Any sudden excitement or peculiar circumstance is quite sufficient to originate and set going a score of Slang words. Nearly every election or public agitation throws out offshoots of excitement, or scintillations of humour in the shape of Slang terms—vulgar at first, but at length adopted, if possessing sufficient hold on the public mind, as semi-respectable from sheer force of habit. There is scarcely a condition or calling in life that does not possess its own peculiar Slang. The professions, legal and medical, have each familiar and unauthorized terms for peculiar circumstances and things, and it is quite certain that the clerical calling, or “the cloth”—in itself a Slang term given at a time when the laity were more distinguished by their gay dress from the clergy than they are now—is not entirely free from this peculiarity. Every workshop, warehouse, factory, and mill throughout the country has its Slang, and so have the public schools and the Universities of Oxford and Cambridge. Sea Slang constitutes the principal charm of a sailor’s “yarn;” and our soldiers have in turn their peculiar nicknames and terms for things and subjects, proper and improper. A writer in Household Words (No. 183) has gone so far as to remark, that a person “shall not read one single parliamentary debate, as reported in a first-class newspaper, without meeting scores of Slang words,” and “that from Mr. Speaker in his chair, to the Cabinet Ministers whispering behind it—from mover to seconder, from true blue Protectionist to extremest Radical—Mr. Barry’s New House echoes and re-echoes with Slang.” This statement is most worthy of notice, as showing how, with a very small sub-stratum of fact, a plausible, though not the less gigantic, mis-statement may be built up.
The universality of Slang is extraordinary. Let any person for a short time narrowly examine the conversation of his dearest and nearest friends, or even analyse his own supposed correct talk, and he shall be amazed at the numerous unauthorized, and what we can only call vulgar, words in constant use. One peculiarity of the growth of Slang is the finding of new meanings for old words. Take, for instance, the verbs “do,” “cut,” “go,” and “take,” and see how they are used to express fresh ideas, and then let us ask ourselves how is it possible for a Frenchman or German, be he never so well educated, to avoid continually blundering and floundering amongst our little words when trying to make himself understood in an ordinary conversation? He may have studied our language the required time, and have gone through the usual amount of “grinding,” and practised the common allotment of patience, but all to no purpose as far as accuracy is concerned. As, however, we do not make our language, nor for the matter of that our Slang, for the convenience or inconvenience of foreigners, we need not pursue this portion of the subject further. “Jabber” and “hoax” were Slang and Cant terms in Swift’s time; so, indeed, were “mob” and “sham.”[42] Words directly from the Latin and Greek, framed in accordance with the rules which govern the construction of the language, are not Slang, but are good English, if not Saxon,—a term, by the way, which is as much misused as any unfortunate word that can be remembered just now. Sound contributes many Slang words—a source that etymologists frequently overlook. Nothing pleases an ignorant person so much as a high-sounding term, “full of fury.” How melodious and drum-like are those vulgar coruscations “rumbumptious,” “slantingdicular,” “splendiferous,” “rumbustious,” and “ferricadouzer.” What a “pull” the sharp-nosed lodging-house-keeper thinks she has over her victims if she can but hurl such testimonies of a liberal education at them when they are disputing her charges, and threatening to “absquatulate!” In the United States the vulgar-genteel even excel the poor “stuck-up” Cockneys in their formation of a native fashionable language. How charming to a refined ear are “abskize,” “catawampously,” “exflunctify,” “obscute,” “keslosh,” “kesouse,” “keswollop,” and “kewhollux!”[43] It must not be forgotten, however, that a great many new “Americanisms” are perfectly unknown in America, and in this respect they resemble the manners and customs of our cousins as found in books, and in books only. Vulgar words representing action and brisk movement often owe their origin to sound, as has before been remarked. Mispronunciation, too, is another great source of vulgar or Slang words, and of this “ramshackle,” “shackly,” “nary-one” for neither or neither one, “ottomy” or “atomy” for anatomy, “rench” for rinse, are specimens. The commonalty dislike frequently-occurring words difficult of pronunciation, and so we have the street abridgments of “bimeby” for by-and-by, “caze” for because, “gin” for given, “hankercher” for handkerchief, “ruma tiz” for rheumatism, “backer” for tobacco, and many others, not perhaps Slang, but certainly, all vulgarisms. Whately, in his Remains of Bishop Copleston, has inserted a leaf from the bishop’s note-book on the popular corruption of names, mentioning, among others, “kickshaws,” as from the French quelques choses; “beefeater,” the grotesque guardian of royalty in a procession, and the envied devourer of enormous beefsteaks, as but a vulgar pronunciation of the French buffetier, and “George and Cannon,” the sign of a public-house, as nothing but a corruption (although so soon!) of the popular premier of the last generation, George Canning.[44] Literature has its Slang terms; and the desire on the part of writers to say funny and startling things in a novel and curious way contributes many unauthorized words to the great stock of Slang.
Fashionable or Upper-class Slang is of several varieties. There is the Belgravian, military and naval, parliamentary, dandy, and the reunion and visiting Slang. English officers, civilians, and their families, who have resided long in India, have contributed many terms from the Hindostanee to our language. Several of these, such as “chit,” a letter, and “tiffin,” lunch, are fast losing their Slang character, and becoming regularly-recognised English words. “Jungle,” as a term for a forest or wilderness, is now an English phrase; a few years past, however, it was merely the Hindostanee “junkul.” This, being a perfectly legal transition, having no other recognised form, can hardly be characterized as Slang. The extension of trade in China, and the English settlement of Hong Kong, have introduced among us several examples of Canton jargon, that exceedingly curious Anglo-Chinese dialect spoken in the seaports of the Celestial Empire. While these words have been carried as it were into the families of the upper and middle classes, persons in a humbler rank of life, through the sailors and soldiers and Lascar and Chinese beggars that haunt the metropolis, have also adopted many Anglo-Indian and Anglo-Chinese phrases. As this dictionary would have been incomplete without them, they are carefully recorded in its pages. Concerning the Slang of the fashionable world, it has been remarked that it is mostly imported from France; and that an unmeaning gibberish of Gallicisms runs through English fashionable conversation and fashionable novels, and accounts of fashionable parties in the fashionable newspapers. Yet, ludicrously enough, immediately the fashionable magnates of England seize on any French idiom, the French themselves not only universally abandon it to us, but positively repudiate it altogether from their idiomatic vocabulary. If you were to tell a well-bred Frenchman that such and such an aristocratic marriage was on the tapis, he would stare with astonishment, and look down on the carpet in the startled endeavour to find a marriage in so unusual a place. If you were to talk to him of the beau monde, he would imagine you meant the world which God made, not half-a-dozen streets and squares between Hyde Park Corner and Chelsea Bun House. The thé dansant would be completely inexplicable to him. If you were to point out to him the Dowager Lady Grimgriffin acting as chaperon to Lady Amanda Creamville, he would imagine you were referring to the petit Chaperon rouge—to little Red-Riding Hood. He might just understand what was meant by vis-à-vis, entremets, and some others of the flying horde of frivolous little foreign slangisms hovering about fashionable cookery and fashionable furniture; but three-fourths of them would seem to him as barbarous French provincialisms, or, at best, but as antiquated and obsolete expressions, picked out of the letters of Mademoiselle Scuderi, or the tales of Crebillon “the younger.” Servants, too, appropriate the scraps of French conversation which fall from their masters’ guests at the dinner table, and forthwith in the world of flunkeydom the word “know” is disused, and the lady’s-maid, in doubt on a particular point, asks John whether or no he “saveys” it?[45] What, too, can be more abominable than that heartless piece of fashionable newspaper Slang, regularly employed when speaking of the successful courtship of young people in the aristocratic world:—
Marriage in High Life.—We understand that a marriage is ARRANGED (!) betwixt the Lady, &c. &c., and the Honourable, &c. &c.
“Arranged!” Is that cold-blooded Smithfield or Mark Lane term for a sale or a purchase the proper word to express the hopeful, joyous, golden union of young and trustful hearts? Possibly, though, the word is often used with a due regard to facts, for marriages, especially amongst our upper classes, are not always “made in heaven.” Which is the proper way to pronounce the names of great people, and what the correct authority? Lord Cowper, we are often assured, is Lord Cooper—on this principle Lord Cowley would certainly be Lord Cooley—and Mr. Carew, we are told, should be Mr. Carey, Ponsonby should be Punsunby, Eyre should be Aire, Cholmondeley should be Chumley, St. John Sinjen, Beauchamp should be Beachem, Majoribanks Marshbanks, and Powell should always be Poel. The pronunciation of proper names has long been an anomaly in the conversation of the upper classes of this country. Hodge and Podge, the clodhoppers of Shakspeare’s time, talked in their mug-houses of the great Lords Darbie, Barkelie, and Bartie. In Pall Mall and May Fair these personages are spoken of in exactly the same manner at the present day, whilst in the City, and amongst the middle classes, we only hear of Derby, Berkeley, &c.,—the correct pronunciations, if the spelling is worth aught. It must not be forgotten, however, that the pronunciation of the upper classes, as regards the names of places just mentioned, is a relic of old times when the orthography was different. The middle-class man is satisfied to take matters the modern way, but even he, when he wishes to be thought a swell, alters his style. In fact, the old rule as to proper names being pronounced according to individual taste, is, and ever will be, of absolute necessity, not only as regards the upper and middle, but the lower classes. A costermonger is ignorant of such a place as Birmingham, but understands you in a moment if you talk of Brummagem. Why do not Pall Mall exquisites join with the costermongers in this pronunciation? It is the ancient one.[46]
Parliamentary Slang, excepting a few peculiar terms connected with “the House” (scarcely Slang), is mainly composed of fashionable, literary, and learned Slang. When members get excited, and wish to be forcible, they are now and again, but not very often, found guilty of vulgarisms, and then may be not particular which of the street terms they select, providing it carries, as good old Dr. South said, plenty of “wildfire” in it. Lord Cairns when Sir Hugh, and a member of the Lower House, spoke of “that homely but expressive phrase, ‘dodge.’” Out of “the House,” several Slang terms are used in connexion with Parliament or members of Parliament. If Lord Palmerston was familiar by name to the tribes of the Caucasus and Asia Minor as a great foreign diplomatist, when the name of our Queen was unknown to the inhabitants of those parts—as was once stated in the Times—it is worthy of remark that, amongst the costers and the wild inhabitants of the streets, he was at that time better known as “Pam.” The cabmen on the “ranks” in Piccadilly have been often heard to call each other’s attention to the great leader of the Opposition in the following expressive manner—“Hollo, there! de yer see old ‘Dizzy’ doing a stump?” A “plumper” is a single vote at an election—not a “split-ticket;” and electors who had occupied a house, no matter how small, and boiled a pot in it, thus qualifying themselves for voting, used in the good old days to be termed “potwallopers.” A quiet “walk over” is a re-election without opposition and much cost; and is obtained from the sporting vocabulary, in which the term is not Slang. A “caucus” meeting refers to the private assembling of politicians before an election, when candidates are chosen, and measures of action agreed upon. The term comes from America, where caucus means a meeting simply. A “job,” in political phraseology, is a Government office or contract obtained by secret influence or favouritism; and is not a whit more objectionable in sound than is the nefarious proceeding offensive to the sense of those who pay but do not participate. The Times once spoke of “the patriotic member of Parliament ‘potted out’ in a dusty little lodging somewhere about Bury Street.” But then the Times was not always the mildly respectable high-class paper it now is, as a reference to the columns devoted by it to Macaulay’s official career will alone determine. These, which appeared during the present reign, would be far below the lowest journalistic taste nowadays; yet they are in keeping with the rest of the political references made at that time by the now austere and high-principled “leading journal.” The term “quockerwodger,” although referring to a wooden toy figure which jerks its limbs about when pulled by a string, has been supplemented with a political meaning. A pseudo-politician, whose strings of action are pulled by somebody else, is often termed a “quockerwodger.” From an early period politics and partyism have attracted unto themselves quaint Slang terms. Horace Walpole quotes a party nickname of February, 1742, as a Slang word of the day:—“The Tories declare against any further prosecution, if Tories there are, for now one hears of nothing but the ‘broad-bottom;’ it is the reigning Cant word, and means the taking all parties and people, indifferently, into the Ministry.” Thus “broad-bottom” in those days was Slang for “coalition.” The term “rat,” too, in allusion to rats deserting vessels about to sink, has long been employed towards those turncoat politicians who change their party for interest. Who that occasionally passes near the Houses of Parliament has not often noticed stout or careful M.P.’s walk briskly through the Hall, and on the kerb-stone in front, with umbrella or walking-cane uplifted, shout to the cabmen on the rank, “Four-wheeler!” The term is both useful and expressive; but it is none the less Slang, though of a better kind than “growler,” used to denominate the same kind of vehicle, or “shoful,” the street term for a hansom cab.
Military Slang is on a par, and of a character, with dandy Slang. Inconvenient friends, or elderly and lecturing relatives, are pronounced “dreadful bores.” This affectionate term, like most other Slang phrases which have their rise in a certain section of society, has spread and become of general application. Four-wheeled cabs are called “bounders;” and a member of the Four-in-hand Club, driving to Epsom on the Derby Day, would, using fashionable phraseology, speak of it as “tooling his drag down to the Derby.” A vehicle, if not a “drag” (or dwag), is a “trap,” or a “cask;” and if the “turn-out” happens to be in other than a trim condition, it is pronounced at once as not “down the road,” unless the critic should prefer to characterize the equipage as “dickey.” Your City swell would say it is not “up to the mark;” whilst the costermonger would call it a “wery snide affair.” In the army a barrack or military station is known as a “lobster-box;” to “cram” for an examination is to “mug-up” (this same term is much in vogue among actors, who regard mugging-up as one of the fine arts of the profession); to reject from the examination is to “spin;” and that part of the barrack occupied by subalterns is frequently spoken of as the “rookery.” In dandy or swell Slang, any celebrity, from the Poet-Laureate to the Pope of Rome, is a “swell,”—“the old swell” now occupies the place once held by the “guv’nor.” Wrinkled-faced old professors, who hold dress and fashionable tailors in abhorrence, are called “awful swells,”—if they happen to be very learned or clever. In this upper-class Slang, a title is termed a “handle;” trousers, “inexpressibles,” and bags, or “howling bags,” when of a large pattern;—a superior appearance, or anything above the common cut, is styled “extensive;” a four-wheeled cab is called a “birdcage;” a dance, a “hop;” dining at another man’s table, “sitting under his mahogany;” anything flashy or showy, “loud;” the peculiar make or cut of a coat, its “build;” full dress, “full fig;” wearing clothes which represent the very extreme of fashion, “dressing to death;” a dinner or supper party, a “spread;” a friend (or a “good fellow”), a “trump;” a difficulty, a “screw loose;” and everything that is unpleasant, “from bad sherry to a writ from a tailor,” “jeuced infernal.” The phrase, “to send a man to Coventry,” or permit no person “in the set” to speak to him, although an ancient saying, must still be considered Slang.
The Universities of Oxford and Cambridge, and the great public schools, are the hotbeds of fashionable Slang. Growing boys and high-spirited young fellows detest restraint of all kinds, and prefer making a dash at life in a Slang phraseology of their own to all the set forms and syntactical rules of Alma Mater. Many of the most expressive words in a common chit-chat, or free-and-easy conversation, are old university vulgarisms. “Cut,” in the sense of dropping an acquaintance, was originally a Cambridge form of speech; and “hoax,” to deceive or ridicule, we are informed by Grose, was many years since an Oxford term. Among the words that fast society has borrowed from our great scholastic—not establishments (they are sacred to linendrapery and “gentlemanly assistants”)—institutions, is found “crib,” a house or apartments; “dead men,” empty wine bottles; “drawing teeth,”[47] wrenching off knockers,—an obsolete amusement; “fizzing,” first-rate, or splendid; “governor,” or “relieving-officer,” the general term for a male parent; “plucked,” defeated or turned back, now altered to “plough;” “quiz,” to scrutinize, or a prying old fellow; and “row,” a noisy disturbance. The Slang words in use at Oxford and Cambridge would alone fill a volume. As examples let us take “scout,” which at Oxford refers to an undergraduate’s valet, whilst the same menial at Cambridge is termed a “gyp,”—popularly derived by the Cantabs from the Greek, γὺψ, a vulture; “skull,” the head, or master, of a college; “battles,” the Oxford term for rations, changed at Cambridge into “commons.” The term “dickey,” a half-shirt, it is said, originated with the students of Trinity College, Dublin, who at first styled it a “tommy,” from the Greek τομὴ, a section,—the change from “tommy” to “dickey” requires no explanation. “Crib,” a literal translation, is now universal; “grind” refers to “working up” for an examination, also to a walk or “constitutional;” “Hivite” is a student of St. Begh’s (St. Bee’s) College, Cumberland; to “japan,” in this Slang speech, is to ordain; “mortar board” is a square college cap; “sim,” a student of a Methodistical turn—in allusion to the Rev. Charles Simeon; “sloggers,” at Cambridge, refers to the second division of race-boats, known at Oxford as “torpids;” “sport” is to show or exhibit; “trotter” is the jocose term for a tailor’s man who goes round for orders; and “tufts” are privileged students who dine with the “dons,” and are distinguished by golden tufts, or tassels, in their caps. Hence we get the world-wide Slang term “tuft-hunter,” one whose pride it is to be acquainted with scions of the nobility—a sycophantic race unfortunately not confined to any particular place or climate, nor peculiar to any age or either sex. There are many terms in use at Oxford not known at Cambridge; and such Slang names as “coach,” “gulf,” “harry-soph,” “poker,” or “post-mortem,” common enough at Cambridge, are seldom or never heard at the great sister University. For numerous other examples of college Slang the reader is referred to the Dictionary.
Religious Slang, strange as the compound may appear, exists with other descriptions of vulgar speech at the present day. Punch, in one of those half-humorous, half-serious articles, once so characteristic of the wits engaged on that paper, who were, as a rule, fond of lecturing any national abuse or popular folly, remarked—“Slang has long since penetrated into the Forum, and now we meet it in the Senate, and even the pulpit itself is no longer free from its intrusion.” There is no wish here, for one moment, to infer that the practice is general. On the contrary, and in justice to the clergy, it must be said that the principal disseminators of pure English throughout the country are the ministers of our Established Church. Yet it cannot be denied that a great deal of Slang phraseology and expressive vulgarism have gradually crept into the very pulpits which should give forth as pure speech as doctrine. This is an error which, however, has only to be noticed, to be cured.
Dean Conybeare, in his able “Essay on Church Parties,”[48] has noticed this addition of Slang to our pulpit speech. As stated in his Essay, the practice appears to confine itself mainly to the exaggerated forms of the High and Low Church—the Tractarians and the “Recordites.”[49] By way of illustration, the Dean cites the evening parties, or social meetings, common amongst the wealthier lay members of the Recordite churches, where the principal topics discussed—one or more favourite clergymen being present in a quasi-official manner—are “the merits and demerits of different preachers, the approaching restoration of the Jews, the date of the Millennium, the progress of the ‘Tractarian heresy,’ and the anticipated ‘perversion’ of High Church neighbours.” These subjects are canvassed in a dialect differing considerably from English, as the word is generally understood. The terms “faithful,” “tainted,” “acceptable,” “decided,” “legal,” and many others, are used in a sense different from that given to any of them by the lexicographers. We hear that Mr. A. has been more “owned” than Mr. B.; and that Mr. C. has more “seals”[50] than Mr. D. Again, the word “gracious” is invested with a meaning as extensive as that attached by young ladies to nice. Thus, we hear of a “gracious sermon,” a “gracious meeting,” a “gracious child,” and even a “gracious whipping.” The word “dark” has also a new and peculiar usage. It is applied to every person, book, or place not impregnated with Recordite principles. A ludicrous misunderstanding resulting from this phraseology is on record (this is not a joke). “What did you mean,” said A. to B., “by telling me that —— was such a very ‘dark’ village? I rode over there to-day, and found the street particularly broad and cheerful, and there is not a tree in the place.” “The gospel is not preached there,” was B’s. laconic reply. The conclusion of one of these singular evening parties is generally marked by an “exposition”—an unseasonable sermon of nearly one hour’s duration, circumscribed by no text, and delivered from the table by one of the clerical visitors with a view to “improve the occasion.” This same term, “improve the occasion,” is of Slang slangy, and is so mouthed by Stigginses and Chadbands, and their followers, that it has become peculiarly objectionable to persons of broad views. In the Essay to which reference has been made, the religious Slang terms for the two great divisions of the Established Church receive some explanation. The old-fashioned High Church party—rich and “stagnant,” noted for its “sluggish mediocrity, hatred of zeal, dread of innovation, abuse of Dissent, blundering and languid utterance”—is called the “high and dry;” whilst the opposing division, known as the Low Church—equally stagnant with the former, but poorer, and more lazily inclined (from absence of education) towards Dissent—receives the nickname of the “low and slow.” These terms are among persons learned in the distinctions shortened, in ordinary conversation, to the “dry” and the “slow.” The Broad Church, or moderate division, is often spoken of as the “broad and shallow.”