World Wide Words -- 26 Oct 02

[Michael Quinion]

WORLD WIDE WORDS         ISSUE 313         Saturday 26 October 2002
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Contents
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1. Review: Oxford Dictionary of Rhyming Slang.
2. Weird Words: Picadil.
3. Q&A: Throw in the towel; Church key.
4. Endnote.
A. Subscription commands.
B. Contact addresses.
C. Help support World Wide Words.


1. Review: Oxford Dictionary of Rhyming Slang
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When most people speak about rhyming slang, you can almost hear the
unarticulated "Cockney", so much is this odd linguistic phenomenon
associated with the East End of London. However, as John Ayto makes
clear in his introduction to this new work, rhyming slang has never
been limited to that area.

It has been found all over the British Isles, in Australia and New
Zealand (to which it was exported by emigrants from Britain at the
end of the nineteenth century) and even in the USA, where it had a
brief flowering at the beginning of the twentieth century (known as
Australian slang, since it seems to have reached there by going the
long way round). But it's still commonly associated with Cockney
sparrows, pearly kings and queens, and all the nostalgic falsities
that have grown up round that hard-working, hard-living community,
who in popular consciousness seem only to speak of "apples and
pears", never stairs, of "pork pies" instead of lies, of a "boat
race" rather than a face, and of "mince pies" when they mean eyes.

Rhyming slang seems to have started in London around the 1850s. A
slang dictionary of 1859 refers to "The cant, which has nothing to
do with that spoken by the costermongers, is known in Seven Dials
[a noted sink of iniquity] and elsewhere as the Rhyming Slang, or
the substitution of words and sentences which rhyme with other
words intended to be kept secret". That seems to have been only
part of the key to its introduction and success: it was not only a
secret code, but also a declaration of group identity and a way of
making fun by word play. It's clear it was mostly a male-dominated
club (Mr Ayto points out that it cannot be a coincidence that there
are twenty rhyming terms for wife, the best known being "trouble
and strife", but only one for husband, though he admits that it is
very hard finding a rhyme for "husband" - the only example known
actually rhymes "old man" to "pot 'n' pan").

In the 1930s, it was predicted that rhyming slang in London would
die out, but it has survived, and is even being reinvigorated by
new terms, mostly taken from the names of popular personages - so
"Brad Pitt" is an excretory function, a "Britney Spears" (or just a
"Britney") is a beer, and a "Michael Caine" is a pain.

The word "dictionary" in the title may mislead. The work, as is now
fashionable, is not arranged alphabetically, but by themes arranged
in chapters, covering such fields as "People and the Human
Condition", "Sex", "Crime and Punishment", "Work and its Lack",
"Alcohol and other Drugs", and so on. Truly, all human life is
here. An index stops you getting lost. However, the index is only
one way - from rhyming slang to plain English. If you want to go
the other way, you have to find the relevant thematic section and
search through the entries. A reverse index would have been a boon.

This must surely become a standard work on the subject. It's up to
date and includes recent inventions worldwide. Its introduction
gives an excellent grounding in the origins, formats, and usages of
the style. Well worth getting if you have any interest in one way
in which people invigorate their speech with playful ingenuity.

[Ayto, John, Oxford Dictionary of Rhyming Slang; hardback, pp309;
ISBN 0-19-280122-8; published by Oxford University Press on 10
October 2002; publisher's price GBP9.99. Canadian publication in
mid-November, price CDN$26.50; Australian publication will be in
December at A$36.95; there are no immediate plans for publication
in the US.]

AMAZON PRICES FOR THE BOOK
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2. Weird Words: Picadil
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An applied shape on the edge of clothing, especially a collar.

Such shapes were common on medieval and Renaissance clothing. They
were made of pieces of cloth that were cut, folded and sewn on,
forming shapes such as scallops, tabs, or oak leaves. The spelling
of the word was (and still is) rather variable, with forms such as
"pickadil" and "piccadill" also appearing. Around the beginning of
the seventeenth century, the word was applied to the deeply
scalloped edges of the wide and elaborate collars, usually with a
broad laced or perforated border, that were then in fashion.

The claim of the word to our attention and immortal fame is mainly
through a tailor named Robert Baker, who had a shop in the Strand
in London around the end of the sixteenth century and the beginning
of the seventeenth. He generated a large fortune from making and
selling picadils, much of which he spent buying up a large tract of
what was then open country to the west of London. Around 1612 he
built a country house there. This was nicknamed Piccadilly Hall,
either from the source of the tailor's wealth, or because it was at
the edge of his property, as the picadils were at the edge of items
of clothing. The nickname stuck and gave its name to the street in
London that leads out of Piccadilly Circus, and by extension to all
the other instances of the name in Britain and elsewhere.

By the way, "picadil" is not a relative of "peccadillo". The latter
came into English from the Spanish "pecadillo", a little sin, from
Latin "peccare", to sin. And "circus" in British usage is a rounded
open space in a town at which several streets converge, a sense
that goes back to the classical Latin meaning of a roughly circular
arena.


3. Q&A
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Q. What is the derivation of the term "to throw in the towel",
meaning to give up after a long struggle? [Leo Scheps, Australia]

A. It's from boxing. Or rather, from prize-fighting, which preceded
it. When a fighter in a "mill" (a pugilistic encounter) was doing
badly and was obviously going to lose, his seconds would throw
something into the ring to indicate they were conceding defeat on
his behalf. At the time, the most readily available item was the
sponge for wiping the blood and sweat off their man's face.

So the earliest form of the expression was "to throw up the sponge"
(occasionally "to throw in the sponge"), which dates from sometime
before the middle of the nineteenth century. A good example is in
that Australian classic Robbery Under Arms by Rolf Boldrewood,
dated 1888: "But it's no use giving in, Jim. We must stand up to
our fight now, or throw up the sponge". The form you give is rather
more recent, dating from just after the beginning of the twentieth
century. An early instance is in Jack London's story The Mexican,
published in the collection called The Night-Born in 1913: "Danny,
battered and heroic, still kept coming up. Kelly and others near to
the ring began to cry out to the police to stop it, though Danny's
corner refused to throw in the towel". People sometimes advise
somebody to "chuck it in" or "throw it in" as shortened forms, as
ways of advising that some activity should cease.

The boxing ring is rich in such metaphors. "Up to scratch" refers
to the line drawn on the ground to which boxers were brought for
the encounter, "to hit below the belt" is an illegal act in general
life as much as in that sport, while "to throw one's hat into the
ring" is to accept the challenge of a contest. Politicians
(notoriously prone to "in-fighting") who are "lightweight" or
"heavyweight" acquire those descriptions from the sport, as do
those who feel their country can "punch above its weight" in
international affairs.

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Q. Do you know how the term "church key" came to be used as a slang
for a bottle opener? The best info I could find dates the usage to
1951 in the United States, but I can find no specifics. [Stan Kid]

A. This one is getting a little long in the tooth, like its users
(such as me), who can remember when beer always came in bottles
fitted with caps that needed a special tool to open them (though
the more macho or foolish would show off by opening them with their
teeth; gripping bottle tops in a vice between door and doorframe
was a trick for emergencies, but only when the door belonged to
somebody else). The standard bottle opener was made of metal, with
a roughly round, oval or triangular open shape at one end to grip
the cap.

The shape of the business end of the tool reminded people of the
often ornate handles to big, old-fashioned door keys. The link with
churches in particular was surely because in the experience of most
people such big keys opened church doors. It's more than likely
that an irreverent joke was attached as well, in that drinking beer
was an unchurchly thing to do.

Before the messages start to be written, let me rapidly move on to
a further stage in the development of the term. As you say, the
phrase "church key" is only recorded in print from 1951, though
there is anecdotal evidence to suggest it is rather older in the
spoken language. This was around the time at which beer began to be
sold in cans rather than bottles. These early cans also needed a
tool to open them, since the pull tabs of today were not to be
introduced until about 1962. The tool was a stout flat strip of
metal with a sharp point, which you pressed into the top of the can
to puncture a triangular hole (two were needed on opposite sides, I
recall, to let air in so the beer would flow easily). By an obvious
analogy, these also came to be called church keys, even though they
were a completely different shape.

The cap on these beer bottles, by the way, is a "crown cork", named
after a fanciful view of the ring of crinkled points around the
edge of the metal closure before it was clamped on the neck of the
bottle. It was invented in 1898 by William Painter, and his firm,
the Crown Cork and Seal Company of Baltimore, is still very much
around, though these days it spends most of its time making
aluminium cans and other packaging products. (Please forgive an
enthusiast's digression: I used to run a museum of cidermaking and
would demonstrate a hand crown corker to visiting parties. A good
operator could do 15 a minute but I never managed so many.)


4. Endnote
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"He was full of cliché, but then a cliché is not a cliché if you
have never heard it before; and our ordinary reader clearly had not
and so was ready to greet each one with the same ecstasy it must
have produced when it was first coined. Cliché is but pauperized
ecstasy. [Chinua Achebe, "Anthills of the Savannah"; quoted in the
"Penguin Thesaurus of Quotations" (1998)]


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