Page:Farmer - Slang and its analogues past and present - Volume 1.pdf/78

 *monde who live in that quarter of town.

Apothecary. To talk like an apothecary, verb phr. (old).--To talk nonsense; from the pseudo gravity and affectation of knowledge often assumed by these gentlemen at a time when their status was not legally held under examination and license of the Apothecaries' Company.

Apothecaries' bill, subs. (old).--A long bill.

Apothecaries', or raw Latin, subs. (old).--Now called dog-Latin (q.v.).

Apple Cart, subs. (common). 1. The human body. A slang term similar to 'potato trap,' 'bread-*basket,' 'bellows,' 'blue plumb,' 'bacon,' and 'beer-barrel' (all of which see). There are numerous variations in usage; e.g., if two men are quarrelling[**P2: "quarreling"?], and a friend of one interferes saying 'I will upset his apple cart' it means, 'while you are parleying with the enemy I will knock him down.' Again, if a child falls down, says W. W. Skeat (referring to his early Kentish remembrance of the word), you first enquire if he is much hurt. If he is merely a little frightened you say, 'Well, never mind, then; you've only upset your apple cart and spilt the gooseberries.' The child laughs and all is well again.

2. Also employed in a figurative sense. To upset an apple cart sometimes means, not so much to knock a man down, as to prevent him from doing what he wants to do by the upsetting as it were, of an imaginary apple cart; i.e., to thwart; to disarrange; to overthrow; to ruin an undertaking. Sometimes the expression is varied by To upset the old woman's apple cart. Barrère's reference of the genesis of the phrase to the costermonger's imaginative powers is 'all conjecture and fancy'; as also is his American derivation of the expression in its more figurative sense. In the first place apple carts are perfectly familiar objects in all country districts; and, in the second,the phrase is too old a provincialism to need deriving from the peripatetic vendors in question. Further, though to upset is apple cart and spill the peaches may be an American variation for the second sense, as it appears to have been so used, dialectically, throughout England, the weight of assumption must be given to its English origin, and subsequent transference to America.

English Synonyms. Beer-barrel; bacon.

French Synonyms. Acabit (literally, quality); cylindre (popular: lit. 'a cylinder,' or 'barrel.' Cf. with English 'beer barrel'); grosse caisse (popular: lit. 'a large case,' or 'box'); paillasse (popular: lit. 'a straw mattress'); also place d'armes; casaquin.

Apple Dumpling Shop, subs. phr. (common).--A woman's bosom. For synonyms, see Dairies.

Apple-Monger.--The same as apple-squire (q.v.).

Apple-Pie Bed, subs. phr. (common).--A practical joke, which consists in making up a bed with the sheets doubled half way