"fork up" (July 1837), and other slang

Mon Mar 1 18:59:45 UTC 2010

The correct link:
www.kcl.ac.uk/content/1/c6/01/27/52/LPAS9JudithRobertson.pdf.

JL

On Mon, Mar 1, 2010 at 12:36 PM, Jonathan Lighter <wuxxmupp2000 at gmail.com>wrote:

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> Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> Poster:       Jonathan Lighter <wuxxmupp2000 at GMAIL.COM>
> Subject:      Re: "fork *up*" (July 1837), and other slang
>
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> No. Because the dictionaries and thesauruses you use (I assume) are the
> carefully edited kind that don't include ghost words, irresponsible
> definitions, and all sorts of other errors. Furthermore, they assure you
> (generally on the basis of evidence) that unless so noted, the words you're
> using are not obsolete, archaic, or ultra-rare.
>
> The phony use that Robin refers to is that of picking bizarre words from
> crummily edited cant dictionaries (which are in no small part plagiarized
> from earlier ones) and repeating them, sometimes with distortions, and
> often
> with the imputation that they're current and used by everybody, or at least
> everybody in the red-light district.
>
> Here's a fabulous, unnoticed ex. In 2001 the A&E Network presented an
> otherwise competent docudrama called _The Lost Battalion_, concerning a
> (once) famous incident during the Meuse-Argonne offensive of 1918.  The
> writer, James Carabatsos, had apparently gotten his hands on a copy of
> Matsell or perhaps the _Slang Dictionary of New York, London, and Paris_
> and, in an access of misinspiration,  has one of his "Bowery boy"
> characters
> (in the Leo Gorcey sense)  spouting terms like "Daisyville' in the U.S.
> army
> in 1918.  My flesh crawled more than most.
>
> Judith Robertson has addressed cant plagiarizing in a 2004 article here:
>
>
> http://mail.google.com/mail/#inbox/12717a946757a6ee
>
> and Julie Coleman inescapably devotes much of her _History of Cant and
> Slang
> Dictionaries_ on the subject.
>
> JL
>
>
> On Sun, Feb 28, 2010 at 10:58 PM, Joel S. Berson <Berson at att.net> wrote:
>
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> > Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> > Poster:       "Joel S. Berson" <Berson at ATT.NET>
> > Subject:      Re: "fork *up*" (July 1837), and other slang
> >
> >
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
> >
> > At 2/28/2010 10:21 PM, Robin Hamilton wrote:
> > >>"tip us the rhino" -- Not in OED as
> > >>phrase.  rhino 1.  "Money. (Often ready rhino.)".  1688 and thereafter.
> > >
> > >Rhino for money first comes in recorded in Thomas Shadwell's _Squire of
> > >Alsatia_ (presumably the 1688 reference).
> >
> > Yes.  "The Ready, the Rhino; thou shalt be rhinocerical, my Lad."
> >
> > >"Tip" would I'd guess be a bit
> > >later, meaning "give".  But there would be an overlap in time when the
> two
> > >terms would be used.
> > >
> > >Actually, I'm wrong on "tip", come to think of it -- it comes into "Of
> the
> > >Budge" (often miscalled "The Budg and Snudge Song") about 1673 --
> > >
> > >... But
> > >somehow "tip us the rhino" doesn't quite ring true.  "Tip us the ready"
> I
> > >could live with, but while "tip" is definitely actual late 17thC+ cant,
> > >widely attested, "rhino" always sounds a little literary to me.
> >
> > Does "rhinocerical" not sound literary to you?  :-)
> >
> >
> > >>"post the poney" -- OED 1819 [not 17898], s.v.
> > >>post, v.4:  J. H. VAUX New Vocab. Flash Lang. in
> > >>Mem., Post or post the poney, to stake, or lay
> > >>down the money.  [No other quotations.]
> > >
> > >I wouldn't put this past being something made up by the execrable Vaux.
> > >Sounds like a variant of "pony up", meaning to hand over money or pay a
> > debt
> > >or reckoning.
> >
> > I forgot to look for "post the pony" without the "e".  The OED has --
> > s.v. nap, v.3 -- "1828 'W. T. MONCRIEFF' Tom & Jerry I. 20 Blunt, my
> > dear boy, is..to be able to flash the screens---sport the
> > rhino---shew the needful---post the pony{em}nap the rent."
> >
> > So here, "sport" replaces "tip", and we have two additional phrases:
> >
> > "shew the needful" --  "needful adj.1 and n.":  "3. With the. ... b.
> > colloq. The necessary funds; money, cash."  From a1777.
> >
> > "nap the rent" --  "rent", n.1, sense 2.d.a:  "(a) Money, cash, esp.
> > that acquired by criminal activity or in exchange for homosexual
> > favours."  From 1823.  "nap" probably v.3, sense 1, "To seize, catch;
> > to arrest; to steal."  From 1665.
> >
> > >But the whole set of examples, if they date from 1920,
> >
> > They date, as I wrote, from 1837.  The issue number is 1921.
> >
> > >reads like a melange
> > >of slang and cant garnered from various periods and almost certainly
> > books.
> > >Deeply phoney.
> >
> > Robin, why do you say "phoney"?  Because someone read the words in
> > cant dictionaries and used them in a paragraph?  I often look for
> > words in a dictionary (actually, first in a thesaurus), and then use
> > them.  Does that make my use "phoney"?
> >
> > Joel
> >
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