A DEFENCE OF SLANG.
For the Table Book.
“To think like wise men, and to talk like common people,” is a maxim that has long stood its ground. What is the language of “common people?” slang—ergo, every body ought to talk it. What is slang? Many will answer that it consists of words used only by the lowest and most ignorant classes of society, and that to employ them would be most ungenteel. First, then, we must inquire a little what it is to be genteel, and this involves the question, what is a gentleman? Etymologically, every body knows what is the meaning of the term; and Dekker, the old English play-poet, uses it in this sense, when in one of his best dramas he justly calls our Saviour
“The first true gentleman that ever breathed.”
Dekker’s greatest contemporary, in reference to certain qualities he attributes to “man’s deadliest enemy,” tells us, though we are not bound to take his word for it, unless we like it,
“The Prince of Darkness is a gentleman;”
in which he follows the opinion long before expressed by the Italian poet Pulci, in his Morgante Maggiore, (canto xxv. st. 161.)
Che gentilezza è bene anche in inferno.
Pulci seems so pleased with this discovery, (if it be one,) that he repeats it in nearly the same words (in the following canto, st. 83.)
Non creder ne lo inferno anche fra noi
Gentilezza non sia.
The old bone-shoveller in Hamlet maintains that your only real and thorough gentlemen are your “gardeners, ditchers, and grave-makers;” so that, after all, the authorities on this point are various and contradictory. If it be objected that slang (otherwise sometimes called flash) is employed very much by boxers and prize-fighters, teachers and practisers of “the noble science of self-defence,” one answer may be supplied by a quotation from Aristotle, which shows that he himself was well skilled in the art, and he gives instructions how important it is to hit straight instead of round, following up the blow by the weight of the body. His words upon this subject are quoted (with a very different purpose certainly) in the last number of the Edinburgh Review, (p. 279.) So that we need only refer to them. Another “old Grecian” might be instanced in favour of the use of slang, and even of incorrect grammar; for every scholar knows (and we know it who are no scholars) that Aristophanes in the first scene of his comedy, named in English The Clouds, makes his hero talk bad Greek, and employ language peculiar to the stable: the scholiasts assert that Phidippides ought to have said, even in his sleep, ω Φιλε αδιχεις instead of Φιλων αδιχεις, which he uses. However, we are perhaps growing too learned, although it will be found in the end, (if not already in the beginning,) that this is a learned article, and ought perhaps to have been sent for publication in the Classical Journal.
What we seek to establish is this:—that the language of the ignorant is the language of the learned; or in less apparently paradoxical terms, that what is considered slang and unfit for “ears polite,” is in fact a language derived from the purest and most recondite sources. What is the chief recommendation of lady Morgan’s new novel?—for what do ladies of fashion and education chiefly admire it? Because the authoress takes such pains to show that she is acquainted with French, Italian, and even Latin, and introduces so many apt and inapt quotations. What is the principal advantage of modern conversation? That our “home-keeping youths” have no longer “homely wits,” and that they interlard their talk with scraps and words from continental tongues. Now if we can show that slang is compounded, in a great degree, of words derived from German, French, Italian, and Latin, shall we not establish that what is at present the language of the ignorant is in fact the language of the learned, and ought to be the language employed by all gentlemen pretending to education, and of all ladies pretending to blue-stocking attainments? We proceed to do so by a selection of a few of the principal words which are considered slang or flash, of which we shall show the etymology.
Blowin—“an unfortunate girl,” in the language of the police-offices. This is a very old word in English, and it is derived from blühen, German, to bloom or blossom. Some may think that it comes from the German adjective blau. The Germans speak of a blue-eye, as we talk of a black-eye, and every body is aware that blowins are frequently thus ornamented.
To fib—a term in boxing. It means, to clasp an antagonist round the neck with one arm, and to punish him with the other hand. It is from the Italian fibbia, a clasp or buckle. The Italian verb affibiare is used by Casti precisely in this sense:—Gli affibia un gran ceffon. (Nov. xliii. st. 65.)
Fogle—a handkerchief—properly and strictly a handkerchief with a bird’s eye pattern upon it. From the German vogel, a bird.
Gam—the leg. Liston has introduced this word upon the stage, when in Lubin Log he tells old Brown that he is “stiffish about the gams.” We have it either from the French jambe, or the Italian gamba.
Leary—cunning or wary. Correctly it ought to be written lehry. The derivation of it is the German lehre, learning or warning. The authorities for this word are not older than the time of James I.
Max—gin. Evidently from the Latin maximus, in reference to the strength and goodness of the liquor.
To nim—to take, snatch, or seize. It is used by Chaucer—“well of English undefiled.” It is derived from the Saxon niman, whence also the German nehmen, to take. We have it in the every-day adjective, nimble. The name of the corporal in Shakspeare’s Henry V. ought to be spelled Nim, and not Nym, (as the commentators ignorantly give it,) from his furtive propensity.
Pal—a companion. It is perhaps going too far to fetch this word from the Persian palaker, a comrade. It rather originates in the famous story told by Boccacio, Chaucer, Dryden, &c. &c. of the friendship of Palamon and Arcyte; pal being only a familiar abbreviation of Palamon, to denote an intimate friend.
To prig—to rob or steal. It is doubtful whether this word be originally Spanish or Italian. Preguntar in Spanish is to demand, and robbing on the highway is demanding money or life. Priega in Italian is a petition—a mode of committing theft without personal violence. In English the word to prig is now applied chiefly to picking pockets, owing to the degeneracy of modern rogues: a prig is a pick-pocket.
Sappy—foolish, weak. Clearly from the Latin sapio—lucus à non lucendo.
Seedy—shabby—worn out: a term used to indicate the decayed condition of one who has seen better days: it refers principally to the state of his apparel: thus a coat which has once been handsome, when it is old is called seedy, and the wearer is said to look seedy. It is only a corruption of the French ci-devant—formerly; with an ellipsis of the last syllable. It has no reference to running to seed, as is commonly supposed.
Spoony—silly or stupid—is used both as a substantive and as an adjective. Some have conjectured that it owes its origin to the wooden spoon at Cambridge, the lowest honour conferred by that university, the individual gaining it being entitled to no other, rather from his dulness than his ignorance. Its etymology is in fact to be found in the Italian word saponé, soap; and it is a well-known phrase that “a stupid fellow wants his brains washing with soap-suds.”
Spree—fun, joke—is from the French esprit, as every body must be aware in an instant.
Togs—dress—from the Latin toga, the robe worn by Roman citizens. Toggery means properly a great coat, but it is also used generally for the apparel.
We might go through the whole vocabulary in the same way, and prove that some terms are even derived from the Hebrew, through the medium of the Jews; but the preceding “elegant extracts” will be sufficient. It is to be regretted that the Rev. J. H. Todd has been so hasty in publishing his second edition of Johnson’s Dictionary, or he might, and no doubt would, after what we have said, include many words not now to be found there, and which we contend are the chief ornaments of our vernacular. Perhaps it would be worth his while to add a supplement, and we shall be happy to render him any assistance.
December, 1827. Philologus.