Page:Farmer - Slang and its analogues past and present - Volume 1.pdf/127

 for overcoming insomnia; e.g., counting slowly up to a hundred, etc., etc.); taper de de l'œil (popular: 'to rub the eyes.' Cf., English 'to have sleepy dust in one's eyes'); mettre le chien au cran de repos (popular: 'to curl oneself up like a dog'); souffler ses clairs (popular: 'to blow or put out one's light,' i.e., 'to shut the eyes'); fermer maillard (popular: to close one's shutters, i.e., eyelids. Maillard was the inventor of a particular kind of shutter. Other analogous expressions are être terrassé par maillard, i.e., 'to be extremely sleepy.' Sleep is expressed by fermeture); faire schloff or schloffer, from the German schlafen.

Spanish Synonym. In the Germania difunto, properly 'defunct,' is used for asleep.

A Portuguese Synonym for sound sleep is a bom sornar, i.e., 'to sleep on both ears.'

2. Dull-witted; thick-skulled. In this sense balmy is used up and down the whole gamut of imbecility from mere stolidity to downright insanity. Popularly used, it signifies in most cases little more than shallow-brained or muddle-headed; or, to use slang equivalents in their most familiar sense, 'to be touched,' 'to be wrong in the upper story,' 'dotty.' Among thieves, however, it is usually applied to insanity, to put on the balmy stick being, among convicts, to feign madness.

1851. H. Mayhew, London Lab. and Lon. Poor, vol. I., p. 231. List of patterers' words. Balmy—Insane.

A large number of synonyms will be found under apartments to let, but in addition to those there mentioned may be instanced the following in the French slang:—Demenager (popular: 'to remove one's furniture.' It also means 'to die'); paumer la sorbonne (i.e., to punch the head,' sorbonne being a slang term for that part of the human body. The Sorbonne is a well-known university and seat of learning. Among thieves, too, sorbonner is used in the sense of 'to think'); être un peu toc (i.e., slightly crazy; toc in slang = ridiculous); avoir une pomme de canne felée (popular: a rather opprobrious expression, meaning 'to have a slate off.' Cf., 'to have a tile loose'); avoir une fissure (literally 'to have a crack'); avoir un grain.

Balmy Cove, subs. (common).—A weak-minded individual; one who has 'a tile loose.' [From balmy (q.v.) + cove, a man.] Among French thieves such an individual is called un hurlubier (hurlublu is an obsolete term used jestingly for a giddy goose or hair-brained person); also biscayen from the Bicêtre prison which has a lunatic ward for demented convicts. The prison itself is calle La Biscaye, but this name has no connection with the province of Biscay as might be supposed.

Balsam, subs. (thieves' and popular).—One of the many generic names for money. A full list of synonyms will be found under Actual. The allusion of course is obvious, i.e., a healing soothing agent or agency; but, in its secondary signification of impertinence,