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…..
Blue Flag
I’ve never heard of this phrase, but the dictionary defines it as “he has hoisted the blue flag; he has commenced publican, or taken a public house, an allusion to the blue aprons worn by publicans”. Other dictionaries at the time also referred to it as being a name for those becoming fishmongers, for the same reason of the blue aprons. The term now is better known for representing clean beaches, but I like the phrase, which was used between the mid-eighteenth and mid-nineteenth centuries.