I Never Knew There Was a Word For It

by Adam Jacot De Boinod

  boot-eater (1880) a juror who would rather ‘eat his boots’ than find a person guilty

  PORRIDGE

  A spell inside should be enough to make anyone think twice about reoffending:

  oubliette (Scott: Ivanhoe 1819) a dungeon whose only entrance is in the ceiling

  dry bath (1933) a search of a prisoner who has been stripped naked

  broken arse (New Zealand) a prisoner who has sided with the authorities and thus ranked the lowest in the inmate hierarchy

  carpy (1940s) locked away in one’s cell at night (from Latin tag carpe diem for ‘seize the day’)

  to polish the King’s iron with one’s eyebrows (underworld slang 1785) to look longingly out of prison windows

  Although not necessarily so:

  gate fever (UK slang 2007) terror at the prospect of release from prison

  phoenix (underworld slang 1925) one who enters the world after long imprisonment

  boomerang (US slang) to return to prison almost immediately on finishing the last sentence

  CLEAN SHIRT

  Career criminals have always had to make calculations about the possible punishment they may have to endure, leading to a wide range of names for different prison sentences. Here’s a selection:

  thirteen clean shirts (late 19C) three months’ imprisonment (at the rate of one shirt a week)

  magazine (US 1920s) a six month jail sentence (the time it would take to read one if one could barely read)

  the clock (Australian slang 1950) twelve months’ imprisonment (from the hours on a clock face)

  pontoon (UK prison jargon 1950) a twenty-one month jail sentence (from the card-game in which a score of twenty-one is the optimum hand)

  rouf (UK back slang* 1851) a four year sentence

  taxi (US slang 1930) between five and fifteen years’ imprisonment (from the fares in cents displayed in New York taxis)

  neves (UK back slang* 1901) a seven year sentence

  work under the armpits (early 19C) to confine one’s criminality to such activities that would be classed as petty larceny (bringing a maximum sentence of seven years’ transportation rather than hanging)

  working above the armpits (early 19C) to commit crimes that could lead to one’s execution

  WORD JOURNEYS

  to pay on the nail (1596) from a practice in medieval markets where instant justice was dealt to those who reneged on agreements or cheated their customers. Eventually it was decided that accounts be settled at counters (short pillars known as nails) in the open market place and in front of witnesses. Payments were placed on these counters for everyone to see that all was correct

  not enough room to swing a cat (1771) refers to the whip used on board ships for dealing out punishment (the whip started as a cat-of-three-tails but became a cat-of-nine-tails by the end of the seventeenth century; this method of punishment continued until 1875)

  nipper (16C) a thief, person who nipped or pinched; then (19C) a costermonger’s boy attendant

  villain (14C from Latin via Old French) a worker on a country estate (in feudal terms the lord was the great landowner, and under him were a host of tenants called villains; the notion of wickedness and worthlessness is simply the effect of aristocratic pride and exclusivity)

  BUNTING TIME

  Matters of love

  After your fling,

  watch for the sting

  (1917)

  The beginning of love is often physical. In hiphop male attractiveness is described as pimp-juice and its female counterpart as milkshake, contemporary versions of a long tradition:

  bobbant (Wiltshire) of a girl: forward, romping

  featous (mid 14C) of a man: handsome, good looking

  clipsome (1816) eminently embraceable

  DISCO JUDGES

  Women have long known just how critical others can be of their looks, whether they be English country folk or American teenagers:

  sinful-ordinary (Wiltshire) plain to the last degree in looks

  bridlegged (Cheshire) a farmer’s contemptuous description of a woman as having legs not strong enough to work on the farm

  sphinx (US black teen slang) a woman who is beautiful from the neck up

  Medusa (US black teen slang) a woman who is beautiful from the neck down

  strobe-light honey (US black teen slang) a woman who seems attractive in flickering light but not otherwise

  ZEPPELINS

  One aspect in particular often receives close attention:

  bathycolpian (1825) having a deep cleavage

  headlamps (UK slang early 20C) female breasts: this was when large, raised car headlights were the norm (a century earlier the common expression was barges)

  dead heat in a Zeppelin race (UK slang) an admiring description of large breasts

  fore-buttocks (Pope: The Dunciad 1727) breasts

  Cupid’s kettledrums (18C) breasts

  SUPERSIZE ME

  So how do you get your feelings across? Do fries go with that shake? was a phrase called out by black men in 1970s America to a passing woman they fancied; while the object of admiration might mutter to her friend: He can put his shoes under my bed anytime …

  boombaloomba (Australian slang) an expression of a man’s attraction to a woman

  look that needs suspenders (1940s) a very interested glance at a woman (the suspenders were needed to keep the man’s eyeballs attached to their sockets)

  HUNTER DITHERERS

  Not that everyone finds it easy to be so forward:

  stick-up (Wiltshire) to make the first tentative advances towards courting

  dangle (late 18C) to follow a woman without actually addressing her

  quirkyalone (US slang 1999) someone who just wants the right person to come along at the right time even if that means waiting

  FAINT HEART

  Sometimes one just has to take the risk and get a bit proactive:

  tapper (1950s) a boy who repeatedly pestered a girl for a date

  wingwoman (US slang from the film Top Gun 1986) a professional female matchmaker who escorts a man to a bar or club, engages in light conversation to draw in other females, and then withdraws

  strike breaker (1920s) a young woman who was ready to date her friend’s beau when a couple’s romance was coming to an end

  rabbit’s-kiss (Anglo-Manx) a penalty in the game of ‘forfeits’ in which a man and woman have each to nibble the same piece of straw until their lips meet

  DELIGHTFUL

  Until 1958 debutantes and their mothers exchanged information about the respectable young men to whom they were introduced by using a special code:

  FU Financially Unsound

  MTF Must Touch Flesh

  MSC Makes Skin Crawl

  NSIT Not Safe In Taxis

  VVSITPQ Very, Very Safe In Taxis, Probably Queer

  THE WILDER SHORES OF LOVE

  As homosexuality was illegal in the UK until 1967, the secret language of Polari was used to disguise gay subculture from the disapproving gaze of the law. It was originally used by circus and fairground performers who were equally keen to communicate with each other without their audience understanding. Drawn from Italian, Yiddish, Cockney rhyming slang and full of backwards words (such as ecaf for face) Polari provided various terms that we all use today, such as drag, camp and bimbo, as well as some less well-known but equally colourful expressions:

  omi-polone a gay man (literally man-woman; a lesbian was polone-omi, a woman-man)

  alamo hot for him

  basket the bulge of male genitals through trousers

  naff awful, dull, bad (said to stand for Not Available For F***ing)

  CHEAP DATE

  Whatever your proclivities, there are numerous reasons why one should beware of giving too much too soon:

  couch cootie (US 1920s) a poor or miserly man who prefers to court a woman in her own house than take her out on the town

  flat-wheeler (US college slang 1920s) a young man whose idea of entertaining
a girl is to take her for a walk

  cream-pot love (b.1811) professed by insincere young men to dairymaids, to get cream and other goods from them

  GETTING DOWN TO IT

  In the less permissive 1950s, a Nottingham goodnight was the phrase used of a courting couple who had got back from their date, and then slammed the door and said ‘goodnight’ loudly before retiring quietly to the sofa, hoping they would not be disturbed for some time …

  suaviation (1656) a love kiss

  cow-kissing (US slang mid 19C) kissing with much movement of the tongues and lips

  lallygagger (1920s) a courting male who liked to kiss his sweetheart in hallways

  bundling (b.1811) a man and a woman sleeping in the same bed, he with his clothes on, and she with her petticoat on

  COUNTRY LOVING

  But if the weather’s good, why bother to go home at all?

  sproag (Scotland late 16C) to run among the haystacks after the girls at night

  to give a girl a green gown (late 16C) to tumble her onto the grass

  bunting time (1699) when the grass is high enough to hide young men and maids courting

  boondock (Tennessee campus slang b.1950) to neck, pet or make love in an automobile

  gulch (Newfoundland 1895) to frequent a sheltered hollow to engage in sexual intimacy

  SEALED WITH A LOVING KISS – LOVE LETTER ACRONYMS

  During the Second World War all mail was opened and read by the offcial Censor. So acronyms of places written on the backs of envelopes were used to convey secret messages of love (and lust) between servicemen and their wives or girlfriends:

  HOLLAND Hope Our Love Lasts And Never Dies

  MEXICO CITY May Every Kiss I Can Offer Carry Itself To You

  MALAYA My Ardent Lips Await Your Arrival

  CHINA Come Home I Need Affection

  NORWICH (K)nickers Off Ready When I Come Home

  BURMA Be Undressed Ready My Angel

  EGYPT Eager to Grab Your Pretty Tits

  SIAM Sexual Intercourse At Midnight

  ALL LOVED UP

  Limerence (US Connecticut 1977) is the word for that initial exhilarating rush of falling in love, the state of ‘being in love’. During that time the besotted of either sex should be careful not to deff out, the American slang for women who immediately lose contact with their female friends after acquiring a steady boyfriend. And this is just one of the pitfalls of sudden love:

  fribbler (1712) one who professes rapture for a woman, but dreads her consent

  batmobiling (US slang) putting up protective emotional shields just as a relationship enters an intimate, vulnerable stage (with reference to the car’s retracting armour)

  THEY FLEE FROM ME

  Once things start to go wrong, the slide can be all too rapid …

  to wear the willow (late 16C) to have been abandoned by one’s lover

  … so do try and avoid being cynical …

  sorbet sex (US slang popularized by Sex and the City) a casual sexual relationship undertaken in the period between two more serious relationships

  pull a train (US slang 1965) sexual intercourse with a succession of partners (like a string of boxcars, they have to be coupled and uncoupled)

  … or sentimental …

  desiderium (Swift: letter to Pope 1715) a yearning for a thing one once had but has lost

  anacampserote (1611) a herb that can bring back departed love

  DROIT DE SEIGNEUR

  Take heart from the fact that anything goes; and the history of love tells of some decidedly odd arrangements:

  gugusse (early 1880s) an effeminate youth who frequents the private company of priests

  panmixis (1889) a population in which random mating takes place

  Shunamitism (b.1901) the practice of an old man sleeping with, but not necessarily having sex with, a young woman to preserve his youth (the rationale was that the heat of the young woman would transfer to the old man and revitalize him, based on the Biblical story of King David and Abishag)

  HE DOESN’T UNDERSTAND ME

  Just beware the types for whom lovemaking has become habitual (or even professional):

  mud-honey (Tennyson: Maud 1855) the dirty pleasures of men about town

  cougar (Canadian slang 2005) an older woman on the prowl, preferably for a younger man

  lovertine (1603) someone addicted to sex

  play checkers (US gay jargon 1960s) to move from seat to seat in a cinema in search of a receptive sex partner

  twopenny upright (UK slang 1958) the charge made by a prostitute for an act of sexual intercourse standing up out of doors

  WORD JOURNEYS

  boudoir (French 18C) a place to sulk or pout in

  friend (Old English) a lover; then (12C) a relative or kinsman

  buxom (12C) obedient, compliant; then (16C) plump and comely

  harem (17C from Turkish via Arabic) forbidden to others; then sacred to the women and their apartments

  WITTOLS AND

  BEER BABIES

  Marriage and family life

  Marriage halves our griefs,

  doubles our joys,

  and quadruples our expenses

  (1902–4)

  However giddy and capricious at first, it’s certainly true that Love moves, inexorably, towards the recognized and the formalized:

  wooer-bab (Burns: Halloween 1785) a garter tied below the knee of a young man as a sign that he was about to make an offer of marriage

  subarrhation (Swinburne: Spousals 1686) a betrothal accomplished by the man’s showering presents on his incipient bride

  acquaintance (Shropshire) a fiancé/e

  maiden-rent (17C) a fee paid by every tenant in the Welsh manor of Builth at their marriage (given to the lord for his omitting the ancient custom of marcheta, whereby he spent the first night with his tenant’s new wife)

  gluepot (b.1811) a parson (from joining men and women together in matrimony)

  IN THE PAPERS

  In the UK, people of a certain class have traditionally advertised marriage, just as they do births and deaths, with an announcement in their newspaper of choice. This trio defining a person’s life is colloquially known as hatched, matched and dispatched (with some believing that these really are the only times your name should appear in the papers). In Australia, similar announcements are known as yells, bells and knells. But though established through long custom, marriage has come in many varied and interesting forms …

  paranymph (1660) the best man or bridesmaid at a wedding

  levirate (1725) the custom requiring a man to marry his brother’s widow

  punalua (1889) a group marriage in which wives’ sisters and husbands’ brothers were considered spouses

  adelphogamy (1926) a form of marriage in which brothers share a wife or wives

  jockum-gagger (1797) a man living on the prostitution of his wife

  bitch’s blind (US slang) a wife who acts as a cover for a homosexual male

  opsigamy (1824) marrying late in life

  VIRAGO

  Maritality (1812) is a charming word, meaning ‘the excessive affection a wife feels for her husband’, while levament (1623) describes one of the best aspects of a good marriage, ‘the comfort a man has from his wife’. But in general the words and phrases our language has thrown up speak of more demanding realities, with wives all too often in the frame:

  loudspeaker (underworld slang 1933) a wife

  alarm clock (US slang 1920s) a nagging woman

  tenant at will (late 18C) one whose wife arrives at the alehouse to make him come home

  ten commandments (mid 15C) the ten fingers and thumbs especially of a wife

  curtain-lecture (b.1811) a reproof given by a wife to her husband in bed

  cainsham smoke (1694) the tears of a man who is beaten by his wife (deriving from a lost story relating to Keynsham, near Bristol)

  AFTERPLAY

  Love and marriage, the song goes, go together ‘like horse and
carriage’. So why doesn’t fidelity always fit so easily into the equation?

  wittol (15C) a man who is aware of his wife’s unfaithfulness but doesn’t mind or acquiesces

  court of assistants (late 18C) the young men with whom young wives, unhappy in their marriages to older men, are likely to seek solace

  to pick a needle without an eye (West Indian) of a young woman, to give oneself in marriage to a man whom one knows will be of no use as a sexual partner

  gandermooner (1617) a husband who strays each month, during the time of the month when his wife is ‘unavailable’

  stumble at the truckle-bed (mid 17C) to ‘mistake’ the maid’s bed for one’s wife’s

  UP THE DUFF

  The desire to expand the family is all too natural; though the actual circumstances of conception may vary considerably:

  beer babies (Sussex) babies sired when the man was drunk

  Band-Aid baby (UK slang) a child conceived to strengthen a faltering relationship

  basting (UK slang 2007) being with a gay male friend who offers to give the baby a woman longs for

  sooterkin (1658) an imaginary kind of birth attributed to Dutch women from sitting over their stoves

  THE STORK DESCENDS

  In parts of America they say you have swallowed a watermelon seed when you become pregnant. In Britain, children were once told that the new baby boy in the family had been found under the gooseberry bush, while the girl was found in the parsley bed: