Slang seems to have acquired a certain kind of vulgar popularity
not only among the lower orders, but even in the higher ranks of
our society. Try to banish it as we may from polite society and
pretty mouths, it is a radical breed that defies proscription and
seems to laugh at conventionality. If we regard grammar and style as
representing the aristocracy of language, slang asserts itself as
the necessary and important agent of a predominant proletariat, that
refuses to be ignored. It is a power, though a vulgar power, in speech.
The word slang itself had a very low origin. It was derived from the
Norman _slengge-or_, slang, or insulting words; and this when connected
with the Latin word _lingua_ (tongue), signified the bad language our
forefathers supposed the gipsies indulged in. It then became synonymous
for every word used in a thief’s vocabulary; but as both gipsies and
thieves are not without a great deal of mother-wit, the word slang,
originally their property, was borrowed from them by their respectable
neighbours, and applied to all phrases of a pithy and familiar nature,
whether coarse or refined, that expressed in one or a few brief words
a definite unmistakable meaning, which brought a picture before the
mind, and there fixed the impression it was desired to convey. When
it was found that slang phrases could be so useful, then slang rose
in the world, and from being the monopoly of thieves and gipsies, it
passed into other and respectable hands, who made it subservient to
their wants. Its claim to popularity rests on the fact that it meets
an urgent want—that of enabling people to say a great deal in a few
incisive words; and so long as man is busy and ‘time is fleeting,’ it
will doubtless hold its own as a power in speech.
Having thus briefly established the reasons for existence, it will
not be uninteresting to trace a few popular slang phrases to their
origin. Dr Brewer, in his interesting _Dictionary of Phrase and Fable_,
enables us to do this. Our difficulty is to know where to begin—for
a dictionary is a dictionary, and with two thousand facts to choose
from, we feel rather like the ass among the bundles of hay, at a loss
which to attack first; and the bundles at our command being so many and
tempting, we feel no ordinary sympathy for the animal thus similarly
tried. However, we open the book at random, and determine to seize the
first that comes, which happens to be, _You cannot say Bo! to a goose_.
How often have we relieved our feelings of irritation at the weakness
of others by hurling this phrase at them! Had they only known its
origin, they could have paid us back in our own coin, and made us feel
very small indeed. But though we almost hesitate to arm them with a
weapon which they may turn against ourselves, we must be conscientious,
and do what we have undertaken. The story is this: ‘When Ben Jonson the
dramatist was introduced to a nobleman, the peer was so struck with
his homely appearance that he exclaimed: “What! you are Ben Jonson?
Why, you look as if you could not say Bo! to a goose.” “Bo!” exclaimed
the witty dramatist, turning to the peer and making his bow.’
From geese we pass on to cats, which are very emblematic in slang, and
in the phrase _Letting the cat out of the bag_ we are reminded of its
thievish ancestry. ‘It was formerly a trick among country folks to
substitute a cat for a sucking-pig, and bring it in a bag to market.
If any greenhorn chose to buy a pig in a poke—that is, a blind bargain
without examining the contents of the bag—all very well; but if he
opened the sack “he let the cat out of the bag,” and the trick was
discovered,’ And so the phrase passed into common use as applying to
any one who let out a secret. _Who will bell the cat?_ became another
popular phrase, and is taken from the fable of the cunning old mouse
who suggested that they should hang a bell round the cat’s neck, so
that due warning might be had of her approach. The idea was approved
of by all the mice assembled; there was only one drawback to it: ‘Who
was to hang the bell round the cat’s neck?’ Or in shorter words: ‘Who
was to bell the cat?’ Not one of them was found ready to run the risk
of sacrificing his own life for the safety of the others, which is now
the recognised meaning of the proverb. _Fighting like Kilkenny cats_ is
another slang simile, taken from a story that two cats once fought so
ferociously in a saw-pit that they left nothing behind them but their
tails—which story is an allegory, and supposed to represent two towns
in Kilkenny that contended so ‘stoutly about boundaries and rights to
the end of the seventeenth century that they mutually impoverished each
other.’
How common is the expression, _Oh! she is down in the dumps_—that is,
out of spirits. This is a very ancient slang phrase, and is supposed to
be derived from ‘Dumpos king of Egypt, who built a pyramid and died of
melancholy;’ so that the thieves and the gipsies are not all to blame
for having given us a few expressive words!
We next come upon a word full of pathetic meaning for many of us: it
is the ghost that haunts us at Christmas-time, and pursues us more or
less throughout the new year—it is the word _dun_. It is a word of
consequence, for it is at once a verb and a noun, and is derived from
the Saxon word _dunan_, to din or clamour. It owes its immortality—so
tradition says—to having been the surname of one Joe Dun, a famous
bailiff of Lincoln in the reign of Henry VII., who was so active and
dexterous in collecting bad debts, that when any one became ‘slow to
pay,’ the neighbours used to say: ‘Dun him;’ that is, send Dun after
him.
_Draw it mild_ and _Come it strong_ have their origin in music, being
the terms used by the leader of an orchestra when he wishes his
violin-players to play loud or gently. From this they have passed into
synonyms for exaggerators and boasters, who are requested either to
moderate their statements or to astonish their audience.
The word _coach_ in these days is a painfully familiar one, as parents
know who have to employ tutors to assist their sons to swallow the
regulation amount of ‘cram’ necessary for a competitive examination.
The word is of university origin, and can boast of a logical etymology.
It is a pun upon the term ‘getting on fast.’ To get on fast you must
take a coach; you cannot get on fast in learning without a private
tutor—ergo, a private tutor is a coach. Another familiar word in
university slang is ‘a _regular brick_;’ that is, a jolly good fellow;
and how the simile is logically deduced is amusing enough. ‘A brick is
_deep red_, so a _deep-read_ man is a brick. To read like a brick is
to read until you are deep _read_. A deep-read man is, in university
phrase, a “good man;” a good man is a “jolly fellow” with non-reading
men; ergo, a jolly fellow is a brick.’
_I have a bone to pick with you_ is a phrase that is uncomplimentary
to the ladies at starting. It means, as is well known, having an
unpleasant matter to settle with you; and this is the origin of the
phrase. ‘At the marriage banquets of the Sicilian poor, the bride’s
father, after the meal, used to hand the bridegroom a bone, saying:
“Pick this bone; for you have taken in hand a much harder task.”’ _The
gray mare is the better horse_ comes well after this last aspersion
upon the fair sex, to shew that woman is paramount. The origin of this
proverb was that a man wished to buy a horse, but his wife took a fancy
to a gray mare, and so pertinaciously insisted that the gray mare was
the better horse, that her husband was obliged to yield the point.
But then no doubt he saw that she was right in the end, and in all
probability boasted afterwards of _his_ selection.
_To be among the gods_ at a theatre is a common phrase applied to those
who are seated near the ceiling, which in most theatres is generally
painted blue, to represent the sky, and inhabited by rosy-faced Cupids
sitting on clouds.
The proverb, _Those who live in glass houses should not throw stones_,
dates back to the Union of England and Scotland, at which time
London was inundated with Scotchmen. This did not please the Duke of
Buckingham, who organised a movement against them, and parties formed,
who went about nightly to break their windows. In retaliation, a party
of Scotchmen smashed the windows of the Duke’s mansion, which stood in
St Martin’s Fields, and had so many windows that it went by the name of
the Glass House. The Duke appealed to the king, who replied: ‘Steenie,
Steenie, those wha live in glass houses should be carefu’ how they
fling stanes.’
_First catch your hare_ is the result of a mistake. It was supposed to
be in a cookery-book written by a certain Mrs Glasse, and was evidently
caught hold of by some wag, who read it for, ‘First scatch or scradge
your hare;’ that is, skin and trim it—an East Anglian word; or else,
‘First scotch your hare before you jug it;’ that is, cut it into small
pieces, as the sentence as it is now quoted is nowhere in the book.
But the wag was a clever one who gave it the precautionary turn, as
the phrase has done good service in warning many to secure their prize
before they arrange how to dispose of it.
When people talk of having nothing but ‘common-sense,’ they very often
mean that they have good sense only; while the real meaning of the word
lies in having the sense common to all five senses, or the point where
the five senses meet, supposed to be the seat of the soul, where it
judges what is presented to the senses, and decides the mode of action.
Another common expression is, _I was scared out of my seven senses_.
The origin of this goes very far back. According to ancient teaching,
the soul of man or his ‘inward holy body’ was compounded of the seven
properties which were under the influence of the seven planets. Fire,
animated; earth gave the sense of feeling; water, speech; air, taste;
mist gave sight; flowers, hearing; and the south wind, smelling.
Hence the seven senses were—animation, feeling, speech, taste, sight,
hearing, smelling.
It is interesting to notice how by the progress of time words become
convertible; thus _baron_ has for long years been held as a title of
honour, while that of _slave_ applies to the lowest of menials. Now the
real meaning of baron is _dolt_, and is derived from the Latin word
_baro_, a thorough fool. It was a term applied to a serving-soldier
in the first instance; gradually it rose in estimation, and military
chiefs were styled barons; finally, lords appropriated the title, which
is now one of high distinction. On the other hand, the word slave is
derived from a Slavonic word _slav_, meaning illustrious, noble. But
when the Slavs were conquered by the Romans, they were reduced by them
to become ‘hewers of wood and drawers of water.’ _Idiot_ is another
word that originally had a much more respectable meaning than the one
it now bears. It was used to distinguish private people from those
who held office, or courted publicity in any form. Thus Jeremy Taylor
says: ‘Humility is a duty in great ones as well as in idiots’ (or
private persons). The term became corrupted at last into a synonym for
incompetency, owing to the inability of idiots or private persons to
take office.
A _cub_ is an ill-mannered lout that needs _licking into shape_. The
simile was taken from the cub of a bear, that is said to have no shape
until it has been licked into form by its dam. The only difference lies
in the process of licking being so much pleasanter for the animal than
for the human cub, who finds nothing maternal about the cane that beats
him into shape.
Before lead-pencils were common, chalk served the purpose of marking.
Thus I _beat him by long chalks_ refers to the ancient custom of
scoring merit-marks in chalk. _Walk your chalks_, or get out of the
way, is the corruption of an expression: ‘Walk; you’re chalked.’
When lodgings were wanted in any town for the retinue of any royal
personage, they were arbitrarily seized by the marshal and sergeant
chamberlain; and the inhabitants were turned out and told to go,
as their houses had been selected and were _chalked_. Hence the
appropriateness of the peremptory dismissal: ‘Walk; you’re chalked.’
A ‘bull’ or blunder is a native of Ireland, and is derived from one
Obadiah Bull, an Irish lawyer of London, in the reign of Henry VII.,
whose blunders were proverbial. ‘The pope’s bulls take their name from
the capsule of the seal appended to the document. Subsequently, the
seal was called the _bolla_, and then the document itself was given the
name.’
And now we come to a very pet word; what ladies would do without it, is
hard to say, it is such a safety-valve to the feelings in moments of
irritation. We have heard some gentlemen declare it was the ladies’ way
of swearing; but then there is nothing profane in the word BOTHER! It
is a wholesome blessed word, however it is used, as it allows of women
being irritable without being _very_ sinful! One looks out for its
etymology with interest, and finds it is of Hibernian origin, capable
of a soothing inflection, as when bother becomes botheration, which
is a magnified form of bother, and suggests an ebullition of feeling
that might be serious but for the relieving expletive. ‘Grose,’ we are
told, ‘suggests _both-ears_ as the derivation of the word, and defends
his guess by the remark, that when two persons are talking at the same
time, one on one side and one on the other, the person talked to is
perplexed and annoyed.’ We quite believe him, and feel inclined from
experience to adopt his view of the derivation.
We all know what blarney is—that soft sweet speech in which the sons
and daughters of Erin excel; those sugared words that are so pleasant
to the ear, though false to the heart. Such speech is well named
blarney, and carries us back to the hero that made it a household word.
He was one ‘Cormuck Macarthy, who held the castle of Blarney in 1602,
and concluded an armistice with Carew, the Lord President, on condition
of surrendering the fort to the English garrison. Day after day his
lordship looked for the fulfilment of the terms, but received nothing
except protocols and soft speeches, till he became the laughing-stock
of Elizabeth’s ministers and the dupe of the lord of Blarney.’ The
Blarney Stone is a triangular stone lowered from the castle about
twenty feet from the top, containing on it the inscription: ‘Cormuck
Macarthy fortis me fieri fecit, A.D. 1446.’ Whoever kisses this stone
is supposed to be endowed with irresistible powers of persuasion.
We began this paper by likening ourselves to the ass among the bundles
of hay, not knowing where to begin; so we have nibbled a little
everywhere, and have had sufficient for to-day’s meal, although we
are greedy enough to regret many tit-bits left untasted from sheer
incapacity to consume any more at one sitting.