Language of Costermongers.
The slang language of the costermongers is not very remarkable for originality of construction; it possesses no humour: but they boast that it is known only to themselves; it is far beyond the Irish, they say, and puzzles the Jews. The root of the costermonger tongue, so to speak, is to give the words spelt backward, or rather pronounced rudely backward,—for in my present chapter the language has, I believe, been reduced to orthography for the first time. With this backward pronunciation, which is very arbitrary, are mixed words reducible to no rule and seldom referrable to any origin, thus complicating the mystery of this unwritten tongue; while any syllable is added to a proper slang word, at the discretion of the speaker.
Slang is acquired very rapidly, and some costermongers will converse in it by the hour. The women use it sparingly; the girls more than the women; the men more than the girls; and the boys most of all. The most ignorant of all these classes deal most in slang and boast of their cleverness and proficiency in it. In their conversations among themselves, the following are invariably the terms used in money matters. A rude back-spelling may generally be traced:
| Flatch | Halfpenny. |
| Yenep | Penny. |
| Owt-yenep | Twopence. |
| Erth-yenep | Threepence. |
| Rouf-yenep | Fourpence. |
| Ewif-yenep | Fivepence. |
| Exis-yenep | Sixpence. |
| Neves-yenep | Sevenpence. |
| Teaich-yenep | Eightpence. |
| Enine-yenep | Ninepence. |
| Net-yenep | Tenpence. |
| Leven | Elevenpence. |
| Gen | Twelvepence. |
| Yenep-flatch | Three half-pence. |
and so on through the penny-halfpennies.
It was explained to me by a costermonger, who had introduced some new words into the slang, that “leven” was allowed so closely to resemble the proper word, because elevenpence was almost an unknown sum to costermongers, the transition—weights and measures notwithstanding—being immediate from 10d. to 1s.
“Gen” is a shilling and the numismatic sequence is pursued with the gens, as regards shillings, as with the “yeneps” as regards pence. The blending of the two is also according to the same system as “Owt-gen, teaich-yenep” two-and-eightpence. The exception to the uniformity of the “gen” enumeration is in the sum of 8s., which instead of “teaich-gen” is “teaich-guy:” a deviation with ample precedents in all civilised tongues.
As regards the larger coins the translation into slang is not reducible into rule. The following are the costermonger coins of the higher value:
| Couter | Sovereign. |
| Half-Couter, or Net-gen | Half-sovereign. |
| Ewif-gen | Crown. |
| Flatch-ynork | Half-crown. |
The costermongers still further complicate their slang by a mode of multiplication. They thus say, “Erth Ewif-gens” or 3 times 5s., which means of course 15s.
Speaking of this language, a costermonger said to me: “The Irish can’t tumble to it anyhow; the Jews can tumble better, but we’re their masters. Some of the young salesmen at Billingsgate understand us,—but only at Billingsgate; and they think they’re uncommon clever, but they’re not quite up to the mark. The police don’t understand us at all. It would be a pity if they did.”
I give a few more phrases:
| A doogheno or dabheno? | Is it a good or bad market? |
| A regular trosseno | A regular bad one. |
| On | No. |
| Say | Yes. |
| Tumble to your barrikin | Understand you. |
| Top o’ reeb | Pot of beer. |
| Doing dab | Doing badly. |
| Cool him | Look at him. |
The latter phrase is used when one costermonger warns another of the approach of a policeman “who might order him to move on, or be otherwise unpleasant.” “Cool” (look) is exclaimed, or “Cool him” (look at him). One costermonger told me as a great joke that a very stout policeman, who was then new to the duty, was when in a violent state of perspiration, much offended by a costermonger saying “Cool him.”
| Cool the esclop | Look at the police. |
| Cool the namesclop | Look at the policeman. |
| Cool ta the dillo nemo | Look at the old woman; |
said of any woman, young or old, who, according to costermonger notions, is “giving herself airs.”
This language seems confined, in its general use, to the immediate objects of the costermonger’s care; but is, among the more acute members of the fraternity, greatly extended, and is capable of indefinite extension.
The costermongers oaths, I may conclude, are all in the vernacular; nor are any of the common salutes, such as “How d’you do?” or “Good-night” known to their slang.
Many costermongers, “but principally—perhaps entirely,”—I was told, “those who had not been regular born and bred to the trade, but had taken to it when cracked up in their own,” do not trouble themselves to acquire any knowledge of slang. It is not indispensable for the carrying on of their business; the grand object, however, seems to be, to shield their bargainings at market, or their conversation among themselves touching their day’s work and profits, from the knowledge of any Irish or uninitiated fellow-traders.
The simple principle of costermonger slang—that of pronouncing backward, may cause its acquirement to be regarded by the educated as a matter of ease. But it is a curious fact that lads who become costermongers’ boys, without previous association with the class, acquire a very ready command of the language, and this though they are not only unable to spell, but don’t “know a letter in a book.” I saw one lad, whose parents had, until five or six months back, resided in the country. The lad himself was fourteen; he told me he had not been “a costermongering” more than three months, and prided himself on his mastery over slang. To test his ability, I asked him the coster’s word for “hippopotamus;” he answered, with tolerable readiness, “musatoppop.” I then asked him for the like rendering of “equestrian” (one of Astley’s bills having caught my eye). He replied, but not quite so readily, “nirtseque.” The last test to which I subjected him was “good-naturedly;” and though I induced him to repeat the word twice, I could not, on any of the three renderings, distinguish any precise sound beyond an indistinct gabbling, concluded emphatically with “doog:”—“good” being a word with which all these traders are familiar. It must be remembered, that the words I demanded were remote from the young costermonger’s vocabulary, if not from his understanding.
Before I left this boy, he poured forth a minute or more’s gibberish, of which, from its rapid utterance, I could distinguish nothing; but I found from his after explanation, that it was a request to me to make a further purchase of his walnuts.
This slang is utterly devoid of any applicability to humour. It gives no new fact, or approach to a fact, for philologists. One superior genius among the costers, who has invented words for them, told me that he had no system for coining his term. He gave to the known words some terminating syllable, or, as he called it, “a new turn, just,” to use his own words, “as if he chorussed them, with a tol-de-rol.” The intelligence communicated in this slang is, in a great measure, communicated, as in other slang, as much by the inflection of the voice, the emphasis, the tone, the look, the shrug, the nod, the wink, as by the words spoken.