Category: Books

During lockdown, I started on my riveting (ahem) series of posts from the Dictionary of the Vulgar Tongue. I was getting quite near to the end of the book, but then I managed to stop in February 2021 (having got to Rum Bubber), but now this is another project I want to see completed.

Saint Geoffrey’s Day

The dictionary defines this as “Never, there being no saint of that name: tomorrow-come-never, when two Sundays come together”. Arguably, there is a St Geoffrey, also known as St Godfrey, although that’s a slightly moot point here. This phrase was in use in the late eighteenth century, perhaps slightly into the early nineteenth century, and is another sad loss to the language. I think it’s got a nicer and more humorous edge to it than “a month of Sundays” which is the modern equivalent.

Sandwich

There’s very little interest to this definition itself, which is “Ham, dried tongue, or some other salted meat, cut thin and put between two slices of bread and butter: said to be a favourite morsel with the Earl of Sandwich”, other than the timing. This book was published in the late eighteenth century, so this would have been quite an on-trend word at the time that was just coming into popular usage.

This image is from Google Ngram and shows how frequently the word has been used in books. It slightly surprises me just how relatively rare the word was until the beginning of the twentieth century.

Scab

One word that I personally don’t like is the word ‘scab’ when applied to those who don’t take part in a strike, and I’ve read that some in the trade union movement find it an unfortunate word which exists more as a quirk of history. That is reinforced by this definition, which is “a worthless man or woman”, which seems to have first been used to describe non-strikers in the United States in the early nineteenth century. Google Ngram shows that it has been falling in usage over recent decades and I can imagine that it might be a word that eventually slides away in terms of its strike meaning.

The Dictionary of the Vulgar Tongue was first published at the end of the eighteenth century, and given that the current health crisis is giving too much time to read books, I thought I’d pick a daily word from it until I got bored…. And to catch up after getting behind with these posts, and because I’m getting towards the end of the book, I’m doing three days at once now. How lovely….

 

Rot Gut

I like the drinking definitions that Grose comes up with, this one is “small beer; called beer-a-bumble – will burst one’s guts before it will make one tumble”. The phrase has been used since at least the late sixteenth century and initially was made with reference to beer, but it later evolved into also meaning wine, whisky and anything vaguely alcoholic. The phrase was also used during the Prohibition period in the United States, where it’s fair to say that the standards of alcoholic drinks fell somewhat.

The Google Ngram of how “rotgut” and “rot gut” have been used over the last century, having become more commonly used in recent decades.

 

Round Robin

This is another phrase that I hadn’t realised had such a long etymological heritage, being defined by Grose as “a mode of signing remonstrances practised by sailors on board the king’s ships, wherein their names are written in a circle, so that it cannot be discovered who first signed it, or was, in other words, the ringleader”.

The phrase was in use from as early as the middle of the sixteenth century, but the word origins are lost. There’s a theory, which seems to be the most common, that it derives from the French “ruban rond”, when petitions were allegedly signed on a round ribbon. That suggestion doesn’t seem to be very likely to me and it’s also the wrong way round. There is though an interesting blog post about an example of one of these round robins from 1760.

A newspaper article from 1730 about an example of a round robin in use, not entirely successfully on this occasion. There’s a reference to a round piece of paper and I wonder whether the origin of this phrase is just ’round’ because it’s a petition that needs to be presented in that way to give anonymity and ‘robin’ as that’s sort of the shape of the bird.

Today, the phrase is more commonly used with regards to sports tournaments and Christmas cards……

 

Rum Bubber

And back to the licensed trade, Grose defined this as “a dexterous fellow at stealing silver tankards from inns and taverns”. Customers stealing glasses from pubs can by annoying today for the management, although at least they aren’t as expensive to replace as silver tankards. The word ‘bubber’ is from the seventeenth century and originally meant a drinking bowl and which evolved into a word used to describe anyone who stole plate. This is also one of the definitions that Grose has just lifted out of Nathan Bailey’s “Universal Etymological English Dictionary” which was published in 1721.

The Dictionary of the Vulgar Tongue was first published at the end of the eighteenth century, and given that the current health crisis is giving too much time to read books, I thought I’d pick a daily word from it until I got bored…. And to catch up after getting behind with these posts, and because I’m getting towards the end of the book, I’m doing three days at once now. How lovely….

Rigmarole

This is defined by Grose as “roundabout, nonsensical. He told a long rigmarole story”, and it was a phrase that would have been new at the time as its earliest recorded usage is from the middle of the eighteenth century. Oxford Languages Dictionary gives an explanation of the origins of the word, which is “apparently an alteration of ragman roll, originally denoting a legal document recording a list of offences.”

Google Ngram helpfully charts the popularity of the word over the last couple of centuries, it’s perhaps a strange word that has persisted in usage as it’s not necessarily easy to spell. In around 1880, the alternative spelling of rigamarole comes into usage, which remains relatively common today.

 

Roast and Boiled

Back to the military with this definition, which Grose gives as “a nick name for the Life Guards, who are mostly substantial house-keepers; and eat daily of roast and boiled”. The Life Guards are a regiment in the British Army and their heritage goes back to the middle of the seventeenth century. This web-site has details of other nicknames that the regiment managed to acquire, which included The Bangers, Lumpers, The Cheesemongers, The Fly-slicers, The Piccadilly Butchers, The Ticky Tins, The Tin Bellies and The Patent Safeties. That’s quite an impressive list of nicknames that they’ve secured for themselves….

 

Romeville

A short and concise definition here, simply given as “London, cant”, with cant meaning the criminal community. This sounds all rather exotic, but there’s an alternative version from the eighteenth century which is “Rumville”, although ‘Rum’ here means good. Although there are different spellings, the meaning was the same, which was the canting community felt that London was a city of great opportunity to them. The word fell out of usage in around the 1850s, although New York then took on the same nickname. I think I quite like the idea of London being referred to as ‘Rumville’ though…..

The Dictionary of the Vulgar Tongue was first published at the end of the eighteenth century, and given that the current health crisis is giving too much time to read books, I thought I’d pick a daily word from it until I got bored…. And to catch up after getting behind with these posts, and because I’m getting towards the end of the book, I’m doing three days at once now. How lovely….

 

Reverence

I feel that I can add nearly nothing to this definition from Grose:

“An ancient custom, which obliges any person easing himself near the highway or footpath, on the word Reverence being given him by a passenger, to take off his hat with his teeth, and without moving from his station to throw it over his head, by which it frequently falls into the excrement; this was considered as a punishment for the breach of delicacy. A person refusing to obey this law, might be pushed backwards. Hence, perhaps, the term Sir-Reverence.”

The ‘Sir-Reverence’ lingered on in the English language, meant as an apology in advance for what someone was about to do or say. That’s all that needs writing here….

 

Rhino

Nice and simple definition this time, especially given Grose’s meanderings with the above, simply meaning “money” and it was used by the canting, or criminal, fraternity. This word has been used since the early sixteenth century as a slang for money and no-one is quite sure where it originated from. It might be that rhino horn was expensive, it might be that rhino was seen as an bulky and expensive thing (and the rhino would have been a relatively new concept for westerners at the time) or it could be from the Greek meaning of the word rhinoceros, which is “relating to the nose” as someone paying through the nose (another old phrase). And Green’s Dictionary of Slang adds another possibility to the mix, which is “clipping of SE sovereign; the term moved f. Und. to general slang, in mid-19th century”. So, in short, no-one knows, and this meaning of the word became archaic in around the late nineteenth century.

 

Riff Raff

I use this phrase from time to time (I won’t name the friends I have in mind), defined by Grose as “low vulgar persons, mob, tag-rag and bob-tail” and it hasn’t much changed its meaning since the dictionary was published in the late eighteenth century. The phrase is from the late fifteenth century, it’s a corruption of the old French “rif et raf” meaning “one and all”, so there’s some heritage to this.

Although there’s a long history to this phrase, it’s only recently that it has become more commonly used. I suspect that some of this is related to the Rocky Horror (Picture) Show from the 1970s onwards, where Riff Raff is one of the characters.

The Dictionary of the Vulgar Tongue was first published at the end of the eighteenth century, and given that the current health crisis is giving too much time to read books, I thought I’d pick a daily word from it until I got bored…. And to catch up after getting behind with these posts, and because I’m getting towards the end of the book, I’m doing three days at once now. How lovely….

 

Red Lattice

One of Grose’s more concise definitions, simply “a public house”. This phrase was in usage from the sixteenth century until around the mid nineteenth century and it’s a descriptive term, as many pubs used to have red latticework at their frontage. There are no pubs today with this as their name, although Greens Dictionary of Slang notes that there was one at Butcher’s Row, located off of the Strand in London.

Google Ngram shows how the phrase fell out of usage, likely perhaps as pubs stopped have such red latticework and it all became less relevant.

 

Red Letter Day

Grose refers to this as “a saint’s day or holiday, marked in the calendars with red letters. Red letter men: Roman Catholics: from their observation of the saint days marked in red letters”. Although this practice has been happening since Roman times, the common usage has likely evolved from the late medieval religious manuscripts, with the phrase being used since at least the seventeenth century. The Wikipedia page on this subject also has a list of the days of the year when judges of the English High Court wear their scarlet robes, a concept that I hadn’t been aware of.

Despite a company being founded recently with the same name which got some media publicity for various reasons, Google Ngram suggests that the phrase was much more commonly used in the early twentieth century.

 

Remember Parson Melham

It’d be remiss of me not to mention something that Grose writes about Norfolk and his definition is “drink about: a Norfolk phrase”. Not that I can add much to it or establish who Parson Melham was, although ‘drink about’ just means to be rather drunk. A letter was written to the Illustrated London News in February 1857 asking for the origins of Grose’s definition, but it doesn’t seem that anyone was able to respond. Whoever this Parson Melham was though, he sounds an interesting character.

The Dictionary of the Vulgar Tongue was first published at the end of the eighteenth century, and given that the current health crisis is giving too much time to read books, I thought I’d pick a daily word from it until I got bored…. And to catch up after getting behind with these posts, and because I’m getting towards the end of the book, I’m doing three days at once now. How lovely….

 

Ralph Spooner

Annoyingly, I can’t find out anything more about this, simply defined by Grose as “a fool”. I’m not convinced that this phrase was much in usage, and he likely just took it from Nathan Bailey’s 1736 canting dictionary. The word ‘spoon’ was used in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries to describe someone as a fool, although I’m not sure what they had against Ralph….

 

Rank

This is defined by Grose as “stinking, rammish, ill-flavoured; also strong, great. A rank knave; a rank coward: perhaps the latter may allude to an ill savour caused by fear”. On the second part of that definition, the phrase “rank coward” is still in usage, but its original meaning of being a stinking coward is perhaps forgotten.

Back to the main part of the definition, what might be the most interesting element of this is that the word remains in use today. I suspect that at least a few people hearing a younger person use the phrase “that’s rank” might query their use of English, but it has had this meaning of something disgusting since around the late seventeenth century.

It’s derived from the old English word ‘ranc’, meaning something strong or powerful. That changed over time to something that was strong and unpleasant, with the alternate spelling ‘ranck’ being more common for a period.

 

Reader Merchants

And here we perhaps verge into some slight anti-semitism, this being defined as “pickpockets, chiefly young Jews, who play about the Bank to steal the pocket-books of persons who have just received their dividends there”. A pocket-book is a wallet, and a reader was also another word for a wallet, hence the origin of the phrase. There was another similar phrase at the time, ‘reader hunter’, which meant the same thing.