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…. And to catch up after getting behind with these posts, and because I’m getting towards the end of the book, I’m doing three days at once now. How lovely….

 

Reverence

I feel that I can add nearly nothing to this definition from Grose:

“An ancient custom, which obliges any person easing himself near the highway or footpath, on the word Reverence being given him by a passenger, to take off his hat with his teeth, and without moving from his station to throw it over his head, by which it frequently falls into the excrement; this was considered as a punishment for the breach of delicacy. A person refusing to obey this law, might be pushed backwards. Hence, perhaps, the term Sir-Reverence.”

The ‘Sir-Reverence’ lingered on in the English language, meant as an apology in advance for what someone was about to do or say. That’s all that needs writing here….

 

Rhino

Nice and simple definition this time, especially given Grose’s meanderings with the above, simply meaning “money” and it was used by the canting, or criminal, fraternity. This word has been used since the early sixteenth century as a slang for money and no-one is quite sure where it originated from. It might be that rhino horn was expensive, it might be that rhino was seen as an bulky and expensive thing (and the rhino would have been a relatively new concept for westerners at the time) or it could be from the Greek meaning of the word rhinoceros, which is “relating to the nose” as someone paying through the nose (another old phrase). And Green’s Dictionary of Slang adds another possibility to the mix, which is “clipping of SE sovereign; the term moved f. Und. to general slang, in mid-19th century”. So, in short, no-one knows, and this meaning of the word became archaic in around the late nineteenth century.

 

Riff Raff

I use this phrase from time to time (I won’t name the friends I have in mind), defined by Grose as “low vulgar persons, mob, tag-rag and bob-tail” and it hasn’t much changed its meaning since the dictionary was published in the late eighteenth century. The phrase is from the late fifteenth century, it’s a corruption of the old French “rif et raf” meaning “one and all”, so there’s some heritage to this.

Although there’s a long history to this phrase, it’s only recently that it has become more commonly used. I suspect that some of this is related to the Rocky Horror (Picture) Show from the 1970s onwards, where Riff Raff is one of the characters.

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…. And to catch up after getting behind with these posts, and because I’m getting towards the end of the book, I’m doing three days at once now. How lovely….

 

Red Lattice

One of Grose’s more concise definitions, simply “a public house”. This phrase was in usage from the sixteenth century until around the mid nineteenth century and it’s a descriptive term, as many pubs used to have red latticework at their frontage. There are no pubs today with this as their name, although Greens Dictionary of Slang notes that there was one at Butcher’s Row, located off of the Strand in London.

Google Ngram shows how the phrase fell out of usage, likely perhaps as pubs stopped have such red latticework and it all became less relevant.

 

Red Letter Day

Grose refers to this as “a saint’s day or holiday, marked in the calendars with red letters. Red letter men: Roman Catholics: from their observation of the saint days marked in red letters”. Although this practice has been happening since Roman times, the common usage has likely evolved from the late medieval religious manuscripts, with the phrase being used since at least the seventeenth century. The Wikipedia page on this subject also has a list of the days of the year when judges of the English High Court wear their scarlet robes, a concept that I hadn’t been aware of.

Despite a company being founded recently with the same name which got some media publicity for various reasons, Google Ngram suggests that the phrase was much more commonly used in the early twentieth century.

 

Remember Parson Melham

It’d be remiss of me not to mention something that Grose writes about Norfolk and his definition is “drink about: a Norfolk phrase”. Not that I can add much to it or establish who Parson Melham was, although ‘drink about’ just means to be rather drunk. A letter was written to the Illustrated London News in February 1857 asking for the origins of Grose’s definition, but it doesn’t seem that anyone was able to respond. Whoever this Parson Melham was though, he sounds an interesting character.

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…. And to catch up after getting behind with these posts, and because I’m getting towards the end of the book, I’m doing three days at once now. How lovely….

 

Ralph Spooner

Annoyingly, I can’t find out anything more about this, simply defined by Grose as “a fool”. I’m not convinced that this phrase was much in usage, and he likely just took it from Nathan Bailey’s 1736 canting dictionary. The word ‘spoon’ was used in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries to describe someone as a fool, although I’m not sure what they had against Ralph….

 

Rank

This is defined by Grose as “stinking, rammish, ill-flavoured; also strong, great. A rank knave; a rank coward: perhaps the latter may allude to an ill savour caused by fear”. On the second part of that definition, the phrase “rank coward” is still in usage, but its original meaning of being a stinking coward is perhaps forgotten.

Back to the main part of the definition, what might be the most interesting element of this is that the word remains in use today. I suspect that at least a few people hearing a younger person use the phrase “that’s rank” might query their use of English, but it has had this meaning of something disgusting since around the late seventeenth century.

It’s derived from the old English word ‘ranc’, meaning something strong or powerful. That changed over time to something that was strong and unpleasant, with the alternate spelling ‘ranck’ being more common for a period.

 

Reader Merchants

And here we perhaps verge into some slight anti-semitism, this being defined as “pickpockets, chiefly young Jews, who play about the Bank to steal the pocket-books of persons who have just received their dividends there”. A pocket-book is a wallet, and a reader was also another word for a wallet, hence the origin of the phrase. There was another similar phrase at the time, ‘reader hunter’, which meant the same thing.

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…. And to catch up after getting behind with these posts, and because I’m getting towards the end of the book, I’m doing three days at once now. How lovely….

 

Rabbit Catcher

There is very little that I can add to this definition, but it seems to have been quoted by Grose before any other source and doesn’t seem to have ever been used that widely. Anyway, it’s simply defined as “a midwife”. I think that’s rather lovely…..

 

Rack Rent

This is defined by Grose as “rent strained to the utmost value. To lie at rack and manger; to be in great disorder”. Firstly, this makes me wonder about the phrase ‘rack rate’, which is the hotel’s full-price room rate. Nearly every source on-line claims that this phrase originates from when the hotel would place its price by the rack behind the hotel reception. I suspect they’re all possibly wrong, it perhaps comes from the same phrase origin as Grose refers to.

Incidentally, there are a few pubs which have been known as the ‘Rack and Manger’, a phrase that is mentioned in the description. A pub name which means ‘to be in great disorder’ sounds exciting.

But, back to the main phrase, which originates from the rack that was used to torture people, which was in use from the seventeenth century (the phrase, not the torture device). The phrase used to be relatively common, but has now mostly fallen out of usage over the last century as can be seen from the above Ngram from Google.

 

Rag Water

Grose is back to alcohol with this definition, which is “gin, or any other common dram: these liquors seldom failing to reduce those who drink them to rags”. The phrase evolved from poor quality alcohol of any type and the terminology was used from the end of the seventeenth century to somewhere in the middle of the nineteenth century. The reason Grose focused on gin is that this was the common drink that was abused at the time, leading to the Gin Craze which caused such problems during the eighteenth century. I wonder if the phrase might be repurposed today to describe certain types of lager…..

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…. And to catch up after getting behind with these posts, and because I’m getting towards the end of the book, I’m doing three days at once now. How lovely….

 

Quirks and Quillets

This is defined as “tricks and devices. Quirks in law; subtle distinctions and evasions”. The word ‘quirk’ is from the early sixteenth century and the origin unknown, initially meaning ‘a subtle verbal twist’. A quillet was ‘a subtle distinction, or a quibble’ and the word origin of that is also unknown, possibly derived from the Latin word ‘quidlibet’ meaning ‘anything’.

The phrase isn’t much quoted in literature, doesn’t appear on Google Ngram and likely wasn’t really that much used, even at the end of the eighteenth century when the dictionary was published. But it’s still a rather lovely turn of phrase that only from a quirk of fate (see what I did there…..) isn’t still part of the English language.

 

Quota

This word is defined by Grose as “a snack, share, part, proportion or dividend. Tip me my quota; give me part of the winnings, booty or plunder. CANT”. The addition of that last word means that it was used predominantly by the canting, or criminal underworld, community. Grose was one of the earliest authors to note this word, which had come into the English language in the early seventeenth century, derived from the Latin words ‘quota pars’ meaning ‘how large a part’. I like the possibility, and perhaps probability, that this word started to spread because of the canting community where individuals wanted to ensure they weren’t missing out on their share.

Google Ngram shows how the word came into usage, not really becoming that common until the twentieth century.

 

Rabbit

Back to food, Grose defines this as “A Welch rabbit; bread and cheese toasted, ie, a Welch rare bit. Rabbits were also a sort of wooden canns to drink out of, now out of use”. As for the second part of this definition, I can’t find any obvious evidence of the word being used for that meaning, although since it was already archaic in the late eighteenth century, that’s perhaps not surprising.

But, back to Welsh Rabbit, this phrase evolved not long before Grose wrote his dictionary, with the first recorded mention being in 1725. It was likely meant in a humorous manner (well, probably not to the Welsh) to indicate that it was the nearest that they could get to actual rabbit. This ‘rare bit’ element was first mentioned by Grose himself, but he doesn’t explain where he’s got this from. The word was always ‘rabbit’ and ‘rare bit’ is likely just a mistake that was probably made by people confused with what on earth this dish has to do with rabbit, an ingredient that it has never contained.

So, ‘Welsh Rarebit’ is wrong historically, it should be ‘Welsh Rabbit’, and Google Ngram shows something a little interesting here (I still acceptable that I need to get out more….). This shows that until around 1900, the word ‘Welsh Rabbit’ remained predominant, until the ‘Rarebit’ version become more commonly used. However, over the last few years, it seems to have switched back, showing that even today word usage can change quickly. As for how Grose spelled ‘Welch’, that was just a common alternative for ‘Welsh’.

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…. And to catch up after getting behind with these posts, and because I’m getting towards the end of the book, I’m doing three days at once now. How lovely….

 

Queen Street

Back to domestic affairs, Grose defines this as “a man governed by his wife, is said to live in Queen Street, or at the sign of the Queen’s Head”. The word ‘henpecked’, which was also in use at the beginning of the nineteenth century, is much more common now, but I’m slightly surprised this one didn’t remain in common usage for longer. Other than that, I can’t add much here, but I rather like the phrase.

 

Queer Plungers

This is one of Grose’s longer definitions, “cheats who throw themselves into the water, in order that they may be taken up by their accomplices, who carry them to one of the houses appointed by the Humane Society for the recovery of drowned persons, where they are rewarded by the society with a guinea each; and the supposed drowned persons, pretending he was driven to that extremity by great necessity, also frequently sent away with a contribution in his pocket”.

Firstly, the word ‘queer’ here was very common and used frequently in the canting (criminal underworld) community to mean something like odd, unusual, quirky or eccentric. So the origin of the phrase is just an eccentric jumper (of the diving kind, not the pullover kind….).

The Royal Humane Society had been founded in 1774, mostly at the initiative of William Hawes. He did indeed, at his own cost, provide a financial reward to anyone who brought to him someone who had fallen in the Thames and been rescued. It’s not hard to see where that plan could go wrong…. But, I assume they were aware of the potential problems and they could likely spot someone who was trying it on, although it strikes me as a brave thing to do in terms of jumping in the river in the first place.

On a most positive note, the Royal Humane Society themselves have details of what was achieved soon after they were launched, showing just how much good they’ve done. As for how common the queer plunging scam was, I can’t imagine that it happened all that much, but I can imagine it’d still happen today if it wasn’t for the fact that the Royal Humane Society no longer issue financial rewards.

 

Quick and Nimble

Grose defines this as “more like a bear than a squirrel. Jeeringly said to any one moving sluggishly on a business or errand that requires dispatch”. Firstly, I’m going to use Grose’s “more like a bear than a squirrel” at some point, that’s a beautiful turn of phrase.

The phrase’s meaning is self explanatory and it has remained in common usage since at least the eighteenth century. I prefer the bear and squirrel bit 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…. And to catch up after getting behind with these posts, and because I’m getting towards the end of the book, I’m doing three days at once now. How lovely….

 

Pursy

This is defined by Grose as “short-breathed, or foggy, from being over fat”. From the French ‘pousser’ to mean to breathe with difficulty, the word evolved to ‘pursif’ in Middle English. It was used not just to describe people who were overweight, but also horses who suffered from problems with breathing.

The word is now archaic, having started to fall out of usage by the end of the nineteenth century.

 

Quakers

I sense a slight lack of respect with how Grose defines this, namely “a religious sect so called from their agitations in preaching”. The word origin is still unclear, for some it comes from when members would “tremble in the way of the Lord”. Others have said it evolved from how the established Church of England trembled with the threat of this new religious thought and others that when the Quakers were being taken through the courts that it was said the Judge would quake with fear on Judgement Day.

The official name wasn’t the Quakers, but the Religious Society of Friends and the likely origin of the word is something to do with religious fervour as other groups had been referred to in a similar way in the past. Initially the word quaker was used in a derogatory manner, but over time the usage became more positive and it’s now used by the Religious Society of Friends themselves.

 

Queen Dick

I’ve never heard of this phrase, defined as “to the tune of the life and death of Queen Dick. That happened in the reign of Queen Dick: ie, never”. It was also a nickname given to Richard Cromwell, although not in a positive manner, when he was the Lord Protector of the Commonwealth of England, Scotland and Ireland. The phrase doesn’t seem to have ever been in common usage, since it doesn’t appear on Google Ngram, and it seems that the “when pigs fly” alternative (which was also in usage in the time of Grose) instead entered 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…. And to catch up after getting behind with these posts, and because I’m getting towards the end of the book, I’m doing three days at once now. How lovely….

Pull

I have nothing to add to this definition, which is “to be arrested by a police officer” other than to note that I’m surprised it has been used since at least the end of the eighteenth century. It was also used to describe other parts of the judicial process, including being taken before a magistrate or being searched on the street.

 

Pump Water

“He was christened in pump water; commonly said of a person with a red face” is how Grose defines this phrase, a usage that seems limited to the late eighteenth century period. It’s also a reminder of the state of some water supplies, notably in cities, at the time. The phrase has also been used to define crying, although that dates to a little later in the nineteenth century.

 

Purl

Back to alcohol again, this is defined as “ale in which wormwood has been infused, or ale and bitters drunk warm”. This is a whole area of brewing which has mostly been lost, although some of its influences remain. Vermouth is a wine which was once flavoured with wormwood and absinthe is made with grand wormwood.

The drink likely had something of a woody feel to it and sometimes that would have been tempered with the addition of orange peel. But, it would have had flavour to it, which many beers from this period simply wouldn’t have had much of. The drink was often consumed in the morning and would have been more for its restorative benefits than anything else.

Purl Bar in London takes its name from the drink and they briefly mention this old style of beer on their web-site. Northern Monk also produced a beer called Purl which was brewed with few hops (as these wouldn’t have been around in the brewing process back in Grose’s times) and was flavoured with wormwood, orange peel and juniper. This sounds rather lovely, but, unfortunately, it has been out of production for some years.

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…. And to catch up after getting behind with these posts, and because I’m getting towards the end of the book, I’m doing three days at once now. How lovely….

Prigstar

This feels like a more modern word, defined by Grose as “a rival in love”. The word is from the seventeenth century and the word ‘prig’ at the time could mean a cheat, with ‘ster’ just being a suffix used in forming nouns. As an aside, the ‘ster’ used to be the suffix given to a job that a woman did, such as a ‘brewster’ for a female brewer and a ‘baxter’ for a female baker.

Although Grose used the ‘prigstar’ spelling, it was more commonly ‘prigster’. It’s not rarely used and has become archaic.

 

Prittle Prattle

There’s perhaps a hint at the sexism shown at society at the time with this phrase being defined as “insignificant talk: generally applied to women and children”. The phrase was first recorded as being used in the middle of the sixteenth century and is just a linguistic extension of the word ‘prattle’, meaning to talk in an inconsequential manner.

Unlike the not dissimilar ‘tittle-tattle’, this phrase has now fallen entirely out of usage.

 

Puff or Puffer

This is defined by Grose as “one who bids at auctions, not with an intent to buy, but only to raise the price of the lot; for which purpose many are hired by the proprietor of the goods on sale“. Now probably more commonly referred to as shill bidding, the word origin is just puffing or pumping up the price.

In 1965, Nicholas Ridley said in the House of Commons in a debate on the registration of auctioneers:

“Lastly, I believe that we should have a rule that when a lot does not reach its reserve no commission is chargeable. This would help to encourage people to put a proper reserve on their goods and to encourage auctioneers to get a proper price for what they are selling. I think that this is know in ancient parlance as “puff-bidding”, whereby a lot is withdrawn before it reaches its reserve. As far as I understand it, some auctioneers charge if goods are knocked down below the reserve price and others do not. I suggest that it should be made one of the rules of the trade that no charge is made where goods do not reach the reserve price.”

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…. And to catch up after getting behind with these posts, and because I’m getting towards the end of the book, I’m doing three days at once now. How lovely….

Post Master General

Grose’s definition here is interesting as it gives some guidance about the evolution of the role of Prime Minister and that person’s control over the formation of the Cabinet, which was developing when the dictionary was written. Grose noted the phrase meant “the prime minister, who has the patronage of the all posts and places” and that would have been a relatively new thing.

The role of Postmaster General had rather changed by the time that political figures such as Tony Benn were given the job. It was originally a powerful role as only the Postmaster General or his agents could authorise those who could handle the sending of mail, and the Postal Act of 1635 confirmed the monopoly situation. At least today there is little question of how much power the Prime Minister has, although it certainly not always been so.

 

Prate Roast

Following on from the previous definition, this is “a talkative boy”, but also meant anyone who was talkative or a chatterer. It’s a seventeenth century term, which lingered on into the nineteenth century before falling out of use. Someone who ‘prated’ was guilty of just talking for too long and too much, and although that word is still in usage I’m not sure that it’s particularly common.

 

Priest-Linked

This is a self-explanatory definition, just meaning “married” although it’s a shame that this isn’t much used today. I’d like someone to say “I’m Priest-Linked to her” rather than just say they’re married, it adds a touch of grandeur to the statement. Well, and perhaps slight contempt.