Category: Books

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….

Horse’s Meal

This is mainly a northern and Scottish phrase and it never caught on more widely, but it’s defined as “a meal without drinking”. It is meant with reference to meaning no drink at all, whether alcoholic or not, and it’s perhaps surprising that it didn’t become used more widely as there’s no other way in English (that I know of) which describes this situation. It appears to have been used primarily at the end of the eighteenth century and then fell out of usage.

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….

Hook and Snivey, with Nix the Buffer

This is a rather long-winded definition, but here goes…. “This rig consists in feeding a man and a dog for nothing, and is carried on thus: three men, one of whom pretends to be sick and unable to eat, go to a public house: the two well men make a bargain with the landlord for their dinner and when he is out of sight, feed their pretended sick companion and dog gratis”.

I’m not sure how this scam works, as it seems to suggest that the two men just get less food each, unless some sort of buffet arrangement was the standard in hostelries in the late eighteenth century. I like the addition of the dog in the definition though, although I’m not sure why that bit is necessary.

The ‘hook and snivey’ element is defined as a general deceit, it’s just here that Grose has been quite precise with his definition. It is also spelled as ‘hookem snivey’ and ‘hookem snivvy’ and there are various other ways of spelling it. The word ‘hook’ originally meant to ‘to steal’, I have no idea about the other bit. I still like the appearance in this definition of Nix the Buffer, who could perhaps be a cartoon character with a name like that.

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….

Hodmandods

How beautiful, this is defined simply as “snails in their shells”, although to make matters more complex, this is also a term in Norfolk for a hedgehog. This is likely from the word ‘dodman’, meaning an animal with a hill on its back, from the words ‘dod’ meaning hill and ‘man’ in this instance just meaning an animal. It was being used from as early as the sixteenth century and was most commonly used in East Anglia.

The words stayed in use until the beginning of the twentieth century, but has now faded into obscurity.

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….

Hobson’s Choice

This phrase is defined by the dictionary as “that or none; from old Hobson, a famous carrier of Cambridge, who used to let horses to the students; but never permitted them to chuse [sic], always allotting each man the horse he thought properest for his manner of riding and treatment”.

The phrase is in common usage still today and I had thought when reading this dictionary that the origin was likely apocryphal, but it does seem to be true. It’s named after Thomas Hobson (1544–1631) who ran stables in Cambridge, owning 40 different horses. Some horses he used for the mail run between Cambridge and London, but he also lent them out to students and academics. Hobson wasn’t being awkward, but he wanted the choice of horse to be random so that people didn’t just keep picking the best horse and then wearing that one out. All very sound thinking.

The phrase came into more common usage following Hobson’s death and now just means that you’re getting what you’ve given, there’s no choice to be had.

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….

Hobbledygee

This is quite apt, thinking about my plan to walk the LDWA 100, it’s defined by the dictionary as “a pace between a walk and a run, a dog-trot”. I’m not sure that I walk that fast, as my walk pace tends to be between a walk and a walk, there’s no running involvement. The word origin is sadly a little lost, it can also mean someone who walks with a bit of a limp, which is more like me if I’m tired. If I can work out how to pronounce this, then I might just try and use it in conversation on LDWA walks, as there are a few members who naturally walk at this hobbledygee pace.

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….

Hobberdehoy

The dictionary defines this as “half a man and half a boy, a lad between both” and the word continues to be used today, albeit infrequently, to describe an ungainly or awkward young man. The word dates back to at least the sixteenth century and it was used by Charles Dickens in his writings in the nineteenth century.

One dictionary tries to explain this as “from the English hobby, and Old French hoi (‘today’); the original sense may have been ‘an upstart of today’”, but this seems a bit tenuous to me. It’s thought that the word ‘hobidy-booby’ once meant scarecrow, so there’s likely some link with that, although that again is from the sixteenth century and the original meaning is lost.

Original meaning aside, this is still a beautiful word and one that should be used more.

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….

Hidebound

The dictionary defines this as “stingy, hard of delivery; a poet poor in invention, is said to have a hidebound muse”. The word evolved with Middle English and was with reference to emaciated cattle (thereby having its back and ribs wrapped tightly by its hide), but then got extended to also meaning humans in a more general sense. It then became to mean ‘narrow in outlook’, before evolving into what the dictionary refers to as “hard of delivery”.

Since the eighteenth century, the word has evolved again into meaning someone or something which is unwilling to change and has fixed opinions, back to the narrow in outlook meaning. With that, there has been been an increase in the word’s usage over the last two centuries and it’s usually used in a negative sense.

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….

Hickenbothom

The dictionary ends the realm of the marginal random now with this definition of “Mr. Hickenbothom; a ludicrous name for an unknown person, similar to that of Mr. Thingambob. Hickenbothom, ie, a corruption of the German word ickenbaum, ie, oak tree”.

And I can add absolutely nothing to this, as I can’t find any other evidence that this is where the word did originate from. I’m also not entirely sure why a word meaning oak tree would be chosen. But English is a beautifully quirky language.

I suspect that the surge in mentions at the early nineteenth century was simply just this dictionary….

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….

Helter Skelter

This phrase is normally used today when referring to an amusement park ride, but its definition in the late eighteenth-century dictionary was “to run helter skelter, hand over head, in defiance of order”. The exact word origins for this phrase have long been lost as it has been used since at least the early sixteenth century and Shakespeare also used the term. ‘Skelten’ in Middle English meant to hasten, so it’s likely linked to that, with the ‘helter’ bit added later for extra emphasis.

Despite the reusing of the word in the early twentieth century as a ride, the phrase had remained in relatively constant use during the nineteenth century. There was a small uptick in usage during the 1960s, but this is likely due to the Beatles issuing a song entitled, well, Helter Skelter.

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….

Hedge Creeper

I’m moderately confused by this definition from Grose, where he notes this phrase means “a robber of hedges”. I’m not convinced by this, as I’m really not sure many hedges were robbed and this phrase was more commonly used to describe someone who hid in a hedge to commit a crime, perhaps a highwayman. It is possible that Grose meant that it’s a robber who steals something from hedges, perhaps clothing left out to dry, although that’s getting a bit tenuous. So, on this, I’m unsure….