American Language Supplement 2

by H. L. Mencken

  The first writings in and on this jargon were done in Germany, and the earliest of them that have been preserved seem to have been based upon reports of a series of criminal trials at Basel in Switzerland, prepared by John Knebel, one of the clergy of the cathedral there.2 This was in 1475, but it was not until 1512 or thereabout that Knebel’s material got into print. It then appeared at Augsburg in the once-famous “Liber Vagatorum,” which ran through many editions during the ensuing half century, including one edited at Wittenberg in 1528 by Martin Luther. All the Englishmen who wrote about thieves’ cant during the Sixteenth Century seem to have made use of it, but there was no English translation until 1860, when John Camden Hotten brought out one in London under the title of “The Book of Vagabonds and Beggars, With a Vocabulary of Their Language.”3 Hotten, in his introduction, put the chief blame for the growth of vagabondage in the later Middle Ages, not on the coming of the Gipsies, but on “the begging system of the friars.” He said:

  These religious mendicants, who had long been increasing in numbers and dissoluteness, gave to beggars sundry lessons in hypocrisy, and taught them, in their tales of fictitious distress, how to blend the troubles of the soul with the infirmities of the body. Numerous systems of religious imposture were soon contrived, and mendicants of a hundred orders swarmed the land. Things were at their worst, or rather, both friars and vagabonds were in their palmiest days, towards the latter part of the Fifteenth Century, just before the suppression of the religious houses.1

  But the German authority, Schreiber,2 laid more stress upon the influence of the Gipsies, thus:

  The beggars of Germany rejoiced in a Golden Age which extended through nearly two centuries, from the invasions of the Turks until after the conclusion of the Swedish war (1450 to 1650). During this long period it was frequently the case that begging was practised less from necessity than for pleasure – indeed, it was pursued like a regular calling.… Mendicancy became a distinct institution, was divided into various branches, and was provided with a language of its own. Besides the frequent wars, it was the Gipsies – appearing in Germany at the beginning of the Fifteenth Century – who contributed most of this state of things.

  “Liber Vagatorum” lists the twenty-nine principal varieties of German rogues of the time, and provides a glossary of their Rotwelsch, or cant. I transcribe some specimens, with explanations:

  Acheln, v. To eat (Heb. akal).

  Barlen, v. To speak (Fr. parler).

  Betzam. An egg (Heb. beytzah).

  Bosshart. Meat (Heb. basar).

  Bergen, v. To beg.3

  Dallinger. A hangman (Ger. galgener?).

  Fetzen, v. To work (Ger. fetzen, tatters).

  Floss. Soup (Ger. floss, flowing water).

  Galch. A priest.

  Gatzam. A child (Heb. gatam).

  Gfar. A village (Heb. chafar).

  Gugelfranz. A monk.

  Gugelfrenzin. A nun.

  Hans Walter. A louse.

  Himmelsteig. The Lord’s Prayer (Ger. Himmel, heaven, and steig, a path).

  Hornbock. A cow.

  Iltis. A policeman (Ger. iltis, a polecat)

  Joham. Wine (Heb. yahyin).

  Kabas. The head (Lat. caput).

  Platschen, v. To preach (Ger. plätschern, to murmur, to ripple, to splash).

  Quien. A dog (Fr. chien, dog).

  Regenwurm. A sausage (Ger. regenwurm, an earthworm).

  Schreiling. A child (Ger. schrei, a cry).

  Versenken, v. To pawn (Ger. versenken, to sink).

  Wunnenberg. A pretty girl.

  Zickus. A blind man (Lat. caecus).

  Zwicker. A hangman (Ger. zwicken, to pinch).

  575. [The earliest English reference to the subject are in Robert Copland’s “The Hye Way to the Spittell Hous,” 1517, a dialogue in verse between the author and the porter at the door of St. Bartholomew’s Hospital, London.] Burke says in “The Literature of Slang,” that this book was probably not actually published until c. 1535. Copland was a printer who once worked for Wynken de Worde and maybe also for William Caxton. “The porter in ‘The Hye Way to the Spittell Hous,’ ” says Burke, “talks the language of rogues, and there are passages entirely in cant.” But Copland’s source does not appear to have been “Liber Vagatorum”; he borrowed, rather, from a French translation of Sebastien Brant’s “Das Narrenschiff,” a somewhat earlier work which also included some thieves’ jargon but was not a formal treatise on the subject. Brant (1457–1521) wrote a great deal of Latin poetry and also a number of legal and theological works, but he is chiefly remembered for “Das Narrenschiff,” which appeared at Basel in 1494. “It was,” says George Madison Priest, in his “Brief History of German Literature,”1 “the first German work that achieved fame abroad. After the manner of the humanists it ridicules the weaknesses and crimes of the age as unreasoning, absurd follies; the ‘fools’ are adulterers, unbelievers, usurers, and the like.” Brant, continues Priest, “studied the classics, and thus received a humanist’s education,” but he “did not accept the humanist ideal of pure humanity, and remained true to the medieval doctrines of the church. Indeed, German humanism in general, in contradistinction from that of Italy, never became wholly detached from religion. It was for the most part limited to scholars who despised the common people.” Brant’s book was given over chiefly to the follies of the upper and middle classes; what he added about rogues and vagabonds seems to have been derived from the same Basel records that have been mentioned as the probable sources of “Liber Vagatorum.” Alexander Barclay’s “The Ship of Fools,” first printed in 1509, was a very free rendering of “Das Narrenschiff,” with most of Brant’s classical pedantry omitted and many additions of purely English material. Like its original, it had an enormous success, and is still pored over by the learned.1

  Copland’s “Hye Way to the Spittell Hous” was followed by many other books embodying specimens of English criminal cant, and among their authors were such remembered writers as Thomas Dekker and Robert Greene, but the first formal glossary did not appear until nearly two centuries later. This was “A New Dictionary of the Terms Ancient and Modern of the Canting Crew, in its Several Tribes of Gipsies, Beggars, Thieves, Cheats, Etc., With an Addition of Some Proverbs, Phrases, Figurative Speeches, Etc.,” published in London in 1698. Its author concealed himself behind the initials B. E., and has never been identified. “From his dictionary,” says Burke, “one gathers that he was an antiquary. Some of his words and definitions bear no relation to slang and cant, but merely gratify his whim for curiosa.… [His] is perhaps the most important dictionary of slang ever printed, since it had such an influence upon later compilations.” It was reprinted in John S. Farmer’s “Choice Reprints of Scarce Books and Unique MSS.,”2 and there is a later facsimile reprint, undated, which often bobs up in the second-hand bookshops. The vocabulary runs to 176 double-column pages, and prefixed to it is a preface of six pages. In that preface the author confines himself mainly to discussing the origin of Gipsies and beggars. Beggars appeared in the world, he says, when slavery was put down. He goes on:

  The Jews, who allow’d of slaves, had no beggars. What shall we say, but that if it be true that the emancipation or freeing of slaves is indeed the making of beggars, it follows that Christianity, which is daily employed in redeeming slaves from the Turks, ransom’d no less than all at once from pagan slavery at first, at no dearer a rate, than the rent-charge of maintaining the beggars, as the price and purchase of our freedom?

  The English here is somewhat thick, but the meaning is plain enough. In England, continues B. E.,

  it may be observed that the first statute which makes provision for the parish poor is no older than Queen Elizabeth, from which it may be fairly collected that they entered with us upon the dissolution of the abbeys, as with them abroad upon the delivery of the slaves.1

  B. E.’s glossary shows a number of terms that are still more or less in vogue. In the following list of specimens those that appear i
n the Berrey-Van den Bark “American Thesaurus of Slang” are marked with asterisks, and in all cases the spelling, punctuation and capitalization are modernized:

  * Anglers. Cheats, petty thieves, who have a stick with a hook at the end, with which they pluck things out of windows, grates, etc.; also those that draw in people to be cheated.2

  * Antidote. A very homely woman.3

  * Aunt. A bawd.

  * Bad job. An ill bout, bargain, or business.

  * Balderdash. Ill, unpleasant, unwholesome mixture of wine, ale, etc.4

  Beetle-head. A heavy, dull blockhead.

  Belsh. All malt drinks.

  Budge. One that slips into a house in the dark, and takes cloaks, coats, or what comes next to hand.

  Buffer. A rogue that kills good sound horses, only for their skins, by running a long wire into them.

  * Case. A house, shop or warehouse. To tout the case: to view, mark or eye the house or shop.

  * Cat. A common whore.

  * Chink. Money, because it chinks in the pocket.

  * Clap. A venereal taint.

  Cleymes. Sores without pain raised on beggars’ bodies by their own artifice and cunning (to move charity), by bruising crowsfoot, spearwort and salt together and clapping them on the place, which frets the skin; then, with a linen rag, which sticks close to it, they tear off the skin and strew on it a little powdered arnica, which makes it look angrily or ill-favoredly, as if it were a real sore.

  Clunch. A clumsy clown; an awkward or unhandy fellow.

  Cob. A dollar (in Ireland).5

  Cockale. A pleasant drink, said to be provocative.1

  *Coltish. Said when an old fellow is frolicsome or wanton.

  Cony. A silly fellow.2

  *Cotton. They don’t cotton: they don’t agree well.

  Crap. Money.3

  * Crony. A comrade or intimate friend.

  Cully. A fool or silly creature that is easily drawn in and cheated by whores or rogues.

  Curmudgeon. An old covetous fellow, a miser.4

  Damme-boy. A roaring, mad, blustering fellow, a scourer of the streets.

  Dells. Young buxom wenches, ripe and prone to venery, but have not lost their virginity.

  Doctor. A false die.

  Dromedary. A thief or rogue.

  *Elbow-grease. A derisory term for sweat.

  Ewe. A top woman among the canting crew, very beautiful.

  *Fence. A receiver and securer of stolen goods.

  *File. A pickpocket.

  Fireship. A pocky whore.

  Flibustiers. West Indian pirates or buccaneers; freebooters.5

  Fork. A pickpocket.

  Fortune-tellers. Judges.

  Fubbs. A loving, fond word used to pretty little children and women.

  *Gag. To put iron pins into the mouths of the robbed, to hinder them crying out.

  *Gang. An ill knot or crew of thieves, pickpockets or miscreants.

  *Gelt. Money.

  *Gimcrack. A bauble or toy.

  *Glim. A dark lantern used in robbing houses.

  Goat. A very lascivious person.

  *Green-bag. A lawyer.

  *Grinders. Teeth.

  Gropers. Blind men.

  *Gugaws. Toys; trifles.1

  Gunpowder. An old woman.

  *Half seas over. Almost drunk.

  *Pump. To wheedle secrets out of anyone.

  *Rhino. Ready money.

  Romer. A drinking-glass.2

  Salamander. A stone (lately) found in Pennsylvania, full of cotton, which will not (as a modern author affirms) consume in the fire.3

  Scandal-proof. One hardened or past shame.

  *Screw. To exact upon one, or squeeze one in a bargain or reckoning.

  *Shark. A sharper.

  *Shop-lift. One that steals under pretense of cheapening.

  *Skin-flint. A griping, sharping, close-fisted fellow.

  Smart-money. Given by the king when a man in land or sea service has a leg shot or cut off, or is disabled.

  *Smutty. Bawdy.

  Snudge. One that lurks under a bed, to watch an opportunity to rob.

  *Sock. To beat.

  Soul-driver. A parson.

  Split-fig. A grocer.

  Stamps. Legs.

  *Stretching. Hanging.

  *Tom-thumb. A dwarf or diminutive fellow.4

  *Trimming. Cheating people of their money.

  Turk. Any cruel, hard-hearted man.

  Whiddle, v. To tell, or discover. He whiddles: he peaches.

  Woodpecker. A bystander that bets.

  After the publication of this dictionary by B. E. there was an interval of nearly a century before England saw another work of importance in the same field. Then, in 1785, came the first edition of Captain Francis Grose’s “Classical Dictionary of the Vulgar Tongue,” the foundation of every treatise on thieves’ cant and likewise on ordinary slang that has been done since. There was a second edition in 1788, and a third in 1796, five years after the author’s death. In 1811 there was a fourth, brought out under the title of “Lexicon Balatronicum” by Hewson Clarke, a literary hack of the time,5 and in 1823 there was a fifth, with the original title restored and Pierce Egan serving as editor.1 Finally, there is the reprint issued in 1931, edited by Eric Partridge and limited to 550 copies. This reprint is based on the third edition of 1796, which seems to have embodied corrections and additions prepared by Grose himself. Partridge adds a brief biography of the author, and enriches the dictionary itself with a large number of glosses, some of them very valuable.

  Grose was the son of a Swiss jeweler who came to England early in the Eighteenth Century, set up business in London, and acquired a moderate fortune. The son was born in 1731 or thereabout and received a good education, though he did not proceed to a university. His early interests were divided between drawing and military affairs. He was for many years adjutant and paymaster of the Hampshire militia, and meanwhile he became so well regarded as a draftsman and water-colorist that in 1766 he was elected a member of the Incorporated Society of Artists. On his father’s death in 1769 he came into enough money to put him at ease, and thereafter he devoted himself largely to antiquarian studies. Between 1773 and 1787 he published six volumes of “The Antiquities of England and Wales,” and at the time of his death in 1791 he had done two more on “The Antiquities of Scotland” (1789–91), and had nearly finished two on “The Antiquities of Ireland.” He was married and had seven children, one of whom rose to be deputy governor of New South Wales, but he was a gay dog and put in a large part of his leisure investigating the night life of London. He also made a number of exploratory tours of the British Isles, and on one of them had a meeting with Robert Burns in Scotland which developed into a close friendship. Burns wrote two poems about him, in one of which, “On Captain Grose’s Peregrinations Through Scotland,” occur the famous lines:

  A chiel’s amang ye, taking notes,

  And, faith, he’ll prent it.

  This couplet has been taken over by journalists as referring to their mystery, but it actually alludes to Grose’s antiquarian researches. Egan says that his nocturnal tours of the London underworld were made in company with a retainer named Batch, and goes on:

  Batch and his master used frequently to start at midnight from the King’s Arms in Holborn in search of adventures. The back slums of St. Giles’s were explored again and again, and the captain and Batch made themselves as affable and jolly as the rest of the motley crew among the beggars, cadgers, thieves, etc., who at that time infested the Holy Land [i.e., St. Giles’s]. It was from these nocturnal sallies and the slang expressions which continually assailed his ears, that Grose was first induced to compile “A Classical Dictionary of the Vulgar Tongue.”

  This last may be true, but it is somewhat misleading. The fact is that Grose’s dictionary leaned heavily upon the before-mentioned “New Dictionary” of B. E., though neither Egan nor Partridge calls attention to it.1 A number of his definitions are taken over from B. E
. unchanged,2 and many others are changed but little.3 Grose even preserved B. E.’s plurals where the singular form would have been more rational. But it is not to be gainsaid that he added a great deal of new matter of his own and got rid of many of B. E.’s nonce-words and literary affectations, so that his dictionary came much closer to the actual vulgar speech than its predecessor. And if he mined B. E., then all his successors have mined Grose; indeed, his dictionary remained the best thing of its sort until Partridge began to investigate English slang during World War I. With Partridge’s glosses his book still makes excellent reading. It came out at just the right time. That large facility for concocting new and picturesque words which characterized the English of the Seventeenth Century had begun to yield, by the last half of the century following, to the policing of the purists, and thereafter its prodigies were transferred to America, but there was still enough good slang in currency to be worth recording, and Grose recorded it with eager diligence and appreciation. In his first edition of 1785 there were about 3,000 entries, and in his third of 1796 the number had grown to nearly 4,000. It is thus impossible to give more than a random sampling here. But certainly the following, none of them to be found in B. E. and all now obsolete, deserve to be remembered:

  Babes in the wood. Criminals in the stocks or pillory.

  Baptized. Spirits that have been lowered with water.

  Barrel fever. He died of the barrel fever: he killed himself by drinking.

  Beau trap. A loose stone in a pavement, under which water lodges, and, on being trod upon, squirts up.1

  Betwattled. Surprised, confounded.

  Blowse, or blowsabella. A woman whose hair is dishevelled and hanging about her face; a slattern.