MovieChat Forums > Father Brown (2013) Discussion > Mojo?

Mojo?

posted 9 years ago by cosmocanuck
1 reply | jump to latest

I quite enjoy this series; I discovered it via my in-laws and have enjoyed several episodes on my own. But something about "The Daughters of Jerusalem" (S02E06) bothered me - a seeming verbal anachronism. At one point, Lady Felicia speaks of someone "getting their mojo back". Surely this isn't an expression that someone in the 1950's, let alone an upper-class woman in a rural British village, would use? At any rate it struck me as out of place in a show that ordinarily seems to avoid such missteps.

Still a wonderful show, though!

[–] tabaddon 8 years ago

I wondered about that, too, so I decided to do an etymology search for it and found several articles that say it dates, in popular writings, to the 1920s.

https://en.m.wiktionary.org/wiki/mojo

http://www.word-detective.com/2009/01/mojo/

http://www.phrases.org.uk/meanings/got-my-mojo-working.html

This Google Books ngrams search shows that, while it wasn't as prolific as it is now, it was definitely something someone like Lady Felicia ? quite well read and always on the cusp of trends ? would have read and would repeat.

https://books.google.com/ngrams/graph?content=mojo&year_start=1800&year_end=2000&corpus=15&smoothing=3&share=&direct_url=t1%3B%2Cmojo%3B%2Cc0

A more detailed look at the early-middle of the 20th century:

https://books.google.com/ngrams/graph?content=mojo&year_start=1920&year_end=1960&corpus=15&smoothing=3&share=&direct_url=t1%3B%2Cmojo%3B%2Cc0