Havant, Hampshire_.
[31] Snowden’s _Magistrate’s Assistant_, 1852, p. 444.
A SHORT HISTORY OF SLANG,
OR
THE VULGAR LANGUAGE OF FAST LIFE.
Slang is the language of street humour, of fast, high, and low life.
Cant, as was stated in the chapter upon that subject, is the vulgar
language of secrecy. It must be admitted, however, that within the past
few years they have become almost indivisible. They are both universal
and ancient, and appear to have been, with certain exceptions, the
offspring of gay, vulgar, or worthless persons in every part of the
world at every period of time. Indeed, if we are to believe implicitly
the saying of the wise man, that “there is nothing new under the sun,”
the “bloods” of buried Nineveh, with their knotty and door-matty-looking
beards, may have cracked Slang jokes on the steps of Sennacherib’s
palace; while the stocks and stones of ancient Egypt, and the bricks of
venerable and used-up Babylon, may be covered with Slang hieroglyphs,
which, being perfectly unknown to modern antiquaries, have long been
stumbling-blocks to the philologist; so impossible is it at this day to
say what was then authorized, or what vulgar, language. The only
objection that can be raised to this idea is, that Slang was, so far as
can be discovered, traditional, and unwritten, until the appearance of
this volume, a state of things which accounts for its many changes, and
the doubtful orthography of even its best known and most permanent
forms. Slang is almost as old as speech, and must date from the
congregating together of people in cities. It is the result of crowding,
and excitement, and artificial life. We have traces of this as far as we
can refer back. Martial, the epigrammatist, is full of Slang. When an
uninvited guest accompanied his friend, the Slang of the day styled him
his “umbra;” when a man was trussed, neck and heels, it called him
jocosely “quadrupus.” Slang is nowadays very often the only vehicle by
which rodomontade may be avoided. It is often full of the most pungent
satire, and is always to the point. Without point Slang has no _raison
d’être_.
Old English Slang was coarser, and depended more upon downright
vulgarity than our modern Slang. It was a jesting speech, or humorous
indulgence for the thoughtless moment or the drunken hour, and it acted
as a vent-peg for a fit of temper or irritability; but it did not
interlard and permeate every description of conversation as now. It was
confined to nicknames and improper subjects, and encroached but to a
very small extent upon the domain of authorized speech. Indeed, it was
exceedingly limited when compared with the vast territory of Slang in
such general favour and complete circulation at the present day. Still,
although not an extensive institution, as in our time, Slang certainly
did exist in this country centuries ago, as we may see if we look down
the page of any respectable History of England. Cromwell was familiarly
called “Old Noll,”—in much the same way as Bonaparte was termed
“Boney,” and Wellington “Conkey” or “Nosey,” only a few years ago.[32]
His Legislature, too, was spoken of in a high-flavoured way as the
“Barebones” or “Rump” Parliament, and his followers were nicknamed
“Roundheads,” and the peculiar religious sects of his protectorate were
styled “Puritans” and “Quakers.”[33] The Civil War pamphlets, and the
satirical hits of the Cavaliers and the Commonwealth men, originated
numerous Slang words and vulgar similes in full use at the present
moment. Here is a field of inquiry for the Philological Society, indeed
a territory, for there are thirty thousand of these partisan tracts.
Later still, in the court of Charles II., the naughty ladies and the gay
lords, with Rochester at their head, talked Slang; and very naughty
Slang it was too. Fops in those days, when “over head and ears” in debt,
and in continual fear of arrest, termed their enemies, the bailiffs,
“Philistines”[34] or “Moabites.” At a later period, when collars were
worn detached from shirts, in order to save the expense of washing—an
object, it would seem, with needy “swells” in all ages—they obtained
the name of “Jacobites.” One-half of the coarse wit in Butler’s
_Hudibras_ lurks in the vulgar words and phrases which he was so fond of
employing. These Slang phrases contained the marrow of his arguments
stripped of all superfluous matter, and they fell with ponderous weight
and terrible effect upon his opponents. They were more homely and
forcible than the mild and elegant sentences of Cowley, and the people,
therefore, hurrahed them, and pronounced Butler one of themselves,—or,
as we should say, in a joyful moment, “a jolly good fellow.” Orator
Henley preached and prayed in Slang, and first charmed and then ruled
the dirty mobs in Lincoln’s Inn Fields by vulgarisms. Burly Grose
mentions Henley, with the remark that we owe a great many Slang phrases
to him, though even the worst Slang was refinement itself compared with
many of Henley’s most studied oratorical utterances, which proves that
the most blackguard parts of a blackguard speech may be perfectly free
from either Slang or Cant. Swift, and old Sir Roger L’Estrange, and
Arbuthnot, were all fond of vulgar or Slang language; indeed, we may see
from a Slang word used by the latter how curious is the gradual adoption
of vulgar terms in our standard dictionaries. The worthy doctor, in
order to annihilate (or, as we should say, with a fitting respect to the
subject under consideration, to “smash”) an opponent, thought proper on
an occasion to use the word “cabbage,” not in the ancient sense of a
flatulent vegetable of the kitchen-garden, but in the at once Slang
sense of purloining or cribbing. Johnson soon met with the word, looked
at it, examined it, weighed it, and shook his head, but out of respect
to a brother doctor inserted it in his dictionary, labelling it,
however, prominently “Cant;” whilst Walker and Webster, years after,
when all over England “to cabbage” was to pilfer, placed the term in
their dictionaries as an ancient and very respectable word. Another
Slang term, “gull,” to cheat, or delude, sometimes varied to “gully,” is
stated to be connected with the Dean of St. Patrick’s. “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. It may be from the phrase, “You can’t come Gulliver over me,”
in use while the popularity of the book was hot. 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
unauthorized words. The popular phrases, “I owe you one,” “That’s one
for his nob,” and “Keep moving, dad,” arose in this way.[35] The second
of these sayings was, doubtless, taken from the card-table, for at
cribbage the player who holds the knave of the suit turned up counts
“one for his nob,” and the dealer who turns up a knave counts “two for
his heels.” From a dramatic point of view, the use of these phrases is
perfectly correct, as they were in constant use among the people
supposed to be represented by the author’s characters.
In Mrs. Centlivre’s admirable comedy of _A Bold Stroke for a Wife_, we
see the origin of that popular phrase, the real Simon Pure. Simon Pure
is the Quaker name adopted by Colonel Feignwell as a trick to obtain the
hand of Mistress Anne Lovely in marriage. The veritable Quaker, the
“real Simon Pure,” recommended by Aminadab Holdfast, of Bristol, as a
fit sojourner with Obadiah Prim, arrives at last, to the discomfiture of
the Colonel, who, to maintain his position and gain time, concocts a
letter in which the real Quaker is spoken of as a housebreaker who had
travelled in the “leather conveniency” from Bristol, and adopted the
garb and name of the western Quaker in order to pass off as the “Real
Simon Pure,” but only for the purpose of robbing the house and cutting
the throat of the perplexed Obadiah. The scene in which the two Simon
Pures, the real and the counterfeit, meet, is one of the best in the
comedy.
Tom Brown, of “facetious memory,” as his friends were wont to say, and
Ned Ward, who wrote humorous books, and when tired drew beer for his
customers at his alehouse in Long Acre,[36] were both great producers of
Slang in the last century, and to them we owe many popular current
phrases and household words.
Written Slang was checked, rather than advanced, by the pens of
Addison, Johnson, and Goldsmith; although Bee, the bottle-holder and
historiographer of the pugilistic band of brothers in the youthful days
of flat-nosed Tom Cribb, has gravely stated that Johnson, when young and
rakish, contributed to an early volume of the _Gentleman’s Magazine_ a
few pages, by way of specimen, of a slang dictionary, the result, Mr.
Bee says, “of his midnight ramblings!”[37] This statement is not only
improbable, but an investigation of the venerable magazine, though
strict and searching, produces no evidence in corroboration of Mr. Bee.
Goldsmith, even, certainly coined a few words as occasion required,
although as a rule his pen was pure and graceful, and adverse to
neologisms. The word “fudge,” it has been stated, was first used by him
in literary composition, although it probably originated with one
Captain Fudge, a notorious fibber, nearly a century before. Street
phrases, nicknames, and vulgar words were continually being added
to the great stock of popular Slang up to the commencement of
the present century, when it received numerous additions from pugilism,
horse-racing, and “fast” life generally, which suddenly came into great
public favour, and was at its height in the latter part of the reign of
George III., and in the early days of the Regency. Slang in those days
was generally termed “flash” language. It will thus be noted that the
term “flash” has in turn represented both Cant and Slang; now the word
Slang has become perfectly generic. So popular was “flash” with the
“bloods” of high life, that it constituted the best paying literary
capital for certain authors and dramatists. Pierce Egan issued
_Boxiana_, and _Life in London_, six portly octavo volumes, crammed with
Slang; and Moncrieff wrote the most popular farce of the day, _Tom and
Jerry_ (adapted from the latter work), which, to use newspaper Slang,
“took the town by storm,” and, with its then fashionable vulgarisms,
made the fortune of the old Adelphi Theatre, and was without exception
the most wonderful instance of a continuous theatrical run in ancient or
modern times. This also was brimful of Slang. Other authors helped to
popularize and extend Slang down to our own time, and it has now taken a
somewhat different turn, dropping many of the Cant and old vulgar words,
and assuming a certain quaint and fashionable phraseology—familiar,
utilitarian, and jovial. There can be no doubt 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
proceeding 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.[38] Johnson, Walker, and the older compilers of dictionaries
give “slang” as the preterite of “sling,” but not a word about Slang in
the sense of low, vulgar, or unrecognised language. The origin of the
word has often been asked for in literary journals and books, but only
one man, until recently, ever hazarded an etymology—Jonathan Bee.[39]
With a recklessness peculiar to ignorance, Bee stated that Slang was
derived from “the _slangs_ or fetters worn by prisoners, having acquired
that name from the manner in which they were worn, as they required a
sling of string to keep them off the ground.” Bee had just been nettled
at Pierce Egan’s producing a new edition of Grose’s _Dictionary of the
Vulgar Tongue_, and was determined to excel in a vulgar dictionary of
his own, which should be more racy, more pugilistic, and more original.
How far he succeeded in this latter particular, his ridiculous etymology
of Slang will show. Slang is not an English word; it is the Gipsy term
for their secret language, and its synonym is Gibberish—another word
which was believed to have had no distinct origin.[40] Grose—stout and
burly Captain Grose—whom we may characterize as the greatest antiquary,
joker, and porter-drinker of his day, was the first lexicographer to
recognise the word “Slang.” It occurs in his _Classical Dictionary of
the Vulgar Tongue_, of 1785, with the statement that it implies “Cant or
vulgar language.” Grose was a great favourite with Burns, and so pleased
him by his extensive powers of story-telling and grog-imbibing, that the
companionable and humour-loving Scotch bard wrote for his fat
friend—or, to use his own words, “the fine, fat, fodgel wight”—the
immortal poem of _Tam O’ Shanter_.
It is not worth while troubling the reader with a long account of the
transformation into an English term of the word Slang, as it is easily
seen how we obtained it. Hucksters and beggars on tramp, or at fairs and
races, associate and frequently join in any rough enterprise with the
Gipsies. The word would be continually heard by them, and would in this
manner soon become part of their vocabulary,[41] and, when carried by
“fast” or vulgar fashionables from the society of thieves and low
characters to their own drawing-rooms, would as quickly become Slang,
and the representative term for all vulgar language. Modern philologists
give the word Slang as derived from the French _langue_. This is, at all
events, as likely as any other derivative.
Any sudden excitement or peculiar circumstance is quite sufficient to
originate and set going a score of Slang words. Nearly every election or
public agitation throws out offshoots of excitement, or scintillations
of humour in the shape of Slang terms—vulgar at first, but at length
adopted, if possessing sufficient hold on the public mind, as
semi-respectable from sheer force of habit. There is scarcely a
condition or calling in life that does not possess its own peculiar
Slang. The professions, legal and medical, have each familiar and
unauthorized terms for peculiar circumstances and things, and it is
quite certain that the clerical calling, or “the cloth”—in itself a
Slang term given at a time when the laity were more distinguished by
their gay dress from the clergy than they are now—is not entirely free
from this peculiarity. Every workshop, warehouse, factory, and mill
throughout the country has its Slang, and so have the public schools and
the Universities of Oxford and Cambridge. Sea Slang constitutes the
principal charm of a sailor’s “yarn;” and our soldiers have in turn
their peculiar nicknames and terms for things and subjects, proper and
improper. A writer in _Household Words_ (No. 183) has gone so far as to
remark, that a person “shall not read one single parliamentary debate,
as reported in a first-class newspaper, without meeting scores of Slang
words,” and “that from Mr. Speaker in his chair, to the Cabinet
Ministers whispering behind it—from mover to seconder, from true blue
Protectionist to extremest Radical—Mr. Barry’s New House echoes and
re-echoes with Slang.” This statement is most worthy of notice, as
showing how, with a very small sub-stratum of fact, a plausible, though
not the less gigantic, mis-statement may be built up.
The universality of Slang is extraordinary. Let any person for a short
time narrowly examine the conversation of his dearest and nearest
friends, or even analyse his own supposed correct talk, and he shall be
amazed at the numerous unauthorized, and what we can only call vulgar,
words in constant use. One peculiarity of the growth of Slang is the
finding of new meanings for old words. Take, for instance, the verbs
“do,” “cut,” “go,” and “take,” and see how they are used to express
fresh ideas, and then let us ask ourselves how is it possible for a
Frenchman or German, be he never so well educated, to avoid continually
blundering and floundering amongst our little words when trying to make
himself understood in an ordinary conversation? He may have studied our
language the required time, and have gone through the usual amount of
“grinding,” and practised the common allotment of patience, but all to
no purpose as far as accuracy is concerned. As, however, we do not make
our language, nor for the matter of that our Slang, for the convenience
or inconvenience of foreigners, we need not pursue this portion of the
subject further. “Jabber” and “hoax” were Slang and Cant terms in
Swift’s time; so, indeed, were “mob” and “sham.”[42] Words directly from
the Latin and Greek, framed in accordance with the rules which govern
the construction of the language, are not Slang, but are good English,
if not Saxon,—a term, by the way, which is as much misused as any
unfortunate word that can be remembered just now. Sound contributes many
Slang words—a source that etymologists frequently overlook. Nothing
pleases an ignorant person so much as a high-sounding term, “full of
fury.” 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. How charming to a refined ear are “abskize,”
“catawampously,” “exflunctify,” “obscute,” “keslosh,” “kesouse,”
“keswollop,” and “kewhollux!”[43] It must not be forgotten, however,
that a great many new “Americanisms” are perfectly unknown in America,
and in this respect they resemble the manners and customs of our cousins
as found in books, and in books only. Vulgar words representing action
and brisk movement often owe their origin to sound, as has before been
remarked. Mispronunciation, too, is another great source of vulgar or
Slang words, and of this “ramshackle,” “shackly,” “nary-one” for neither
or neither one, “ottomy” or “atomy” for anatomy, “rench” for rinse, are
specimens. The commonalty dislike frequently-occurring words difficult
of pronunciation, and so we have the street abridgments of “bimeby” for
by-and-by, “caze” for because, “gin” for given, “hankercher” for
handkerchief, “ruma tiz” for rheumatism, “backer” for tobacco, and many
others, not perhaps Slang, but certainly, all vulgarisms. Whately, in
his _Remains of Bishop Copleston_, has inserted a leaf from the bishop’s
note-book on the popular corruption of names, mentioning, among others,
“kickshaws,” as from the French _quelques choses_; “beefeater,” the
grotesque guardian of royalty in a procession, and the envied devourer
of enormous beefsteaks, as but a vulgar pronunciation of the French
_buffetier_, and “George and Cannon,” the sign of a public-house, as
nothing but a corruption (although so soon!) of the popular premier of
the last generation, George Canning.[44] Literature has its Slang terms;
and the desire on the part of writers to say funny and startling things
in a novel and curious way contributes many unauthorized words to the
great stock of Slang.
Fashionable or Upper-class Slang is of several varieties. There is the
Belgravian, military and naval, parliamentary, dandy, and the reunion
and visiting Slang. English officers, civilians, and their families,
who have resided long in India, have contributed many terms from the
Hindostanee to our language. Several of these, such as “chit,” a letter,
and “tiffin,” lunch, are fast losing their Slang character, and becoming
regularly-recognised English words. “Jungle,” as a term for a forest or
wilderness, is now an English phrase; a few years past, however, it was
merely the Hindostanee “junkul.” This, being a perfectly legal
transition, having no other recognised form, can hardly be characterized
as Slang. The extension of trade in China, and the English settlement of
Hong Kong, have introduced among us several examples of Canton jargon,
that exceedingly curious Anglo-Chinese dialect spoken in the seaports of
the Celestial Empire. While these words have been carried as it were
into the families of the upper and middle classes, persons in a humbler
rank of life, through the sailors and soldiers and Lascar and Chinese
beggars that haunt the metropolis, have also adopted many Anglo-Indian
and Anglo-Chinese phrases. As this dictionary would have been incomplete
without them, they are carefully recorded in its pages. Concerning the
Slang of the fashionable world, it has been remarked that it is mostly
imported from France; and that an unmeaning gibberish of Gallicisms runs
through English fashionable conversation and fashionable novels, and
accounts of fashionable parties in the fashionable newspapers. Yet,
ludicrously enough, immediately the fashionable magnates of England
seize on any French idiom, the French themselves not only universally
abandon it to us, but positively repudiate it altogether from their
idiomatic vocabulary. If you were to tell a well-bred Frenchman that
such and such an aristocratic marriage was on the _tapis_, he would
stare with astonishment, and look down on the carpet in the startled
endeavour to find a marriage in so unusual a place. If you were to talk
to him of the _beau monde_, he would imagine you meant the world which
God made, not half-a-dozen streets and squares between Hyde Park Corner
and Chelsea Bun House. The _thé dansant_ would be completely
inexplicable to him. If you were to point out to him the Dowager Lady
Grimgriffin acting as _chaperon_ to Lady Amanda Creamville, he would
imagine you were referring to the _petit Chaperon rouge_—to little
Red-Riding Hood. He might just understand what was meant by _vis-à-vis_,
_entremets_, and some others of the flying horde of frivolous little
foreign slangisms hovering about fashionable cookery and fashionable
furniture; but three-fourths of them would seem to him as barbarous
French provincialisms, or, at best, but as antiquated and obsolete
expressions, picked out of the letters of Mademoiselle Scuderi, or the
tales of Crebillon “the younger.” Servants, too, appropriate the scraps
of French conversation which fall from their masters’ guests at the
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?[45] 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 aristocratic world:—
MARRIAGE IN HIGH LIFE.—We understand that a marriage is ARRANGED (!)
betwixt the Lady, &c. &c., and the Honourable, &c. &c.