recently on his television … well, Joe Biden, the Democratic candidate for the US presidency, loves the word and uses it often.

As with the Greeks’ original use and TAD’S thereafter, Mr Biden uses it to describe nonsense and untruths.

So, that’s how “malarky”, an originally Greek word that found a home in a part of Ireland, travelled with Irish immigrants to America and was used in their home in San Francisco, where it was heard regularly by one of their 11 children who went on to transport it to the hearts and vocabularies of thousands, probably millions in his cartoon strips … and that’s no malarky!