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Slang at the Internet Archive

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It has been a little while since Clement Skitt showed up on the bean, but you may have gleaned from Clement Skitt’s word of the day that I have a bit of an affinity for vintage slang. I gave that affinity a place to live by making it a love of Clement Skitt, a comic character from Levi Levi and the Time Machine. Since the last word of the day post, I’ve stumbled on a couple more old slang dictionaries on the Internet Archive and figured I’d share in case you would like to peruse them while I do some reading up.

Clement Skitt’s Word of the Day

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clementskitt067

Resurrection pie – a pie made of scraps or leavings (1891 American Slang Dictionary by James Maitland)

For Example:

  1. Spaghetti Pie: 1. mix left over spaghetti and sauce with additional mozzarella cheese and an egg; 2. You can also add spinach and additional meat if you like or put it in a pie shell; 3. bake ’till done.
  2. Resurrection Sheppard’s Pie: 1. chop up left-over meat of any variety; 2. mix with left over veg (broccoli, brussel sprouts, carrots, cauliflower, celery are all good); 3. heat on the stove in a dutch oven with complimentary broth thickened with cornstarch; 4. when appropriately stew like, cover with re-hydrated instant mash potato, sprinkle some cheese on top and put in oven for 30 min. or so.

Clement Skitt’s Word of the Day

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ClementSkittsays007

“I’ve gotta wrinkle that’ll turn your Friday face to a giggle-mug”

What was that now?

WRINKLE:  an idea, or fancy:  an additional piece of knowledge which is supposed to be made by a wrinkle a posteriori   (Cab Calloway’s Hepster’s Dictionary)

FRIDAY-FACE. A dismal countenance. Before, and even long after the Reformation, Friday was a day of abstinence, or jour maigre. Immediately after the restoration of king Charles II. a proclamation was issued, prohibiting all publicans from dressing any suppers on a Friday. (1811 Dictionary of the Vulgar Tongue by Francis Grose)

GIGGLEMUG:  “An habitually smiling face.” (1909 Passing English of the Victorian era : a dictionary of heterodox English, slang and phrase by James Redding Ware)

So, basically, “I’ve got an idea that’ll turn your frown upside down.”

Clement Skitt’s Word of the Day

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clementskitt069

“I was out to get a sinker for nooning and some Big Six shambles in front of me without so much as a mind the grease.  I was all glimflashy!  But, I didn’t want to go waking snakes so I cheesed it before starting a bobbery.”

What was that now?

Sinker – a doughnut ( Flapperspeak: Dictionary of Words From the 1920’s and 1930’s )

Nooning – an interval for rest and refreshment at midday, as in the harvest field  (1891 American Slang Dictionary by James Maitland)

Big six – a strong man; from auto advertising, for the new and powerful; six cylinder engines ( Flapperspeak: Dictionary of Words From the 1920’s and 1930’s )
 
TO SHAMBLE – To walk awkwardly. Shamble-legged:  one that walks wide, and shuffles about his feet.  (1811 Dictionary of the Vulgar Tongue by Francis Grose)
 
Mind the Grease – When walking or otherwise getting around, you could ask people to let you pass, please. Or you could ask them to mind the grease, which meant the same thing to Victorians.
 
GLIMFLASHY – Angry, or in a passion. CANT.  (1811 Dictionary of the Vulgar Tongue by Francis Grose)
 
Waking snakes – getting into trouble  (1891 American Slang Dictionary by James Maitland)
 
CHEESE IT – Be silent, be quiet, don’t do it. Cheese it, the coves are fly; be silent, the people understand our discourse.  (1811 Dictionary of the Vulgar Tongue by Francis Grose)
 
Bobbery – a tumult or bother  (1891 American Slang Dictionary by James Maitland)
 
In other words:  “I was out to get a doughnut for my midday break and some muscle bound guy shuffles in front of me without so much as an excuse me.  I was so angry!  But, I didn’t want to go getting into trouble so I kept my mouth shut before starting a tumult.”
 
 
 

Meta-idiot’s guide to meta

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In some of our earliest schooling we learn about metaphors.  Perhaps we even read Kafka’s Metamorphosis (wikipedia).  By college, we look into metaphysics, or know enough about it that we do not want to know more.  Meta, a Greek preposition, is used in several English words to indicate a concept which is an abstraction of another concept (wikipedia).  Yet, today, it seems to have taken on a new life where there is a meta version of most any word or concept you can imagine.  I tested this theory, brainstorming what I thought were ridiculous meta permutations.  Then I looked them up and discovered that all but one of them was actually in use by someone, somewhere.  This is my meta-idiot’s guide to meta.Continue reading Meta-idiot’s guide to meta

Amazing writing systems

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I am currently studying how intellectual property laws can be used to protect Traditional Knowledge – because of course I am – but there was something amazing in my lesson the other day:  Quipus or talking knots.  Quipus were recording devices made of thread or string and knotted to portray meaning and value.  Based on a base ten positional system calendar information, taxes, census records, military organization and more could be recorded and read off of something that looks more like a necklace or body ornament.  Similar systems were used by the Inca, the ancient Chinese and native Hawaiians.

Short hand mysteries

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The recipe pictured is one from my mother’s recipe box. I have long suspected that it was a recipe for fried green tomatoes that I asked her to write down from a news broadcast one day when we living with my grandmother. She joyfully delivered the recipe to me in shorthand, something I could not read, and refused to translate it. As mean as the interlude sounds, my mother was a wonderful woman, promise. And, though I suspect tomatoes, I’ve really always hoped the recipe was for her fruitcake, since I have yet found no trace of her fruitcake anywhere in her cook books or recipe box.

At some point in my youth I was actually inspired to study shorthand. I am not sure whether it was before or after the tomatoes. I got significantly less far along with it than I did with my short bout of speed reading practice. So the recipe above is still a mystery. I believe it is Gregg shorthand, the U.S. standard at the time my mother would’ve learned, and I have since found a fabulous site dedicated to keeping Greg shorthand alive: Gregg Shorthand site. It includes a Greg Shorthand Dictionary that may help me figure out the recipe above. I’ve also found a translation engine that can translate your text into shorthand. Unfortunately it doesn’t work the other way around.

What I had no concept of when I started investigating a means to translate the recipe is the great history of shorthand and the many ways it has been used. On Tracey Jennings Harding transcription service web site, Harding frequently shares stories of postcards, letters, and other interesting historical ephemera that she’s been hired to translate by people who, like me, can’t read the strange code their predecessors used to record their lives. Harding doesn’t work with Gregg shorthand, as she is fluent in the U.K. standard shorthand style: Pitman, which preceded Gregg in popularity for the English speaking world.

In case you want to follow me along in an exploration of the wartime letters, fan mail, and diaries that have been written in shorthand throughout history, here are some starting points:

  1. Leah Price’s essay on shorthand
  2. “Personal Tech for the 17th Century” at The Atlantic
  3. Shorthand via Wikipedia
  4. Encyclopedia Brittannica

19 Long-Lost Historical Words You Absolutely Need In Your Life

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I may have been uhtceare this morning, but it didn’t become dysania.  Perhaps it may have been if I was also grufeling.  There are apropos words to bring back and Buzzfeed can tell you all about it: 19 Long-Lost Historical Words You Absolutely Need In Your Life

Clement Skitt’s Word of the Day

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ClementSkittsays005“The swell was flash, so I could not draw his fogle.”

Let’s dissect:

Swell: gentleman (1811 Dictionary of the Vulgar Tongue by Francis Grose)

Flash: Knowing. Understanding another’s meaning.   (1891 American Slang Dictionary by James Maitland)

Draw his fogle: pick his pocket of his silk handkerchief.  (1891 American Slang Dictionary by James Maitland)

In other words: the gentleman knew exactly what I was doing so I could not sneak the silk handkerchief from his pocket.

Clement Skitt’s word of the day

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ClementSkitt010 Introducing Clement Skitt’s word of the day.  You may recognize Clement from Levi Levi and the Time Machine.  He and his sister have since peeped into many different times and Clement has developed a healthy fascination with outdated slang.  Today’s slang:

SEVEN-SIDED ANIMAL: a one-eyed man or woman, described as such because each  has a right side and a left side, a fore side and a back side, an outside, an inside, and a blind side.

I only dabble in Philately

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Or barely dabble.  I’m sure a philatelist would have a conniption at the state of my stamps.  My collections would be much more pleasing to a numismatist, but he would probably say that mine was a very mundane assortment; probably worthless.  Likewise a petrologist would yawn, I imagine, until we got to the meteorites.  I could almost be a deltiologist, but every time I gather up a good batch, I only try to find reasons to send them out in the mail.  I’d probably be better at it if the mail brought them to me instead.

I used to be a devoted arctophilist, and still have many stuffed friends from my childhood, but have since mostly dismantled my collection.

I was never personally drawn to phillumeny, but I did inherit a lovely collection of matchbooks whose sulfur emissions are tightly contained by a gigantic jar.  Woe to those that open it, though sometimes I do just to wake my nose up.  My mother was very much a gnomologist, and I briefly followed in her footsteps until I tried paroemiography instead.

Lepidoptery always kind of creeped me out, and I find oology similarly squicky.  Though I can kind of understand, the homes of plangonologists put me on edge as well, all those eyes!

Image searches in different languages

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On Tofugu (awesome blog by the way) there’s a recent post about how Google Images searches vary in Japanese versus English.  I have used the differences between English and other languages in web searches when I am tracking down some information or publications, but I had never played around with the image search.

Anyway, the article at Tofugu got me wondering about German versus English, so here goes.  I grabbed the top results from each search; German pictures come first.  First up, Katzen vs. cats, because this is what the internet is for:Continue reading Image searches in different languages

Kill The Apostrophe

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When I talked about my enjoyment reading a master of language talk about language, I was not actually ascribing to the strange and overly picky arguments that erupt when someone publishes a grammatical error on the web.  I kind of ignore all those because they seem pompous even if there are careers and jobs based around them, and they could eventually affect how kids learn language in school.  They happen often online and with vehemence, rage and extensive arguments.  Sometimes they even result in movements like Kill The Apostrophe.

Do we need an apostrophe?  Would getting rid of it simply make more our language more complex by making contractions into words of their own right that would evolve separately from their root?  Usually changes to language don’t affect the people or understanding of people living during the change, but what about one hundred years from now?  Two hundred?  Whatever grammar, spelling, and definition changes may happen in my life time, none of them even approach the magnitude of downgrading Pluto’s classification.  Pluto, you are still a planet to me.

FSI Language Courses – Home

FSI Language Courses – Home published on No Comments on FSI Language Courses – Home

It’s been a while since I was immersing myself in language education.  I feel bad to have not mastered a language other than English, especially because I find the process of learning another language so fascinating.

On the old Bean (nothing but an archive in my home computer now) I wrote up an entire post testing the merits of a handful of online language learning sites.  I imagine that most of the information is obsolete now, even though many of the sites still operate and send me news emails regularly.

Anyway, enough boo hooing and reminiscing.  FSI Language Courses has texts and mp3s of the language programs developed by the Foreign Service Institute.  If you want to learn a language, why not learn the way military and diplomats have before?  And do it for free.

I am going to brush up on some stuff right after NaNoWriMo.  I promise.

John McWhorter and the Grumpy Grammarian

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I feel free.  John McWhorter has just released my mind from an ingrained belief that I couldn’t end a sentence with a preposition in his essay: Grumpy Grammarian: The Dangling Preposition Myth | New Republic..  You who were schooled around the time I was, when cursive was still graded for its style and clarity, will understand.  Certain rules of grammar were pounded into me.

Later, during my studies of great literature, I was able to let go of some elements of proper grammar for the purpose of conveying feeling and character.  If I don’t need it when I am speaking with others in life then neither do the folks I write about.  I break tons of rules while writing fiction, but when writing professional articles and organizational reports, that last edit for acceptable language always leaves me with dangling prepositions to clean up.  Now, I will try not to worry so much about them.

Oh, and John McWhorter is a fabulous master of language who talks about the idiosyncrasies and ridiculousness of language and people’s reaction to it.  If you love to read like masters dissect their art as much as I do, and you have not heard of him, go go and read.

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