Category: Random Posts

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….

Little Ease

Grose defines this as “a small dark cell in Guildhall, London, where disorderly apprentices are confined by the city chamberlain. It is called Little Ease from its being so low that a lad cannot stand upright in it”. Today, the phrase is perhaps better known for a similar room located underneath the White Tower in the Tower of London, although there’s not a great deal of evidence to show that it was used to hold prisoners.

Walter Thornbury wrote in 1878 about the cells at the Guildhall:

“On brackets to the right and left of the balcony were the gigantic figures of Gog and Magog, as before-mentioned, giving, by their vast size and singular costume, an unique character to the whole. At the sides of the steps, under the hall-keeper’s office, were two dark cells, or cages, in which unruly apprentices were occasionally confined, by order of the City Chamberlain; these were called ‘Little Ease,’ from not being of sufficient height for a big boy to stand upright in them.”

It doesn’t sound ideal….

 

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….

Lingo

I had thought (and this is another thing that I haven’t really given much thought to) that this was a newer word than it is, with Grose defining it as “language, an outlandish lingo; a foreign tongue. The parlezvous lingo; the French language”. The word actually seems to date from around 1700, probably from the Portuguese word ‘lingoa’ or the French ‘lingua’.

The word has remained in relatively constant usage over the last two centuries, with an upturn over the last few decades.

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….

Light House

This is another one of Grose’s definitions that I don’t feel the need to add to, but I’ve included it here as I like it. His definition is simply “a man with a red fiery nose”.

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….

Letch

This is a word that Grose was one of the first to define and he noted it to be “a whim of the amorous kind, out of the common way”. The origins of the word are unknown, but it might be a slight corruption of the word ‘latch’, which is from the Old English ‘læccan’, which is to grasp or take hold of.

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….

Lazybones

I’m not quite sure where Grose got this definition from, as it differs from other accounts on how lazybones evolved, which remains a commonly used word today to describe someone as lazy. He defined it as “an instrument like a pair of tongs, for old or very fat people to take any thing from the ground without stooping”. I prefer his definition though, ‘tongs for very fat people’ to that presented in etymological dictionaries, which just says that it evolved from the word ‘lazy’ being added to ‘bones’, to represent a person.

It’s one of the few words in the dictionary which is much more in use today than it was when Grose published his book.

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….

Laystall

As usual, Grose uses his careful prose here, defining this word as “a dunghill about London, on which the soil brought from necessary houses is emptied; or, in more technical terms, where the old gold collected at weddings by the Tom t**d man, is stored”. The striking out of part of one word is Grose, not me, always dignified…..

The word ‘laystall’ originally meant the area where cattle were held before they went to market, but it evolved into meaning any old dunghill. When cities were reconfigured, such as London after the Great Fire in 1666, there was a desire to try and put these as far away from residents as was possible. This wasn’t always particularly achievable though and I can imagine the disappointment if the city authorities decided to shove one next to where you lived.

There are a few streets across the country which retain this name, a rather lovely record of something which wouldn’t have been particularly lovely at the time. One example of this is in London, where Laystall Street is located off of the Clerkenwell Road in the Holborn area.

Never really a word that would be dropped into casual conversation or writing, but it fell nearly entirely out of usage in the twentieth century.

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….

Lawful Blanket

Unfortunately, this is another term that I have nothing useful to add to Grose’s definition, which is simply “a wife”. I’m not sure that this is the most suitable term for a man to use to describe his wife, but no doubt it was seen to be more acceptable at the beginning of the nineteenth century. The phrase is listed in numerous locations relating to etymology, but none of them has any clue where it comes from…… I can’t see it coming back into the English language either.

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….

Launch

This is another one of the definitions that Grose uses that I can’t add much to, but I very much like the terminology again. He defines the word as “the delivery, or labour, of a pregnant woman; a crying out of groaning”. There’s something rather lovely about calling the birth of a baby as its “launch”.

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….

Latitat

This word is defined by Grose as “a nick-name for an attorney; from the name of a writ”. The word comes from the Latin which means “he lies hidden” or “he lurks” and it was a writ that was issued with the assumption that the person it was directed at was in hiding. This legal device wouldn’t be used now, as a court would subpoena anyone who needed to attend proceedings. I’m not sure why the word became used to describe an attorney, but it mainly seems to be Grose putting this theory forwards. As an aside, it’s a rather lovely word.