or a purchase the proper word to express the hopeful, joyous, golden
union of young and trustful hearts? Possibly, though, the word is often
used with a due regard to facts, for marriages, especially amongst our
upper classes, are not always “made in heaven.” 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
be _Aire_, Cholmondeley should be _Chumley_, St. John _Sinjen_,
Beauchamp should be _Beachem_, Majoribanks _Marshbanks_, and Powell
should always be _Poel_. The pronunciation of proper names has long been
an anomaly in the conversation of the upper classes of this country.
Hodge and Podge, the clodhoppers of Shakspeare’s time, talked in their
mug-houses of the great Lords _Darbie_, _Barkelie_, and _Bartie_. In
Pall Mall and May Fair these personages are spoken of in exactly the
same manner at the present day, whilst in the City, and amongst the
_middle_ classes, we only hear of Derby, Berkeley, &c.,—the correct
pronunciations, if the spelling is worth aught. It must not be
forgotten, however, that the pronunciation of the upper classes, as
regards the names of places just mentioned, is a relic of old times when
the orthography was different. The middle-class man is satisfied to take
matters the modern way, but even he, when he wishes to be thought a
swell, alters his style. In fact, the old rule as to proper names being
pronounced according to individual taste, is, and ever will be, of
absolute necessity, not only as regards the upper and middle, but the
lower classes. A costermonger is ignorant of such a place as Birmingham,
but understands you in a moment if you talk of _Brummagem_. Why do not
Pall Mall exquisites join with the costermongers in this pronunciation?
It is the ancient one.[46]
_Parliamentary Slang_, excepting a few peculiar terms connected with
“_the_ House” (scarcely Slang), is mainly composed of fashionable,
literary, and learned Slang. When members get excited, and wish to be
forcible, they are now and again, but not very often, found guilty of
vulgarisms, and then may be not particular which of the street terms
they select, providing it carries, as good old Dr. South said, plenty of
“wildfire” in it. Lord Cairns when Sir Hugh, and a member of the Lower
House, spoke of “that homely but expressive phrase, ‘dodge.’” Out of
“the House,” several Slang terms are used in connexion with Parliament
or members of Parliament. If Lord Palmerston was familiar by name to the
tribes of the Caucasus and Asia Minor as a great foreign diplomatist,
when the name of our Queen was unknown to the inhabitants of those
parts—as was once stated in the _Times_—it is worthy of remark that,
amongst the costers and the wild inhabitants of the streets, he was at
that time better known as “Pam.” The cabmen on the “ranks” in Piccadilly
have been often heard to call each other’s attention to the great
leader of the Opposition in the following expressive manner—“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 had occupied
a house, no matter how small, and boiled a pot in it, thus qualifying
themselves for voting, used in the good old days to be termed
“potwallopers.” A quiet “walk over” is a re-election without opposition
and much cost; and is obtained from the sporting vocabulary, in which
the term is not Slang. 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,
where caucus means a meeting simply. A “job,” in political phraseology,
is a Government office or contract obtained by secret influence or
favouritism; and is not a whit more objectionable in sound than is the
nefarious proceeding offensive to the sense of those who pay but do not
participate. The _Times_ once spoke of “the patriotic member of
Parliament ‘potted out’ in a dusty little lodging somewhere about Bury
Street.” But then the _Times_ was not always the mildly respectable
high-class paper it now is, as a reference to the columns devoted by it
to Macaulay’s official career will alone determine. These, which
appeared during the present reign, would be far below the lowest
journalistic taste nowadays; yet they are in keeping with the rest of
the political references made at that time by the now austere and
high-principled “leading journal.” 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, whose strings of action are pulled by somebody else,
is often termed a “quockerwodger.” 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 “coalition.” 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
kerb-stone in front, with umbrella or walking-cane uplifted, shout to
the cabmen on the rank, “Four-wheeler!” The term is both useful and
expressive; but it is none the less Slang, though of a better kind than
“growler,” used to denominate the same kind of vehicle, or “shoful,” the
street term for a hansom cab.
Military Slang is on a par, and of a character, with dandy Slang.
Inconvenient friends, or elderly and lecturing relatives, are pronounced
“dreadful bores.” This affectionate term, like most other Slang phrases
which have their rise in a certain section of society, has spread and
become of general application. Four-wheeled cabs are called “bounders;”
and a member of the Four-in-hand Club, driving to Epsom on the Derby
Day, would, using fashionable 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,” unless
the critic should prefer to characterize the equipage as “dickey.” Your
City swell would say it is not “up to the mark;” whilst the costermonger
would call it a “wery snide affair.” In the army a barrack or military
station is known as a “lobster-box;” to “cram” for an examination is to
“mug-up” (this same term is much in vogue among actors, who regard
mugging-up as one of the fine arts of the profession); 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 the Poet-Laureate to the Pope of Rome, is a
“swell,”—“the old swell” now occupies the place once held by the
“guv’nor.” 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. In this upper-class Slang, a title is termed a
“handle;” trousers, “inexpressibles,” and bags, or “howling bags,” when
of a large pattern;—a superior appearance, or anything above the common
cut, is styled “extensive;” a four-wheeled cab is called 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 dinner or
supper party, 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 phrase, “to
send a man to Coventry,” or permit no person “in the set” 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—not establishments (they are sacred to linendrapery and
“gentlemanly assistants”)—institutions, is found “crib,” a house or
apartments; “dead men,” empty wine bottles; “drawing teeth,”[47]
wrenching off knockers,—an obsolete amusement; “fizzing,” first-rate,
or splendid; “governor,” or “relieving-officer,” the general term for a
male parent; “plucked,” defeated or turned back, now altered to
“plough;” “quiz,” to scrutinize, 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 let us take “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,
γὺψ, a vulture; “skull,” the head, or master, of a college; “battles,”
the Oxford term for rations, changed at Cambridge into “commons.” The
term “dickey,” a half-shirt, it is said, originated with the students of
Trinity College, Dublin, who at first styled it a “tommy,” from the
Greek τομὴ, a section,—the change from “tommy” to “dickey” requires no
explanation. “Crib,” a literal translation, is now universal; “grind”
refers to “working up” for an examination, also 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 privileged students who dine with the “dons,” and are distinguished
by golden tufts, or tassels, in their caps. Hence we get the world-wide
Slang term “tuft-hunter,” one whose pride it is to be acquainted with
scions of the nobility—a sycophantic race unfortunately not confined
to any particular place or climate, nor peculiar to any age or either
sex. 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_, in one of
those half-humorous, half-serious articles, once so characteristic of
the wits engaged on that paper, who were, as a rule, fond of lecturing
any national abuse or popular folly, remarked—“Slang has long since
penetrated into the Forum, and now we meet it in the Senate, and even
the pulpit itself is no longer free from its intrusion.” There is no
wish here, for one moment, to infer that the practice 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 that a
great deal of Slang phraseology and expressive vulgarism have gradually
crept into the very pulpits which should give forth as pure speech as
doctrine. This is an error which, however, has only to be noticed, to be
cured.
Dean Conybeare, in his able “Essay on Church Parties,”[48] has noticed
this addition of Slang 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.”[49] By
way of illustration, the Dean cites the evening parties, or social
meetings, common amongst the wealthier lay members of the Recordite
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
English, as the word is generally understood. The terms “faithful,”
“tainted,” “acceptable,” “decided,” “legal,” and many others,
are used in a sense different from that given to any of them by the
lexicographers. We hear that Mr. A. has been more “owned” than Mr. B.;
and that Mr. C. has more “seals”[50] 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. A ludicrous
misunderstanding resulting from this phraseology is on record (this is
not a joke). “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.” This
same term, “improve the occasion,” is of Slang slangy, and is so mouthed
by Stigginses and Chadbands, and their followers, that it has become
peculiarly objectionable to persons of broad views. In the Essay to
which reference has been made, 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 opposing division, known as the Low Church—equally
stagnant with the former, but poorer, and more lazily inclined (from
absence of education) towards Dissent—receives the nickname of the “low
and slow.” These terms are among persons learned in the distinctions
shortened, in ordinary conversation, to the “dry” and the “slow.” The
Broad Church, or moderate division, is often spoken of as the “broad
and shallow.”
What can be more objectionable than the irreverent and offensive manner
in which many Dissenting ministers continually pronounce the names of
the Deity—God and Lord? God, instead of pronouncing in the plain and
beautiful 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. This is, though a Christian impulse, hardly in
accordance with our modern times and tolerant habits. Many young
preachers strive hard to acquire this peculiar pronunciation, in
imitation of the older ministers. What, then, can more properly 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, be termed “pulpit peculiarities,” and the writer may be
impugned for having dared to intermeddle with a subject that is or
should be removed from his criticisms. Honesty of purpose and evident
truthfulness of remark will, however, overcome the most virulent
opposition. The terms used by the mob towards the Church, however
illiberal and satirically vulgar, are fairly within the province of an
inquiry such as the present. A clergyman, in vulgar language, is spoken
of as a “choker,” a “cushion-thumper,” a “dominie,” an “earwig,” a
“gospel-grinder,” a “grey-coat parson;” a “spouter,” a “white-choker,”
or a “warming-pan rector,” if he only holds the living _pro tempore_. If
he is a lessee of the great tithes, “one in ten;” or if spoken of by an
Anglo-Indian, a “rook.” 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” (this item of Slang has been already
referred to), and his practice is called “tub-thumping.” This latter
term has of late years been almost peculiarly confined to itinerant
preachers. Should he belong to the Dissenting body, he is probably
styled a “pantiler,” or a “psalm smiter,” or perhaps, a “swaddler.”[51]
His chapel, too, is spoken of as a “schism shop.” A Roman Catholic is
coarsely named a “brisket-beater.”
Particular as lawyers generally are about the meanings of words, they
have not prevented an unauthorized phraseology from arising, which may
be termed 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” (from a famous writ or
process-server named Dunn), 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; “mouthpiece,” the thief’s term for his
counsel; “to run through the ring,” to take advantage of the Insolvency
Act; “smash,” to become bankrupt; “snipe,” an attorney with a long bill;
and “whitewash,” to take the benefit of the Insolvent Act. Comparatively
recent legislation has rendered many of these terms obsolete, and “in
liquidation” is now the most ominous sound a creditor can hear. Lawyers,
from their connexion with the police courts, and transactions with
persons in every grade of society, have ample opportunities for
acquiring street Slang, of which, in cross-questioning and wrangling,
they frequently avail themselves.
It has been said there exists a literary Slang, or the Slang of
Criticism—dramatic, artistic, and scientific. This is composed of 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,” “aërial perspective,” “delicate handling,”
“nervous chiaroscuro,” and the like. It is easy to find fault with this
system of doing work, whilst it is not easy to discover another at once
so easily understood by educated readers, and so satisfactory to artists
themselves. Discretion must, of course, always be used, in fact always
is used by the best writers, with regard to the quantity of technical
Slang an article will hold comfortably. Overdone mannerism is always a
mistake, and generally defeats its own end. Properly used, these
technicalities are 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]
_Punch_ often employs a Slang term to give point to a joke, or humour to
a line of satire. In his best day he gave an original etymology of the
schoolboy-ism “slog.” “Slog,” said the classical and then clever
_Punch_, is derived from the Greek word “slogo,” to baste, to wallop, to
slaughter. To show his partiality to the subject, he once amused his
readers with two columns on Slang and Sanscrit, from which the following
is taken:—
“The allegory which pervades the conversation of all Eastern nations
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;’ the Western
negotiator observes more briefly, ‘all serene!’”[53]
But the vulgar term, “brick,” _Punch_ remarks in illustration,
“must be allowed to be an exception, its Greek derivation being
universally admitted, corresponding so exactly as it does in its
rectangular form and compactness to the perfection of manhood,
according to the views of Plato and Simonides; but any deviation
from the simple expression, in which locality is indicated—as, for
instance, ‘a genuine Bath’—decidedly breathes the Oriental spirit.”
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.” “Bosh,” nonsense or
stupidity, is derived from the Gipsy and the Persian. The universality
of Slang is proved by its continual use in the pages of _Punch_. Who
ever thinks, unless belonging to a past generation, of asking a friend
to explain the stray vulgar words employed by the _London Charivari_?
Some of the jokes, though, might nowadays be accompanied by explanatory
notes, in similar style to that adopted by youthful artists who write “a
man,” “a horse,” &c., when rather uncertain as to whether or not their
efforts will meet with due appreciation.