The Horologicon: A Day's Jaunt through the Lost Words of the English Language (21 page)

Night-spel
,
was a Prayer against the Night-mar. (1674)

Finally, your
Scotch warming pan
has ceased to scold you (mind you, it might all start up again if you call them a Scotch warming pan). It is time to put out the lights and
dowse the glims
, as a highwayman would have said. Highwaymen could never say anything in ordinary English, and they would bid you good night by saying
bene darkmans
, pronounced
BEN-ay
, and deriving from the Latin for blessed. So if there is somebody with you, that is how to wish them good night.

Wrap yourself up in the
panes
and
counterpanes
. A dictionary of eighteenth-century dialect words defines
healing
as ‘covering with the bed-cloaths’, and it can often feel like that. Heal yourself among the lily-white sheets, say a night-spell to protect you from nightmares and, if you like, hold a quick
couchée
where all your courtiers come and pay homage to you as you lie in bed at night.

When the last courtier has departed and you are left silent in your
dreamery
(a place that favours dreams), your
consopiation
(or ‘act of laying to sleep’) may start. The Sandman, Morpheus, Billy Winks and all the other gods of sleep will approach; and soon a Norfolk farmer of the eighteenth century will appear and tell you that you
dream drumbles
, which is only his way of saying that you are half asleep.

Then, as you are half-dreaming, there is a little twitch known as a
myoclonic jerk
, which sounds like a spicy Jamaican sauce but is only your body shifting with your dreams. And then you are asleep, and nothing is moving but that strange ‘nocturnal spirit’ found only in Dr Johnson’s dictionary, the Ponk.

Well
that’s it, I suppose. It’s over. The ploughman homeward drops into the western bay and all that. I am feeling
finifugal
, and I have to say goodbye to my dictionaries.

It’s nearly closing time at the British Library anyway. Seven minutes left, by my watch. There are only two of us left in Rare Books and Music, and I think the other fellow may be dead: at least he hasn’t moved in the last twenty minutes. And when they close, I’ll have to hand in all my dictionaries and they’ll go back to the vaults and sleep again.

Every dictionary contains a world. I open a book of thieves’ slang from Queen Anne’s reign and they have a hundred words for swords, for wenches, and for being hanged. They did not die, they
danced on nothing
. Then I peek into any one of my rural Victorian dictionaries, compiled by a lonely clergyman, with words for coppices, thickets, lanes, diseases of horses and innumerable terms for kinds of eel. They gave names to the things of their lives, and their lives are collected in these dictionaries – every detail and joke and belief. I have their worlds piled up on my desk.

And the highwaymen are all hanged, the farmers are gone under their earth, and the RAF pilots who called the North Sea the
Juice
, the Atlantic the
Pond
, and the English Channel the
Drink
are lying at the bottom of all three.

All these worlds are departed, dead and dancing on nothing. They will not come back, but they are here in these books that I must hand in to the lady at the desk. It doesn’t do to spend too long
with dictionaries, or I’ll end up like Lot’s beloved: salsicolumnified, gazing on my lost Gomorrahs.

That’s it. The librarians are dowsing the glims, and even the dead chap’s getting up to leave. I shall return my dictionaries. Bene darkmans, sleeping reader, bene darkmans.

Here
is that list of Benjamin Franklin’s terms for drunkenness in full:

The Drinker’s Dictionary

He’s addled, in his airs, affected, casting up his accounts, biggy, bewitched, black and black, bowzed, boozy, been at Barbadoes, been watering the brook, drunk as a wheelbarrow, bothered, burdocked, bosky, busky, buzzy, has sold a march in the brewer, has a head full of bees, has been in the bibing plot, has drunk more than he has bled, is bungy, has been playing beggar-my-neighbour, drunk as a beggar, sees the beams, has kissed black Betty, has had a thump over the head with Samson’s jaw-bone, has been at war with his brains, is bridgy, has been catching the cat, is cogniaid, capable, cramped, cherubimical, cherry merry, wamble croft, cracked, half way to Concord, canonized, has taken a chirping glass, got corns in his head, got a cup too much, coguay, cupsy, has heated his copper, is in crocus, catched, cuts capers, has been in the cellar, been in the sun, is in his cups, above the clouds, is non compos, cocked, curved, cut, chippered, chickenny, has loaded his cart, been too free with the creature. Sir Richard has taken off his considering cap, he’s chopfallen, candid, disguised, got a dish, has killed a dog, has taken his drops. ’Tis a dark day with him. He’s a dead man, has dipped
his bill, sees double, is disfigured, has seen the devil, is prince Eugene, has entered, buttered both eyes, is cock-eyed, has got the pole evil, has got a brass eye, has made an example, has ate a toad and a half for breakfast, is in his element, is fishy, foxed, fuddled, soon fuddled, frozen, will have frogs for supper, is well in front, is getting forward in the world, owes no man money, fears no man, is crump fooled, has been to France, is flushed, has frozen his mouth, is fettered, has been to a funeral, has his flag out, is fuzzled, has spoken with his friend, been at an Indian feast, is glad, grabable, great-headed, glazed, generous, has boozed the gage, is as dizzy as a goose, has been before George, got the gout, got a kick in the guts, been at Geneva, is globular, has got the glanders, is on the go, a gone man, has been to see Robin Goodfellow, is half and half, half seas over, hardy, top heavy, has got by the head, makes head way, is hiddey, has got on his little hat, is hammerish, loose in the hilt, knows not the way home, is haunted by evil spirits, has taken Hippocrates’ grand Elixir, is intoxicated, jolly, jagged, jambled, jocular, juicy, going to Jericho, an indirect man, going to Jamaica, going to Jerusalem, is a king, clips the King’s English, has seen the French king. The King is his cousin, has got kibed heels, has got knapt, his kettle’s hot. He’ll soon keel upward, he’s in his liquor, lordly, light, lappy, limber, lopsided, makes indentures with his legs, is well to live, sees two moons, is merry, middling, muddled, moon-eyed, maudlin, mountainous, muddy, mellow, has seen a flock of moons, has raised his monuments, has eaten cacao nuts, is nimtopsical, has got the night mare, has been nonsuited, is super nonsensical, in a state of nature, nonplussed, oiled, has ate opium, has smelt an onion, is an oxycrocum, is overset, overcome, out of sorts, on the paymaster’s books,
drank his last halfpenny, is as good conditioned as a puppy, is pigeon eyed, pungy, priddy, pushing on, has salt in his headban, has been among the Philistines, is in prosperity, is friends with Philip, contending with Pharaoh, has painted his nose, wasted his punch, learned politeness, eat the pudding-bag, eat too much pumpkin, is full of piety, is rocky, raddled, rich, religious, ragged, raised, has lost his rudder, has been too far with Sir Richard, is like a rat in trouble, is stitched, seafaring, in the suds, strong, as drunk as David’s sow, swamped, his skin is full, steady, stiff, burnt his shoulder, has got out his top-gallant sails, seen the dog-star, is stiff as a ringbolt. The shoe pinches him. He’s staggerish. It is star light with him. He carries too much sail, will soon out studding sails, is stewed, stubbed, soaked, soft, has made too free with Sir John Strawberry, right before the wind, all sails out, has pawned his senses, plays parrot, has made shift of his shirt, shines like a blanket, has been paying for a sign, is toped, tongue-tied, tanned, tipsicum grave, double tongued, tospey turvey, tipsy, thawed, trammulled, transported, has swallowed a tavern token, makes Virginia fame, has got the Indian vapours, is pot valiant, in love with varany, wise, has a wet soul, has been to the salt water, in search of eye water, is in the way to be weaned, out of the way, water soaked, wise or otherwise, can walk the line. The wind is west with him. He carries the wagon.

(An
idioticon
is a dictionary of a particular dialect or area of language)

Abedecarium Anglico-Latinum
, Richard Huloet (1552)

Worlde of Wordes
, John Florio (1598)

A Table Alphabeticall, conteyning the true writing and understanding of hard usual English wordes, borrowed from the Hebrew, Greeke, Latine, or French. &c.
, Robert Cawdrey (1604)

A New Dictionary of the Terms Ancient and Modern of the Canting Crew
, B.E. Gent. (1699)

Glossographia Anglicana nova: or, a dictionary, interpreting such hard words of whatever language, as are at present used in the English tongue, with their etymologies, definitions, &c.
, Thomas Blount (1656)

An
Universal Etymological Dictionary
,
Nathan Bailey (1721)

Dictionary of the English Language
, Samuel Johnson (1755)

Sports and Pastimes of the People of England
, Joseph Strutt (1801), enlarged by Charles Cox (1903)

An Etymological Dictionary of the Scottish Language
, Reverend John Jamieson (1808)

A
Classical Dictionary of the Vulgar Tongue
, Francis Grose etc. (1811). Grose died in 1791 but his dictionary continued to be expanded (and occasionally contracted) for a couple of decades after his death. I have used whatever edition I found most amusing.

The Vocabulary of East Anglia; An Attempt to Record the Vulgar Tongue of the Twin Sister Counties, Norfolk and Suffolk as It Existed In the Last Years of the Eighteenth Century, and Still Exists
, Reverend Robert Forby (1830)

Westmoreland and Cumberland dialects: Dialogues, poems, songs, and ballads
, John Russell Smith (1839)

A Pentaglot Dictionary of the Terms Employed in Anatomy, Physiology, Pathology, Practical Medicine, Surgery, Obstetrics, Medical Jurisprudence, Materia Medica, Pharmacy, Medical Zoology, Botany and Chemistry
, Shirley Palmer (1845)

Dictionary of Obsolete and Provincial English
, Thomas Wright (1857)

A Dictionary of Modern, Slang, Cant, and Vulgar Words Used at the Present Day in the Streets of London
, John Camden Hotten (1860)

The Dialect of Leeds and its Neighbourhood Illustrated by Conversations and Tales of Common Life etc.
, C. Clough Robinson (1862)

A Dictionary of the Terms Used in Medicine and the Collateral Sciences
, Richard D. Hoblyn (1865)

A
glossary of words used in the wapentakes of Manley and Corringham, Lincolnshire
, Edward Peacock (1877)

Shropshire word-book, a glossary of archaic and provincial words, &c., used in the county
, Georgina Jackson (1879)

Slang and its Analogues
, John Stephen Farmer (1893)

English Dialect Dictionary
, Joseph Wright (1898–1905)

A Scots Dialect Dictionary
, Alexander Warrack (1911)

Western Canadian dictionary and phrase-book: things a newcomer wants to know
, John Sandilands (1912)

Cab Calloway’s Hepsters Dictionary: Language of Jive
, Cabell Calloway (1938–44)

Psychiatric Dictionary with Encyclopaedic Treatment of Modern Terms
, Leland Earl Hinsie (1940)

Service Slang
, J.L. Hunt and A.G. Pringle, Faber (1943)

Dictionary of Guided Missiles and Space Flight
, Grayson Merrill (1959)

A Descriptive Dictionary and Atlas of Sexology
, ed. Robert T. Francoeur, Greenwood (1991). N.B. This book does actually contain maps, although the term ‘atlas’
may be overstating it a bit.

Straight from the Fridge, Dad: A Dictionary of Hipster Slang
(3rd edition), No Exit Press (2004)

Fubar: Soldier Slang of World War II
, Gordon L. Rottman, Osprey (2007)

Chambers
Slang Dictionary
, Jonathon Green (2008)

The Oxford English Dictionary
, OUP (2012)

*

However, a few words were not in any of these dictionaries:

Dysania
is in use as a technical medical term (see, for example,
Myalgic Encephalomyelitis: A Baffling Syndrome with a Tragic Aftermath
, Ramsay, 1989) and also makes a show in a medical word-finder of 1958 called the
Reversicon
. But I’ve never found it in what I’d call a dictionary.

Groke
is, or was, a Scottish dialect word mentioned in
History of the European Languages or, Researches into the Affinities of the Teutonic, Greek, Celtic, Sclavonic and Indian Nations
(1823) by Alexander Murray, who was Professor of Oriental Languages at the University of Edinburgh; he applied it exclusively to dogs.

Nooningscaup
appears in
Clavis Calendaria
by John Henry Brady (1812), who mentions it as a contemporary term in Yorkshire.

The citation of
gongoozler
is from the ‘Glossary of Canal Terms’ skulking at the back of
Bradshaw’s Canals and Navigable Rivers of England
and Wales
by Henry Rodolph de Salis (1918).

The keys to the indoor tank park
comes from my vast network of spies within the British army.

I
was introduced to the term
gabos
by a Special Adviser to Her Majesty’s Government who said it was commonly used round their way. I’ve since found various references to it on the Internet and one in a documentary that pins it down as a Miami criminal term. To my knowledge it has never made it into any print dictionary and has no currency outside of the Miami Mega Max Jail facility and the Palace of Westminster.

The tasseographical terms were culled from
Tea-Cup Reading and the Art of Fortune Telling by Tea-Leaves
by ‘A Highland Seer’, The Musson Book Co., Toronto (1920).

Shturmovshchina
is a Russian term that has never made it into an English dictionary. However, it was much too delightful a word to exclude.

The definition of
cinqasept
is from
The Oxford Essential Dictionary of Foreign Terms in English
, ed. Jennifer Speake, Berkley Books (1999). I’m particularly fond of the idea that an afternoon visit to one’s mistress could qualify as
Essential
.

Several of the terms in the shopping section do not appear in dictionaries. They were instead gleaned from people who work in the British retail trade.

The term ‘drunk as four hundred rabbits’ is mentioned in
México
by William Weber Johnson (1966). The Centzon Totochtin, from which the phrase must derive, are a standard part of Aztec mythology.

The
definition of
smikker
comes from
A Chronicle of Scottish Poetry; From the Thirteenth Century to the Union of the Crowns: to which is added a Glossary
, J. Sibbald (1802).

There is also one word (quite aside from salsicolumnified) that I made up off the top of my head. But unless you check every word in this book against all the dictionaries listed above, you’ll never find it. If you
do
check all the words in this book against all those dictionaries, I have nothing for you but my pity, and my curse.