Category: Books

The Dictionary of the Vulgar Tongue was first published at the end of the eighteenth century, and given that the Coronavirus crisis is giving too much time to read books, I thought I’d pick a daily word from it until I got bored….

Cup-Shot

The definition for this is short and crisp, it means “drunk”. It’s slightly puzzling how this term fell out of usage, it was used from the mid-fifteenth century to the mid-nineteenth century, then other words for drunk (and there are no shortage of them) took over. The term is quite literal as well, ‘cup’ referring to the cup of drink and ‘shot’ referring to the cup being empy.

I have decided though that this is one phrase that I might try and use, and it’ll also show me which of my drunken friends are reading this blog if they look knowledgeable about its meaning….

The Dictionary of the Vulgar Tongue was first published at the end of the eighteenth century, and given that the Coronavirus crisis is giving too much time to read books, I thought I’d pick a daily word from it until I got bored….

Cunning Man

Over 200 years on from the publication of this dictionary there are some who still believe in astrology and I’m sure there are some cheats out there who prey on that. The dictionary defines this phrase as “a cheat, who pretends by his skill in astrology to assist persons in recovering stolen goods: and also to tell them their fortunes, and when, how often, and to whom they shall be married; likewise answers all lawful questions, both by sea and land. This profession is frequently occupied by ladies”.

The phrase more commonly used today is “cunning folk” and it wasn’t always used in a derogatory manner. There’s far more about this at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cunning_folk_in_Britain, a legacy perhaps of the widespread fear that existed of witches over the last few centuries.

The Dictionary of the Vulgar Tongue was first published at the end of the eighteenth century, and given that the Coronavirus crisis is giving too much time to read books, I thought I’d pick a daily word from it until I got bored….

Cully

This dictionary doesn’t often mention where words originate from, but does here and notes “a fog or fool: also a dupe to women: from the Italian word coglione, a blockhead”. It’s probably also wrong insomuch as more recent dictionaries explain that the word comes from the Old English word “cullion”, which is a despicable person. It’s a nice word though….

The word was much more frequent in the seventeenth century and it started to die out some time ago.

The Dictionary of the Vulgar Tongue was first published at the end of the eighteenth century, and given that the Coronavirus crisis is giving too much time to read books, I thought I’d pick a daily word from it until I got bored….

Cullability

Defined as “a disposition liable to be cheated, an unsuspecting nature, open to imposition”, this word is perhaps of passing interest insomuch as it’s actually the same word as gullible, just an earlier spelling of it. The word ‘gull’ meant to hoodwink someone, or to fool them, so somewhere along the line, the words got muddled up and ‘cullability’ became gullibility. Gullible only evolved as a word from the beginning of the nineteenth century, making it one of the more modern words in the English language (and that isn’t a test of someone’s gullibility to believe that).

The Dictionary of the Vulgar Tongue was first published at the end of the eighteenth century, and given that the Coronavirus crisis is giving too much time to read books, I thought I’d pick a daily word from it until I got bored….

Crowdy

Francis Grose, the author of this dictionary was a London man, albeit well-travelled, but that might show through with the definition of this word, which is “oatmeal and water, or milk; a mess much eaten in the north”. A mess sounds fairly accurate, although the word ‘north’ here is really primarily referring to Scotland, which is where Grose did spend some time whilst researching other books.

No modern dictionary seems to give the word origin here, but crowdie is a Scottish cheese and so the word origin is likely the same. Likely deriving from ‘crud’ and ‘ie’ which has the same origins as curd, so simply curdy, which could mean lumpy and thick.

The Dictionary of the Vulgar Tongue was first published at the end of the eighteenth century, and given that the Coronavirus crisis is giving too much time to read books, I thought I’d pick a daily word from it until I got bored….

Cropsick

The dictionary defines this as “sickness in the stomach, arising from drunkenness” and is still in some dictionaries today and means something more akin to ‘a surfeit of food and drink’. The word ‘crop’ used to more commonly mean ‘the top of something’, so I’m going with the idea that this phrase evolved from something like headsick, although that’s likely to be a guess which is wrong.

The word has slowly gone out of usage over the last two centuries, but I’m not sure why, it’s quite a ring to it.

The Dictionary of the Vulgar Tongue was first published at the end of the eighteenth century, and given that the Coronavirus crisis is giving too much time to read books, I thought I’d pick a daily word from it until I got bored….

Croakumshire

Defined by the dictionary as “Northumberland, from the particular croaking the pronunciation of the people of that county, especially about Newcastle and Morpeth, where they are said to be born with a burr in their throats, which prevents their pronouncing the letter r”.

This is a handy reminder of the videos produced by Simon Roper on the evolution of language, although the word that was chosen by, I assume, southerners could have been a little more polite about the residents of Newcastle. I’m not sure that the term was that widely used, given that it appears very rarely in print. And, it’s a reminder of the shifting county boundaries, Newcastle was once part of Northumberland, before being defined as its own county and now it’s been shunted into Tyne and Wear.

The Dictionary of the Vulgar Tongue was first published at the end of the eighteenth century, and given that the Coronavirus crisis is giving too much time to read books, I thought I’d pick a daily word from it until I got bored….

Crispin’s Holiday

The dictionary defines this as “every Monday throughout the year, but most particularly the 25th of October, being the anniversary of Crispinus and Crispianus”. Spelled as Crispin and Crispinian today, this pair are the patron saints of cobblers, tanners and leather workers and they were persecuted in the third century for their Christian faith. The men worked as shoe-makers and were tortured on the orders of the Roman Emperor and then thrown into the river with millstones around their necks. Somehow, this effort didn’t manage to kill them, so they were then beheaded on 25 October 285AD.

The Battle of Agincourt was fought on 25 October 1415 and so a link developed between that victory along with Crispin and Crispinian, with numerous other battles since also fought on 25 October. A Feast Day was held on 25 October, but there were numerous industries such as butchers, shoemakers, fishmongers and the like who often didn’t work on Mondays, so they were said to be having a Crispin’s Holiday.

The Dictionary of the Vulgar Tongue was first published at the end of the eighteenth century, and given that the Coronavirus crisis is giving too much time to read books, I thought I’d pick a daily word from it until I got bored…..

Crew

The dictionary defines this as “a knot or gang; also a boat or ship’s company. The canting crew are thus divided into twenty-three orders” and these are then listed:

“Men

1. Rufflers
2. Upright Men
3. Hookers or Anglers
4. Rogues
5. Wild Rogues
6. Priggers of Prancers
7. Palliardes
8. Fraters
9. Jarkmen or Patricoes
10. Fresh Water Mariners or Whip Jackets
11. Drummerers
12. Drunken Tinkers
13. Swaddlers or Pedlars
14. Abrams

Women

1. Demanders for Glimmer or Fire
2. Bawdy Baskets
3. Morts
4. Autem Morts
5. Walking Morts
6. Doxies
7. Delles
8. Kinching Morts
9. Kinching Coes”

Some list and I’ll come onto some more of these definitions in future weeks as I stumble across them in the dictionary. But the aim of this list was to place criminals into some sort of order in how they were respected by the rest of the canting, or criminal, community. I’m not entirely sure why some of these categories managed to get themselves to the top, the ‘rufflers’ are a group who pretend to be former soldiers. But, I like some of the phrases, some of them sound like rivals to the Bullingdon Club.