A Dictionary of Slang, Cant, and Vulgar Words. Hotten John Camden
is general. On the contrary, and in justice to the clergy, it must be said that the principal disseminators of pure English throughout the country are the ministers of our Established Church. Yet it cannot be denied but that a great deal of Slang phraseology and disagreeable vulgarism have gradually crept into the very pulpits which should give forth as pure speech as doctrine.
Dean Conybeare, in his able Essay on Church Parties,49 has noticed this wretched addition to our pulpit speech. As stated in his Essay, the practice appears to confine itself mainly to the exaggerated forms of the High and Low Church – the Tractarians and the “Recordites.”50 By way of illustration, the Dean cites the evening parties, or social meetings, common amongst the wealthier lay members of the Recordite (exaggerated Evangelical) Churches, where the principal topics discussed – one or more favourite clergymen being present in a quasi-official manner – are “the merits and demerits of different preachers, the approaching restoration of the Jews, the date of the Millennium, the progress of the ‘Tractarian heresy,’ and the anticipated ‘perversion’ of High Church neighbours.” These subjects are canvassed in a dialect differing considerably from common English. The words FAITHFUL, TAINTED, ACCEPTABLE, DECIDED, LEGAL, and many others, are used in a technical sense. We hear that Mr. A. has been more OWNED than Mr. B; and that Mr. C. has more SEALS51 than Mr. D. Again, the word GRACIOUS is invested with a meaning as extensive as that attached by young ladies to nice. Thus, we hear of a “GRACIOUS sermon,” a “GRACIOUS meeting,” a “GRACIOUS child,” and even a “GRACIOUS whipping.” The word DARK has also a new and peculiar usage. It is applied to every person, book, or place, not impregnated with Recordite principles. We once were witnesses of a ludicrous misunderstanding resulting from this phraseology. “What did you mean (said A. to B.) by telling me that – was such a very DARK village? I rode over there to day, and found the street particularly broad and cheerful, and there is not a tree in the place.” “The Gospel is not preached there,” was B.’s laconic reply. The conclusion of one of these singular evening parties is generally marked by an “exposition” – an unseasonable sermon of nearly one hour’s duration, circumscribed by no text, and delivered from the table by one of the clerical visitors with a view to “improve the occasion.” In the same Essay, the religious Slang terms for the two great divisions of the Established Church, receive some explanation. The old-fashioned High Church party, rich and “stagnant,” noted for its “sluggish mediocrity, hatred of zeal, dread of innovation, abuse of dissent, blundering and languid utterance,” is called the HIGH AND DRY; whilst the corresponding division, known as the Low Church, equally stagnant with the former, but poorer, and more lazily inclined (from absence of education), to dissent, receives the nickname of the LOW AND SLOW. Already have these terms become so familiar that they are shortened, in ordinary conversation, to the DRY and the SLOW. The so-called “Broad Church,” I should remark, is often spoken of as the BROAD AND SHALLOW.
What can be more objectionable than the irreverent and offensive manner in which many of the dissenting ministers continually pronounce the names of the Deity, God and Lord. God, instead of pronouncing in the plain and beautifully simple old English way, G-O-D, they drawl out into GORDE or GAUDE; and Lord, instead of speaking in the proper way, they desecrate into LOARD or LOERD, – lingering on the u, or the r, as the case may be, until an honest hearer feels disgusted, and almost inclined to run the gauntlet of beadles and deacons, and pull the vulgar preacher from his pulpit. I have observed that many young preachers strive hard to acquire this peculiar pronunciation, in imitation of the older ministers. What can more properly, then, be called Slang, or, indeed, the most objectionable of Slang, than this studious endeavour to pronounce the most sacred names in a uniformly vulgar and unbecoming manner. If the old-fashioned preacher whistled Cant through his nose, the modern vulgar reverend whines Slang from the more natural organ. These vagaries of speech will, perhaps, by an apologist, he termed “pulpit peculiarities,” and the writer dared to intermeddle with a subject that is or should be removed from his criticisms. The terms used by the mob towards the Church, however illiberal and satirically vulgar, are within his province in such an inquiry as the present. A clergyman, in vulgar language, is spoken of as a CHOKER, a CUSHION THUMPER, a DOMINE, an EARWIG, a GOSPEL GRINDER, a GRAY COAT PARSON – if he is a lessee of the great tithes, ONE IN TEN, PADRE – if spoken of by an Anglo-Indian, a ROOK, a SPOUTER, a WHITE CHOKER, or a WARMING PAN RECTOR, if he only holds the living pro tempore, or is simply keeping the place warm for his successor. If a Tractarian, his outer garment is rudely spoken of as a PYGOSTOLE, or M.B. (MARK OF THE BEAST) COAT. His profession is termed THE CLOTH, and his practice TUB THUMPING. Should he belong to the dissenting body, he is probably styled a PANTILER, or a PSALM SMITER, or, perhaps, a SWADDLER. His chapel, too, is spoken of as a SCHISM SHOP. A Roman Catholic, I may remark, is coarsely named a BRISKET BEATER.
Particular as lawyers generally are about the meaning of words, they have not prevented an unauthorised phraseology from arising, which we may term Legal Slang. So forcibly did this truth impress a late writer, that he wrote in a popular journal, “You may hear Slang every day in term from barristers in their robes, at every mess-table, at every bar-mess, at every college commons, and in every club dining-room.” Swift, in his Art of Polite Conversation (p. 15), published a century and a half ago, states that VARDI was the Slang in his time for “verdict.” A few of the most common and well-known terms used out of doors, with reference to legal matters, are COOK, to hash or make up a balance-sheet; DIPPED, mortgaged; DUN, to solicit payment; FULLIED, to be “fully committed for trial;” LAND-SHARK, a sailor’s definition of a lawyer; LIMB OF THE LAW, a milder term for the same “professional;” MONKEY WITH A LONG TAIL, a mortgage – phrase used in the well-known case for libel, Smith v. Jones; MOUTHPIECE, the coster’s term for his counsel; “to go through the RING,” to take advantage of the Insolvency Act; SMASH, to become bankrupt; SNIPE, an attorney with a long bill; and WHITEWASHED, said of any debtor who has taken the benefit of the Insolvent Act. Lawyers, from their connection with the police courts, and transactions with persons in every grade of society, have ample opportunities for acquiring street Slang, which in cross-questioning and wrangling they frequently avail themselves of.
It has been said there exists a Literary Slang, or “the Slang of Criticism– dramatic, artistic, and scientific. Such words as ‘æsthetic,’ ‘transcendental,’ the ‘harmonies,’ the ‘unities,’ a ‘myth:’ such phrases as ‘an exquisite morceau on the big drum,’ a ‘scholarlike rendering of John the Baptist’s great toe,’ ‘keeping harmony,’ ‘middle distance,’ ‘ærial perspective,’ ‘delicate handling,’ ‘nervous chiaroscuro,’ and the like.” More than one literary journal that I could name are fond of employing such terms in their art criticisms, but it is questionable, after all, whether they are not allowable as the generous inflections and bendings of a bountiful language, for the purpose of expressing fresh phases of thought, and ideas not yet provided with representative words.52 The well-known and ever-acceptable Punch, with his fresh and choice little pictorial bits by Leech, often employs a Slang term to give point to a joke, or humour to a line of satire. A short time since (4th May, 1859) he gave an original etymology of the school-boy-ism SLOG. Slog, said the classical and studious Punch, is derived from the Greek word SLOGO, to baste, to wallop, to slaughter. And it was not long ago that he amused his readers with two columns on Slang and Sanscrit: —
“The allegory which pervades the conversation of all Eastern nations,” remarked the philosophical Punch, “is the foundation of Western Slang; and the increased number of students of the Oriental languages, especially since Sanscrit and Arabic have been made subjects for the Indian Civil Service Examinations, may have contributed to supply the English language with a large portion of its new dialect. While, however, the spirit of allegory comes from the East, there is so great a difference between the brevity of Western expression and the more cumbrous diction of the Oriental, that the origin of a phrase becomes difficult to trace. Thus, for instance, whilst the Turkish merchant might address his friend somewhat as follows – ‘That which seems good to my father is to his servant as the perfumed breath of the west wind in the calm night of the Arabian summer;’
A term derived from the
A preacher is said, in this phraseology, to be OWNED, when he makes many converts, and his converts are called his SEALS.
“All our newspapers contain more or less colloquial words; in fact, there seems no other way of expressing certain ideas connected with passing events of every-day life, with the requisite force and piquancy. In the English newspapers the same thing is observable, and certain of them contain more of the class denominated Slang words than our own.” —