The Madison daily leader. [volume] (Madison, S.D.) 1890-current, 1894-11-14

Unknown Science.
By way of introducing the subject let
me premise that there is certain school
rf thinkers-dwellers for the most part
in very questionable districts of Lon
don-who hold that a policeman in plain
clothes, dress he ever 30 plainly, may
always be known as such by q cursory
inspection of his boots Whether this
opinion is well founded I know not, but
its existence. and also the existence of
rhyming slang, was brought to my no.
tice not long ago in Oxford street-not
the Oxford street of west enderS and
De Quincy, but Oxford street "out
Stepney way" I happened to be rather
stoutly shod, and l wear spectacles,
which are, / suppose, often assumed for
the purpose of disguise, and as / passed
by a group of i'll favored loiterers at a
street corner I distinctly heard one of
them remark to another: "'Ere's a tee.
Dyer dick is goggles and lis blanky
daisies?"
l walked quickly away, but the words
remained in my mind. The opinion they
conveyed, except as affording proof that
the speaker belonged to the school of
thinkers above alluded to, did not inter
est me SO much as the words themselves.
Tee is of course merely an abbreyi-
alton for detective" Much might be
written about dick" 1t is pure Ro-
many, connected, as every student of
hat attractive language knows, with
the Sanskrit ''drish'' and the Hindoo-
stance ':dekhno," meaning "to see."
But "daisies"-being the slang term
and, as l shall show, the rhyming slang
term for "boots"-is a good specimen of
most singular perversion of the English
language, which is we'll worth the at
tention of any one who cares about lin
guistic oddities.
Rhyming slang is peculiar to England
and, / believe, to London. The French
language, so rich in slang, goes not ad-
NIT of such treatment. It is of modern
origin, and / doubt If any trace of it Ia
to be found in the records, which are
fairly plentiful, of the slang Of last CEN
tury. Nor do / recollect any instance of
its appearance in the works of Dickens,
Harrison Ainsworth or Bulwer Lytton.
Rhyming slang expressions may be
divided into two classes-the simple
and the complex. The simple method
consists in substituting for a word some
other word or phrase which rhymes with
it Not that every one is free to choose
his VI rhymes. Usage has established
certain ghyming slang equivalents for
certain words, and, although no doubt
new rhymes r always being intro
duced on trial, yet when one has become
recognized as belonging to the dialect
it can never be dislodged. For instance,
the rhyming slang for "a pocket is
'~'skyrocket,'' and neither ''locket'' nor
socket would be tolerated. The eyes
are "mince pies;'' the ear and the lose
are, oddly enough, the frosty and
clear" and the 81 suppose." How, when
and why these particular rhymes
universally adopted will never be
known. As Professor Dowden remarks
in connection with a very different SUBJ
iect, ITO the eyes Of no diver amid the
wrecks of time will that curious tails
man gleam." Who was Charlie Pres
colt, " whose name in immortalized as
a synonym for ''waistcoat?' And why
should coat and trousers be concealed
under such circumstances as I'm
afoat" and round the 'ouses?"
Other examples of what / have called
the simple form of rhyming slang are
"cat and mouse (house), elephants
trunk" (drunk), bull and cow (row).
and ''I'm SO frisky" whisky. But il /
am asked how daisies can be the
rhyming slang for boots I answer
that we have here an example of the
second or complex form Of the jargon,
which finds its highest development in
the mouths of experts. Having got your
rhyme-say, ''skyrocket'' for pocket
you are permitted, within certain ill
defined limits, to make your slang
equivalent shorter and more occult by
emitting the rhyming portion. Thus
pocket" becomes sky and ''daisy
roots, the simple or first standard form
for boots" is contracted into "dai-
sizes. In the same way no master of the
language would ever give brandy or gin
their primitive names, Jack the dan
dy' or Brian O'Lynn." The one is
always referred to as Jack" the other
as Brian" 1t will be seen that words
treated in this way must have q tend
ency, In constant use, to lose sight, as
1t Were, of their original forms and to
become merged in the great mass of Or
binary prosaic slang. For instance, in
act /, scene /, of 1.-THE Cotton King''
some n says that somebody has "a
streak of black across the chivvy." An
Adelphi audience knows, of course, that
"chivvy' means face, u but the earlier
form OF the word, chevy chase" be-
ing now rarely il ever used, the rhym-
ing original is probably known to few
playgoers, and the word s'chivvy'' is
thus in danger of being left with no
more poetry about it than is attached to
such terms '4conk'' or s'boko," the
ordinary slang for nose.
We hear a great deal about the way
i'm which slang has invaded our CONVEX
sation and our literature; bat, in spite
of the recent po~pularization OF the cos
ter, ] doubt IL much rhyming slang is
heard in west end drawing rooms.
Ard 4 h0wa auIv nr1na nn~aon 80 -