Heavens to Murgatroyd! A neighbor has suggested that I comment on the phrases from our youth that have disappeared from everyday language today. I thought that might be a good suggestion. However, before any crackerjack writer proceeds, he/she needs to do some astute research. For example, I wondered where “Heavens to Murgatroyd” originated. A superficial glance at records indicated that it was an expression that Snagglepuss on the old Yogi Bear cartoon series used rather frequently. Obviously, Snagglepuss was anti-feminist or he would have said what everybody else said back then – “Heavens to Betsy.”
Understandably, I was not satisfied with the above explanation, so I did my creative research and soon found that in the 14th century a guy named John the Rascal was appointed as a constable. He didn’t think that his name was appropriate for his new job. Therefore, he changed it to Murgatroyd which was easy back then as you didn’t have to worry about social security and hardly anyone had a birth certificate – which practically nobody could read anyhow.
Still I felt a nagging doubt and sure enough I found a Danish book which commented on a Welshman named Rhys Murgatroyd who had gone to Denmark in the 8th century to convert the heathen.
Now it was not easy for either side as the Danes didn’t speak Welsh (hardly anybody does), and Murgatroyd couldn’t speak Danish. However, after some time the Danes got the general idea. Still, it was somewhat confused as the Danes thought that if they were to be involved with heaven that they had to go through Murgatroyd. Thus the men (women weren’t allowed to pray then) when they needed an ax, a good sword, or even a wife to do the cooking and laundry would start their prayer by shouting “Heavens to Murgatroyd”. Sometimes it worked and sometimes it didn’t, but occasionally they got a great ax and even a wife so they were satisfied. The wives didn’t mind as they had to cook anyhow, and laundry was not a big problem as hardly anyone bothered to wash their clothes particularly because they didn’t have any clothespins as they hadn’t been invented yet! Things were tough then.
While the Murgatroyd expression was somewhat complex, everybody recalls that “Kilroy was here.” Kilroy practically won World War II for the good guys. He was here, there and everywhere. However, one of his biggest accomplishments has gone unnoticed over the years. It so happens that Kilroy had a great baritone singing voice. Thus, someone got the smart idea of having Kilroy record the Spike Jones song, “Right in der Fuhrer’s Face” in German. Then the Allies would broadcast over all systems so the German soldiers would hear it. That made Hitler sooo . . . mad that one day he called the generals in and told them to invade Russia as Kilroy wouldn’t be there. Naturally, that helped lead to his downfall as he soon had to fight on two fronts, and his armies were crushed. Yep, Kilroy was invaluable to the war effort.
Then there were other famous folks whose names were used such as “In like Flynn” and living the “Life of Riley”. There have been too many Flynn’s and Riley’s so I didn’t bother looking up their backgrounds, but they were probably interesting if anyone else wants to do the research. The same thing applies to the guy who was a “Monkey’s Uncle”. The background on that phrase certainly must be unusual one would think, but I figure that it must be Tarzan. That last example is also probably why folks used to say “See you in the funny papers”. Today, a lot of people don’t even know what the “funny papers” are. Oh well, their loss!
Jumping Jehoshaphat, I am running out of space so I had better move on. In the meantime, “Don’t take any wooden nickels!”
Barry Evans writes about Life in The Villages for Villages-News.com