July Book Tuesday

 This month's Book Tuesday is a delightful and informative collection of Victorian Slang collected in 1909 by J. Bedding Ware.

Available at the Internet Archive 

This book is a dictionary of "heterodox Engish, slang and prose" a glimpse into the common tongue of ordinary people in Victorian England.

Definitely worth a perusal.
The Preface is gold and included below.

Enjoy

The Victorian Society of Alberta

Passing English of the Victorian era : a dictionary of heterodox English, slang and phrase

by Ware, James Redding
    1909

 PREFACE

HERE is a numerically weak collection of instances of 'Passing English '. It may be hoped that there are errors on every page, and also that no entry is ' quite too dull '. Thousands of words and phrases in existence in 1870 have drifted away, or changed their forms, or been absorbed, while as many have been added or are being added. 'Passing English' ripples from countless sources, forming a river of new language which has its tide and its ebb, while its current brings down new ideas and carries away those that have dribbled out of fashion. Not only is 'Passing English ' general ; it is local ; often very seasonably local.
Careless etymologists might hold that there are only four divisions of fugitive language in London — west, east, north and south. But the variations are countless. Holborn knows little of Petty Italia behind Hatton Garden, and both these ignore Clerkenwell, which is equally foreign to Islington proper; in the South, Lambeth generally ignores the New Cut, and both look upon Southwark as linguistically out of bounds; while in Central London, Clare Market (disappearing with the nineteenth century) had, if it no longer has, a distinct fashion in words from its great and partially surviving rival through the centuries — the world of Seven Dials, which is in St Giles's — St James's being practically in the next parish. In the East the confusion of languages is a world of ' variants ' — there must be half-a-dozen of Anglo-Yiddish alone — all, however, outgrown from the Hebrew stem. ' Passing English ' belongs to all the classes, from the peerage class who have always adopted an imperfection in speech or frequency of phrase associated with the court, to the court of the lowest costermonger, who gives the fashion to his immediate entourage. Much passing English becomes obscure almost immediately upon its appearance — such as ' Whoa, Emma ! ' or ' How's your poor feet ? ' the first from an inquest in a back street, the second from a question by Lord Palmerston addressed to the then Prince of Wales upon the return of the latter from India. ' Everything is nice in my garden' came from Osborne. 'O.K.' for 'orl kerrect' (All Correct) was started by Vance, a comic singer, while in the East district, 'to Wainwright' a woman (i.e. to kill her) comes from the name of a murderer of that name. So boys in these later days have substituted 'He's a reglar Charlie' for 'He's a reglar Jack' meaning Jack Sheppard, while Charley is a loving diminutive of Charles Peace, a champion scoundrel of our generation. The Police Courts yield daily phrases to 'Passing English ', while the life of the day sets its mark upon every hour. Between the autumn of 1899, and the middle of 1900, a Chadband became a Kruger, while a plucky, cheerful man was described as a 'B.P.' (Baden Powell). Li Hung Chang remained in London not a week, but he was called 'Lion Chang' before he had gone twice to bed in the Metropolis. Indeed, proper names are a great source of trouble in analysing Passing English. 'Dead as a door nail' is probably — as O'Donnel. The phrase comes from Ireland, where another fragment — 'I'll smash you into Smithereens' — means into Smither's ruins — though no one seems to know who Smithers was. Again, a famous etymologist has assumed 'Right as a trivet' to refer to a kitchen-stove, whereas the 'trivet' is the last century pronunciation of Truefit, the supreme Bond Street wig-maker, whose wigs were perfect — hence the phrase. Proper names are truly pitfalls in the study of colloquial language. What is a ' Bath Oliver,' a biscuit invented by a Dr Oliver of Bath ; again there is the bun named after Sally Lunn, while the Scarborough Simnel is a cake accidentally discovered by baking two varying superposed cakes in one tin. In Scarborough, some natives now say the cake comes down from the pretender Simnel, who became cook or scullion to Henry VII. Turning in another direction, it may be suggested that most exclamations are survivals of Catholicism in England, such as 'Ad's Bud'— 'God's Bud' (Christ); 'Cot's So'— 'God's oath'; 'S'elp me greens '— meaning groans; more blue (still heard in Devonshire) — morbleu (probably from Bath and the Court of Charles II.)— the 'blue death ' or the 'blue-blood death '— the crucifixion. ' Please the pigs ' is evidently pyx ; while the dramatic 'sdeath is clearly 'His Death'; even the still common ' Bloody Hell 'is 'By our lady, hail ', the lady being the Virgin. There are hundreds of these exclamations, many wholly local.

Amongst authors perhaps no writer has given so many words to the language as Dickens — from his first work, ' Pickwick ', to almost his last, when he popularised Dr Bowdler; anglicization is, however, the chief agent in obscuring meanings, as, for instance, gooseberry fool is just gooseberry fouille, moved about — of course through the sieve. Antithesis again has much to answer for. ' Dude ' having noted itself, ' fade ' was discovered as its opposite ; 'Mascotte' a luck-bringer having been brought to England, the clever ones very soon found an antithesis in Jonah, who, it will be recalled, was considered an unlucky neighbour. Be it repeated — not an hour passes without the discovery of a new word or phrase — as the hours have always been — as the hours will always be. Nor is it too ambitious to suggest that passing language has something to do with the daily history of the nation. Be this all as it may be — here is a phrase book offered to, it may be hoped, many readers, the chief hope of the author, in relation with this work, being that he may be found amusing, if neither erudite nor useful. Plaudite.

J. R. W