Tag: Dictionary of the Vulgar Tongue

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.

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….

Cropsick

The dictionary defines this as “sickness in the stomach, arising from drunkenness” and is still in some dictionaries today and means something more akin to ‘a surfeit of food and drink’. The word ‘crop’ used to more commonly mean ‘the top of something’, so I’m going with the idea that this phrase evolved from something like headsick, although that’s likely to be a guess which is wrong.

The word has slowly gone out of usage over the last two centuries, but I’m not sure why, it’s quite a ring to it.

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….

Croakumshire

Defined by the dictionary as “Northumberland, from the particular croaking the pronunciation of the people of that county, especially about Newcastle and Morpeth, where they are said to be born with a burr in their throats, which prevents their pronouncing the letter r”.

This is a handy reminder of the videos produced by Simon Roper on the evolution of language, although the word that was chosen by, I assume, southerners could have been a little more polite about the residents of Newcastle. I’m not sure that the term was that widely used, given that it appears very rarely in print. And, it’s a reminder of the shifting county boundaries, Newcastle was once part of Northumberland, before being defined as its own county and now it’s been shunted into Tyne and Wear.

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….

Crispin’s Holiday

The dictionary defines this as “every Monday throughout the year, but most particularly the 25th of October, being the anniversary of Crispinus and Crispianus”. Spelled as Crispin and Crispinian today, this pair are the patron saints of cobblers, tanners and leather workers and they were persecuted in the third century for their Christian faith. The men worked as shoe-makers and were tortured on the orders of the Roman Emperor and then thrown into the river with millstones around their necks. Somehow, this effort didn’t manage to kill them, so they were then beheaded on 25 October 285AD.

The Battle of Agincourt was fought on 25 October 1415 and so a link developed between that victory along with Crispin and Crispinian, with numerous other battles since also fought on 25 October. A Feast Day was held on 25 October, but there were numerous industries such as butchers, shoemakers, fishmongers and the like who often didn’t work on Mondays, so they were said to be having a Crispin’s Holiday.

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…..

Crew

The dictionary defines this as “a knot or gang; also a boat or ship’s company. The canting crew are thus divided into twenty-three orders” and these are then listed:

“Men

1. Rufflers
2. Upright Men
3. Hookers or Anglers
4. Rogues
5. Wild Rogues
6. Priggers of Prancers
7. Palliardes
8. Fraters
9. Jarkmen or Patricoes
10. Fresh Water Mariners or Whip Jackets
11. Drummerers
12. Drunken Tinkers
13. Swaddlers or Pedlars
14. Abrams

Women

1. Demanders for Glimmer or Fire
2. Bawdy Baskets
3. Morts
4. Autem Morts
5. Walking Morts
6. Doxies
7. Delles
8. Kinching Morts
9. Kinching Coes”

Some list and I’ll come onto some more of these definitions in future weeks as I stumble across them in the dictionary. But the aim of this list was to place criminals into some sort of order in how they were respected by the rest of the canting, or criminal, community. I’m not entirely sure why some of these categories managed to get themselves to the top, the ‘rufflers’ are a group who pretend to be former soldiers. But, I like some of the phrases, some of them sound like rivals to the Bullingdon Club.

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…..

Crank

Defined as “gin and water”, a combination which isn’t that commonly seen today. However, this was a better option than drinking gin neat, as had been the want in the eighteenth century, solely because the touch of water would bring out some of the flavours from the gin. Lemons and limes were relatively rare in the UK at the end of the eighteenth century and ice wouldn’t have been an option either. The habit of chilling drinks became more common throughout the nineteenth century, with ice becoming easier to acquire later on during the century, which proved to be the next evolution in alcoholic drinks.

Incidentally, I don’t know the origins of the word ‘crank’ in this context, but another archaic meaning of the word is “weak or shaky”, or indeed with relation to ships “liable to fall over”, so perhaps that’s where this came about with reference to drinking too much gin…..

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…..

Cramp Words

Not quite as cheery as some previous definitions, this is defined as a term used in the criminal world meaning a “sentence of death passed on a criminal by a judge. He has just undergone the cramp word; sentence has just been passed on him”. There are a series of other terms related to this, such as “cramping day” which is when the execution took place and “cramp laws” meaning laws that could lead to the death sentence if broken. The terms were used from the early eighteenth century until it slowly faded out of use. Newgate Prison also became known as “Cramp Abbey” and this term was then used as a generic term for any prison.

And, the fading out over time of the “cramp words” phrase.

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…..

Conny Wabble

This is defined as “eggs and brandy beat up together” and the dictionary adds that it has Irish origins. This is a beautifully crafted phrase, of which the origins seem to have been lost, but it is also spelled ‘conny wobble’. It’s primarily a breakfast drink, which I can’t say would appeal much to me if it arrived instead of coffee at some hotel breakfast.

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…..

Conger

This is defined as “to conger; the agreement of a set or knot of booksellers of London, that whosoever of them shall buy a good copy, the rest shall take off such a particular number, in quires, at a stated price; also booksellers joining to buy either a considerable or dangerous copy”.

This was an arrangement amongst booksellers, which were nearly all in London, to jointly finance the production of a book and they purchased shares to that effect and also agreed to purchase a certain number of copies for their shops. This agreement took hold in the early eighteenth century and lasted until around the middle of the nineteenth century. The subscription model was the other way of funding expensive books, such as encyclopaedias, where purchasers would subscribe in advance to help fund the cost of production and printing.

The conger agreement was financially very useful to the booksellers and they fought to retain permanent copyright for everything that was produced. Eventually, the courts started to decide that this made books more expensive for the general public and that excessive power was being retained with the sellers. The principle of copyright was extended and the conger model started to face away as competition increased.