THE WONDER OF WHIFFLING

EUPHEMISMS

Adam Jacot de Boinod — Thu, 11 Feb 2010 17:43:50 +0000

Once upon a time, we were all quite happy to say exactly what it was we did. But as status has become ever more important, some quite straightforward occupations have developed some quite preposterous titles:

vision clearance engineer – a window cleaner
stock replenishment adviser – a shelf stacker
dispatch services facilitator – a post room worker
head of verbal communications – a receptionist / secretary
environment improvement technician – a cleaner

WORD JOURNEYS

Adam Jacot de Boinod — Tue, 05 Jan 2010 22:40:31 +0000

Many words have changed from their original definitions. Here are some from the world of outdoor pursuits …

allure (15C from Old French) to bait: a device in falconry used by hunters to call back their hawks
jockeys (16C) horse traders (who were once called Jocks)
relay (15C from Old French) to loose the hounds; a pack of fresh hounds held in reserve to relieve a previous pack
croupier (18C from French) a pillion rider, a rider on the croup of a horse; then someone who stood behind a gambler and gave advice

Adam Jacot de Boinod — Thu, 03 Dec 2009 16:07:46 +0000

APPEALING !

In the Victorian era lexicographers recorded the dialects of each British county including man’s attempt to master the beast:

hurrish (Irish dialect 1820) a call to pigs to come to their food
cheddy-yow (Yorkshire dialect) a call to sheep being brought down from the fell, to come closer
poa poa (Northamptonshire dialect) a call to turkeys
tubby (Cornish dialect) a call used to pigeons
pleck-pleck (Scottish dialect 1876) the cry of the oyster catcher
habbocraws (Scottish dialect 1824) a shout used to frighten the crows from the cornfields

What historic words from your county dialect have been handed down to you ?

Adam Jacot de Boinod — Thu, 15 Oct 2009 22:47:23 +0000

MOBILE MUTATIONS

When people switched to predictive text, they discovered the phenomenon of the phone’s software coming up with the wrong word; most famously ‘book’ for ‘cool’ (so teenagers started describing their hipper friends as ‘book’). Other textonyms with some service providers include:

lips for kiss , shag for rich, poisoned for Smirnoff

“do you want to in out some time” for “do you want to go out some time”

Has anyone come across any others ?

Adam Jacot de Boinod — Wed, 02 Sep 2009 10:54:15 +0000

CHARACTERS

In my research I’ve discovered some fascinating people, from the parnel, a priest’s mistress, through the applesquire, the male servant of a prostitute, to the screever, a writer of begging letters. If the first two of these are now largely historical, the third certainly isn’t, nor is the slapsauce, a person who enjoys eating fine food or the chafferer, the salesman who enjoys talking while making a sale. Most of us know a blatteroon , a person who will not stop talking, not to mention a wallydrag, a worthless, slovenly person, and even a shot-clog, a drinking companion, only tolerated because he pays for the drinks.

English slang from outside Britain

Adam Jacot de Boinod — Tue, 04 Aug 2009 11:29:22 +0000

English slang from outside Britain offers us everything from a waterboy (US police) a boxer who can be bribed or coerced into losing, to a shubie (Australian), someone who buys surfing gear and clothing but doesn’t actually surf. In Canada, a cougar is an older woman on the prowl for a younger man, while in the US a quirkyalone is someone who doesn’t fall in love easily, but waits for the right person to come along.

Does anyone know others in this vein ?

Office Jargon

Adam Jacot de Boinod — Fri, 24 Jul 2009 14:00:23 +0000

The workplace seems to conjure up so many images of which some are easier to grasp than others:

seagull manager – a manager who flies in, makes a lot of noise, shits all over everything, and then leaves
swallow the frog – to tackle the hardest task possible
push the peanut – to progress an arduous and delicate task forward

Have you come across any new ones?

Lincolnshire Sounds

Adam Jacot de Boinod — Wed, 08 Jul 2009 09:07:39 +0000

In Lincolnshire, the sounds of horses’ hoofs were onomatopoeically described as butter and eggs, butter and eggs for a horse at a canter. If the animal happened to be a clicker, that is, it caught its front hoofs on its rear ones when it was running, there were extra beats in the rhythm and it went hammer and pinchers, hammer and pinchers. A horse at a gallop went pen and ink, pen and ink.

Have you come across any similar expressions from your own county dialect?