John Camden Hotten

“ A Belgravian gentleman who had lost his watch or his pocket-handkerchief, would scarcely remark to his mamma that it had been BONED—yet BONE, in old times, meant to steal amongst high and low. And a young lady living in the precincts of dingy, but aristocratic May-Fair, although enraptured with a Jenny Lind or a Ristori, would hardly think of turning back in the box to inform papa that she, Ristori or Lind, “made no BONES of it”—yet the phrase was most respectable and well-to-do, before it met with a change of circumstances. ”

“ I am aware that the indelicacy and extreme vulgarity of the work renders it a disgrace to its compiler, still we must admit that it is by far the most important work which has ever appeared on street or popular language; indeed, from its pages every succeeding work has, up to the present time, drawn its contents. The great fault of Grose’s book consists in the author not contenting himself with Slang and Cant terms, but the inserting of every “smutty” and offensive word that could be raked out of the gutters of the streets. ”

“ The universality of Slang is extraordinary. Let any person for a short time narrowly examine the conversation of their dearest and nearest friends, aye, censor-like, even slice and analyse their own supposed correct talk, and they shall be amazed at the numerous unauthorised, and what we can only call vulgar, words they continually employ. ”

“ 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. ”

“ In a casual survey of the territory of Slang, it is curious to observe how well represented are the familiar wants and failings of life. First, there’s money, with one hundred and twenty Slang terms and synonymes; then comes drink, from small beer to champagne; and next, as a very natural sequence, intoxication, and fuddlement generally, with some half a hundred vulgar terms, graduating the scale of drunkenness from a slight inebriation, to the soaky state of gutterdom and stretcherdom,—I pray the reader to forgive the expressions. ”

“ Compare MEDICAL GREEK.
ZOUNDS, a sudden exclamation,—abbreviation of God’s wounds.
SOME ACCOUNT OF THE BACK SLANG,
THE SECRET LANGUAGE OF COSTERMONGERS.
The costermongers of London number between thirty and forty thousand. Like other low tribes, they boast a language, or secret tongue, in which they hide their earnings, movements, and other private affairs. This costers’ speech, as Mayhew remarks, offers no new fact, or approach to a fact, for philologists; it is not very remarkable for originality of construction; neither is it spiced with low humour, as other cant. ”

“ It is singular that what Punch says, unwittingly and in humour, respecting the Slang expression, BOSH, should be quite true. Bosh, remarks Punch, after speaking of it as belonging to the stock of words pilfered from the Turks, “is one whose innate force and beauty the slangographer is reluctantly compelled to admit. It is the only word which seems a proper appellation for a great deal which we are obliged to hear and to read every day of our life.” ”

“ Gull, a dupe, or a fool, is often used by our old dramatists, and is generally believed to have given rise to the verb; but a curious little edition of Bamfylde Moore Carew, published in 1827, says that TO GULL, or GULLY, is derived from the well known Gulliver, the hero of the famous Travels. How crammed with Slang are the dramatic works of the last century! The writers of the comedies and farces in those days must have lived in the streets, and written their plays in the public-houses, so filled are they with vulgarisms and unauthorised words. ”

“ A person is said to be FLASH when he apes the appearance or manners of his betters, or when he is trying to be superior to his friends and relations. Flash also means “fast,” roguish, and sometimes infers counterfeit or deceptive,—and this, perhaps, is its general signification. “Flash, my young friend, or slang, as others call it, is the classical language of the Holy Land; in other words, St. Giles’ Greek.”—Tom and Jerry, by Moncreiff. Vulgar language was first termed FLASH in the year 1718, by Hitchin, author of “The Regulator of Thieves, &c., with account of FLASH words.” ”

“ RUN, “to get the RUN upon any person,” to have the upper hand, or be able to laugh at them. Run down, to abuse or backbite anyone.
RUNNING PATTERER, a street seller who runs or moves briskly along, calling aloud his wares.
RUNNING STATIONERS, hawkers of books, ballads, dying speeches, and newspapers. ”

“ Indeed, if we are to believe implicitly the saying of the wise man, that “there is nothing new under the sun,” the “fast” men of buried Nineveh, with their knotty and door-matty looking beards, may have cracked Slang jokes on the steps of Sennacherib’s palace; and the stocks and stones of Ancient Egypt, and the bricks of venerable and used-up Babylon, may, for aught we know, be covered with Slang hieroglyphics unknown to modern antiquarians, and which have long been stumbling-blocks to the philologist ”

“ How melodious and drum-like are those vulgar coruscations RUMBUMPTIOUS, SLANTINGDICULAR, SPLENDIFEROUS, RUMBUSTIOUS, and FERRICADOUZER. What a “pull” the sharp-nosed lodging-house keeper thinks she has over her victims if she can but hurl such testimonies of a liberal education at them when they are disputing her charges, and threatening to ABSQUATULATE! In the United States the vulgar-genteel even excel the poor “stuck-up” Cockneys in their formation of a native fashionable language. ”

“ FLIP-FLAPS, a peculiar rollicking dance indulged in by costermongers when merry or excited—better described, perhaps, as the DOUBLE SHUFFLE, danced with an air of extreme abandon.
FLIPPER, the hand; “give us your FLIPPER,” give me your hand.—Sea. Metaphor taken from the flipper or paddle of a turtle.
FLOG, to whip. Cited both by Grose and the author of Bacchus and Venus as a cant word. It would be curious to ascertain the earliest use; Richardson cites Lord Chesterfield.—Latin.
FLOGGER, a whip.—Obsolete.
FLOOR, to knock down.—Pugilistic.
FLOORER, a blow sufficiently strong to knock a man down. ”

“ MUNGARLY CASA, a baker’s shop; evidently a corruption of some Lingua Franca phrase for an eating house. The well known “Nix mangiare” stairs at Malta derive their name from the endless beggars who lie there and shout NIX MANGIARE, i.e., “nothing to eat,” to excite the compassion of the English who land there,—an expression which exhibits remarkably the mongrel composition of the Lingua Franca, MANGIARE being Italian, and Nix an evident importation from Trieste, or other Austrian seaport. ”

“ Mayhew, too, in his interesting work, London Labour and London Poor, admits that many Cant and Slang phrases are merely old English terms, which have become obsolete through the caprices of fashion. And the reader who looks into the Dictionary of the vagabonds’ lingo, will see at a glance that these gentlemen were quite correct, and that we are compelled to acknowledge the singular truth that a great many old words, once respectable, and in the mouths of kings and fine ladies, are now only so many signals for shrugs and shudders amongst exceedingly polite people. ”

“ COSTER, the short and slang term for a costermonger, or costard-monger, who was originally an apple seller. Costering, i.e., costermongering.
COTTON, to like, adhere to, or agree with any person; “to cotton on to a man,” to attach yourself to him, or fancy him, literally, to stick to him as cotton would. Vide Bartlett, who claims it as an Americanism; and Halliwell, who terms it an Archaism; also Bacchus and Venus, 1737. ”

“ He who sells that of which he is not possessed is proverbially said to sell the skin before he has caught the BEAR. It was the practice of stock-jobbers, in the year 1720, to enter into a contract for transferring South Sea Stock at a future time for a certain price; but he who contracted to sell had frequently no stock to transfer, nor did he who bought intend to receive any in consequence of his bargain; the seller was, therefore, called a BEAR, in allusion to the proverb, and the buyer a BULL, perhaps only as a similar distinction. ”

“ RAT, a sneak, an informer, a turn-coat, one who changes his party for interest. The late Sir Robert Peel was called the RAT, or the TAMWORTH RATCATCHER, for altering his views on the Roman Catholic question. From rats deserting vessels about to sink.
RAT, term amongst printers to denote one who works under price. Old cant for a clergyman.
RATHER! a ridiculous street exclamation synonymous with yes; “do you like fried chickens?” “RATHER!” “are you going out of town?” “RATHER!”
RATHER OF THE RATHEREST, a phrase applied to anything slightly in excess or defect. ”

“ Quick is the synonyme for FAST, but a QUICK MAN would not convey the meaning of a FAST MAN,—a person who by late hours, gaiety, and continual rounds of pleasure, lives too fast and wears himself out. In polite society a FAST young lady is one who affects mannish habits, or makes herself conspicuous by some unfeminine accomplishment,—talks slang, drives about in London, smokes cigarettes, is knowing in dogs, horses, &c. ”

“ People in the present chase after respectability don’t care to turn blackguards, and exchange cards with the Whitechapel Pecker or the Sharp’s-alley Chicken, for the sake of a few vulgar, although curious words; and we may rest assured that it is quite impossible to write any account of vulgar or low language, and remain seated on damask in one’s own drawing room. But a fortunate circumstance attended the compiler of the present work, and he has neither been required to reside in Seven Dials, visit the treadmill, or wander over the country in the character of a vagabond or a cadger. ”

“ Blow me tight, is a very windy and common exclamation. The same may be said of STRIKE ME LUCKY, NEVER TRUST ME, and SO HELP ME DAVY; the latter derived from the truer old phrase, I’LL TAKE MY DAVY ON’T, i.e., my affidavit, DAVY being a corruption of that word. By golly, GOL DARN IT, and SO HELP ME BOB, are evident shams for profane oaths. Nation is but a softening of damnation; and OD, whether used in OD DRAT IT, or OD’S BLOOD, is but an apology for the name of the Deity. The Irish phrase, BAD SCRAN TO YER! is equivalent to wishing a person bad food. ”

“ CHEAP JACKS, or JOHNS, oratorical hucksters and patterers of hardware, &c., at fairs and races. They put an article up at a high price, and then cheapen it by degrees, indulging in volleys of coarse wit, until it becomes to all appearance a bargain, and as such it is bought by one of the crowd. The popular idea is that the inverse method of auctioneering saves them paying for the auction license. ”

“ Nearly every nation on the face of the globe, polite and barbarous, may be divided into two portions, the stationary and the wandering, the civilised and the uncivilised, the respectable and the scoundrel,—those who have fixed abodes and avail themselves of the refinements of civilisation, and those who go from place to place picking up a precarious livelihood by petty sales, begging, or theft. ”

“ Had the Gipsey tongue been analysed and committed to writing three centuries ago, there is every probability that many scores of words now in common use could be at once traced to its source. Instances continually occur now-a-days of street vulgarisms ascending to the drawing-rooms of respectable society. ”

“ Look at those simple and useful verbs, do, cut, go, and take, and see how they are hampered and overloaded, and then let us ask ourselves how it is that a French or German gentleman, be he ever so well educated, is continually blundering and floundering amongst our little words when trying to make himself understood in an ordinary conversation. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Nearly every election or public agitation throws out offshoots of the excitement, or scintillations of the humour in the shape of Slang terms—vulgar at first, but at length adopted as semi-respectable from the force of habit and custom. There is scarcely a condition or calling in life that does not possess its own peculiar Slang. ”

“ Every door or passage is pregnant with instruction as to the error committed by the patron of beggars, as the beggar-marks show that a system of freemasonry is followed, by which a beggar knows whether it will be worth his while to call into a passage or knock at a door. ”

“ WILD, a village.—Tramps’ term.—See VILE.
WILD, vexed, cross, passionate. In the United States the word mad is supplemented with a vulgar meaning similar to our Cockneyism, WILD; and to make a man MAD on the other side of the Atlantic is to vex him, or “rile” his temper—not to render him a raving maniac, or a fit subject for Bedlam. ”

“ Cant, apart from religious hypocrisy, refers to the old secret language, by allegory or distinct terms, of Gipseys, thieves, tramps, and beggars. Slang represents that evanescent, vulgar language, ever changing with fashion and taste, which has principally come into vogue during the last seventy or eighty years, spoken by persons in every grade of life, rich and poor, honest and dishonest.7 Cant is old; Slang is always modern and changing. ”

“ Each separate piece of money has its own Slang term, and often half a score of synonymes. To begin with that extremely humble coin, a farthing: first we have FADGE, then FIDDLER, then GIG, and lastly QUARTEREEN. A halfpenny is a BROWN or a MADZA SALTEE (Cant) , or a MAG, or a POSH, or a RAP,—whence the popular phrase, “I don’t care a rap.” ”

“ STORY, a falsehood,—the soft synonyme for a lie, allowed in family circles and boarding-schools. A Puritanism that came in fashion with the tirade against romances, all novels and stories being considered as dangerous and false. ”

“ There can be no doubt but that common speech is greatly influenced by fashion, fresh manners, and that general change of ideas which steals over a people once in a generation. But before I proceed further into the region of Slang, it will be well to say something on the etymology of the word.
The word Slang is only mentioned by two lexicographers—Webster and Ogilvie. Johnson, Walker, and the older compilers of dictionaries, give slang the preterite of sling, but not a word about Slang in the sense of low, vulgar, or unrecognised language. ”

“ QUEER, an old cant word, once in continual use as a prefix, signifying base, roguish, or worthless,—the opposite of RUM, which signified good and genuine. Queer, in all probability, is immediately derived from the cant language. It has been mooted that it came into use from a quære (?) being set before a man’s name; but it is more than probable that it was brought into this country by the Gipseys from Germany, where QUER signifies “cross,” or “crooked.” ”

“ Formerly slang, it is now a recognised word, and one of the most expressive in the English language. The French are always amused with it, they having no similar term.
SELL, to deceive, swindle, or play a practical joke upon a person. A sham is a SELL in street parlance. “Sold again, and got the money,” a costermonger cries after having successfully deceived somebody. Shakespere uses SELLING in a similar sense, viz., blinding or deceiving. ”

“ Ancient English CANT has considerably altered since the first dictionary was compiled by Harman, in 1566. A great many words are unknown in the present tramps’ and thieves’ vernacular. Some of them, however, bear still their old definitions, while others have adopted fresh meanings,—to escape detection, I suppose. “Abraham man” is yet seen in our modern SHAM ABRAHAM, or PLAY THE OLD SOLDIER, i.e., to feign sickness or distress. “Autum” is still a church or chapel amongst Gipseys; and “BECK,” a constable, is our modern cant and slang BEEK, a policeman or magistrate. ”

“ There exists in London a singular tribe of men, known amongst the “fraternity of vagabonds” as Chaunters and Patterers. Both classes are great talkers. The first sing or chaunt through the public thoroughfares ballads—political and humorous—carols, dying speeches, and the various other kinds of gallows and street literature. The second deliver street orations on grease-removing compounds, plating powders, high polishing blacking, and the thousand and one wonderful pennyworths that are retailed to gaping mobs from a London kerb stone.
They are quite a distinct tribe from the costermongers ”

“ In order that the reader’s patience may not be too much taxed, only a selection of rhyming words has been given in the Glossary,—and these for the most part, as in the case of the back Slang, are the terms of everyday life, as used by this order of tramps and hucksters.
It must not be supposed, however, that the chaunter or patterer confines himself entirely to this Slang when conveying secret intelligence. On the contrary, although he speaks not a “leash of languages,” yet is he master of the beggars’ Cant, and is thoroughly “up” in street Slang. ”

“ I am aware that most new words are generally regarded as Slang, although afterwards they may become useful and respectable additions to our standard dictionaries. Jabber and HOAX were Slang and Cant terms in Swift’s time; so indeed were MOB and SHAM.43 Words directly from the Latin and Greek, and Carlyleisms, are allowed by an indulgent public to pass and take their places in books. Sound contributes many Slang words—a source that etymologists too frequently overlook. Nothing pleases an ignorant person more than a high-sounding term “full of fury.” ”