In English, as well as in most other languages, there are a great many terms and expressions which are chiefly used in certain trades and professions, and which are often unintelligible to outsiders. Such terms, for instance, are pater, mater (father, mother), to be plucked or ploughed (to be rejected in an examination), tuck (sweetstuff), swot (study hard), slack (the contrary of the last-named), coach (private tutor), etc., all in common use among schoolboys. Many of them, such as chum, chummy, cheek, jaw (chatter), spoon (make love), bunk (run away, escape), etc., have exceeded their original sphere and encroached upon common, colloquial language. Among the most important categories of slang, the following may be mentioned: student-, schoolboy-, military-, commercial- and sporting-slang. The political world, Parliament, the printing-offices, the stage, nay, even the Church, give their tributes to the vocabulary of slang. The slang-terms are mostly common to all individuals of the same class, but occasionally they differ. Thus, two universities, or even two neighbouring schools, sometimes use different semi-technical terms to express the same idea.
By cant or vulgarism (low-slang) I mean the easy, natural language of the uneducated people.
Originally, cant signified the secret language, used by the vagrant classes, the »Canting Crew»—gipsies, thieves, beggars, highwaymen, etc. But, in the course of time, the word has become a general, half-contemptuous name for the special phraseology and vocabulary of the lower classes. Cant is the native tongue of Seven Dials and Whitechapel, of Wapping and St. Giles, of Clare Market and East India Docks, generally speaking, of the suburbs and slums of English towns—of all places where »the Rough», the uncultivated individual of the lower classes, has his whereabouts. The labourer generally intermingles his talk more or less with cant. It is the jargon of the Street Arabs (the London street-boys), the Costers, the Bookmakers, the Hooligans (the »Apaches» of London), the Cheap Jacks, the Newspaper Boys, the Shoeblack Brigade, etc., etc. The colloquial language of the cultivated is mixed up with cant-expressions, the amount depending on the individual’s social position, his sex, his age, etc. Even literary language now and then borrows a term or a phrase from cant. Words such as cad, pal, rum, row, cove, etc., are nowadays understood in refined society, and are generally used in colloquial language.
The centre and starting-point of cant has always been London—»Rom Vile», the marvellous city—and the vagrant people, assembled thither from all parts of the Empire and of the world, have joined in creating its vocabulary.
Its cosmopolitan character makes it a very difficult task to search into its etymological sources, all the more so, as the words and phrases have regularly become more or less altered on their being transplanted into English soil. The cleverest etymologists are here often non-plussed, and, in most cases, we must content ourselves with conjectures. Quite naturally, the main part of its vocabulary consists of Anglo-Saxon words, usually badly maimed. The mysterious Gipsy language, Romany, as yet but imperfectly investigated, has furnished a considerable number of old cant-terms. Such words are, for instance, pal, row, cove, rum or rom, shindy, all original cant-terms, but now partly colloquial[4]. In French originate, e. g., the old cant-word vile (town), cropoh (= crapaud, nick-name for a Frenchman), savey (to know), bean (a generic term for money; bien), quandary (qu’en dirai-je? embarrassment), dace or duce (deux: a twopenny-piece); in German: frow (Frau), kinchen (Kindchen), nix (nichts), gilt (old cant for money), finuf (a five-pound-note: fünf); in Italian: case (house); nantee (niente: nothing), letty (letto: bedstead), bene (as in bene darkmans: good night!); in Dutch: booze (buysen: to drink), bloke (blok?: man); in Latin: max (maximum?: gin), panum or panam (old cant for bread), nincom or ninny (non compos mentis: simpleton), quid (sovereign); in Hebrew: shickster (girl; Hebr. chackets?), schofel (name for a hansom-cab), etc.[5].
Especially during the last decades, America has strongly influenced the development of the English language. Americanisms are to be found in great number both in colloquial English, and also in slang and cant.
The grammar, as well as the phonology, of cant differs in many respects from that of the literary language.
Analogy plays an important rôle, and the anomalisms and divergencies are often of the same nature as those found in the language of children. The inflection is, accordingly, very much simplified, but, on the other hand, vulgar language has preserved several old forms which do not exist in the speech of the cultivated.
The best way to study Cant and Slang is, of course, to listen to the speaking individual himself. But, for several reasons, this must, as a rule, be left to natural-born Englishmen. Another way is to study literature, especially the English and American humorists.
Whoever has tried to make himself at home in this special branch of English literature has undoubtedly had some reason to complain of the insufficiency of the philological aids within his reach. He will often search in vain for the information he wants in the most detailed grammars; the dictionaries of slang and cant may stand him in good stead, but they are all insufficient, and they do not always agree with one another; in particular, their classification is very inconsistent and often erroneous. On the whole, it may be truly stated that this important part of the English language is, as yet, but imperfectly investigated.