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

by Forsyth, Mark

  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.

  1 Well, a bed-faggot sort of is. It’s ‘a contemptuous name for a bed-fellow’; but an arseling pole is utterly innocent and is to do with baking.

  2 Churchill’s chief military assistant, Hastings Ismay, estimated that the numbers were in fact twenty ideas a day with five good.

  Epilogue

  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.

  Appendix

  Paralipomenon – The Drinker’s Dictionary

  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.

  Dictionaries and Idioticons

  (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.

  Index

  Note: Hyperlinked page numbers in this electronic version of the index correspond to the page numbers in the printed edition. Since your e-reader may only show a portion of the printed page, you may need to scroll to the next page to find the index topic.

  Chapter 1: 6 a.m.

  ale-passion 13

  antelucan 7

  aubade 10–11

  clinomania 15

  cunctation 14

  dayening 9

  day-peep 9

  day-raw 9

  decubitus 8, 13

  dysania 15–16

  early bright 9

  egrote 16

  expergefactor 9–10

  floccilating 16

  greking 9

  grufeling 14

  high dawn 9

  hum durgeon 17

  hypnopompic 8

  jactating 16

  knocker-up 11

  levee 15–16

  lightmans 9

  lippitude 14

  lollygagging 11

  low dawn 9

  lucifugous 14

  matutinal 12

  micturition 14

  obdormition 13

  oneirocritical 9

  pandiculation 15

  philogrobolized 12–13

  pissuprest 14

  prinkling 14

  reveille 12

  ruelle 16

  sickrel 16

  snollygoster 10

  throttlebottom 10

  uhtceare 7–9

  weaver’s larum 11

  whindle 16

  xerostomia 13

  zwodder 12

  Chapter 2: 7 a.m.
/>   beetle-crushers 27

  bell-ropes 28

  bow-catchers 28

  bromodrosis 21

  buddle 26

  bumf 25

  bumfodder 24

  chamber foreign, visit a 23

  coffee shop, visit the 23

  cold air bath 25

  considering glass 20

  cover his feet, to 22

  culf 21

  curglaff 26

  cymotrichous 28

  dejection 24

  dew-beaters 27

  duffifie 26

  elf-locks 21

  erumpent 20

  exoneration 24

  fartleberries 25

  ferret-eyes 21

  filth-hood, do their 24

  frounces 21

  frumples 21

  furuncles 20

  gleek 31

  gong-hole 24

  gowpen 20

  grog-blossoms 20

  heart-breakers 28

  House of Commons 24

  house of office 23

  idiorepulsive 21

  illutible 26

  inguinal 27

  jumentous 21

  lirks 21

  lissotrichous 28

  make like a fish 26

  making the bottle confess 26

  Mrs Jones, visit 23

  my aunt, visit 23

  Newgate fringe 29

  nurdle 30

  oxter 27

  oze 30

  ozostomia 21

  pantofles 19, 23

  papuliferous 20

  petechial 20

  philtrum 29

  pimginnit 20

  pogonate 29

  pogoniasis 29

  pogonion 29

  pogonology 29

  pogonotomy 29

  popliteal 27

  purgation 24