Transcript of “Geezers: Silly Clothes or Cranky Old Dudes?”
Hello, you have A Way with Words.
Hey, how’s it going?
It’s going great.
Who is this and where are you?
Oh, I’m Craig. I’m in southeastern Montana, as close as you can get and still be in here and not in Wyoming.
Gotcha.
All right. Beautiful country, I bet.
It’s kind of semi-arid desert.
Okay. What’s on your mind, Craig?
Well, okay. You know, I’m retired, and my buddies and I, we sit around and drink beer and talk, you know, stupid things, right? And one of the guys looked at me and said, I forget what topic we were covering, but he said, you know, it doesn’t matter. We’re old geezers anyway. And I got to thinking later, geezer. Okay, and then I listened to your program, and I thought, you know, I wonder what geezer is. Geezer, G-E-E-Z-E-R, geezer. And you’re a geezer. You claim it?
Oh, yeah. I’m an old geezer. You know, I’m retired. I just sit around and read too many books and walk my dog and play in my flower and rock beds and, you know.
All right. Sounds like the right kind of retirement to me. Martha, what do we know about geezer?
I’m interested that you say that you’re an old geezer. That’s as opposed to a young geezer. You already went through that stage. You’ve heard of it before, haven’t you?
Oh, of course. Of course. And Craig, if you happen to have the English dialect dictionary around, that one was from the very late 1800s. It defines geezer a little bit differently. It defines a geezer as a queer character, a strangely acting person. What’s interesting, Craig, is that in the UK today, the term geezer is more often just kind of a term of derision that’s especially applied to men, just kind of meaning a weird or an odd guy or also just a chap or fellow. It’s different in the UK. You don’t have to be necessarily advanced in years to be a geezer.
Oh, really?
Yeah. And you’ll dig this as well. It appears to come from an older word that’s been around since the 15th century. And that word is geyser, G-U-I-S-E-R, which referred to a masquerader or a mummer. You know, these were the people who dress up in costumes with old clothes or sheepskins or sticking bundles of straw under their jackets and masks. This sounds just like you, right? Masks or face paint.
I’ve not stuffed any straw under my jacket in years.
Not yet. Oh, in years. Okay. So geysers would go from house to house, making merry and entertaining folks by putting on little plays on holidays like Halloween. And sometimes that word geyser was spelled G-E-Y-S-E-R. And so geysers, whether you spell it that way or G-U-I-S-E-R, they were people who were literally in disguise. And so these funny, odd characters, these geysers, the idea of them led to the word geezer. But again, as I said, it’s a little bit different in Britain. In the United States, we use it specifically to mean old fellows like you.
So here’s something to take back with you, Craig. In British slang, you can call someone a diamond geyser, like the precious stone. And a diamond geyser, that’s a compliment. So it sounds like you’re a diamond geyser.
Oh, well, thank you, sir. So this is old English language.
That’s modern, actually. In modern London, you could call somebody a diamond geyser and people would get it.
I met that one from the 1500s.
Yeah, well, the word has come a long way since geyser. So Craig, it sounds like you’re enjoying retirement. Keep it up.
Oh, yeah. And maybe we’ll talk another time about whether you’re a coot and a fogey.
Hey, there. You know, this is kind of cool. This is kind of a bucket list. The last time I was on NPR only once before in my life. That was 30 years ago.
Wow. So this is kind of a bucket thing. Yeah, back when we barely had computers, you know, and all the phones had these great big two-feet antennas that stuck out of them.
Oh, yeah. All right. Well, take care of yourself, and thanks for calling. Be safe out there.
Yeah. Thank you for helping me.
All right. Bye-bye.
Bye, Craig.
Adios.
