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Newspaper Page Text
WOMEN OF 1917 THE "FLAPPER" "HE1'PLAPPE'RJ 'A Young Bird Unable to Rise in Flight" BY WINONA WILCOX "Flapper" -will doubtless prove the most abused word in the list of 1917 names of feminine types. We Americans do remarkable stunts with other peoples' languages: we change the final "o" in kimono to an "a." and congratulate ourselves on improving the ancient Japanese; we pronounce the first syllable of lin gerie as if it .were spelled "long" and feel that no Parisian could do better; and we have already misconstrued the English-Tapper before we have become acquainted with the true type. The "flapper" originated in English society a dozen years -ago. She is just becoming known in this coun try, mainly as having given a smart name to certain fashions for girld. . in her native land, the flapper is an honest, talkative, critical 'and very active girl, 15 or 16 years old. She has no respect whatever lor her brother's opinions and she makes fun, of his friends or quarrels with them. And she is not the least sentimen tal, outwardly. Probably the flapper does dream, of ierself as a Sleeping Beauty, and of a Prince Charming who has already started to search the world for her; and perhaps it is because she1 cannot reconcile her prince with the kind of young man she knows that she is so unnecessar ily sarcastic. Her indifference to the opposite sex makes her most irritating to all young gentlemen. She is a good sportswoman, she goes in for the game and not for the clothes and often she can beat a male opponent. She takes honors in school, too. She is more nearly the equal of the male than at any other age, and she is very apt to let him know it This little trait does not add to her popu larity with the boys, but it does give them a good excuse for ridiculing the flapper. Persons who apply the word to the rouged, coiffured, fantastically dress ed and precociously sentimental little girls who vulgarize modern ideals of maidenhood are maltreating a very good bit of slang. Its derivation doubles its significance: in the Eng lish sportsman's vocabulary a flapper is a young bird unable to rise in flight, especially a young; wild duck. fcMCMftfcfc AEftjfr sft-ittfe " ---;