Tuesday, July 10, 2012

News at Eleven: The word "malarkey"--with that frolicking "lark"

 in the middle--has a jaunty datedness that acquires sad weight, in its context, to describe a time gone by:

"You looked away just once
as you leaned on the chip-shop counter,
and forty years were gone.

You have been telling them forever
stop that malarkey in the back there!"

from The Guardian: The Malarkey by Helen Dunmore--review

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