THE ORIGIN OF SOME SLANG PHRASES.
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.