Geordie, general term in Northumberland and Durham for a pitman, or coal-miner. From the Greek, George meaning one who works the earth, originally a cultivator; the term has been in use more than a century.
German Duck, a sheep’s-head stewed with onions; a favourite dish among the German sugar-bakers in the East-end of London.
German Ducks, bugs.—Yorkshire.
Get up, a person’s appearance or general arrangements. Probably derived from the decorations of a play.
“There’s so much GETTING UP to please the town,
It takes a precious deal of coming down.”
Ghost, “the GHOST doesn’t walk,” a theatrical term which implies that there is no money about, and that there will be no “treasury.”
Gibberish, unmeaning jargon; the language of the gipsies, synonymous with SLANG, another Gipsy word. Somner says, “French, GABBER; Dutch, GABBEREN; and our own GAB, GABBER; hence also, I take it, our GIBBERISH, a kind of canting language used by a sort of rogues we vulgarly call gipsies, a gibble-gabble understood only among themselves.” See [Introduction]. The GIBBERISH of schoolboys is formed by placing a consonant between each syllable of a word, and is called the GIBBERISH of the letter inserted. Thus, if F were the letter, it would be termed the F GIBBERISH; if L, the L GIBBERISH—as in the sentence, “How do you do?—Howl dol youl dol?” A GIBBERISH is sometimes formed by adding vis to each word, in which the previous sentence would be—“Howvis dovis youvis dovis?” These things are worthy of schoolboys, as they are in ability far below the rhyming, the back, or the centre slang, each of which is constructed by people possessing no claim to literary excellence whatever. Schoolboys in France form a GIBBERISH, in a somewhat similar manner, by elongating their words two syllables, in the first of which an r, in the second a g, predominates. Thus the words vous êtes un fou are spoken, vousdregue esdregue undregue foudregue. Fast persons in Paris, of both sexes, frequently adopt terminations of this kind, from some popular song, actor, exhibition, or political event. In 1830, the favourite termination was mar, saying épicemar for épicier, cafémar for café. In 1823, when the diorama created a sensation in Paris, the people spoke in rama (on parlait en rama.) In Balzac’s beautiful tale, Le Père Goriot, the young painter at the boarding-house dinner-table mystifies the landlady by saying, “What a beautiful soupeaurama!” To which the old woman replies, to the great laughter of the company, “I beg your pardon, sir, it is une soupe à choux.” These adaptations can hardly be called slang, or we shall have everybody making a slang of his own, and refusing to believe in any one’s else—a sort of secondhand edition of the Tower of Babel.
Gib-face, a heavy, ugly face; GIB is properly the lower lip of a horse; “to hang one’s GIB,” to pout the lower lip, to be angry or sullen.
Gibus, an opera hat. From the inventor of the crush hat.
Giffle-gaffle, or GIBBLE-GABBLE, nonsense. See [CHAFF]. Icelandic, GAFLA.