Читать книгу A Dictionary of Slang, Cant, and Vulgar Words - Hotten John Camden - Страница 6

Slang is the language of street humour, of fast, high, and low life. Cant, as was stated in the chapter upon that subject, is the vulgar language of secrecy. They are both universal and ancient, and appear to have been the peculiar concomitants of gay, vulgar, or worthless persons in every part of the world, at every period of time. Indeed, if we are to believe implicitly the saying of the wise man, that “there is nothing new under the sun,” the “fast” men of buried Nineveh, with their knotty and door-matty looking beards, may have cracked Slang jokes on the steps of Sennacherib’s palace; and the stocks and stones of Ancient Egypt, and the bricks of venerable and used-up Babylon, may, for aught we know, be covered with Slang hieroglyphics unknown to modern antiquarians, and which have long been stumbling-blocks to the philologist; so impossible is it at this day to say what was then authorised, or what then vulgar language. Slang is as old as speech and the congregating together of people in cities. It is the result of crowding, and excitement, and artificial life. Even to the classics it was not unknown, as witness the pages of Aristophanes and Plautus, Terence and Athenæus. Martial, the epigrammatist, is full of Slang. When an uninvited guest accompanied his friend, the Slang of the day styled him his UMBRA; when a man was trussed, neck and heels, it called him jocosely QUADRUPUS.

Old English Slang was coarser, and depended more upon downright vulgarity than our modern Slang. It was a jesting speech, or humorous indulgence for the thoughtless moment, or the drunken hour, and it acted as a vent-peg for a fit of temper or irritability; but it did not interlard and permeate every description of conversation as now. It was confined to nick-names and improper subjects, and encroached but to a very small extent upon the domain of authorised speech. Indeed, it was exceedingly limited when compared with the vast territory of Slang in such general favour and complete circulation at the present day. Still, although not an alarming encumbrance, as in our time, Slang certainly did exist in this country centuries ago, as we may see if we look down the page of any respectable History of England. Cromwell was familiarly called OLD NOLL, – just the same as Buonaparte was termed BONEY, and Wellington CONKEY, or NOSEY, only a few years ago. His Legislature, too, was spoken of in a high-flavoured way as the BAREBONES, or RUMP Parliament, and his followers were nicknamed ROUNDHEADS, and the peculiar religious sects of his protectorate were styled PURITANS and QUAKERS.35 The Civil War pamphlets, and the satirical hits of the Cavaliers and the Commonwealth men, originated numerous Slang words and vulgar similes, in full use at the present moment. Here is a field of inquiry for the Philological Society, indeed I may say a territory, for there are thirty thousand of these partisan tracts. Later still, in the court of Charles the Second, the naughty ladies and the gay lords, with Rochester at their head, talked Slang; and very naughty Slang it was too! Fops, in those days, when “over head and ears” in debt, and in continual fear of arrest, termed their enemies, the bailiffs, PHILISTINES36 or MOABITES. At a later period, when collars were worn detached from shirts, in order to save the expense of washing – an object it would seem with needy “swells” in all ages – they obtained the name of JACOBITES. One half of the coarse wit in Butler’s Hudibras lurks in the vulgar words and phrases which he was so fond of employing. They were more homely and forcible than the mild and elegant sentences of Cowley, and the people, therefore, hurrah’d them, and pronounced Butler one of themselves, – or, as we should say, in a joyful moment, a jolly good fellow. Orator Henley preached and prayed in Slang, and first charmed and then swayed the dirty mobs in Lincoln’s Inn Fields by vulgarisms. Burly Grose mentions Henley, with the remark that we owe a great many Slang phrases to him. Swift, and old Sir Roger L’Estrange, and Arbuthnot, were all fond of vulgar or Slang language; indeed, we may see from a Slang word used by the latter how curious is the gradual adoption of vulgar terms in our standard dictionaries. The worthy doctor, in order to annihilate (or, as we should say with a fitting respect to the subject under consideration, SMASH) an opponent, thought proper on an occasion to use the word CABBAGE, not in the ancient and esculentary sense of a flatulent vegetable of the kitchen garden, but in the at once Slang sense of purloining or cribbing. Johnson soon met with the word, looked at it, examined it, weighed it, and shook his head, but out of respect to a brother doctor inserted it in his dictionary, labelling it, however, prominently “Cant;” whilst Walker and Webster, years after, when to cabbage was to pilfer all over England, placed the term in their dictionaries as an ancient and very respectable word. Another Slang term, GULL, to cheat, or delude, sometimes varied to GULLY, is stated to be connected with the Dean of St. Patrick. Gull, a dupe, or a fool, is often used by our old dramatists, and is generally believed to have given rise to the verb; but a curious little edition of Bamfylde Moore Carew, published in 1827, says that TO GULL, or GULLY, is derived from the well known Gulliver, the hero of the famous Travels. How crammed with Slang are the dramatic works of the last century! The writers of the comedies and farces in those days must have lived in the streets, and written their plays in the public-houses, so filled are they with vulgarisms and unauthorised words. The popular phrases, “I owe you one,” “that’s one for his nob,” and “keep moving, dad,” arose in this way.37 The second of these sayings was, doubtless, taken from the card table, for at cribbage the player who holds the knave of the suit turned up counts “one for his nob,” and the dealer who turns up a knave counts “two for his heels.”

In Mrs. Centlivre’s admirable comedy of A Bold Stroke for a Wife, we see the origin of that popular street phrase, THE REAL SIMON PURE. Simon Pure is the Quaker name adopted by Colonel Feignwell as a trick to obtain the hand of Mistress Anne Lovely in marriage. The veritable Quaker, the “real Simon Pure,” recommended by Aminadab Holdfast, of Bristol, as a fit sojourner with Obadiah Prim, arrives at last to the discomfiture of the Colonel, who, to maintain his position and gain time, concocts a letter in which the real Quaker is spoken of as a housebreaker who had travelled in the “leather conveniency” from Bristol, and adopted the garb and name of the Western Quaker in order to pass off as the “REAL SIMON PURE,” but only for the purpose of robbing the house and cutting the throat of the perplexed Obadiah. The scene in which the two Simon Pures, the real and the counterfeit, meet, is one of the best in the comedy.

Tom Brown, of “facetious memory,” as his friends were wont to say, and Ned Ward, who wrote humorous books, and when tired drew beer for his customers at his ale-house in Long Acre,38 were both great producers of Slang in the last century, and to them we owe many popular current phrases and household words.

Written Slang was checked rather than advanced by the pens of Addison, Johnson, and Goldsmith, although John Bee, the bottle-holder and historiographer of the pugilistic band of brothers in the youthful days of flat-nosed Tom Crib, has gravely stated that Johnson, when young and rakish, contributed to an early volume of the Gentleman’s Magazine a few pages, by way of specimen, of a Slang dictionary, the result, Mr. Bee says, “of his midnight ramblings!”39 And Goldsmith, I must not forget to remark, certainly coined a few words, although, as a rule, his pen was pure and graceful, and adverse to neologisms. The word FUDGE, it has been stated, was first used by him in literary composition, although it originated with one Captain Fudge, a notorious fibber, nearly a century before. Street-phrases, nick-names, and vulgar words were continually being added to the great stock of popular Slang up to the commencement of the present century, when it received numerous additions from pugilism, horse-racing, and “fast” life generally, which suddenly came into great public favour, and was at its height when the Prince Regent was in his rakish minority. Slang in those days was generally termed FLASH language. So popular was it with the “bloods” of high life that it constituted the best paying literary capital for certain authors and dramatists. Pierce Egan issued Boxiana, and Life in London, six portly octavo volumes, crammed with Slang; and Moncrieff wrote the most popular farce of the day, Tom and Jerry (adapted from the latter work), which, to use newspaper Slang, “took the town by storm,” and, with its then fashionable vulgarisms, made the fortune of the old Adelphi Theatre, and was, without exception, the most wonderful instance of a continuous theatrical RUN in ancient or modern times. This, also, was brimful of Slang. Other authors helped to popularise and extend Slang down to our own time, when it has taken a somewhat different turn, dropping many of the Cant and old vulgar words, and assuming a certain quaint and fashionable phraseology – Frenchy, familiar, utilitarian, and jovial. There can be no doubt but that common speech is greatly influenced by fashion, fresh manners, and that general change of ideas which steals over a people once in a generation. But before I proceed further into the region of Slang, it will be well to say something on the etymology of the word.

The word Slang is only mentioned by two lexicographers – Webster and Ogilvie. Johnson, Walker, and the older compilers of dictionaries, give slang the preterite of sling, but not a word about Slang in the sense of low, vulgar, or unrecognised language. The origin of the word has often been asked for in literary journals and books, but only one man, as far as I can learn, has ever hazarded an etymology – Jonathan Bee, the vulgar chronicler of the prize-ring.40 With a recklessness peculiar to pugilism, Bee stated that Slang was derived from “the slangs or fetters worn by prisoners, having acquired that name from the manner in which they were worn, as they required a sling of string to keep them off the ground.” Bee had just been nettled at Pierce Egan producing a new edition of Grose’s Dictionary of the Vulgar Tongue, and was determined to excel him in a vulgar dictionary of his own, which should be more racy, more pugilistic, and more original. How far he succeeded in this latter particular his ridiculous etymology of Slang will show. Slang is not an English word, it is the Gipsey term for their secret language, and its synonyme is GIBBERISH – another word which was believed to have had no distinct origin.41 Grose – stout and burly Captain Grose – who we may characterise as the greatest antiquary, joker, and drinker of porter of his day, was the first author who put the word Slang into print. It occurs in his Classical Dictionary of the Vulgar Tongue, of 1785, with the signification that it implies “Cant or vulgar language.” Grose, I may remark in passing, was a great favourite with the poet Burns, and so pleased by his extensive powers of story-telling and grog-imbibing, that the companionable and humour-loving Scotch bard wrote for his fat friend – or, to use his own words, “the fine, fat, fodgel wight” – the immortal poem of “Tam O’Shanter.”

Without troubling the reader with a long account of the transformation into an English term of the word Slang, I may remark in passing that it is easily seen how we obtained it from the Gipseys. Hucksters and beggars on tramp, or at fairs and races, associate and frequently join in any rough enterprise with the Gipseys. The word would be continually heard by them, and would in this manner soon become Cant;42 and, when carried by “fast” or vulgar fashionables from the society of thieves and low characters to their own drawing-rooms, would as quickly become Slang, and the representative term for all vulgar or Slang language.

Any sudden excitement, peculiar circumstance, or popular literary production, is quite sufficient to originate and set going a score of Slang words. Nearly every election or public agitation throws out offshoots of the excitement, or scintillations of the humour in the shape of Slang terms – vulgar at first, but at length adopted as semi-respectable from the force of habit and custom. 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 unauthorised terms for peculiar circumstances and things, and I am quite certain that the clerical calling, or “the cloth,” 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 of Eton, Harrow, and Westminster, and the great Universities of Oxford and Cambridge. Sea Slang constitutes the principal charm of a sailor’s “yarn,” and our soldiers and officers have each 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.” Really it seems as if our boasted English tongue was a very paltry and ill-provided contrivance after all; or can it be that we are the most vulgar of people?

The universality of Slang is extraordinary. Let any person for a short time narrowly examine the conversation of their dearest and nearest friends, aye, censor-like, even slice and analyse their own supposed correct talk, and they shall be amazed at the numerous unauthorised, and what we can only call vulgar, words they continually employ. It is not the number of new words that we are ever introducing that is so reprehensible, there is not so much harm in this practice (frequently termed in books “the license of expression”) if neologisms are really required, but it is the continually encumbering of old words with fresh and strange meanings. Look at those simple and useful verbs, do, cut, go, and take, and see how they are hampered and overloaded, and then let us ask ourselves how it is that a French or German gentleman, be he ever so well educated, is 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. I am aware that most new words are generally regarded as Slang, although afterwards they may become useful and respectable additions to our standard dictionaries. Jabber and HOAX were Slang and Cant terms in Swift’s time; so indeed were MOB and SHAM.43 Words directly from the Latin and Greek, and Carlyleisms, are allowed by an indulgent public to pass and take their places in books. Sound contributes many Slang words – a source that etymologists too frequently overlook. Nothing pleases an ignorant person more than 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! Vulgar words representing action and brisk movement often owe their origin to sound. Mispronunciation, too, is another great source of vulgar or slang words – RAMSHACKLE, SHACKLY, NARY-ONE for neither, or neither one, OTTOMY 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, RUMATIZ for rheumatism, BACKY for tobacco, and many others, not perhaps Slang, but certainly all vulgarisms. Archbishop Whately, in his interesting 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 lubberly guardian of royalty in a procession, and the supposed 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. 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 (the late Household Words,44 for instance), contributes many unauthorised 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. Concerning the Slang of the fashionable world, a writer in Household Words curiously, but not altogether truthfully, remarks, 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 dansante45 would be completely inexplicable to him. If you were to point out to him the Dowager Lady Grimguffin 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-a-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?46 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 fashionable 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? 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 he Aire, Cholmondeley should be Chumley, St. John Singen, Majoribanks Marshbanks, Derby Darby (its ancient pronunciation), and Powell should always be Poel. I don’t know that these lofty persons have as much cause to complain of the illiberality of fate in giving them disagreeable names as did the celebrated Psyche (as she was termed by Tom Moore), whose original name, through her husband, was Teague, but which was afterwards altered to Tighe.

Parliamentary Slang, excepting a few peculiar terms connected with “the House” (scarcely Slang, I suppose), is mainly composed of fashionable, literary, and learned Slang. When members, however, get excited and wish to be forcible, they are often not very particular which of the street terms they select, providing it carries, as good old Dr. South said, plenty of wild-fire in it. Sir Hugh Cairns very lately spoke of “that homely but expressive phrase, DODGE.” Out of “the House,” several Slang terms are used in connection with Parliament or members of Parliament. If Lord Palmerston is known by name to the tribes of the Caucasus and Asia Minor as a great foreign diplomatist, when the name of our Queen Victoria is an unknown title to the inhabitants of those parts – as was stated in the Times a short time ago, – I have only to remark that amongst the costers and the wild inhabitants of the streets he is better known as PAM. I have often heard the cabmen on the “ranks” in Piccadilly remark of the late Chancellor of the Exchequer, when he has been going from his residence at Grosvenor Gate, to Derby House in St. James’s Square, – “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 have occupied a house, no matter how small, and boiled a pot in it, thus qualifying themselves for voting, are termed POT-WOLLOPERS. A quiet WALK OVER is a re-election without opposition and much cost. 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. A JOB, in political phraseology, is a government office or contract obtained by secret influence or favouritism. Only the other day the Times spoke of “the patriotic member of Parliament POTTED OUT in a dusty little lodging somewhere about Bury-street.” 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, one whose strings of action are pulled by somebody else, is now often termed a QUOCKERWODGER. 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 curb-stone in front, with umbrella or walking cane uplifted, shout to the cabmen on the rank, FOUR-WHEELER! The term is a useful one, but I am afraid we must consider it Slang, until it is stamped with the mint mark of lexicographical authority.47

Military, or Officers’ Slang is on a par, and of a character with Dandy Slang. Inconvenient friends, or elderly and lecturing relatives, are pronounced DREADFUL BORES. Four-wheel cabs are called BOUNDERS; and a member of the Four-in-hand Club, driving to Epsom on the Derby day, would, using fashionable slang 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. Your city swell would say it is not UP TO THE MARK; whilst the costermonger would call it WERY DICKEY. In the army a barrack or military station is known as a LOBSTER-BOX; to “cram” for an examination is to MUG-UP; 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 Robson of the Olympic, to the Pope of Rome, is a SWELL. 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. I may remark that in this upper class Slang a title is termed a HANDLE; trousers, INEXPRESSIBLES; or when of a large pattern, or the inflated Zouave cut, HOWLING BAGS; a superior appearance, EXTENSIVE; a four-wheeled cab, 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 reunion, 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 military phrase, “to send a man to COVENTRY,” or permit no person 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 [I was going to say establishments, but I remembered the linen drapers’ horrid and habitual use of the word] institutions, I find CRIB, a house or apartments; DEAD-MEN, empty wine bottles; DRAWING TEETH,48 wrenching off knockers; FIZZING, first-rate, or splendid; GOVERNOR, or RELIEVING OFFICER, the general term for a male parent; PLUCKED, defeated or turned back; QUIZ, to scrutinise, 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 I may instance 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, GYPS (γυψ), a vulture; SCULL, the head, or master of a college; BATTLES, the Oxford term for rations, changed at Cambridge into COMMONS. The term DICKEY, a half shirt, I am told, originated with the students of Trinity College, Dublin, who at first styled it a TOMMY, from the Greek, τομη, a section. Crib, a literal translation, is now universal; GRIND refers 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 wealthy students who dine with the DONS, and are distinguished by golden tufts, or tassels, in their caps. 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, a short time since, in one of those half-humorous, half-serious articles in which he is so fond of lecturing any national abuse or popular folly, remarked that Slang had “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.” I would not, for one moment, wish 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 but that a great deal of Slang phraseology and disagreeable vulgarism have gradually crept into the very pulpits which should give forth as pure speech as doctrine.

Dean Conybeare, in his able Essay on Church Parties,49 has noticed this wretched addition 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.”50 By way of illustration, the Dean cites the evening parties, or social meetings, common amongst the wealthier lay members of the Recordite (exaggerated Evangelical) 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 common English. The words FAITHFUL, TAINTED, ACCEPTABLE, DECIDED, LEGAL, and many others, are used in a technical sense. We hear that Mr. A. has been more OWNED than Mr. B; and that Mr. C. has more SEALS51 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. We once were witnesses of a ludicrous misunderstanding resulting from this phraseology. “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.” In the same Essay, 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 corresponding division, known as the Low Church, equally stagnant with the former, but poorer, and more lazily inclined (from absence of education), to dissent, receives the nickname of the LOW AND SLOW. Already have these terms become so familiar that they are shortened, in ordinary conversation, to the DRY and the SLOW. The so-called “Broad Church,” I should remark, is often spoken of as the BROAD AND SHALLOW.

What can be more objectionable than the irreverent and offensive manner in which many of the dissenting ministers continually pronounce the names of the Deity, God and Lord. God, instead of pronouncing in the plain and beautifully simple old English way, G-O-D, they drawl out into GORDE or GAUDE; and Lord, instead of speaking in the proper way, they desecrate into LOARD or LOERD, – lingering on the u, or the r, as the case may be, until an honest hearer feels disgusted, and almost inclined to run the gauntlet of beadles and deacons, and pull the vulgar preacher from his pulpit. I have observed that many young preachers strive hard to acquire this peculiar pronunciation, in imitation of the older ministers. What can more properly, then, be called Slang, or, indeed, the most objectionable of Slang, than this studious endeavour to pronounce the most sacred names in a uniformly vulgar and unbecoming manner. If the old-fashioned preacher whistled Cant through his nose, the modern vulgar reverend whines Slang from the more natural organ. These vagaries of speech will, perhaps, by an apologist, he termed “pulpit peculiarities,” and the writer dared to intermeddle with a subject that is or should be removed from his criticisms. The terms used by the mob towards the Church, however illiberal and satirically vulgar, are within his province in such an inquiry as the present. A clergyman, in vulgar language, is spoken of as a CHOKER, a CUSHION THUMPER, a DOMINE, an EARWIG, a GOSPEL GRINDER, a GRAY COAT PARSON – if he is a lessee of the great tithes, ONE IN TEN, PADRE – if spoken of by an Anglo-Indian, a ROOK, a SPOUTER, a WHITE CHOKER, or a WARMING PAN RECTOR, if he only holds the living pro tempore, or is simply keeping the place warm for his successor. If a Tractarian, his outer garment is rudely spoken of as a PYGOSTOLE, or M.B. (MARK OF THE BEAST) COAT. His profession is termed THE CLOTH, and his practice TUB THUMPING. Should he belong to the dissenting body, he is probably styled a PANTILER, or a PSALM SMITER, or, perhaps, a SWADDLER. His chapel, too, is spoken of as a SCHISM SHOP. A Roman Catholic, I may remark, is coarsely named a BRISKET BEATER.

Particular as lawyers generally are about the meaning of words, they have not prevented an unauthorised phraseology from arising, which we may term Legal Slang. So forcibly did this truth impress a late writer, that he wrote in a popular journal, “You may hear Slang every day in term from barristers in their robes, at every mess-table, at every bar-mess, at every college commons, and in every club dining-room.” Swift, in his Art of Polite Conversation (p. 15), published a century and a half ago, states that VARDI was the Slang in his time for “verdict.” A few of the most common and well-known terms used out of doors, with reference to legal matters, are COOK, to hash or make up a balance-sheet; DIPPED, mortgaged; DUN, to solicit payment; FULLIED, to be “fully committed for trial;” LAND-SHARK, a sailor’s definition of a lawyer; LIMB OF THE LAW, a milder term for the same “professional;” MONKEY WITH A LONG TAIL, a mortgage – phrase used in the well-known case for libel, Smith v. Jones; MOUTHPIECE, the coster’s term for his counsel; “to go through the RING,” to take advantage of the Insolvency Act; SMASH, to become bankrupt; SNIPE, an attorney with a long bill; and WHITEWASHED, said of any debtor who has taken the benefit of the Insolvent Act. Lawyers, from their connection with the police courts, and transactions with persons in every grade of society, have ample opportunities for acquiring street Slang, which in cross-questioning and wrangling they frequently avail themselves of.

It has been said there exists a Literary Slang, or “the Slang of Criticism– dramatic, artistic, and scientific. Such words as ‘æsthetic,’ ‘transcendental,’ the ‘harmonies,’ the ‘unities,’ a ‘myth:’ such phrases as ‘an exquisite morceau on the big drum,’ a ‘scholarlike rendering of John the Baptist’s great toe,’ ‘keeping harmony,’ ‘middle distance,’ ‘ærial perspective,’ ‘delicate handling,’ ‘nervous chiaroscuro,’ and the like.” More than one literary journal that I could name are fond of employing such terms in their art criticisms, but it is questionable, after all, whether they are not allowable as the generous inflections and bendings of a bountiful language, for the purpose of expressing fresh phases of thought, and ideas not yet provided with representative words.52 The well-known and ever-acceptable Punch, with his fresh and choice little pictorial bits by Leech, often employs a Slang term to give point to a joke, or humour to a line of satire. A short time since (4th May, 1859) he gave an original etymology of the school-boy-ism SLOG. Slog, said the classical and studious Punch, is derived from the Greek word SLOGO, to baste, to wallop, to slaughter. And it was not long ago that he amused his readers with two columns on Slang and Sanscrit: —

“The allegory which pervades the conversation of all Eastern nations,” remarked the philosophical Punch, “is the foundation of Western Slang; and the increased number of students of the Oriental languages, especially since Sanscrit and Arabic have been made subjects for the Indian Civil Service Examinations, may have contributed to supply the English language with a large portion of its new dialect. While, however, the spirit of allegory comes from the East, there is so great a difference between the brevity of Western expression and the more cumbrous diction of the Oriental, that the origin of a phrase becomes difficult to trace. Thus, for instance, whilst the Turkish merchant might address his friend somewhat as follows – ‘That which seems good to my father is to his servant as the perfumed breath of the west wind in the calm night of the Arabian summer;’ the Western negociator observes more briefly, ‘ALL SERENE!’”

But the vulgar term, BRICK, Punch remarks in illustration,

“must be allowed to be an exception, its Greek derivation being universally admitted, corresponding so exactly as it does in its rectangular form and compactness to the perfection of manhood, according to the views of Plato and Simonides; but any deviation from the simple expression, in which locality is indicated, – as, for instance, ‘a genuine Bath,’ – decidedly breathes the Oriental spirit.”

It is singular that what Punch says, unwittingly and in humour, respecting the Slang expression, BOSH, should be quite true. Bosh, remarks Punch, after speaking of it as belonging to the stock of words pilfered from the Turks, “is one whose innate force and beauty the slangographer is reluctantly compelled to admit. It is the only word which seems a proper appellation for a great deal which we are obliged to hear and to read every day of our life.” Bosh, nonsense or stupidity, is derived from the Gipsey and the Persian. The universality of Slang, I may here remark, is proved by its continual use in the pages of Punch. Whoever thinks, unless belonging to a past generation, of asking a friend to explain the stray vulgar words employed by the London Charivari?

The Athenæum, the most learned and censor-like of all the “weeklies,” often indulges in a Slang word, when force of expression or a little humour is desired, or when the writer wishes to say something which is better said in Slang, or so-called vulgar speech, than in the authorised language of Dr. Johnson or Lindley Murray. It was but the other day that a writer in its pages employed an old and favourite word, used always when we were highly pleased with any article at school, – STUNNING. Bartlett, the compiler of the Dictionary of Americanisms, continually cites the Athenæum as using Slang and vulgar expressions; – but the magazine the American refers to is not the excellent literary journal which is so esteemed at the present day, it was a smaller, and now defunct “weekly.” Many other highly respectable journals often use Slang words and phrases. The Times (or, in Slang, the THUNDERER) frequently employs unauthorised terms; and, following a “leader”53 of the purest and most eloquent English composition, may sometimes be seen another “article”53 on a totally different subject, containing, perhaps, a score or more of exceedingly questionable words. Among the words and phrases which may be included under the head of Literary Slang are, – BALAAM, matter kept constantly in type about monstrous productions of nature, to fill up spaces in newspapers; BALAAM BOX, the term given in Blackwood to the depository for rejected articles; and SLATE, to pelt with abuse, or CUT UP in a review. The Slang names given to newspapers are curious; – thus, the Morning Advertiser is known as the TAP-TUB, the TIZER, and the GIN AND GOSPEL GAZETTE. The Morning Post has obtained the suggestive soubriquet of JEAMES; whilst the Morning Herald has long been caricatured as MRS. HARRIS, and the Standard as MRS. GAMP.54

The Stage, of course, has its Slang – “both before and behind the curtain,” as a journalist remarks. The stage manager is familiarly termed DADDY; and an actor by profession, or a “professional,” is called a PRO. A man who is occasionally hired at a trifling remuneration to come upon the stage as one of a crowd, or when a number of actors are wanted to give effect, is named a SUP, – an abbreviation of “supernumerary.” A SURF is a third-rate actor who frequently pursues another calling; and the band, or orchestra between the pit and the stage, is generally spoken of as the MENAGERY. A BEN is a benefit; and SAL is the Slang abbreviation of “salary.” Should no wages be forthcoming on the Saturday night, it is said that the GHOST DOESN’T WALK. The travelling or provincial theatricals, who perform in any large room that can be rented in a country village, are called BARN STORMERS. A LENGTH is forty-two lines of any dramatic composition; and a RUN is the good or bad success of a performance. A SADDLE is the additional charge made by a manager to an actor or actress upon their benefit night. To MUG UP is to paint one’s face, or arrange the person to represent a particular character; to CORPSE, or to STICK, is to balk, or put the other actors out in their parts by forgetting yours. A performance is spoken of as either a GOOSER or a SCREAMER, should it be a failure or a great success; – if the latter, it is not infrequently termed a HIT. To STAR IT is to perform as the centre of attraction, with none but subordinates and indifferent actors in the same performance. The expressive term CLAP-TRAP, high-sounding nonsense, is nothing but an ancient theatrical term, and signified a TRAP to catch a CLAP by way of applause. “Up amongst the GODS,” refers to being among the spectators in the gallery, – termed in French Slang PARADIS.

There exists, too, in the great territory of vulgar speech what may not inappropriately be termed Civic Slang. It consists of mercantile and Stock Exchange terms, and the Slang of good living and wealth. A turkey hung with sausages is facetiously styled AN ALDERMAN IN CHAINS; and a half-crown, perhaps from its rotundity, is often termed an ALDERMAN. A BEAR is a speculator on the Exchange; and a BULL, although of another order, follows a like profession. There is something very humorous and applicable in the slang term LAME DUCK, a defaulter in stock-jobbing speculations. The allusion to his “waddling out of the Alley,” as they say, is excellent. Breaking shins, in City slang, is borrowing money; a rotten or unsound scheme is spoken of as FISHY; “RIGGING the market” means playing tricks with it; and STAG was a common term during the railway mania for a speculator without capital, a seller of “scrip” in “Diddlesex Junction” and other equally safe lines. In Lombard-street a MONKEY is £500, a PLUM £100,000, and a MARYGOLD is one million sterling. But before I proceed further in a sketch of the different kinds of Slang, I cannot do better than to speak here of the extraordinary number of Cant and Slang terms in use to represent money, – from farthings to bank notes the value of fortunes. Her Majesty’s coin, collectively or in the piece, is insulted, by no less than one hundred and thirty distinct Slang words, from the humble BROWN (a halfpenny) to FLIMSIES, or LONG-TAILED ONES (bank notes).

“Money,” it has been well remarked, “the bare, simple word itself, has a sonorous, significant ring in its sound,” and might have sufficed, one would have imagined, for all ordinary purposes. But a vulgar or “fast” society has thought differently, and so we have the Slang synonymes BEANS, BLUNT, (i. e., specie, – not stiff or rags, bank notes), BRADS, BRASS, BUSTLE, COPPERS (copper money, or mixed pence), CHINK, CHINKERS, CHIPS, CORKS, DIBBS, DINARLY, DIMMOCK, DUST, FEATHERS, GENT (silver, – from argent), HADDOCK (a purse of money), HORSE NAILS, LOAVER, LOUR (the oldest Cant term for money), MOPUSSES, NEEDFUL, NOBBINGS (money collected in a hat by street performers), OCHRE (gold), PEWTER, PALM OIL, QUEEN’S PICTURES, QUIDS, RAGS (bank notes), READY, or READY GILT, REDGE (gold), RHINO, ROWDY, SHINERS (sovereigns), SKIN (a purse of money), STIFF (paper, or bill of acceptance), STUFF, STUMPY, TIN (silver), WEDGE (silver), and YELLOW-BOYS (sovereigns); – just forty-two vulgar equivalents for the simple word money. So attentive is Slang speech to financial matters, that there are seven terms for bad, or “bogus” coin (as our friends, the Americans, call it): a CASE is a counterfeit five-shilling piece; HALF A CASE represents half that sum; GRAYS are halfpence made double for gambling purposes; QUEER-SOFT is counterfeit or lead coin; SCHOFEL refers to coated or spurious coin; SHEEN is bad money of any description; and SINKERS bears the same and not inappropriate meaning. Flying the kite, or obtaining money on bills and promissory notes, is a curious allusion to children tossing about a paper kite; and RAISING THE WIND is a well-known phrase for procuring money by immediate sale, pledging, or a forced loan. In winter or in summer any elderly gentleman who may have prospered in life is pronounced WARM; whilst an equivalent is immediately at hand in the phrase “his pockets are well LINED.” Each separate piece of money has its own Slang term, and often half a score of synonymes. To begin with that extremely humble coin, a farthing: first we have FADGE, then FIDDLER, then GIG, and lastly QUARTEREEN. A halfpenny is a BROWN or a MADZA SALTEE (Cant), or a MAG, or a POSH, or a RAP, – whence the popular phrase, “I don’t care a rap.” The useful and universal penny has for Slang equivalents a COPPER, a SALTEE (Cant), and a WINN. Two-pence is a DEUCE, and three-pence is either a THRUMS or a THRUPS. Four-pence, or a groat, may in vulgar speech he termed a BIT, a FLAG, or a JOEY. Six-pence is well represented in street talk, and some of the Slangisms are very comical, for instance, BANDY, BENDER, CRIPPLE, and DOWNER; then we have FYE-BUCK, HALF A HOG, KICK (thus “two and a kick,” or 2s. 6d.), LORD OF THE MANOR, PIG, POT (the price of a pot of beer), SNID, SPRAT, SOW’S BABY, TANNER, TESTER, TIZZY, – sixteen vulgar words to one coin. Seven-pence being an uncommon amount has only one Slang synonyme, SETTER. The same remark applies to eight-pence and nine-pence, the former being only represented by OTTER, and the latter by the Cant phrase, NOBBA-SALTEE. Ten-pence is DACHA-SALTEE, and eleven-pence DACHA-ONE, – both Cant expressions. One shilling boasts ten Slang equivalents; thus we have BEONG, BOB, BREAKY-LEG, DEANER, GEN (either from argent, silver, or the back slang), HOG, PEG, STAG, TEVISS, and TWELVER. Half-a-crown is known as an ALDERMAN, HALF A BULL, HALF A TUSHEROON, and a MADZA CAROON; whilst a crown piece, or five shillings, may be called either a BULL, or a CAROON, or a CARTWHEEL, or a COACHWHEEL, or a THICK-UN, or a TUSHEROON. The next advance in Slang money is ten shillings, or half-a-sovereign, which may be either pronounced as HALF A BEAN, HALF A COUTER, a MADZA POONA, or HALF A QUID. A sovereign, or twenty shillings, is a BEAN, CANARY, COUTER, FOONT, GOLDFINCH, JAMES, POONA, QUID, a THICK-UN, or a YELLOW-BOY. Guineas are nearly obsolete, yet the terms NEDS, and HALF NEDS, are still in use. Bank notes are FLIMSIES, LONG-TAILED ONES, or SOFT. A FINUF is a five-pound note. One hundred pounds (or any other “round sum”) quietly handed over as payment for services performed is curiously termed “a COOL hundred.” Thus ends, with several omissions, this long list of Slang terms for the coins of the realm, which for copiousness, I will engage to say, is not equalled by any other vulgar or unauthorised language in Europe.

The antiquity of many of these Slang names is remarkable. Winn was the vulgar term for a penny in the days of Queen Elizabeth; and TESTER, a sixpence (formerly a shilling), was the correct name in the days of Henry the Eighth. The reader, too, will have remarked the frequency of animals’ names as Slang terms for money. Little, as a modern writer has remarked, do the persons using these phrases know of their remote and somewhat classical origin, which may, indeed, be traced to the period antecedent to that when monarchs monopolised the surface of coined money with their own image and superscriptions. They are identical with the very name of money among the early Romans, which was pecunia, from pecus, a flock. The collections of coin dealers amply show that the figure of a HOG was anciently placed on a small silver coin; and that that of a BULL decorated larger ones of the same metal. These coins were frequently deeply crossed on the reverse; this was for the convenience of easily breaking them into two or more pieces, should the bargain for which they were employed require it, and the parties making it had no smaller change handy to complete the transaction. Thus we find that the HALF BULL of the itinerant street seller, or “traveller,”55 so far from being a phrase of modern invention, as is generally supposed, is in point of fact referable to an era extremely remote. There are many other Cant words directly from a classic source, as will be seen in the Dictionary.

Shopkeepers’ Slang is, perhaps, the most offensive of all Slang. It is not a casual eyesore, as newspaper Slang, neither is it an occasional discomfort to the ear, as in the case of some vulgar byeword of the street; but it is a perpetual nuisance, and stares you in the face on tradesmen’s invoices, on labels in the shop-windows, and placards on the hoardings, in posters against the house next to your own door – if it happens to be empty for a few weeks, – and in bills thrust into your hand, as you peaceably walk through the streets. Under your doors, and down your area, Slang hand-bills are dropped by some PUSHING tradesman, and for the thousandth time you are called upon to learn that an ALARMING SACRIFICE is taking place in the next street, that prices are DOWN AGAIN, that in consequence of some other tradesman not DRIVING a ROARING TRADE, being in fact SOLD UP, and for the time being a resident in BURDON’S HOTEL (Whitecross-street Prison), the PUSHING tradesman wishes to sell out at AWFULLY LOW PRICES, “to the kind patrons, and numerous customers,” &c. &c., “that have on every occasion,” &c. &c. In this Slang any occupation or calling is termed a LINE, – thus the “Building-LINE.” A tailor usurps to himself a good deal of Slang. Amongst operatives he is called a SNIP, or a STEEL BAR DRIVER; by the world, a NINTH PART OF A MAN; and by the young collegian, or “fast” man, a SUFFERER. If he takes army contracts, it is SANK WORK; if he is a SLOP tailor, he is a SPRINGER UP, and his garments are BLOWN TOGETHER. Perquisites with him are SPIFFS, and remnants of cloth, PEAKING. The percentage he allows to his assistants (or COUNTER JUMPERS) on the sale of old-fashioned articles, is termed TINGE. If he pays his workmen in goods, or gives them tickets upon other tradesmen, with whom he shares the profit, he is soon known as a TOMMY MASTER. If his business succeeds, it TAKES; if neglected, it becomes SHAKY, and GOES TO POT; if he is deceived by a creditor (a not by any means unusual circumstance) he is LET IN, or, as it is sometimes varied, TAKEN IN. I need scarcely remark that any credit he may give is termed TICK.

Operatives’ or Workmen’s Slang, in quality, is but slightly removed from tradesmen’s Slang. When belonging to the same shop or factory, they GRAFT there, and are BROTHER CHIPS. They generally dine at SLAP BANG SHOPS, and are often paid at TOMMY SHOPS. At the nearest PUB, or public-house, they generally have a SCORE CHALKED UP against them, which has to be WIPED OFF regularly on the Saturday night. When out of work, they borrow a word from the flunkey vocabulary, and describe themselves as being OUT OF COLLAR. They term each other FLINTS and DUNGS, if they are “society” or “non-society” men. Their salary is a SCREW, and to be discharged is to GET THE SACK. When they quit work, they KNOCK OFF; and when out of employ, they ask if any HANDS are wanted. Fat is the vulgar synonyme for perquisites; ELBOW-GREASE signifies labour; and SAINT MONDAY is the favourite day of the week. Names of animals figure plentifully in the workman’s vocabulary; thus we have GOOSE, a tailor’s smoothing iron; SHEEP’S-FOOT, an iron hammer; SOW, a receptacle for molten iron, whilst the metal poured from it is termed PIG. I have often thought that many of the Slang terms for money originally came from the workshop, thus – BRADS, from the ironmonger; CHIPS, from the carpenter; DUST, from the goldsmith; FEATHERS, from the upholsterer; HORSE NAILS, from the farrier; HADDOCK, from the fishmonger; and TANNER, from the leather-dresser. The subject is curious. Allow me to call the attention of numismatists to it.

There yet remain several distinct divisions of Slang to be examined; – the Slang of the stable, or jockey Slang; the Slang of the prize ring; the Slang of servitude, or flunkeydom; vulgar, or street Slang; the Slang of softened oaths; and the Slang of intoxication. I shall only examine the last two. If society, as has been remarked, is a sham, from the vulgar foundation of commonalty to the crowning summit of royalty, especially do we perceive the justness of the remark in the Slang makeshifts for oaths, and sham exclamations for passion and temper. These apologies for feeling are a disgrace to our vernacular, although it is some satisfaction to know that they serve the purpose of reducing the stock of national profanity. “You BE BLOWED,” or “I’ll BE BLOWED IF,” &c., is an exclamation often heard in the streets. Blazes, or “like BLAZES,” came probably from the army. Blast, too, although in general vulgar use, may have had a like origin; so may the phrase, “I wish I may be SHOT, if,” &c. Blow me tight, is a very windy and common exclamation. The same may be said of STRIKE ME LUCKY, NEVER TRUST ME, and SO HELP ME DAVY; the latter derived from the truer old phrase, I’LL TAKE MY DAVY ON’T, i. e., my affidavit, DAVY being a corruption of that word. By golly, GOL DARN IT, and SO HELP ME BOB, are evident shams for profane oaths. Nation is but a softening of damnation; and OD, whether used in OD DRAT IT, or OD’S BLOOD, is but an apology for the name of the Deity. The Irish phrase, BAD SCRAN TO YER! is equivalent to wishing a person bad food. “I’m SNIGGERED if you will,” and “I’m JIGGERED,” are other stupid forms of mild swearing, – fearful of committing an open profanity, yet slyly nibbling at the sin. Both DEUCE and DICKENS are vulgar old synonymes for the devil; and ZOUNDS is an abbreviation of GOD’S WOUNDS, – a very ancient catholic oath.

In a casual survey of the territory of Slang, it is curious to observe how well represented are the familiar wants and failings of life. First, there’s money, with one hundred and twenty Slang terms and synonymes; then comes drink, from small beer to champagne; and next, as a very natural sequence, intoxication, and fuddlement generally, with some half a hundred vulgar terms, graduating the scale of drunkenness from a slight inebriation, to the soaky state of gutterdom and stretcherdom, – I pray the reader to forgive the expressions. The Slang synonymes for mild intoxication are certainly very choice, – they are BEERY, BEMUSED, BOOZY, BOSKY, BUFFY, CORNED, FOGGY, FOU, FRESH, HAZY, ELEVATED, KISKY, LUSHY, MOONY, MUGGY, MUZZY, ON, SCREWED, STEWED, TIGHT, and WINEY. A higher or more intense state of beastliness is represented by the expressions, PODGY, BEARGERED, BLUED, CUT, PRIMED, LUMPY, PLOUGHED, MUDDLED, OBFUSCATED, SWIPEY, THREE SHEETS IN THE WIND, and TOP-HEAVY. But the climax of fuddlement is only obtained when the DISGUISED individual CAN’T SEE A HOLE IN A LADDER, or when he is all MOPS AND BROOMS, or OFF HIS NUT, or with his MAIN-BRACE WELL SPLICED, or with the SUN IN HIS EYES, or when he has LAPPED THE GUTTER, and got the GRAVEL RASH, or on the RAN-TAN, or on the RE-RAW, or when he is SEWED UP, or regularly SCAMMERED, – then, and not till then, is he entitled in vulgar society to the title of LUSHINGTON, or recommended to PUT IN THE PIN.