A Dictionary of Slang, Cant, and Vulgar Words. Hotten John Camden
dinner table, and forthwith in the world of flunkeydom the word “know” is disused, and the lady’s maid, in doubt on a particular point, asks John whether or no he SAVEYS it?46 What, too, can be more abominable than that heartless piece of fashionable newspaper Slang, regularly employed when speaking of the successful courtship of young people in the fashionable world: —
Marriage in high life. – We understand that a marriage is ARRANGED (!) betwixt the Lady, &c. &c., and the Honourable, &c. &c.
Arranged! Is that cold-blooded Smithfield or Mark-lane term for a sale or a purchase the proper word to express the hopeful, joyous, golden union of young and trustful hearts? Which is the proper way to pronounce the names of great people, and what the correct authority? Lord Cowper, we are often assured, is Lord Cooper– on this principle Lord Cowley would certainly be Lord Cooley– and Mr. Carew, we are told, should be Mr. Carey, Ponsonby should be Punsunby, Eyre should he Aire, Cholmondeley should be Chumley, St. John Singen, Majoribanks Marshbanks, Derby Darby (its ancient pronunciation), and Powell should always be Poel. I don’t know that these lofty persons have as much cause to complain of the illiberality of fate in giving them disagreeable names as did the celebrated Psyche (as she was termed by Tom Moore), whose original name, through her husband, was Teague, but which was afterwards altered to Tighe.
Parliamentary Slang, excepting a few peculiar terms connected with “the House” (scarcely Slang, I suppose), is mainly composed of fashionable, literary, and learned Slang. When members, however, get excited and wish to be forcible, they are often not very particular which of the street terms they select, providing it carries, as good old Dr. South said, plenty of wild-fire in it. Sir Hugh Cairns very lately spoke of “that homely but expressive phrase, DODGE.” Out of “the House,” several Slang terms are used in connection with Parliament or members of Parliament. If Lord Palmerston is known by name to the tribes of the Caucasus and Asia Minor as a great foreign diplomatist, when the name of our Queen Victoria is an unknown title to the inhabitants of those parts – as was stated in the Times a short time ago, – I have only to remark that amongst the costers and the wild inhabitants of the streets he is better known as PAM. I have often heard the cabmen on the “ranks” in Piccadilly remark of the late Chancellor of the Exchequer, when he has been going from his residence at Grosvenor Gate, to Derby House in St. James’s Square, – “hollo, there! de yer see old DIZZY doing a stump?” A PLUMPER is a single vote at an election, – not a SPLIT-TICKET; and electors who have occupied a house, no matter how small, and boiled a pot in it, thus qualifying themselves for voting, are termed POT-WOLLOPERS. A quiet WALK OVER is a re-election without opposition and much cost. A CAUCUS meeting refers to the private assembling of politicians before an election, when candidates are chosen and measures of action agreed upon. The term comes from America. A JOB, in political phraseology, is a government office or contract obtained by secret influence or favouritism. Only the other day the Times spoke of “the patriotic member of Parliament POTTED OUT in a dusty little lodging somewhere about Bury-street.” The term QUOCKERWODGER, although referring to a wooden toy figure which jerks its limbs about when pulled by a string, has been supplemented with a political meaning. A pseudo-politician, one whose strings of action are pulled by somebody else, is now often termed a QUOCKERWODGER. The term RAT, too, in allusion to rats deserting vessels about to sink, has long been employed towards those turncoat politicians who change their party for interest. Who that occasionally passes near the Houses of Parliament has not often noticed stout or careful M.P.s walk briskly through the Hall and on the curb-stone in front, with umbrella or walking cane uplifted, shout to the cabmen on the rank, FOUR-WHEELER! The term is a useful one, but I am afraid we must consider it Slang, until it is stamped with the mint mark of lexicographical authority.47
Military, or Officers’ Slang is on a par, and of a character with Dandy Slang. Inconvenient friends, or elderly and lecturing relatives, are pronounced DREADFUL BORES. Four-wheel cabs are called BOUNDERS; and a member of the Four-in-hand Club, driving to Epsom on the Derby day, would, using fashionable slang phraseology, speak of it as TOOLING HIS DRAG DOWN TO THE DERBY. A vehicle, if not a DRAG (or dwag) is a TRAP, or a CASK; and if the TURN OUT happens to be in other than a trim condition, it is pronounced at once as not DOWN THE ROAD. Your city swell would say it is not UP TO THE MARK; whilst the costermonger would call it WERY DICKEY. In the army a barrack or military station is known as a LOBSTER-BOX; to “cram” for an examination is to MUG-UP; to reject from the examination is to SPIN; and that part of the barrack occupied by subalterns is frequently spoken of as the ROOKERY. In dandy or swell Slang, any celebrity, from Robson of the Olympic, to the Pope of Rome, is a SWELL. Wrinkled faced old professors, who hold dress and fashionable tailors in abhorrence, are called AWFUL SWELLS, – if they happen to be very learned or clever. I may remark that in this upper class Slang a title is termed a HANDLE; trousers, INEXPRESSIBLES; or when of a large pattern, or the inflated Zouave cut, HOWLING BAGS; a superior appearance, EXTENSIVE; a four-wheeled cab, a BIRDCAGE; a dance, a HOP; dining at another man’s table, “sitting under his MAHOGANY;” anything flashy or showy, LOUD; the peculiar make or cut of a coat, its BUILD; full dress, FULL-FIG; wearing clothes which represent the very extreme of fashion, “dressing to DEATH;” a reunion, a SPREAD; a friend (or a “good fellow”), a TRUMP; a difficulty, a SCREW LOOSE; and everything that is unpleasant, “from bad sherry to a writ from a tailor,” JEUCED INFERNAL. The military phrase, “to send a man to COVENTRY,” or permit no person to speak to him, although an ancient saying, must still be considered Slang.
The Universities of Oxford and Cambridge, and the great public schools, are the hotbeds of fashionable Slang. Growing boys and high-spirited young fellows detest restraint of all kinds, and prefer making a dash at life in a Slang phraseology of their own, to all the set forms and syntactical rules of Alma Mater. Many of the most expressive words in a common chit-chat, or free-and-easy conversation, are old University vulgarisms. Cut, in the sense of dropping an acquaintance, was originally a Cambridge form of speech; and HOAX, to deceive or ridicule, we are informed by Grose, was many years since an Oxford term. Among the words that fast society has borrowed from our great scholastic [I was going to say establishments, but I remembered the linen drapers’ horrid and habitual use of the word] institutions, I find CRIB, a house or apartments; DEAD-MEN, empty wine bottles; DRAWING TEETH,48 wrenching off knockers; FIZZING, first-rate, or splendid; GOVERNOR, or RELIEVING OFFICER, the general term for a male parent; PLUCKED, defeated or turned back; QUIZ, to scrutinise, or a prying old fellow; and ROW, a noisy disturbance. The Slang words in use at Oxford and Cambridge would alone fill a volume. As examples I may instance SCOUT, which at Oxford refers to an undergraduate’s valet, whilst the same menial at Cambridge is termed a GYP, – popularly derived by the Cantabs from the Greek, GYPS (γυψ), a vulture; SCULL, the head, or master of a college; BATTLES, the Oxford term for rations, changed at Cambridge into COMMONS. The term DICKEY, a half shirt, I am told, originated with the students of Trinity College, Dublin, who at first styled it a TOMMY, from the Greek, τομη, a section. Crib, a literal translation, is now universal; GRIND refers to a walk, or “constitutional;” HIVITE is a student of St. Begh’s (St. Bee’s) College, Cumberland; to JAPAN, in this Slang speech, is to ordain; MORTAR-BOARD is a square college cap; SIM a student of a Methodistical turn, – in allusion to the Rev. Charles Simeon; SLOGGERS, at Cambridge, refers to the second division of race boats, known at Oxford as TORPIDS; SPORT is to show or exhibit; TROTTER is the jocose term for a tailor’s man who goes round for orders; and TUFTS are wealthy students who dine with the DONS, and are distinguished by golden tufts, or tassels, in their caps. There are many terms in use at Oxford not known at Cambridge; and such Slang names as COACH, GULF, HARRY-SOPH, POKER, or POST-MORTEM, common enough at Cambridge, are seldom or never heard at the great sister University. For numerous other examples of college Slang, the reader is referred to the Dictionary.
Religious Slang, strange as the compound may appear, exists with other descriptions of vulgar speech at the present day. Punch, a short time since, in one of those half-humorous, half-serious articles in which he is so fond of lecturing any national abuse or popular folly, remarked that Slang had “long since penetrated
Savez vous cela?
From an early period politics and partyism have attracted unto themselves quaint Slang terms. Horace Walpole quotes a party nickname of February, 1742, as a Slang word of the day: – “The Tories declare against any further prosecution, if Tories there are, for now one hears of nothing but the BROAD-BOTTOM; it is the reigning Cant word, and means the taking all parties and people, indifferently, into the ministry.” Thus BROAD-BOTTOM in those days was Slang for
This is more especially an amusement with medical students, and is comparatively unknown out of London.