Will you be making merry on New Year's Eve?

Charming! was my first thought as I read about New Year's celebrations in El Paso (my home town) in 1913.  Yes, that would be exactly a century ago.  I was reading "Viva 1914", a "Tales From the Morgue" article in the El Paso Times for December 29, 2013 by Trish Long.

The direct quotations from the 100 year old article drew me back for a second reading. Why was I so fascinated?  It was the language used in writing the 1914 article, of course! We all know that changes in language are inevitable, whether we approve of those changes or not.  And change in language is usually not abrupt.  It sneaks up on us until,  one day, we realize that certain words or expressions or grammatical constructions are beginning to sound (as my 28 year old son frequently reminds me), old-fashioned, passé, so last century.

Here are some of the expressions from the 1913 article that I would judge as more typical of 1913 than 2013.  See if you would agree.

"Young and Old Make Merry..."   "The streets were thronged with merrymakers."   I don't think we do much making merry these days.  I would say that we had fun or had a great time. Some people might say that they had a blast (already out of date?). But a quick glance at a thesaurus reminds me that there are lots more interesting synonyms for making merry  (http://thesaurus.com/browse/make+merry).  You can paint the town, raise hell, make whoopee, live it up, let loose, kick up one's heels, or have a ball.  But even those expressions sound a little worn.  What do young people say these days, I wonder?  It isn't 'make merry' for sure!

"It was a merry old night for El Paso, everybody being gay..."  As everyone is aware these days, the word 'gay' has made a semantic shift so that the original meaning of 'happy' is now considered secondary to the primary meaning of 'homosexual'.

"The police bothered but few merrymakers last night.  Those who became rowdy or rough were summarily 'pinched' and sent to jail..."  The word 'pinched' was in single quotes in the original article, so it must have been considered slang in 1913.  A modern day slang meaning for 'pinched' is 'steal'.  

Now this next expression I love.  "Up in the ballroom the merry dancers tripped the light fantastic..."  Would modern day dances be described in such fanciful terms? I can't quite get a picture of that.

The article "Viva 2014" delighted me in other ways than the chance to do a little linguistic analysis. Life in January 1914 in El Paso felt so innocent and so hopeful.  What a contrast to present day articles about New Year's celebrations that urge restraint in eating and drinking and stress safety as the main concern. I would love to have joined my fellow El Pasoans of a century ago in ringing in the New Year.  But since I can't...