The Horologicon: A Day's Jaunt through the Lost Words of the English Language

by Forsyth, Mark

  Deaconing can also mean ‘putting the most attractive goods on the top of a pile’ or ‘watering down liquor’ or ‘killing a calf the second it is born’. Why it should mean this nobody knows, but all the phrases are American and nineteenth-century, so one must imagine that nineteenth-century American deacons were all dishonest, acquisitive, calf-murdering scoundrels.

  Asking for a raise

  If you have been deaconing for long enough and have acquired enough territory, it may even be time to ask for a raise. This must be done with tact and discretion. Begin by approaching your boss in a sardonian manner. A sardonian is, according to the OED, ‘one who flatters with deadly intent’. The reason for this odd and unusually precise word is not a person but a plant. The herba sardonia was said to cause horrible facial convulsions that resembled laughter, followed by death.

  You don’t need to kill your boss, of course, but a bit of calculated glavering and flattery will take the bitter edge off any rogitating you happen to do (to rogitate is to ask again and again for the same thing, in the manner of a child who wants a biscuit). You could try the other route, and just call your paymaster a miser and a sting-bum every time they walk past, but people don’t like being called a sting-bum and it could all end up being counterproductive.

  Then there’s the Indian custom of Dharna. In east India, if somebody hasn’t paid their debt to you, you go and sit on their doorstep and refuse to eat. You stay there until a) the person pays up or b) you starve to death. Dharna should not be attempted with somebody who lives in an out of the way place, or who takes long holidays. But in a workplace where there are lots of other people wandering around, sitting by the door of your boss’s office growing slowly thinner and thinner is bound to produce some sort of effect.

  You may not get a real raise today, but you might at least get a brevet, which is a military term for a rise in rank without a rise in salary. Brevets are usually accompanied with a nice wodge of Spanish money, which is an old term for ‘fair words and compliments’. And that should be enough to keep you going till lunch. Until then, you may simply fudgel:

  To Fudgel, to make a Shew of doing somewhat to no Purpose, to trifle.

  Chapter 8

  1 p.m. – Lunch

  Where to eat – who pays – The Free Lunch – eating – eating turtles – indigestion

  It is the amell, which is to say the hour between one and two o’clock when all right-thinking creatures rush joyously from their labours to their lunch. You hardly need a clock to know that this grand hour is at hand, as your own belly will chime with impatient borborygmi, the rumbling noises produced by an empty stomach. H.G. Wells once wrote that:

  … few creatures seem to have found their ‘perfect’ food or, having found it, are able to keep to it: elephant hunters say they can tell the proximity of a herd by the borborygmic (see dictionary) noises the poor brutes emit, and Glasfurd describes a tiger’s life as an alternation of uncomfortable hunger and uncomfortable repletion.

  Better, as the saying goes, to live one day as an uncomfortable tiger, than a hundred years as a borborygmic elephant. The human is a famelicose (or constantly hungry) creature. And so to lunch!

  But where? It seems a shame to visit the same sandwich shop every day, and anyway, you might be taking somebody out to lunch on expenses. Even if you are denied this fundamental right of luncheon by fate or your boss, you may simply be struck with a sudden case of allotriophagy, which is ‘the desire, – the morbid longing, – to devour extraordinary substances commonly regarded as inedible, innutritious, or even hurtful’. It is thus a suitable term for anybody who suggests going to a kebab shop. Etymologically, though, it simply means a desire to eat other things, and it can therefore be used to break away from the old haunts rather than go to the same old slap-bang shop:

  Slap-bang shop, a petty cook’s shop where there is no credit given, but what is had must be paid down with the ready slap-bang, i.e. immediately. This is a common appellation for a night cellar frequented by thieves, and sometimes for a stage coach or caravan. (1785)

  If you want to go to a grander grubbery, you’ll have to either find the cash, credit or, if possible, a Sir Timothy. Sir Timothy (sometimes known as Sir Timothy Treat-All) was a mythical figure recorded from the late seventeenth to the early nineteenth century who bought lunch. It was, and still can be, the title of ‘One that Treats every Body and pays the Reckonings every where’.

  The politer and more recondite term for such a saviour is gastrophilanthropist. That’s from the Greek gastro meaning stomach (as in a gastropod that walks on its tummy) and philanthropist which means lover of men (but not in that way). Gastrophilanthropy is a sadly forgotten art, as people these days tend to give their money to feed the starving on the other side of the earth, rather than the peckish on this, and have thus substituted charity for kindness.

  If you can find a suitably pliable Sir Timothy then you can settle down to some serious scambling. A scambler is defined in Dr Johnson’s dictionary thus:

  Scambler: A bold intruder upon one’s generosity or table. [Scottish]

  By which he didn’t of course mean that all scamblers are Scottish, only that enough of them are for the word to have become necessary in that country first. A scambler is the only sensible eater of lunch, for the exquisite cost of most restaurants destroys the palate, whereas the knowledge that you are dining on the gastrophilanthropy of a careless Sir Timothy allows you to fill your belly without evacuating your pocket.

  One way to enter into a career as a scambler is to groke, which is to stare wistfully at somebody while they are eating in the hope that they will give you some of their food. Groking was originally applied only to dogs, who have this habit down to a wide-eyed T. But it can just as well be applied to the hopeful scambler or anybody who sidles over to your desk when you’re eating a biscuit.

  But back to lunch, or more precisely, to the preparations and precibals thereto and of. A precibal, by the way, is another way of saying preprandial, but which can be applied to any meal including breakfast, elevenses and midnight snacks. And speaking of preprandials, what are we having to drink? In the eighteenth century the idea of not having a drink with lunch was considered so bestial that it was referred to as a horse’s meal: as dry as straw and fit only for an animal. So it is probably best to bid adieu to any hopes for afternoon productivity now.

  Actually, alcohol is the founder of that elusive snark known as the Free Lunch. People have been insisting since the 1930s that the Free Lunch does not exist in the wild, and would lock it up in that chimerical menagerie where are stored the unicorn, the phoenix and the bunyip. But the Free Lunch is not mythical, though it may be extinct. It was observed in its natural habitat by Rudyard Kipling. In 1891 Kipling visited San Francisco and observed the Free Lunch hiding behind a bunch of spittoons.

  In a vast marble-paved hall, under the glare of an electric light, sat forty or fifty men, and for their use and amusement were provided spittoons of infinite capacity and generous gape. Most of the men wore frock-coats and top-hats – the things that we in India put on at a wedding-break-fast, if we possess them – but they all spat. They spat on principle. The spittoons were on the staircases, in each bedroom – yea, and in chambers even more sacred than these. They chased one into retirement, but they blossomed in chiefest splendor round the bar, and they were all used, every reeking one of them … By instinct I sought refreshment, and came upon a bar-room full of bad Salon pictures in which men with hats on the backs of their heads were wolfing food from a counter. It was the institution of the ‘free lunch’ I had struck. You paid for a drink and got as much as you wanted to eat. For something less than a rupee a day a man can feed himself sumptuously in San Francisco, even though he be a bankrupt. Remember this if ever you are stranded in these parts.

  Perhaps the Free Lunch is perished for ever like the dodo – too delicious to live long; or perhaps li
ke the shy coelacanth it lurks forever unchanged and unchanging in some cold ocean canyon that we do not know. The only way to test for its existence is to order a drink and see what happens. And remember: you’re not drunk if you can still read the menu.

  Mrs Beeton (1836–65) was the tragic goddess of the British kitchen. She had four children, wrote a book containing 900 recipes, and dropped down dead at the age of 28. In her authoritative gospel Mrs Beeton’s Book of Household Management she recommends the following light luncheon:

  The remains of cold joints, nicely garnished, a few sweets, or a little hashed meat, poultry or game, are the usual articles placed on the table for luncheon, with bread and cheese biscuits, butter, &c. If a substantial meal is desired, rump-steaks or mutton chops may be served, as also veal cutlets, kidneys, or any dish of that kind.

  It may be best to simply cut that paragraph out of the book and calmly hand it to your one o’clock waiter. Then the eating can begin.

  Mastication

  The traditional cry announcing that those at the table should start eating is ‘Fall-a-bord!’ At which point you, and all your trenchermates, may start to gobble, gourmandise and guttle. The last of these words, meaning ‘eat greedily’, is the solid food companion to the more liquid guzzle. It seems a terrible shame that one of these should have died out, especially as they make such a pretty couple. Indeed, if you want to make the twins near-identical you can guttle your food and guddle your drink. It is especially convenient for the enthusiastic gutguddler that both words can be pronounced with your mouth full or while swallowing.

  In fact, there’s something just a little bit greedy about the letter G. For a gourmand who gluttonously guttles and guddles too much will end up as a gundy-guts, which is a pleasantly eighteenth-century way of saying ‘lard-arse’.

  Of the seven deadly sins only three are enjoyable: gluttony, sloth and lust balance their lethality with fun. If somebody could only think of a way of combining the three, humanity would go to Hell quite happily. The procession would be accompanied by tooth music, which is the sound of jolly eating that serenades all the best lunches.

  Another term for thorough chewing is Fletcherism. Horace Fletcher (1849–1919) wrote hugely influential books on how the whole human condition can be improved by chewing. He recommended 32 chews per mouthful, and even took the seemingly unnecessary precaution of chewing his drinks. He thus became, according to him, one of the fittest men alive, and earned the grand title of ‘The Great Masticator’. Such was his fame and the power of his jaws that a movement sprang up known as Fletcherism, whose adherents were called Fletcherites and who didn’t just chew their food, but Fletcherized it. Thus Henry James could write to his brother: ‘It is impossible, save in a long talk, to make you understand how the blessed fletcherism – so extra blessed – lulled me, charmed me, beguiled me.’ He even once commented that Fletcher had so improved his bowel movements that he ‘saved my life, and what is more, he improved my disposition. By rights he should receive all my future royalties.’ P.G. Wodehouse, on the other hand, merely used the word fletcherize in a description of a mongrel attacking a terrier.

  It should perhaps be noted here that Gladstone was also a proponent of chewing every gobbet 32 times, and a sly onlooker at dinner once reckoned that he averaged 70 mastications per mouthful. However, if you look up Gladstone in the dictionary, you will find that he only gave his name to a bag and to cheap French wine, on which he reduced the importation taxes. So it may now be time to order another bottle.

  But perhaps you have no appetite. Rather than being an esquire trenchant, you merely pingle your food, which is a sure prognosticator of melancholy. To pingle is to push food around your plate without really eating much of it. It’s an old word, and an obscure one at that, which appears in an 1823 dictionary of Suffolk dialect (vital if you ever find yourself in Long Melford with a time machine).

  PINGLE. To eat a little, without appetite. ‘I heen’t no stummach for my wittels. I jest pingle a bit.’

  Pingle should not be confused with pinguid, which means greasy, though if the food is too much the latter, it may cause the former. So if you were stuck with a bad cook in Antarctica you might pingle a pinguid penguin.

  A bad cook is a crime against lunch and a sin against nature’s bounty. The cow and the cabbage die for us, and the least a cook can do to reward their selfless sacrifice is to cook them well and give to their corpses an honourable marinade. To do otherwise is to be the very devil, and as the devil used to be known as ruffin, the old term for a bad cook was therefore:

  COOK RUFFIN: The Devil of a Cook; or a very bad one. (1723)

  A cook ruffin can turn the noblest beast in nature into a mere kickshaw, which was ruefully defined in Dr Johnson’s dictionary as ‘A dish so changed by the cookery that it can scarcely be known’. The word kickshaw is, in fact, a garbled version of the French quelque chose, which simply means ‘something’. The worst restaurants of old London Town had heard the French term, wished to appear fine and Frenchified; but one must imagine that their food was as bad as their pronunciation. Some scholars take a reversed view and believe that kickshaw was a contemptuous term for French food, which was effete and enfeebled, as opposed to proper British fare, which was filled with roast beef and vigour.

  Those who are, like the French, very particular about what they devour, have all sorts of lovely names. They are the gastolaters or stomach worshippers, they are the ingurgitating belly-gods. They are the goinfres, the gullet-fanciers and golofers. However, the finest phrase in the dictionary for such epicures is turtle-eater.

  Turtles were well known to be the best food available to mankind before they became endangered and hard to find in the supermarket. But even in the eighteenth century to eat a turtle required a lot of money. First, you had to import the creatures alive and then have a special room built in your house to keep them in. You had to feed them on a leg of mutton every day. Then you had to have a special oven capacious enough to fit a whole turtle, and cooks specially trained in their execution and preparation. Then, of course, you had to have special turtle-eating clothes. In fact, it would be best at this point to turn to an account of a turtle feast written in 1755:

  Upon hearing the clock strike, he [the immensely wealthy host] rung his bell, and asked if his turtle cloaths were aired. While I was meditating on this new term, and, I confess unable to divine what it could mean, the servant brought in a coat and waistcoat, which my friend slipped on, and, folding them round his body like a nightgown, declared that, though they then hung so loose about him, by that time he had spoke with the turtle, he should stretch them as tight as a drum.

  And once the turtle is on the table and the guests have arrived, those closest to it forget all good manners in order to obtain the finest parts. And those at the other end of the table?

  In vain did they send their plates, and solicit their share; the plunderers, who were now in possession of both the shells, were sensible to no call but that of their own appetites, and, till they had satisfied them, there was not one that would listen to anything else.

  The taste of the turtle was so fine that it conquered all good manners, drained fortunes and jaded appetites. Even those who could not afford a turtle of their own could at least pretend that they were at a turtle feast. Thus the invention of mock turtle soup, which was simply a boiled calf’s head. Those who were not obscenely rich were assured that this was the closest they would ever get to the true heaven of turtle-eating.

  From all this, it should be easy to see why turtle-eater became a byword for those of the finest and most luxurious palate. It is, anyway, better than a petecure, which is modest cooking, or rypophagy, which means ‘the eating of filth’. Rypophagy is actually a terribly useful word for insulting somebody’s cookery without letting them know that you’re doing it, as in: ‘Thank you for such a large, and may I say rypophagous, meal. No, I mean it. I don’t think I�
��ve ever eaten a meal of quite that quality before. You’re a regular cook ruffin.’

  Aftermath

  There is a single word in the English language meaning ‘a person given to remaining at table’. It is residentarian, and, so far as I can tell, it has been used only once, in 1680 by the writer of a rather dull religious tract who was complaining about those who sing hymns without really meaning them:

  The daily feaster, such as the Residentarians, whose legs can scarce bear about his Gross Corpulent Body, he sings, My knees are weak through Fasting, and my Flesh faileth of Fatness.

  Satan’s Captive, who wallows in the Mire and Puddle of Sin and Iniquity, he sings, O Lord, truly I am thy servant.

  But the mire and puddle of sin and iniquity is such a comfortable place, and good for one’s digestion. It is a good place for belching, or eructation, to give it its more genteel name, and without a little after-lunch lounging one is liable to end up wamblecropt for the rest of the day.

  Wamblecropt is the most exquisite word in the English language. Say it. Each syllable is intolerably beautiful.

  Wamblecropt.

  Wamblecropt gets its first mention in the Abecedarium Anglico Latinum of 1552, which you have doubtless read. It’s a sort of early English-to-Latin dictionary. So if you were wondering what the Romans would call a ‘Siege, jacques, bogard, or draught’, it tells you that they are all latrina. It also tells you:

  Wamble cropped Stomachichus

  Wamble stomaked to be Nauseo

  Wamblyng of stomake, or disposition, or will to vomit. Nausea

  That ought to give you some idea, but if you want something more precise (or less Latinate) then the OED has wamble as ‘a rolling or uneasiness of the stomach’ and wamblecropt as being afflicted with and incapacitated by such wambling. So wamblecropt means queasy, only slightly stronger.