blither
»If he was to blither, it was only fair that she should bleat back.» (T. T. T. 22. 21.)
The author. Conversation between ladies and gentlemen.
»Don’t believe these blithering idiots have ever seen a girl before.» (Tommy and Co. 229. 12.)
A young journalist.
= to talk volubly and nonsensically.
The original form of the word is probably blather (Icelandic bladhra, Swed. pladdra), blether a Scottish form, while blither seems to be the modern vulgar form.
(Cf. Bletherskate: a boaster, a noisy talker.)
the blues
»It gave me the blues for a day or two—that bit of news.» (T. T. T. 146. 20.)
A waiter.
»Nobody likes a fit of the blues.» (The Idle Thoughts Of An Idle Fellow 27. 3.)
A shortened form of blue devils = despondency, depression of spirits.
Cf. the dismals.
bob, tanner, quid
»A rise of two bob a week.» (T. T. T. 156. 18.)
Uneducated young man.
»—a bob or a tanner as the case might be.» (T. T. T. 125. 2.)
A waiter.
»His tie must have cost fifty quid.» (T. T. T. 131. 21.)
The same.
Terms for, respectively, shilling, sixpence, and sovereign. The expressions are vulgar, no doubt, but in common use among all classes—among the more educated and refined only in intimate talk, of course.
chap
»A palefaced nervous sort of chap.» (T. T. T. 130. 4.)
A waiter.
»A wonderful talent for swallowing, these newspaper chaps has, some of ’em.» (T. T. T. 135. 3.)
The same.
»The chap who was nabbed at Birmingham.» (T. T. T. 163. 6.)
Uncultivated young man.
»The chap I am telling you about.» (T. T. T. 206. 20.)
A waiter.
»One day she fetched ’im round to one of them revivalist chaps.» (Sketches 201. 2.)
Uncultivated old woman.
= fellow, man.
The term seems to originate in an obsolete word chap (abbr. of chapman: Swed. köpman) = merchant.
chuck
»His first move was to chuck his berth.» (T. T. T. 212. 9.)
A waiter.
»Why not chuck the money.» (T. T. T. 145. 10.)
The same.
»It will ‘chuck’ the whole business.» (Three Men On The Bummel 44. 11.)
= abandon, give up.
Chuck is a vivid word for throw, standing on about the same level as shy in its literal meaning, but as used here, metaphorically, it is vulgar—although used by educated people.
cotton
»’E don’t cotton much to them as ain’t found grace.» (Sketches 199. 28.)
Old woman of the working class.
= stick to them like cotton: agree with, like.
dotty
»He’s just a bit dotty, same as you or I might get with nothing to do.» (Tommy And Co. 61. 28.)
A journalist with a special liking for vulgarisms.
= feeble, dizzy, idiotic (Cf. dotty in the crumpet: weak in the head). The term is probably derived from the verb dot: dotted > dotty.
gal, gell
»A gal was at the bottom of it.» (T. T. T. 170. 14.)
An elderly waiter.
»smutty-faced servant-gals.» (T. T. T. 157. 3.)
The same.
»I’m fond enough of the gell.» (T. T. T. 137. 5.)
Uneducated Londoner.
»One of the gals was ill.» (Tommy And Co. 16. 12.)
The same.
»I tell ’im it’s a fine gell.» (Sketches 195. 11.)
The same.
The ordinary vulgar pronunciation of »girl», but not confined to »vulgus»; in fact quite the correct pronunciation in the middle classes of the mid-Victorian age.
When the author wants to indicate an affected pron. of the word, he writes »gearl».
gent, gents
»The old gent said he’d see Joe.» (T. T. T. 172. 18.)
A waiter.
»He sits down and stares at the old gent.» (T. T. T. 174. 16.)
The same.
»Commercial gents.» (T. T. T. 184. 18.)
The same.
»It was an odd question to put to a waiter, but coming from a gent there was nothing to be alarmed about.» (T. T. T. 188. 9.)
The same.
»if you don’t want to waste your time on a rabbit-skin coat and a paste ring, and give the burnt sole to the real gent.» (T. T. T. 216. 2.)
The same.
A common vulgar corruption of gentleman; esp. the old gent.
gone on
»That he was regular gone on her anyone could see with half an eye.» (T. T. T. 128. 5.)
An elderly waiter.
= in love with, fond of.
Originally vulgar, but much used with humorous intent in mid-Victorian middle-class English.
Cf. spoony on, mashed on.
Honest Injun
»Honest Injun—confound those children and their slang—I mean positively.» (They And I. 171. 18.)
The author.
The term is originally an Americanism = »Honest Indian»—a kind of mock oath, with some allusion to the supposed unusualness of honesty among the Indians.
hump, humpy
»I’ve got the hump to-night.» (P. Kelver II. 166. 27.)
A business man, former Whitechapel butcher.
»Harris said it would be humpy.» (Three Men In A Boat 8. 4.)
»He criticised it as the humpiest funeral he had ever known.» (Tommy And Co. 74. 4.)
An undertaker.
»That ain’t the sort of thing to be humpy about.» (T. T. T. 156. 20.)
A waiter.
A person, who is disagreeable or in low spirits may be presumed to go with his shoulders humped. Thence we have probably got the term humpy = despondent, hurt, put out[7], or of things: dull, miserable. To get (to have) the humps is probably a later formation and means about the same: to be despondent, to feel melancholy. It is rather common now-a-days in vulgar > coll. language.
look
»Joe sits down and stares at the old gent, and the old gent looks him back.» (T. T. T. 174. 15.)
A waiter.
= gives him a look back.
The missis, the missus.
»Just as you or me would swear at the missus.» (T. T. T. 128. 15.)
A waiter.
»He came to be pretty friendly with my missus later on.» (T. T. T. 216. 8.)
The same.
»My missis kept up a sort of friendship with her.» (T. T. T. 221. 20.)
The same.
»My missis never see you till just this minute.» (Three Men In A Boat 81. 26.)
Uneducated countryman.
»She has come for the Missus’ night things.» (Miss Hobbs 19. 4.)
A groom.
»Missus will be out to-morrow.» (Miss Hobbs 21. 30.)
A servant girl.
The usual expression for »my wife» among the working class; also used by servants in speaking of their mistress (vocative ma’am, mum), and frequently adopted with humorous intent by the ‘better’ classes. »The missus» is especially used to imply—with serio-comic resignation that the wife usually has her own way in the end.
»The missus», »my missis» in quotations 1-4 means »my wife».
rantan
»A quite rational person: When not on the rantan.» (They And I. 258. 9.)
A schoolgirl.
On the rantan (or randan) means the same as »on the spree»—which does not directly imply tipsiness, but a degree of exhilaration practically unattainable without considerable indulgence in alcohol.
The expression is probably derived from the verb rant: to talk big, high, to boast much.
Cf. to go on the rantan: to go on a round of debauchery.
rocky
»Well, my spelling is a bit rocky.» (Tommy And Co. 45. 10.)
A London brat of the working class.
= difficult, dubious, debateable; more expressive than »shaky».
The term is originally a sort of pothouse slang: rocky = broken by drink.
same as
»They’ve got their feelings—same as I’ve got mine.» (T. T. T. 145. 7.)
A waiter.
»Husbands have their troubles same as wives.» (T. T. T. 206. 10.)
The same.
= just as, in the same way that.
stone-broke
»Next week we shall be stone-broke.» (Miss Hobbs 37. 22.)
Easy conversation between ladies and gentlemen. The speaker is a young man.
= penniless, hard up. Cf. stoney (the same sense).
Tommy rot
»The wonderful songs that nobody ever sings, the wonderful pictures that nobody ever paints, and all the rest of it. It’s Tommy rot!» (P. Kelver II. 208. 14.)
A young lady with a special liking for spirited expressions.
»I’ll make a journalist of you.»—
»Don’t talk rot.» (Tommy And Co. 36. 12.)
A London brat of the working class.
Rot is the most usual word at present for rubbish, nonsense; »rotten» is still more modern and ‘stylish’.
(Tommy rot: nonsense, bosh.)
toss off
»He tossed off at one gulp what remained of the stranger’s Vermouth.» (P. Kelver II. 269. 22.)
The author.
= to drink at a draught, to gulp.
tumble to
She said she could never »tumble to» the district visiting. (Novel Notes 81. 15.)
An actress.
»I reckoned it the very thing she’d tumble to.» (T. T. T. 143. 4.)
Uneducated young man.
The meaning of the above quotations is: (1) she could never get to care for the district visiting; (2) I considered it the very thing she would accept, fall in with.
Another, rather common sense of the expression is: to understand.
FOOTNOTES
[1] The preface of Baumann’s Slang and Cant Vocabulary (Londonismen) gives us a good, chronologically arranged catalogue—often with specimens—of the principal representatives of this literature.
[2] Such words are: cad (formerly = a person performing menial offices, esp. omnibus conductor; now = an offensive or ill-bred person, irrespective of social position); pal; row; chum, rum (formerly = splendid, magnificent, as in Rom Vile: the splendid city, London; now = odd, queer); cheek, etc.
[3] I refer, for instance, to the catalogue of »flash», »cant», and »slang» dictionaries—from the beginning of the 15th century down to the present time—given as an introduction to Farmer-Henley’s dictionary of slang and colloquial English.
In France, there is the same confusion of argot (= slang) and langue vulgaire or triviale.
[4] The Gipsy vocabulary seems to have influenced the secret thieves’ slang, and, accordingly, vulgar language, in other countries besides England. Thus, there are in modern Stockholm-cant words such as: lattjo (pleasant), tjej (sweetheart; Gipsy: chel?), pirka (cap), etc., originating, it is said, from the Gipsy language.
[5] In the preface of his Slang and Cant Dict., H. Baumann gives us an excellent essay on Cant, its history and its sources, which I beg to recommend to anybody who is interested in the subject. The above lines on the sources and development of Cant are principally based on this essay.
[6] Cf. I say, mother, our Deb’s bin and smoshed young W.—Done what to un?—Smoshed him.—Why, I never touched him.—Yes, thee have, thee’ve smoshed un—that be the new Lunnun word; made un in love wi’ thee. (Woodb. Farm 17. 35)
[7] Cf. the synonymous huffy, grumpy. Humped > humpy; dotted > dotty, etc. are vulgar formations.
I think it ‘à propos’ to quote here the following, well-known story:
A sentimental young lady once went into a new music shop, where the young proprietor had done very little business, and asked sweetly: »Have you got the ‘Bleeding Heart’?» »No», was the answer, »but I have got ‘the bloody hump’!»