The Wonder of Whiffling

by Adam Jacot De Boinod

  scroat a dart that is aimed for treble 20, but ends up in double 20

  fish and globe a score of 45 (when competing on a fairground darts stall, 45 was a score that traditionally would win the customer a small paper bag of peanuts which later became the offer of a jar (globe) and a goldfish)

  Lord Nelson a score of 111 (as he had one eye, one arm, one leg)

  POKER FACE

  A cool head and an expressionless face will serve you well in a game that otherwise relies on luck – unless of course you have other tricks up your sleeve:

  runt a poker hand worth less than a pair

  motown a poker hand consisting of ‘jacks-on-fives’

  vole the winning by one player of all the tricks of a deal; a grand-slam

  pone the player who cuts the cards

  hop a secret move made after the cut which puts the cards back in the original position and negates that cut for the cheat’s benefit

  crimp to bend one or more cards so that a cheat will be able to cut the deck as he wishes, or to know that an innocent player will be cutting the deck at that same desired card

  there’s work down the announcement by one player that someone somehow is cheating

  BIDDING WAR

  The king of card games requires not just luck, but skill of the highest level:

  chicane (1886) the condition in a game of bridge of holding no trumps

  bumble-puppy (1936) a game played at random (of people who play no conventions)

  yarborough (19C) a bridge or whist hand with no card higher than a 9 (from a certain Earl of Yarborough who used to bet 1000 to 1 against the occurrence of such a hand; the actual odds are 1827 to 1)

  flag-flying (1917) to make an overbid that will almost inevitably fail, just to liven up the game

  huddle (US 1934) a period of thought in which a player considers his next move

  FULL HOUSE

  For those habitués of the pack, there’s a fine range of nicknames for individual cards:

  devil’s bed-post (c.1835) the four of clubs, held to be unlucky

  grace-card (Irish mid 19C) the six of hearts in cards

  curse of Scotland (early 18C) the nine of diamonds (diamonds imply royalty and traditionally every ninth king of Scotland has been considered a tyrant and a curse to that country)

  blankets (1915) the tens in a pack of cards (from the rolling of blankets in the military in tens for the convenience of transport)

  noddy (Gloucestershire) the knave

  suicide king the king of hearts (as the fifteenth-century French picture shows him about to impale himself on his sword)

  the boy with the boots (Anglo-Irish late 19C) the joker in the pack of cards

  HIGH STAKES

  When you start to bring money into the picture, of course, both dice and cards can easily lose their innocence:

  shill a decoy player, allied to the promoters of the game, who pretends to bet, and is allowed to ‘win’ in street games of three-card monte; his successes are intended to lure the public into laying down their money

  tattogey (underworld slang 1753) one who uses loaded dice to cheat

  langret (mid 16C) a die so loaded that it shows 3 or 4 more often than any other number

  DESPERATE BIDS

  For some unfortunates, the impulse to win can stop being a game and become more a part of their lives. As the Aussies say, there are some people who would bet on two flies walking up the wall:

  martingale to continue doubling one’s stake after losing in the hope of eventual recovery

  ring in one’s nose to be losing and betting heavily and impetuously in an attempt to get even (like a bull)

  fishing remaining in a card game in the hope of a vital card

  bird dog a small time or novice gambler who hangs around experienced professional gamblers to pick up tips

  nut the living expenses and other overheads that a gambler must meet from his winnings

  MONTE CARLO OR BUST

  For people like this, home games are soon no longer enough; a professional arena for their habit beckons; and there, of course, under the patina of respectability, pretty much anything goes:

  ladder man a casino employee who sits on a high chair and watches for any errors or cheating by players or croupiers

  booster a bit player in a casino who entices genuine players to bet (and usually lose) their money

  top-hatting in roulette, the surreptitious placing of more casino chips on top of existing ones after the outcome has been decided

  BINGO LINGO

  Better to switch to a sociable game often favoured by the older woman, which comes with its own inimitable terminology. Two fat ladies (88) and legs eleven are well-known but there are many other traditional coinages:

  1 buttered scone

  6 Tom Mix (more modern: chopsticks)

  7 Gawd’s in ’eaven

  12 monkey’s cousin (from rhyming slang for dozen)

  23 a duck and a flea (from the shape of the figures)

  50 half-way house (1940s) (since there are 100 numbers available to the caller)

  76 was she worf it? (from 7/6d the old price of a marriage licence)

  77 two little crutches (from the shape of the figures)

  80 Gandhi’s breakfast (as he ‘ate nothing’)

  ANORAKS

  Or else give it up entirely and settle on a worthwhile and productive hobby:

  notaphily (1970) the collecting of paper currency as a hobby

  deltiologist (1959) a collector of picture postcards

  cartophily (1936) the hobby of collecting cigarette cards

  arctophile (1970s) a person who loves or collects teddy bears

  cruciverbalist (US slang 1970s) a crossword puzzle addict

  bowerbird (Australian slang) a person who collects an astonishing array of sometimes useless objects

  WORD JOURNEYS

  hazard (13C) a game of dice

  forfeit (13C from Latin via Old French) ‘done beyond the bounds of’ the law, a crime

  depart (13C from Latin via Old French) to divide into parts, distribute

  MUSH FAKERS AND APPLESQUIRES

  The world of work

  He that hopes to thrive must rise at five;

  he that has thriven, may lie till seven;

  but he that will never thrive may lie till eleven

  (1640)

  Even in these days of welfare, or national handbag as Polari slang (see page 157) evocatively has it, most of us have to work at something to make ends meet. However specialized or odd our occupation may be, we can take comfort from the fact that in harsher times, jobs came in all shapes and sizes:

  legger (Yorkshire) a man employed to move canal boats through tunnels by walking on the roof or sides of the tunnel

  fottie (Scottish) a female wool-gatherer

  murenger (Cheshire 1706) an officer appointed to keep the walls of a city in repair

  sewer (Tudor–Stuart) an attendant at a meal who superintended the seating of the guests and the tasting and the serving of the dishes

  shore-man (Cockney) one who searches sewers for rats

  pure-finder (c.1850) a street collector of dogs’ dung

  applesquire (late 16C) the male servant of a prostitute

  gong-farmer (1596) a person who cleaned out privies at night and sold the waste as a fertilizer

  screever (1851) a professional writer of begging letters

  glutman (1796) a temporary customs officer hired because of his ability to be numerate

  lodger-remover (underworld slang 1889) a seller of fine-toothed haircombs

  mush faker (1821) an umbrella repairer (‘mushroom-faker’)

  resurrection doctor (1800s) a doctor who buys corpses which are stolen from graves, or has people murdered and delivered to him

  whiffler (1539) an officer armed with a weapon who clears the way for a procession

  COLOUR CODED

  Nowadays many jobs can be seen as either white or blue collar, wh
ere the former are those who wear a suit and work in offices, and the latter those getting their hands dirty in a boilersuit. The designation white came first, in 1921, and blue followed in 1950. Since then imaginative business writers and others have added yet more categories:

  pink (1975) secretaries and other clerical staff

  steel (1980) robots

  grey (1981) skilled technicians; employees whose job descriptions combine some white- and some blue-collar duties

  green (1984) environmentalists

  gold (1985) professionals or those with in-demand skills; employees over 55

  black (1998) miners (especially coal miners) and oil workers

  scarlet (2000) female pornographic shop operators

  ELBOW GREASE

  But whatever your job, whether it be typing at a word-processor or hauling coal, there is one element in common: at some point you have to get stuck in to doing the work:

  swallow the frog to tackle the hardest task possible

  knife-and-fork it to deal with it bit by bit

  antisocordist (1680) an opponent of laziness or idiocy

  fluttergrub (Sussex) a man who takes a delight in working about in the dirt, and getting into every possible mess

  work for Jesus (US industrial relations) to put in extra work without asking for extra pay

  JOBSWORTH

  Of course there are always those who manage to slow productivity in some way or other. As the Australians say, they’re as useless as an ashtray on a motorbike:

  chair plug (2006) someone who sits in a meeting but contributes nothing

  boondoggle (1935) to carry out valueless or extremely trivial work in order to convey the impression that one is busy

  to be on the shockell (Warwickshire) to neglect one’s work through beer

  headless nail (1950s) a worker who, once he got into a job, was impossible to get out, even if unsuitable

  sunlighting (US 1980s) doing a quite different job on one day of the working week

  BRAINSTORMING

  Ideas, as they say, are two a penny. But a sudden brainwave can be worth a month of pointless toil:

  quaesitum (1748) the answer to a problem

  just-add-water (UK current office jargon) an idea that is so brilliantly simple yet effective that it requires little by way of preparation

  limbeck (1599) to rack or fatigue the brain in an effort to have a new idea

  NO-DAY

  However hard we try not to, we all have those days where our hard work seems to come to nought:

  blue duck (New Zealand 1890) something unprofitable

  windmill-tilt (US jargon 2006) a fruitless and frustrating venture: attacking imaginary enemies or fighting otherwise-unwinnable battles

  salmon day (1990s) the entire day spent swimming upstream only to get screwed in the end

  PUSHING THE ENVELOPE

  The jargon of contemporary corporate life may seem absurd to the outsider, rich as it is in the most colourful of metaphors. But it’s certainly guaranteed to brighten up even the dullest day:

  takeaway nuggets insights or information resulting from a meeting or interaction

  sunset clauses stipulations that a contract or regulation will lapse unless renewed

  to wash its own face to justify or pay for itself

  push the peanut to progress an arduous and delicate task forward

  ketchup-bottle a long period of inertia followed by a burst of exaggerated activity; the unplanned release of pent-up forces

  swallow your own smoke to take responsibility for and/or suffer the consequences of your mistakes

  MANAGERIE

  Why are things so often discussed in animal terms? Is it because of a desperate subliminal desire to get out of the office?

  shoot the puppy to dare to do the unthinkable

  prairie dogging popping one’s head above an office cubicle out of curiosity or to spy on colleagues

  lipstick on a pig an attempt to put a favourite spin on a negative situation

  a pig in a python a surge in a statistic measured over time

  boiling frog syndrome a company which fails to recognize gradual market change (as a slowly boiled frog may not detect a slow temperature increase)

  moose on the table an issue which everyone in a business meeting knows is a problem but which no one wants to address

  seagull manager a manager who flies in, makes a lot of noise, shits all over everything, and then leaves

  THANK GOD IT’S FRIDAY – OFFICE ACRONYMS

  SWOT Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, Threats (a favourite of consultants)

  PICNIC Problem In Chair, Not In Computer

  WOMBAT Waste Of Money, Brains And Time

  POET’S day Piss Off Early Tomorrow’s Saturday (refers to Friday)

  BULLS AND BEARS

  In good times and bad, the highly paid practitioners of both the City of London and Wall Street have couched their dubious activities in their own specialized jargon:

  J-Lo (Wall Street) the rounding bottom in a stock’s price chart (after the curvaceous Jennifer Lopez)

  Bo Derek (Wall Street) the perfect stock (after her famous film 10)

  poop and scoop to drive down a share price by spreading malicious rumours

  mattressing the term used by other traders and bank managers to hide their results

  barefoot pilgrim someone who has lost everything on the stock market, but might still be persuaded to invest again

  catch a falling knife to buy a stock as its price is going down, in the hope that it will go back up, only to have it continue to fall

  ROOM AT THE TOP

  If you have ability, however, and enough patience to continue to play the game, you will slowly but surely make your way up the corporate ladder:

  royal jelly flashy projects fed to someone whom the boss is grooming for promotion

  marzipan layer the group who are ranked below the very top in their profession, but ahead of the majority

  tribal chiefs bosses who dominate through charisma and patronage

  deceptionist a secretary whose job it is to delay or block potential visitors on behalf of their boss

  FIRM HAND

  Though we’d all like to believe that hard work is always rewarded, with the best jobs going to the most productive people, the sad fact is that the realities of employing people are not always so straightforward:

  muppet shuffle the redeployment of problem staff

  featherbedding (1949) the practice of forcing the employer (by union rule etc.) to hire more workers than needed (or to limit his workers’ production)

  kicked upstairs (1967) removed from the scene of action by promotion to an ostensibly higher post

  other shoe syndrome when a number of executives in a firm are being made redundant, those survivors, rather than feeling relieved, find their own morale sabotaged as they wait for ‘the other shoe’ to come down on them

  chainsaw consultants outside experts brought in to reduce the employee headcount (leaving the top brass with clean hands)

  THE SACK

  So unpleasant is it to ask people to clear their desks and take their skills elsewhere, that a huge number of words and phrases has grown up to euphemistically describe the simple fact of redundancy. You might have been handed your cards or perhaps you’re clearing your desk, considering your position or maybe becoming a consultant. Maybe you’ve been deselected or you’re taking an early bath. Then again, perhaps you’re excess to requirements or you’ve even been excluded. You’re leaving to give time to your other commitments or else you’re off on gardening leave. If you’re lucky you’ll have negotiated a golden handshake rather than merely being given a leave of absence or let go. When you’re given notice let’s hope they don’t say it’s natural wastage or that you’ve been stood down. No, you’re spending more time with your wife and family, as it’s your right to do, even if your contract has been terminated and nobody could really describe this as a voluntary relocation.
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br />   SMALL IS BETTER

  As for the ruthless companies themselves, why, they’re doing nothing more unnatural than a bit of decruitment. They are in fact degrowing, dehiring, delayering and destaffing. In a process of downsizing some employees have had to take early release. Yes, there is a bit of executive outplacement and force reduction going on. Shall we call it internal reorganization? Nobody is being put out to grass. There’s been a personnel surplus reduction, indeed a straightforward rationalization of the workforce. Some people have been redeployed. There’s been a bit of restructuring, some retrenching and rightsizing, not to mention schedule adjustment, selective separation and skill-mix adjustment. It’s all nothing more than a bit of transitioning, vocational relocation and workforce imbalance correction.

  MY OLD MAN’S A…

  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

  HAWKERS AND HUCKSTERS

  However you dress him (or her) up, there’s no denying that a salesman is always a salesman. It’s an occupation that’s been around since men first started trading beads and barley: