A linguistic blast from the past

Via an e-mail list to which I belong, I learned of a New Zealand article referencing 19th-century New York underworld slang.

The following list of slang terms is drawn from a book compiled by the first New York City Police Chief, George W Matsell, in 1859.

Vocabulum, or the Rogue's Lexicon includes an index of criminals' slang with definitions, short stories written using the "language," and appendices cataloging the specialized slang of gamblers, billiard-players, brokers, and pugilists.

. . .

Matsell wrote in his preface that he intended the book to help police officers crack the code of criminal language, which, he wrote, "is calculated to mislead and bewilder, so that rogues might still converse in the presence of an officer, and he be ignorant of what they said."

. . .

Much of this slang ... is full of appeal. Sluice your gob with this gapeseed, ye lushingtons and kates!

Altitudes: A state of drunkenness; being high.

Ambidexter: One who befriends both sides; a lawyer who takes fees from both parties in a suit.

Bag of nails: Everything in confusion.

Balsam: Money.

Barking-irons: Pistols.

Billy Noodle: A soft fellow that believes the girls are all in love with him.

Blue-plum: A bullet; "Surfeit the bloke with blue-plum," shoot him.

Bread-bag: The stomach. [Also: Middle-piece; Victualling Office.]

Bun: A fellow that can not be shaken off.

Chatty feeder: A spoon. [Also, Feeders: Silver spoons or forks. "Nap the feeders," steal the spoons. Smash-feeder: A silver spoon.]

Cutty-eyed: To look out of the corner of the eyes; to look suspicious; to leer; to look askance. "The copper cutty-eyed us," the officer looked suspicious at us.

There's more at the link. Parts of the book are available online if you'd like to read more than the article provides, and there are several editions available on Amazon.com.

I found it interesting to compare the criminal slang Matsell cites to that common in London's underworld at the time, according to Victorian researcher Henry Mayhew. His magnum opus London Labour and the London Poor is a classic of its kind. My parents had several abridged volumes drawn from it, particularly London's Underworld, which is where I learned about British criminal slang.

Peter