decade, the women who were employed as the first telephone operators were being called hello girls.
Hello illustrates how technology can influence vocabulary, pushing a word in a new direction. Other uses continue to emerge, of course. In particular, since the 1980s hello has developed an ironic attention-getting use, implying that someone has failed to understand or has missed the point in some way: ‘I mean, hello! How crazy was that?’ But its future as an informal greeting is being seriously challenged by Hi, which emerged in the USA in the 19th century. Hi is now heard globally across the age range — though it’s rather less widespread among older people, where hello is still the norm — and has become frequent in written English too. It’s the commonest way of beginning an email to someone we know. Two letters are quicker to type than five, no matter how old you are. Technology rules, once again.
64. Dragsman — thieves’ cant (19th century)
Dictionaries chiefly deal in the words used by the great and the good. Dr Johnson started a trend when he paid special attention in his Dictionary entries to the cultured usage of the best authors, ‘the wells of English undefiled’. There’s little sign in his pages of the everyday slang of ordinary people — and certainly no coverage of the secretive usage (often called cant, or argot) of criminals. But villains have vocabulary too.
It’s not easy to study, though. If we wanted to collect the words used by criminals and establish their senses, we would have to enter their world and stay for quite some time. A risky business. But some intrepid lexicographers have done precisely that.
One of the first was George Andrewes, who compiled A Dictionary of the Slang and Cant Languages in 1809. He had a highly practical aim in mind. Thieves have a language of their own, he says, so that when they get together in the streets passers-by won’t understand what they’re plotting. His Dictionary, he hopes, will make it easier to detect their crimes: ‘by the perusal of this Work, the Public will become acquainted with their mysterious Phrases; and be better able to frustrate their designs.’
Dragsmen were one of the types of villain he had in mind. In the 18th century, a drag was a private horse-drawn vehicle similar to a stage coach, with seats inside and on the top. A dragsman was its driver. But the term was also used for someone who stole (‘dragged’) goods or luggage from vehicles. They were also called draggers, for obvious reasons. Drag went out of use for the name of a vehicle once the motor car was invented; but it surfaced again in the 1950s when the American sport of drag racing developed (initially along the drag, or main street, of a town).
Andrewes provides a long list of names for the different kinds of criminal activity. Some, such as footpads and coiners (‘counterfeiters’), are still used today. Fencer is close to what we now say for a receiver of stolen goods (a fence). And we might guess what a water-pad is, on analogy with footpad. Someone who robs ships.
Several of the unfamiliar names are highly descriptive. A cloak-twitcher, as its form suggests, was someone who would lurk in a dark place and snatch a cloak from the shoulders of its wearer. A beau-trap was a well-dressed confidence trickster. A diver was a pickpocket. Others are less transparent, and their origins aren’t known. Housebreakers were kencrackers, from an old slang term for a house, ken, but where that word comes from nobody knows. A prigger was a thief. A lully- prigger was a linen-thief. Nobody knows where these words come from either.
Two of the most puzzling terms listed by Andrewes are clapperdogeons and gammoners. A clap-perdogeon — also spelled clapperdudgeon — was a beggar. It seems to be a combination of clapper (‘lid of a begging dish’) and dudgeon (‘hilt of a dagger’). Maybe beggars knocked the lid of their dish with it. A gammoner was a pickpocket’s accomplice — someone who held the attention of the target while a pocket was picked. Give me gammon, the pickpocket might say to the accomplice. Maybe gammon comes from game, in its sense of a ‘scheme’ or ‘intrigue’ — we still say such things as so that’s your little game and two can play at that game. Or could there be an obscure link with the game of backgammon (‘back-game’)? Again, nobody knows.
65. Lunch — U or non-U (19th century)
What do you call the meal you have in the middle of the day? For many readers, there is no question: lunch. For many readers, there is no question: dinner. Clearly, there’s an issue here, and it’s one that has been a feature of English vocabulary for a long time.
In Britain, the issue was highlighted in the 1950s, when considerable media attention was paid to the vocabulary differences between upper-class (or ‘U’) speakers and those belonging to other classes (‘non-U’). It was claimed that U speakers said lunch or luncheon; everyone else said dinner. And similarly, U-speakers were supposed to say vegetables, lavatory paper and bike; non-U speakers greens, toilet paper and cycle. Long lists were compiled to illustrate the supposed linguistic ‘class war’.
The situation was never as neat and tidy as the distinction suggested. U-speakers certainly called their midday meal lunch(eon), but if they had a dog they would give it its dinner at that time of day. One didn’t invite one’s dog to take lunch. Similarly, U-children would also be summoned to dinner, especially in school, where the meal in the middle of the day would be served by dinner ladies. Most Christmas dinners were eaten in the early afternoon. So were Thanksgiving dinners. And the words sometimes went in the opposite direction. Businessmen having an evening meal in a restaurant might nonetheless pay for it with luncheon vouchers.
The words have gone backwards and forwards in recent centuries. Originally, there was only dinner — a word that arrived from French in the 13th century to describe the chief meal of the day. This was usually eaten around midday — as is clear from many observations. In Shakespeare’s As You Like It (IV.i.166), Orlando tells Rosalind he has to leave her for two hours: ‘I must attend the Duke at dinner. By two o’clock I will be with thee again.’ It was the same in the 18th century. James Boswell, in his Life of Johnson, writes of being invited to ‘dinner at two’.
The words luncheon and lunch both arrived in the late 16th century, though not in their modern sense. A lunch(eon) was a thick piece of food — a hunk of something. People would talk about ‘a luncheon of cheese’ or ‘a lunch of bacon’. Then luncheon began to move in the direction of its modern meaning. In the 17th century, it was a light repast taken between the main meals. There would be breakfast, then luncheon, then (midday) dinner; or, dinner, then luncheon, then supper. In the 1820s Thomas Carlyle writes about an evening luncheon. And in the USA there are instances of luncheons being served as late as midnight.
The modern usage of lunch isn’t recorded until 1829, and not everyone liked it. Some considered it a vulgar abbreviation; others, a ridiculous affectation. At the same time, luncheon was attracting criticism as a word unsuitable for use in high society. But
