The national era. [volume] (Washington [D.C.]) 1847-1860, 1859-11-10

mort roahtlc rascals OF Spain term their private
tongue Germania, or Robbers Language. Roth
walsch, or Red italian, is synonymous with cant
ana thieves talk IN Germany" while the crowds
OF lazy beggars that infest the streets of Naples
and Rome, and the brigands near Pompeii.
have a secret tongue, which they call Ger0o.
Upon this subject, writer in Notes and
Queries well remarks "The investigation of
the origin and principles of cant and slang Ian.
guage opens curious field of inquiry, replete
with considerable interest to the philologist and
philosopher. 1t affords remarkable instance
OF lingual contrivance, which, without the in
PRODUCTION of much arbitrary matter has de-
veloped system of communicating ideas. bay-
ing all the advantages of foreign language"
Cant, in the sense of pulpit hypocrisy. is de.
rived, in the old Spectator, from one Andrew
Cant, Presbyterian minister in some illterate
part of Scotland, who had obtained BY use the
power OF preaching in such dialect that he
was not understood by any but his own congre-
cation, and not by all of them; but cant, in
the sense We are speaking Of it, is derived
from chant, beggars whine; chdnter, a street
talker and tramp, being the very term still used
among vagabonds There seems to be little
doubt that the secret language itself originated
with the gipsies, who came over into the couu-
try early in the reign of Henry Will In H.
lustrahon of the connection of cant with the
Clngar tongue, we have offered to us list of
gypsy and (often) Hindoo words, with their Eng
lish adoptions. Among these, the more famil-
lar cant (now slang) expressions are Bosh,
which the London Antiquary-and not we
says is Persian for rubbish :" Null which
is gypsy for :" to spoil or bungle;" and That's
the cheese, which he affrms to be Hindoo ex-
preston. We, ourselves, believe that the An
tiquary might have looked much nearer home
for this last derivation. The correct thing, and
the thing, to express the fashion," have been
long in use among the vulgar and it may be
more easily imagined that this may have been
Frenchifed by some fellow proud of his foreign
requirements, into the chose and so into tie
cheese, than that the word ever came from the
sunny plains of Central Asia We are the
more inclined to dstrust our author in this
matter, inasmuch as some of his subsequent
derivations are manifestly farfetched, not to
say absurd.
In defining Bobby, the welLknown slang for
policeman, he says: Bobby is an old Eng
lish word for striking and hitting-a quality
not unknown to policemen" While the simple
fact is, that Bobby is familiar application of
Sir Robert Peel baptismal name TO the police
man, who is usually designated a peeler in
more obvious compliment to the memory of
him who passed the New Police Act All my
eye and Betty Martin is well known to be an
adaptation Of the Popish prayer, oh miai,
6eate MARITIME; but we are not so sure that
Huns6ug which Richardson denies place to
IN his Dictionary, although he uses it to express
the meaning of other words-is a corruption of
Hamburg, from which town so many false
bulletins came during the war in the last cen
tury." We also receive with canton the state
ment that small boys in the United States are
Il l. -. OIL
things, and so are prevented from actual pro
family, or that such a moral waste-pipe for
juvenile passion as Blythe ecer- Icing Jumping
Noses is ever laid on by a judicious parent.
However-to return to the Cingaris-our
London Antiquary feels confident that there
is a gypsy element in our English language
hitherto unrecognised I" and instances joe
key" which means, in the Gypsy tongue, a
whip ,, and bamboozle," which has so sore
ly puzzled the photographers.
Sonsvss words have, IL Sseotia, besu elevated
from cant into perfect responsibility. "Chete
was in ancient cant what chop is in the
Canton Chinese - an almost inseparable adj
junct. Everything was termed chete, and
qualified by noun adjective, which showed
what kind of chete was meant for instance,
crashing chetes were teeth; mofflng
chete, napkin; grunting chete,' pig,
&c. Cheat, nowadays, means to defraud or
swindle, and photographers have tortured ETY.,
mology for an original, but without success.
Escheats and escheatours have been named, but
with great doubts indeed, Stevens, the learn
ed commentator of Shakespeare, acknowledged
that he did not recoect to have met with the
word cheat in our ancient WRITER'S Cheat, to
defraud, then, is no other than an old cant term,
somewhat altered in its meaning,f and as such,
it should be described in the next chronological
Dictionary"
Rek was in cant language meat" and we
now say, when we are hungry, that we are peck
ISL The vagabonds, it seems, lay every tongue
under contribution to furnish forth their strange
vocabulary. "Argot is the London thieves
word for their secret language it is, Of course,
from the French, but that matters not, so long
as it is incomprehensible to the police and the
mob. Domino, teacher, is from the Latin !;
aud Don, a person of Importance, has been
flched from the Spanish. Donna and Feeles,
woman and children, is odd mixture of
Spanish and French whilst Dudds, the vulgar
term for clothes, has been pilfered from the
GAELIC. Feele, daughter, from the French !;
and Frow, a girl or wife, from the German,
are common tramps' terms so are Gent, sill
ver from the French Argent; and Vial,
country town, also from the French. Clip,
college servant, very appropriately comes from
The Greek Cups, Ia WOLFF Horrid-horn, a fool,
from the Erse; and Cloak, a man, from the
Scotch" Crack, in the sense Of excellent
crack corps-was not vulgarism in Henry
Wits time, nor was to crack up, in the sense
of praise, which has now become so popular an
Americanism. Dodge, cunning trick, is from
the Anglo Saxon and ancient mobiles, (says
the London Antiquary, and not we,) used to
get each others ddnder up before appealing to
their swords. Galliranting was an exceeding.
ly polite expression; and a clergyman, preach
ing at Paurs Cross, thought nothing of bid
ding a noisy nearer to "hold his CAB" L
would have lowered the great Lord Bacon, in
the opinion of Uncle squaretoes, had he known
that his Lordship writes of the lower part of a
gentleman's face as his giils. Finally, the phrase
I'll make him buckle UNDER" which word is
used by Shakespeare in Henry w Part ii, Act
i, Scene i,) but Of which the commentators
supply no other example, is common in the
mouth of every London costermonger to this
day,
Slang, properly speaking, is the language of
street-humor, and Of fast life, whether high or
low; and it was at its height-under the name
Of .fdsh-when the Prince Regent was in hia
rakish minority. Webster and Ogilyie are the
only photographers who mention it; Johnson
admitting it indeed, but only as " the preterite
of Single 1t is not derived from the slaaqs
or letters worn by criminals, and so called from
requiring sling Of string to keep them from
the ground" but from gypsy word signifying
gbberish. The familiar wants and failings Of
life are, as might be expected, well represented
by it there being no less than thrty-four terms
to express the degrees of intoxication, from the
first stage of boskiness to that last scene Of ali
in the sad drama of Drink, wherein the sufferer
can't see q hole in G S.;,ler while the coin of
the realm is insuited by no less than one hun.
dred and twenty distinct nicknanes, from the |
humble 6roscn or copper, to the aristoeratic |