The answer to the question “why?”

Today, I was reminded of some of the odd sayings my dad used to have. Born in 1917, he was from a truly different era to other parents, and so many of the things he’d say made absolutely no sense to my friends at school.

For instance, if I was looking for something I’d lost, he’d tell me it was “Up in Annie’s room behind the clock.” The internet tells me it’s a bit of British slang that dates back to World War I. Originally, “up in Annie’s room” was a dismissive reply when someone asked where a missing person was – implying they didn’t know, or perhaps the person was off with a woman, or even worse, had died. Later, “behind the clock” was added to make it even more nonsensical and to emphasize that something was truly lost or unreachable. I always thought Annie was a reference to his twin sister who I knew died at birth, and had a very vivid image in my mind of Annie and her clock.

Dad also often talked about a “wigwam for a goose’s bridle.” Apparently, that’s another classic nonsense phrase, usually used to fob off an inquisitive kid. It essentially means “none of your business” or “it’s something absurd.” The original phrase was “a whim-wham for a goose’s bridle,” where “whim-wham” meant a fanciful or nonsensical object. Over time, in places like Australia, “whim-wham” was replaced by the more familiar “wigwam”.

As a child, I was always very curious, constantly asking the question “why?” I remembered today that my incessant questioning was often a source of annoyance to older family members, but in hindsight, it was probably just a sign of my forthcoming career in journalism.

I reflected on all of this today while sitting on the bus. There was a little girl, maybe only three or four years old, asking her dad about my prosthetic leg, which she kept staring at. As he explained the situation, she kept asking “why?”. “Oh my God, that’s what I did as a child!”, I thought to myself, wondering if she was also a journalist in the making.

It got me thinking about my dad and some of the things he used to say, and how, when it came to answering the question “why,” he would always answer with “Y is a crooked letter that can’t be broken.”

Maybe some of our politicians and such should start responding to journalists with that phrase? :)