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….

Numbers

If nothing else, this definition from Grose shows that politics in the late eighteenth century isn’t perhaps much different to politics today in terms of Ministers not answering questions…. The definition of this word is “to consult the book of numbers: a term used in the House of Commons, when, instead of answering or confuting a pressing argument, the minister calls for a division, ie, puts the matter to the vote.”

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….

Norway Neckcloth

Grose makes a lot of references to words and phrases relating to punishment, whether it’s the gallows or the pillories. This one relates to the latter, defined as “the pillory, usually made of Norway fir” and the phrase remained used until the mid-nineteenth century, pretty much when the pillory was banned in England and Wales in 1837.

There had been discussion in Parliament about whether the pillory should be abolished for some decades before the ban was enacted, with the problem that some found themselves rewarded by the public with flowers and refreshments, whereas in other cases the criminal was killed by mobs during the punishment, so the law failed in both ways.

 

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….

Nokes

This is one of Grose’s more verbose definitions, which is “a ninny, or fool. John-a-Nokes and Tom-a-Stiles; two honest peaceable gentlemen, repeatedly set together by the ears by lawyers of different denominations: two fictitious names formerly used in law proceedings, but now very seldom, having for several years past been supplanted by two other honest peaceable gentlemen, namely, John Doe and Richard Roe”.

The interesting element here (and, yet again, I know that I need to get out more….) is the use of these names in the legal system. John Doe is used extensively in the US today, Richard Roe as well but much less frequently, whilst Nokes and Stiles seem rarely used anywhere.

Google Ngram shows the more recent regular use of John Doe, with the Nokes and Stiles names not even registering at all, which isn’t surprising, as they were more used in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. Such is history 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….

Noisy Dog Racket

I can’t add anything at all to this definition by Grose, other than I think it’s interesting enough to worth noting. He defines it as “stealing brass knockers from doors”, a nod to his own sense of humour and the long-standing problem of brass being stolen.

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….

Noddle

This word is defined by Grose as meaning “the head” and it’s still in use today in the form of phrases such as “use your noddle” and also with a financial company recently taking the name.

Still in use, but it has been declining over the last century. As for the word origin, it’s known that it was used during the later Middle English period, but none of the dictionaries have found where it came from…..

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….

Nix

A very short and sweet definition, meaning simply “nothing”. Grose is one of the first people to define this word, so it is listed as being from the late eighteenth century when he published his dictionary, but it was likely in use much earlier. It’s a derivation of the German word “nichts”, which has the same meaning.

Using Google Ngram’s full time frame over several centuries, the word has remained in relatively constant use. The earlier dates are statistically probably erroneous though. As an irrelevant aside, I’m surprised that this word didn’t become more mainstream and didn’t slip into the vernacular.

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….

Nigmenog

This word is defined by Grose as “a very silly fellow” and it was first being used towards the end of the seventeenth century. The phrase lingered on in usage until the mid twentieth century, at which point it seemed to become mostly obsolete. There’s a similar word which is used with more racist connotations, although that appears to have different etymological roots (although may have been a legacy of this original word that was repurposed), but might explain why this word would now be very difficult to use now and is one that will never come back into common 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….

Nicknackatory

I think that this is one of the more beautiful words in Grose’s dictionary, it’s defined simply as “a toyshop”. It’s derived from the phrase ‘knick-knack’ which originally meant a trick, but then evolved to mean something without much actual function. This meant that toys were seen as knick-knacks, hence why this became an alternative name for toyshops in the late eighteenth century.

The phrase lingered on until the early nineteenth century, but then, unfortunately, 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….

Neck Verse

This phrase is defined by Grose as “formerly the persons claiming the benefit of clergy were obliged to read a verse in a Latin manuscript psalter: this saving them from the gallows, was termed their neck verse: it was the first verse of the fiftyfirst psalm, Miserere mei,&c”. Firstly, as an aside, &c is the archaic version of etc, which I found interesting in its own right. I do need, as I may have mentioned, to get out more….

This whole concept is fascinating, dating back to the times of when the two great powers in the country were the Church and the Monarchy. Both had their own legal systems, their own lands, their own powers and the Church didn’t like interference from Monarchs, and Kings and Queens were generally respectful of God. But, anyway, to cut a long story short, clergy could be tried in the secular courts, but they could also claim the ‘benefit of the clergy’.

This claim allowed them to either get off the crime, or for the sentence to be modified (in effect, initially the case was transferred to the Ecclesiastical Courts which were more favourable), but it was also abused. So, the aim was to read Psalm 51, which Grose mentions, to prove that they were a member of the clergy. There were some big flaws in this system, notably that non religious figures could just learn the passage. The courts over time wised up to this, so they could ask the defendant to read another passage from the Bible, a useful mechanism as the clergy could read and write, whereas many others at the time couldn’t. If someone couldn’t read a passage, they could be killed or sentenced as planned.

King Henry VIII didn’t like this whole set-up (there are plenty of things he didn’t quite like), although he did still respect the principles of the code, although he added more restrictions and limitations. The whole process lingered for longer than might be expected (well, longer than I had expected), although by the eighteenth century, the cases were no longer transferred to the Ecclesiastical Courts and were just treated more leniently in the secular courts.

So, when Grose wrote about the “neck verse”, the law still favoured anyone at that time who could read that verse from the Bible and it could save their life. The matter was finally dealt with in 1823, and reinforced in 1841, so that this ‘benefit’ was struck from the legal code in the country. It’s a wonderful example of how power waxed and waned between the church and the monarch though over the centuries, and just how long the church’s influence lasted for.

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….

Neck Stamper

This is defined by Grose as “the boy who collects the pots belonging to an alehouse, sent out with beer to private houses”. The phrase dates from the early part of the seventeenth century, but the word origins are confused, it’s not known whether the boy stamped about with bottles around his neck or whether the boy stamped about carrying bottles by their neck (I can think of someone who would do that, stamped is a variant of stomped). It’s also interesting to establish why this job was necessary, who were these boys delivering to? There would have been no end of pubs near to where people lived, so maybe it was to the ill, infirm or those who didn’t fancy heading off into a busy pub.