THE SLANG DICTIONARY ETYMOLOGICAL HISTORICAL AND ANECDOTAL

IMG:6416919226569953468_title pages.png: “THE WEDGE” AND THE “WOODEN SPOON.” A NEW IMPRESSION LONDON CHATTO & WINDUS 1913 produce a book which, in its way, would be as useful to students of philology, as well as to lovers of human nature in all its phases, as any standard work in the English language. The squeamishne which tries to ignore the existence of slang fails signally, for not only in the streets and the prisons, but at the bar, on the bench, in the pulpit, and in the Houses of Parliament, does slang make itself heard, and, as the shortest and safest means to an end, understood too. My predece or, the original compiler, did not live to see his wish become an actual fact; and, failing him, it devolved upon me to undertake the task of revision and addition. How far this has been accomplished, the curious reader who is po e ed of a copy of each edition can best judge for himself by comparing any couple of pages he may select. Of my own share in the work I wish to say nothing, as I have mainly benefited by the labours of others; but I may say that, when I undertook the position of editor of what, with the smallest po ible stretch of fancy, may now be called a new book, I had no idea that the alteration would be nearly so large or so manifest. However, as the work is now done, it will best speak for itself, and, as good wine needs no bush, I will leave it, in all hope of their tenderne , to those readers who are best qualified to say how the task has been consummated. In conclusion, it is but fair for me to thank, as strongly as weak words will permit, those gentlemen who have in various ways a isted me. To two of them, who are well known in the world of literature, and who have not only aided me with advice, but have placed many new words and etymologies at my service, I am under particular obligation. With this I beg to subscribe myself, the reader’s most obedient servant, The Editor. December 20, 1873. Note. —The reader will bear in mind that this is a Dictionary of modern Slang,—a list of colloquial words and phrases in present use,—whether of ancient or modern formation. Whenever Ancient is appended to a word, it means that the expre ion was in respectable use in or previous to the reign of Queen Elizabeth. Old or Old English , affixed to a word, signifies that it was in general use as a proper expre ion in or previous to the reign of Charles II. Old Cant indicates that the term was in use as a Cant word during or before the same reign. The Publishers will be much obliged by the receipt of any cant, slang, or vulgar words not mentioned in the Dictionary. The probable origin, or etymology, of any fashionable or unfashionable vulgarism, will also be received with thanks. and subdivisions of various ranks of society. These are nece arily of many kinds, stationary and wandering, civilized and uncivilized, respectable and disreputable,—those who have fixed abodes and avail themselves of the refinements of civilization, and those who go from place to place picking up a precarious livelihood by petty sales, begging, or theft. This peculiarity is to be observed amongst the heathen tribes of the southern hemisphere, as well as in the oldest and most refined countries of Europe. In South Africa, the naked and miserable Hottentots are pestered by the still more abject Sonquas ; and it may be some satisfaction for us to know that our old enemies at the Cape, the Kaffirs, are troubled with a tribe of rascals called Fingoes ,—the former term, we are informed by travellers, signifying beggars, and the latter wanderers and outcasts. In South America, and among the islands of the Pacific, matters are pretty much the same. Sleek rascals, without much inclination towards honesty, fatten, or rather fasten, like the insects in the famous epigram, upon other rascals, who would be equally sleek and fat but for their vagabond dependents. Luckily for respectable persons, however, vagabonds, both at home and abroad, generally show certain outward peculiarities which distinguish them from the great ma of law-abiding people on whom they subsist. Observation shows that the wandering races are remarkable for an abnormal development of the bones of the face, as the jaws, cheek-bones, ., for high-crowned, stubborn-shaped heads, quick, restle eyes, [1] and hands nervously itching to be doing; for their love of gambling; for sensuality of all kinds; and for their use of a Cant language with which to conceal their designs and plunder ings. The secret jargon, or rude speech, of the vagabonds who hang upon the Hottentots is termed Cuze-cat. In Finland, the fellows who steal seal-skins, pick the pockets of bear-skin overcoats, and talk cant, are termed Lappes. In France, the secret language of highwaymen, housebreakers, and pickpockets, is named Argot. The brigands and more romantic rascals of Spain term their private tongue German i a, [2] or Robbers’ Language. Rothwälsch, [3] or foreign-beggar-talk, is synonymous with cant and thieves’ talk in Germany. The vulgar dialect of Malta, and the Scala towns of the Levant—imported into this country and incorporated with English cant—is known as the Lingua Franca, or bastard Italian. And the crowds of lazy beggars that infest the streets of Naples and Rome, as well as the brigands of Pompeii, use a secret language termed Gergo. In England, as we all know, it is called Cant—often improperly Slang. Most nations, then, po e each a tongue, or series of tongues maybe, each based on the national language, by which not only thieves, beggars, and other outcasts communicate, but which is used more or le by all cla es. There is hardly any community in this country, hardly any profe ion, but has its slang, and proficiency in this is the greatest desideratum of an aspirant to the pleasures of Society, or the honours of literature and art. The formation of these secret tongues varies, of course, with the circumstances surrounding the speakers. A writer in Notes and Queries has well remarked that “the investigation of the origin and principles of cant and slang language opens a curious field of inquiry, replete with considerable interest to the philologist and the philosopher. It affords a remarkable instance of lingual contrivance, which, without the introduction of much arbitrary matter, has developed a system of communicating ideas, having all the advantages of a foreign language.” “The terms Cant and Canting were probably derived from chaunt and chaunting,—the whining tone, or modulation of voice adopted by beggars, with intent to coax, wheedle, or cajole by pretensions of wretchedne .” [4] For the origin of the other application of the word Cant, pulpit hypocrisy, we are indebted to the Spectator —“Cant is by some people derived from one Andrew Cant, who, they say, was a Presbyterian minister in some illiterate part of Scotland, who, by exercise and use, had obtained the faculty, alias gift, of talking in the pulpit in such a dialect that ’tis said he was understood by none but his own congregation,—and not by all of them. Since Master Cant’s time it has been understood in a larger sense, and signifies all exclamations, whinings, unusual tones, and, in fine, all praying and preaching like the unlearned of the Presbyterians.” This anecdote is curious, though it is but fair to a ume that the preacher’s name was taken from his practice, rather than that the practice was called after the preacher. As far as we are concerned, however, in the present inquiry, Cant was derived from chaunt, a beggar’s whine; “chaunting” being the recognised term amongst beggars to this day for begging orations and street whinings; and “chaunter,” a street talker and tramp, is still the term used by strollers and patterers. This race is, however, nearly obsolete. The use of the word Cant, amongst beggars, must certainly have commenced at a very early date, for we find “To cante, to speake,” in Harman’s list of Rogues’ Words in the year 1566; and Harrison about the same time, [5] in speaking of beggars and Gipsies, says, “they have devised a language among themselves which they name Canting, but others Pedlars’ Frenche.” Now, the word Cant in its old sense, and Slang [6] in its modern application, although used by good writers and persons of education as synonyms, are in reality quite distinct and separate terms. Cant, apart from religious hypocrisy, refers to the old secret language of Gipsies, thieves, tramps, and beggars. Slang represents that evanescent language, ever changing with fashion and taste, which has principally come into vogue during the last seventy or eighty years, spoken by persons in every grade of life, rich and poor, honest and dishonest. [7] Cant is old; Slang is always modern and ever changing. To illustrate the difference: a thief in Cant language would term a horse a “prancer” or a “prad;” while in Slang, a man of fashion would speak of it as a “bit of blood,” a “spanker,” or a “neat tit.” A handkerchief, too, would be a “billy,” a “fogle,” or a “Kent rag,” in the secret language of low characters; whilst amongst the modern folk who affect Slang, it would be called a “stook,” a “wipe,” a “fogle,” or a “clout.” Cant was formed for purposes of secrecy. Slang, though it has a tendency the same way, is still often indulged in from a mild desire to appear familiar with life, gaiety, town-humour, and the transient nicknames and street jokes of the day. Both Cant and Slang, we have before said, are often huddled together as synonyms; but they are most certainly distinct, and as such should be used. To the Gipsies, beggars and thieves are in great measure indebted for their Cant language. It is supposed that the Gipsies originally landed in this country early in the reign of Henry VIII. They were at first treated as conjurors and magicians,—indeed, they were hailed by the populace with as much applause as a company of English performers usually receives on arriving in a distant colony. They came here with all their old Eastern arts of palmistry and second-sight, with their factitious power of doubling money by incantation and burial,—shreds of pagan idolatry; and they brought with them, also, the dishonesty of the lower-caste Orientals, and the nomadic tastes they had acquired through centuries of wandering over nearly the whole of the then known globe. They po e ed also a language quite distinct from anything that had been heard in England up till their advent; they claimed the title of Egyptians, and as such, when their thievish propensities became a public nuisance, were cautioned and proscribed in a royal proclamation by Henry VIII. [8] The Gipsies were not long in the country before they found native imitators; and indeed the imitation is much more frequently found nowadays, in the ranks of the so-called Gipsies, than is the genuine article. Vagabondism is peculiarly catching, and the idle, the vagrant, and the criminal soon caught the idea from the Gipsies, and learned from them to tramp, sleep under hedges and trees, tell fortunes, and find lost property for a consideration—frequently, as the saying runs, having found it themselves before it was lost. They also learned the value and application of a secret tongue; indeed, with the Gipsies came in all the accompaniments of maunding and imposture, except thieving and begging, which were well known in this country, and perhaps in every other, long before visitors had an opportunity of teaching them. Harman, in 1566, wrote a singular, not to say droll, book, entitled, A Caveat for commen Cvrsetors, vulgarly called Vagabones, newly augmented and inlarged , wherein the history and various descriptions of rogues and vagabonds are given, together with their canting tongue. This book, the earliest of the kind, gives the singular fact that within a dozen years after the landing of the Gipsies, companies of English vagrants were formed, places of meeting appointed, districts for plunder and begging operations marked out, and rules agreed to for their common management. In some cases Gipsies joined the English gangs; in others, English vagrants joined the Gipsies. The fellowship was found convenient and profitable, as both parties were aliens to the laws and customs of the country, living in a great measure in the open air, apart from the lawful public, and often meeting each other on the same by-path, or in the same retired valley; but seldom intermarrying or entirely adopting each other’s habits. The common people, too, soon began to consider them as of one family,—all rogues, and from Egypt. This superstition must have been very firmly imbedded, for it is still current. The secret language spoken by the Gipsies, principally Hindoo, and extremely barbarous to English ears, was found incomprehensible and very difficult to learn. The Gipsies naturally found a similar difficulty with the English language. A rude, rough, and singular, but under the circumstances not unnatural, compromise was made, and a mixture of Gipsy, old English, newly-coined words, and cribbings from any foreign, and therefore secret, language, mixed and jumbled together, formed what has ever since been known as the Canting Language, or Pedlar’s French; or, during the past century, St. Giles’s Greek. Such was the origin of Cant; and in illustration of its blending with the Gipsy or Cingari tongue, we are enabled to give the accompanying list of Gipsy, and often Hindoo, words, with, in many instances, their English representatives:— | Gipsy. | English. | | Bamboozle, to perplex or mislead by hiding. Modern Gipsy. | Bamboozle, to delude, cheat, or make a fool of any one. | | Bosh, rubbish, nonsense, offal. Gipsy and Persian. | Bosh, stupidity, foolishne . | | Cheese, thing or article, “That’s the CHEESE,” or thing. Gipsy and Hindoo. | Cheese, or CHEESY, a first-rate or very good article. | | Chive, the tongue. Gipsy. | Chive, or CHIVEY, a shout. To CHIVEY, to hunt down with shouts. | | Cuta, a gold coin. Danubian Gipsy. | Couter, a sovereign, twenty shillings. | | Dade, or Dadi, a father. Gipsy. | Daddy, nursery term for father.(*) | | Dist arab in, a prison. Gipsy. | Sturabin, a prison. | | Gad, or Gadsi, a wife. Gipsy. | Gad, a female scold; a woman who tramps over the country with a beggar or hawker. | | Gibberish, the language of Gipsies, synonymous with Slang. Gipsy. | Gibberish, rapid and unmeaning speech. | | Ischur, Schur, or Chur, a thief. Gipsy and Hindoo. | Cur, a mean or dishonest man.(*) | | Lab, a word. Gipsy. | Lobs, words. | | Lowe, or Lowr, money. Gipsy and Wall a chi an. | Lowre, money. Ancient Cant. | | Mami, a grandmother. Gipsy. | Mammy, or Mamma, a mother, formerly sometimes used for grandmother.(*) | | Mang, or Maung, to beg. Gipsy and Hindoo. | Maund, to beg. | | Mort, a free woman,—one for common use amongst the male Gipsies, so appointed by Gipsy custom. Gipsy. | Mot, a prostitute. | | Mu, the mouth. Gipsy and Hindoo. | Moo, or Mun, the mouth. | | Mull, to spoil or destroy. Gipsy. | Mull, to spoil, or bungle.(*) | | Pal, a brother. Gipsy. | Pal, a partner, or relation. | | Pané, water. Gipsy. Hindoo, PAWNEE. | Parney, rain. | | Rig, a performance. Gipsy. | Rig, a frolic, or “spree.” | | Romany, speech or language. Spanish Gipsy. | Romany, the Gipsy language. | | Rome, or Romm, a man. Gipsy and Coptic. | Rum, a good man, or thing. In the Robbers’ language of Spain (partly Gipsy), RUM signifies a harlot. | | Romee, a woman. Gipsy. | Rumy, a good woman or girl. | | Slang, the language spoken by Gipsies. Gipsy. | Slang, low, vulgar, unauthorized language. | | Tawno, little. Gipsy. | Tanny, Teeny, little. | | Tschib, or Jibb, the tongue. Gipsy and Hindoo. | Jibb, the tongue; Jabber, [9] quick-tongued, or fast talk. | [In those instances indicated by a (*), it is doubtful whether we are indebted to the Gipsies for the terms. Dad, in Welsh, also signifies a father. Cur is stated to be a mere term of reproach, like Dog, which in all European languages has been applied in an abusive sense. Objections may also be raised against Gad, Maund, and many other of these parallels. We have, however, no wish to present them as infallible; our idea is merely to call the reader’s attention to the undoubted similarity between both the sound and the sense in most examples.] Here, then, we have the remarkable fact of at least a few words of pure Gipsy origin going the round of Europe, pa ing into this country before the Reformation, and coming down to us through numerous generations purely by the mouths of the people. They have seldom been written or used in books, and it is simply as vulgarisms that they have reached us. Only a few are now Cant, and some are household words. The word jockey, as applied to a dealer or rider of horses, came from the Gipsy, and means in that language a whip. The word, used as a verb, is an instance of modern slang grown out of the ancient. Our standard dictionaries give, of course, none but conjectural etymologies. Another word, bamboozle, has been a sore difficulty with lexicographers. It is not in the old dictionaries, although it is extensively used in familiar or popular language for the last two centuries; and is, in fact, the very kind of word that such writers as Swift, Butler, L’Estrange, and Arbuthnot would pick out at once as a telling and most serviceable term. It is, as we have seen, from the Gipsy; and here we must state that it was Boucher who first drew attention to the fact, although in his remarks on the dusky tongue he has made an evident mistake by concluding it to be identical with its offspring, Cant. Other parallel instances, with but slight variations from the old Gipsy meanings, might be mentioned; but sufficient examples have been adduced to show that Marsden, a great Oriental scholar in the last century, when he declared before the Society of Antiquaries that the Cant of English thieves and beggars had nothing to do with the language spoken by the despised Gipsies, was in error. Had the Gipsy tongue been analysed and committed to writing three centuries ago, there is every probability that many scores of words now in common use could be at once traced to its source, having been adopted as our language has developed towards its present shape through many varied paths. Instances continually occur nowadays of street vulgarisms ascending to the drawing-rooms of respectable society. Who, then, can doubt that the Gipsy-vagabond alliance of three centuries ago has contributed its quota of common words to popular speech? Thomas Moore, in a humorous little book, Tom Crib’s Memorial to Congre , 1819, says, “The Gipsy language, with the exception of such terms as relate to their own peculiar customs, differs but little from the regular Flash or Cant language.” But this was magnifying the importance of the alliance. Moore, we should think, knew nothing of the Gipsy tongue other than the few Cant words put into the mouths of the beggars in Beaumont and Fletcher’s Comedy of the Beggar’s Bush , and Ben Jonson’s Masque of the Gipsies Metamorphosed ,—hence his confounding Cant with Gipsy speech, and appealing to the Glo ary of Cant for so-called “Gipsy” words at the end of the Life of Bamfylde Moore Carew , to bear him out in his a ertion. Still his remark bears much truth, and proof of this would have been found long ago if any scholar had taken the trouble to examine the “barbarous jargon of Cant,” and to have compared it with Gipsy speech. George Borrow, in his Account of the Gipsies in Spain , thus eloquently concludes his second volume; speaking of the connexion of the Gipsies with Europe ans, he says:—“Yet from this temporary a ociation were produced two results; European fraud became sharpened by coming into contact with Asiatic craft; whilst European tongues, by imperceptible degrees, became recruited with various words (some of them wonderfully expre ive), many of which have long been stumbling-blocks to the philologist, who, whilst stigmatizing them as words of mere vulgar invention, or of unknown origin, has been far from dreaming that a little more research or reflection would have proved their affinity to the Sclavonic, Persian, or Romaic, or perhaps to the mysterious object of his veneration, the Sanscrit, the sacred tongue of the palm-covered regions of Ind; words originally introduced into Europe by objects too miserable to occupy for a moment his lettered attention—the despised denizens of the tents of Roma.” These words might with very little alteration be ascribed to the subject of which this volume is supposed—indeed hoped—to be a handbook. But the Gipsies, their speech, their character—bad enough, as all the world testifies, but yet not devoid of redeeming qualities—their history, and their religious belief, have been totally disregarded, and their poor persons buffeted and jostled about until it is a wonder that any trace of origin or national speech remains. On the Continent they received better attention at the hands of learned men. Their language was taken down in writing and examined, their history was traced, and their extraordinary customs and practice of living in the open air, and eating raw, and often putrid meat, were explained. They ate reptiles and told fortunes because they had learnt to do so through their forefathers centuries back in Hindostan; and they devoured carrion because the Hindoo proverb—“That which God kills is better than that killed by man” [10] —was still in their remembrance. This is the sort of proverb, we should imagine, that would hardly commend itself to any one who had not an unnatural and ghoule-like tendency anxious for full development. Grellman, a learned German, was their principal historian, and to him, and those who have followed him, we are almost entirely indebted for the little we know of their language. The first European settlement of the Gipsies was in the provinces adjoining the Danube, Moldau and Thei , where M. Cogalniceano, in his E ai sur les Cigains de la Moldo-Valachie , estimates them at 200,000. Not a few of our ancient and modern Cant and Slang terms are Wall a chi an and Greek words, picked up by these wanderers from the East, and added to their common stock. Gipsy, then, started, and was partially merged into Cant; and the old story told by Harrison and others, that the first inventor of canting was hanged for his pains, would seem to be a humorous invention, for jargon as it is, it was doubtle of gradual formation, like all other languages or systems of speech. Most of the modern Gipsies know the old Cant words as well as their own tongue—or rather what remains of it. As Borrow says, “The dialect of the English Gipsies is mixed with English words.” [11] Those of the tribe who frequent fairs, and mix with English tramps, readily learn the new words, as they are adopted by what Harman calls “the fraternity of vagabonds.” Indeed, the old Cant is a common language to the vagrants of many descriptions and every po ible origin who are scattered over the British Isles. English Cant has its mutabilities like every other system of speech, and is considerably altered since the first dictionary was compiled by Harman in 1566. A great many words are unknown in the present tramps’ and thieves’ vernacular. Some of them, however, still bear their old definitions, while others have adopted fresh meanings. “Abraham-man” is yet seen in our modern “sham Abraham,” or “play the old soldier”— i.e. , to feign sickne or distre . “Autum” is still a church or chapel amongst Gipsies; and “beck,” a constable, is our modern Cant and Slang “beak,” once a policeman, but now a magistrate. “Bene,” or “bone,” stands for good in Seven Dials and the back streets of Westminster; and “bowse” is our modern “booze,” to drink or fuddle. A “bowsing ken” was the old Cant term for a public-house; and “boozing ken,” in modern Cant, has precisely the same meaning. There is little doubt, though, that the pronunciations were always as they are now, so far at least as these two instances are concerned. “Ca an” is both old and modern Cant for cheese; the same may be said of “chattes,” or “chatts,” the gallows. “Cofe,” or “cove,” is still a vulgar synonym for a man. “Dudes” was Cant for clothes; we now say “duds.” “Flag” is still a fourpenny-piece; and “fylche” means to rob. “Ken” is a house, and “lick” means to thrash; “prancer” is yet known amongst rogues as a horse; and to “prig,” amongst high and low, is to steal. Three centuries ago, if one beggar said anything disagreeable to another, the person annoyed would say, “Stow you,” or hold your peace; low people now say, “Stow it,” equivalent to “Be quiet.” There is, so far as the Slang goes, no actual difference in the use of these phrases, the variation being in the pronouns—in fact, in the direction. “Trine” is still to hang; “wyn” yet stands for a penny. And many other words, as will be seen in the Dictionary, still retain their ancient meaning. As specimens of those words which have altered their original Cant signification, may be instanced “ chete,” now written cheat. “Chete” was in ancient Cant what chop is in the Canton-Chinese—an almost inseparable adjunct. Everything was termed a “chete,” and qualified by a substantive-adjective, which showed what kind of a “chete” was meant; for instance, “crashing-chetes” were teeth; a “moffling-chete,” was a napkin; a “topping-chete,” was the gallows, and a “grunting-chete,” was a pig. Cheat nowadays means to cozen or defraud, and lexicographers have tortured etymology for an original—but without succe . Escheats and escheat ours have been named, but with great doubts; indeed, Stevens, the learned commentator on Shakspeare, acknowledged that he “did not recollect to have met with the word cheat in our ancient writers.” [12] Cheat, to defraud, then, is no other than an old Cant term somewhat altered in its meaning, [13] and as such it should be described in the next etymological dictionary. Another instance of a change in the meaning of the old Cant, but the retention of the word, is seen in “cly,” formerly to take or steal, now a pocket; and with the remembrance of a certain cla of low characters, a curious connexion between the two meanings is discovered. “Make” was a halfpenny: we now say “mag,”—“make” being modern Cant for getting money by any po ible means, their apophthegm being—“Get money the best way you can, but make it somehow.” “Milling” stood for stealing; it ultimately became a pugilistic term, and then faded into nothingne , “the cove wot loves a mill,” being a thing of the past. “Nab” was a head,—low people now say “nob,” the former meaning, in modern Cant, to steal or seize. “Pek” was meat,—we still say “peckish,” when hungry. “Peckish” is though more likely to be derived from the action of birds when eating, as all slang has its origin in metaphor. “Prygges, dronken Tinkers or beastly people,” as old Harman wrote, would scarcely be understood now; a “prig,” in the 19th century, is a pickpocket or thief. He is also a mean, contemptible little “cu ,” who is not, as a rule, found in low life, but who could be very well spared from that of the middle and upper cla es. “ Quier,” or “queer,” like cheat, was a very common prefix, and meant bad or wicked,—it now means odd, curious, or strange; but to the ancient Cant we are po ibly indebted for the word, which etymologists should remember. [14] “Rome,” or “rum,” formerly meant good, or of the first quality, and was extensively used like cheat and queer,—indeed as an adjective it was the opposite of the latter. “Rum” now means curious, and is synonymous with queer; thus,—“rummy old bloke,” or a “queer old man.” Here again we see the origin of an every-day word, scouted by lexicographers and snubbed by respectable persons, but still a word of frequent and popular use. “Yannam” meant bread; “pannum” is the word now. Other instances could be pointed out, but they will be observed in the Dictionary. Several words are entirely obsolete. “Alybbeg” no longer means a bed, nor “askew” a cup. “Booget,” [15] nowadays, would not be understood for a basket; neither would “gan” pa current for mouth. “Fullams” was the old Cant term for false or loaded dice, and although used by Shakspeare in this sense, is now unknown and obsolete. Indeed, as Moore somewhere remarks, the present Greeks of St. Giles’s themselves would be thoroughly puzzled by many of the ancient canting songs,—taking, for example, the first verse of an old favourite— “Bing out, bien Morts, and toure and toure, Bing out, bien Morts, and toure; For all your duds are bing’d awast; The bien cove hath the loure.” [16] But perhaps we cannot do better than present to the reader at once an entire copy of the first Canting Dictionary ever compiled. As before mentioned, it was the work of one Thomas Harman, who lived in the days of Queen Elizabeth. Some writers have remarked that Decker [17] was the first to compile a dictionary of the vagabonds’ tongue; whilst Borrow [18] and Moore stated that Richard Head performed that service in his Life of an English Rogue , published in the year 1680. All these statements are equally incorrect, for the first attempt was made more than a century before the latter work was i ued. The quaint spelling and old-fashioned phraseology are preserved, and the initiated will quickly recognise many vulgar street words as old acquaintances dre ed in antique garb. [19]