A Thousand Pages Of Slang

Auckland Star, Volume LXVIII, Issue 270, 13 November 1937, Page 8 (Supplement)

A Thousand Pages Of Slang

r "Cabbages and Kings," yon may remember, the following telegram, written in what was cipher to the Anchurians, was sent by an American in the capital to A compatriot on the coast:

"His Nibs skedaddled yesterday per Jack-rabbit line with all the coin In the kitty and the bundle of muslin he'« spoony about. The boodle is six figures short. Our crowd Is In good shape, but wo need the sponditlllckg. You collar it. The main guy and tho dry good's are headed for the briny, iou know whnt to do."

You may also remember that Billy Keogh, "latter-day rover of the Spanish Main," said of this message that it wasn't a cipher, but "what they call literature, and that's a system of language put in the mouths of people that they've never been Introduced to by writers of imagination.'' Billy waa allowing bis fancy to play. Now that thia soijt of thing had been endorsed by tho telegraph company, ho added, It was no longer literature, but language. But slang is the literature of a large part of the people. It is the method hy which they allow their imagination play; it Is their poetry. That is one reason why "correct" written language, expression from which slang and colloquialism* are excluded, is not so popular with the masse* as it might be. The Sentimental Bloke was moved by "Romeo and .Juliet," but he put his feelings into words which, if they had been written in a school essay, would have brought sharp punishment on the writer.

I am reminded of that message from the i-apital of Anclmria by Mr. Eric Partridge's new and greatest work in the lie I a in which ho has specialised.* i have previously draww attention to his investigations into soldier slang in English iiml other langnuges. Mr. Partridge wan formerly of Australia and New /.enland, ami he lias kept an eye open for Antipodean contributions to his subject. 'I lilh 'Dictionary of Slang and L'nconventlon KnglMi" which he has written, il to be n "humble companion to the monumental Oxford English Dictionary," will be an eye-opener to most. Wo all use slang, but few of us can have realised that there la so much slang in the world and of such variety. There are about a thousand pages in

the dictionary, and I estimate that there are between thirty and forty thousand entries. An immense amount of labour, ranging over the English-speaking world, has gone to the making of this reference book. Here is every grade of society to the lowest. I have checked up the O. Henry quotation above, and I And Mr. Partridge lists ten of its words. But 0. Henry is always polite; there are thousands of words in this dictionary that are very impolite, to say the leaat. Anything approaching a complete guide to slang mnst go boldly into the obscene. We British are apt to complain that American slang la unintelligible. With a little trouble one might make up a passage of English slang from this book that would be just ae difficult, though probably it would be intelligible to a smaller number proportionately in our communities than an American collection would be in the United States. Racy alang seems to come more naturally to all classes of Americana than to Britons. What is an "aboliar" in Australia? What is the secondary meaning of "Maseey-Harris" in Canada? What article in common use by the troops in France was called aa "Asquith"?

"Rainbow," Were Too Late For War

A man who was given a dictionary to read returned it with the comment that it was interesting, but lacked continuity. One can only browse in Mr. Partridge's pages. Here is "rainbow" meaning originally a discoloured bruise, an excellent example of the picturesquene*s of <riang. But its latest recorded meaning i* more picturesque; it was applied to reinforcements who were sent out after the Armistice—they came when the storm was over. A large proP«™ on 0' the slang in this book is military or naval. Then take "Kathleen Mavourmsen," the name given to prisoners with indeterminate sentence* because it may he for year* or it may be for ever. Mr. Partridge', note on this in curious. He eays it is applied for the same reason to the hire-purchase syetem and is Anglo-Irish, but just above he gives "Rath" at New Zealand lor an indefinitely long term of imprisonment, and cite* Alpers' "Cheerful Yesterdays." But in that New Zealand work, however, the reference is to the full expression as well as the shortened form, and it meant an inde-

terminate sentence. Has any New Zealander heard it used in connection with hire purchase?

New Zealand has not a great deal of slang of its own. Most of our colonial slang comes from Australia. This :a one of the things that makes it difficult to write New Zealand dialogue that can be recognised as typical. We have a)

By . , s "Cyrano"

slang use of the word mutton, though England has several. "Hoot," meaning money, is a New Zealand expression derived from the Maori "utu," but is not to be confused with "hoot" in ,"not caring a hoot." From Australia we get "dead bird," "larrikin" (Mr. Partridge favours the derivation "Larry," a common Irish name, and "kin"), "skite," "barracking," "the dead ring of" and "the Never-Never," the derivation of which ie said to be one's resolve never never to return to it. To "shout," in the sense of standing drinks, is Australian.

If a schoolboy wrote "ballyhoo" in an essay what would the master aay? Yet "ballyhoo" is a most expressive word, and is coming into standard English through its use by-writers who seek freedom and vivacity. "Chaps" might be barred at school, but A. E. Housman uses it. And what could be better to describe a certain type of per' son than "smarmy," meaning an air of courteous insincerity T It is very interesting to note how some words force their way into standard English, and some slang words disappear. "Barnstormer" is one of the most expressive words the stage has given us. Strolling players frequently performed in and the word came to mean a ranting actor. We use the word "pluck," meaning courage, without knowing that it was once considered worse than vulgar, owing to its anatomical association. Scott thought it a "blackguardly" word. Perhaps "guts" win become respectable. On the other hand "masher," which was quite common when I was young, is no longer he ud. A "masher" was a dandy,

especially in London, one who cultivated the acquaintance of actreses. He was marked by the height of his collars. "Flapper" at first had a bad meaning, but is now used generally of girls of a certain age. "Swing the lead" should be "swing the leg," and it is pointed out that there is nothing soft in the job of heaving (not swinging) the lead. Mr. Partridge even recalls one of the most famous of "Punch" jokes. "Bang goes saxpence," he says, dates from about 1896, and possibly comes from a gag by Harry Lauder. It is far older than Lauder. It appeared in one of Charles Keene's "Punch" jokes sixty or seventy years ago (the Peebles body who had been to London and found it most expensive); Keene had it from Birket Foster, the artist, who had it from Sir John Gilbert, another artist. Nor can I think that Mr. Partridge is right in putting "the real Mackay" as late as 1929, and accepting the derivation from the American pugilist, Kid McCoy. If I remember aright it was current some time before 1929, and isn't it more likely that it has a Scottish origin?

Battle Now Rages Fiercer Than Ever

The battle between what may be called academic English and slang and colloquialisms never ceases, and perhaps it is being waged more fiercely to-day than ever before. Dryden thought Shakespeare's language ungentlemanly, and Johnson his vivid words vulgar. But Shakespeare, like all the Elizabethans, and many writers to-day, was an experimenter. His vocabulary incorporates city and country words, bookish allusions' and tavern talk, material from every source. It has been said of him that he possessed that creative power in speech that is the native gift of the people, "the creative power of American slang, of the Irish peasant, of the Cockney." Note the inclusion of American slang; the writer "sure slobbered a bibful." There are authorities who think that the accepted

(jfnglish language of the future will contain a larger proportion of slang than it does now. The American language is considered by some more elastic and receptive than English, with the result that contemporary American literature is more racy and virile.

•"A Dictionary of Slnng and Unconventional English, from the Fifteenth Century to the Present Day,'' by Brlc Partridge (George Routledge and Sons).