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….

Dining Room Post

The definition of this phrase is “a mode of stealing in houses that let lodgings, by rogues pretending to be postmen, who send up sham letters to the lodgers, and, whilst waiting in the entry for the postage, go into the first room they see open, and rob it”.

It’s perhaps no surprise to see that distraction crime has been going on in this manner for hundreds of years, but this must have been a particularly annoying crime. The dictionary was written before the introduction of the Penny Black, so the recipient of letters not only had to pay to receive the letter (hence the ‘waiting in the entry for the postage’), but they then discovered that they were robbed whilst paying for them. It’s not 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….

Dewitted

The dictionary defines this as “torn to pieces by a mob, as that great statesman John de Wit was in Holland, anno 1672”.

This story has recirculated in recent months and years and the above meme was shared widely on-line. Johan de Witt was the Grand Pensionary of the Dutch Republic between 30 July 1653 and 4 August 1672 and, in effect, he was indeed their Prime Minister. The Dutch had experienced a bad year in terms of international diplomacy and worsening relations with the UK and France meant that the Prime Minister found himself in a weak position. A slightly rigged court case was set up by William of Orange and his supporters, which meant that de Witt was imprisoned and sentenced to exile.

With the local population upset and ready to attack, De Witt and his brother were assassinated by the mob and their bodies were mutilated and hung up. Their livers were cut out and were then roasted and eaten by some members of the mob, with some suggestion that other parts of their bodies were eaten. So, unbelievably, the story which has circulated on the Internet is effectively true. The word ‘dewitted’ is still used to describe a lynching but, fortunately, most countries have a more democratic system of governance today.

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….

Devil’s Guts

This is defined by the dictionary as “a surveyor’s chain: so called by farmers, who do not like their land should be measured by their landlords”. The phrase goes back to at least the mid-seventeenth century, although it fell out of common usage in the nineteenth century.

And it’s easy to see how the phrase evolved….

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….

Dance Upon Nothing

There are quite a few definitions in this book which aren’t particularly cheery and this is another, being defined as “to be hanged”. This was sometimes used in a precautionary sense, so children might be told to behave, or they’d be doing a ‘dance upon nothing’ later in their life. There are other slightly more colourful phrases with the same meaning, such as the ‘Tyburn Jig’ and the ‘Paddington Frisk’.

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…. As a side note, I’m not sure that I expected the crisis to be lasting this long, but here we are, 100 days later…..

Dam

The dictionary defines this as “a small Indian coin, mentioned in the Gentoo code of laws; hence etymologists may, if they please, derive the common expression, I do not care a dam, ie, I do not care half a farthing for it”. The OED don’t like this explanation and claim that there’s no evidence for this origin of the phrase, but prefer the idea that it comes from an Old English word meaning “curse”.

But, there are more word origins here, it may derive from the Latin word  ‘dampnare’ meaning to inflict loss on, which later evolved to mean to inflict judgement on. But the earliest time that “don’t care a dam” is recorded is from the eighteenth century, so the Indian coin option is still possible. Most likely in my view is via the Old English route, with the word ‘damnation’, it’s just a corruption down of that word which means “don’t give a care” and it also explains that the word is actually ‘damn’ and not ‘dam’.

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.