Page:Farmer - Slang and its analogues past and present - Volume 2.pdf/149

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Morning Star on March 17, 1856, it was prophesied, would knock the Daily Telegraph into a cocked hat.

1877. C. Reade, The Jilt, I., in Belgravia, March, p. 59. I never knew a Welsh girl yet who couldn't dance an Englishman into A cocked hat.

1881. Hawley Smart, Gt. Tontine, ch. xxx. I think now we may consider Bob Pegram's marriage as knocked pretty well into a cocked hat.

1889. Pall Mall Gaz., 18 Sept. p. 2, col. 3. You give in the Pall Mall of to-*night three translations of Plato's well-known epigram. Permit me to give you another which in my opinion knocks all the rest into a cocked hat.

Also in the moral sense to be amazed to stupefaction and speechlessness.

Cocker, According to Cocker, adv. phr. (colloquial).—According to rule; properly, arithmetically, or correctly done. [From old Cocker, a famous writing master in Charles II. time, author of a treatise on arithmetic. Professor de Morgan notes 'that it became a proverbial representative of arithmetic from Murphy's farce of The Apprentice (1756), in which the strong point of the old merchant Wingate is his extreme reverence for Cocker and his arithmetic.'] In America a similar locution is according to Gunter (q.v.). Gunter was a famous arithmetician a century before Cocker, and the American is no doubt the older phrase. The old laws of Rhode Island say, 'All casks shall be gauged by the rule commonly known as "gauging by Gunter."' Among sailors, the standard of appeal is according to John Norie—the compiler of a popular Navigator's Manual.

1851. Mayhew, Lon. Lab. and Lon. Poor. 'Answers to Correspondents.' Surely, to increase the quantity of labour, while the amount expended in the direct purchase of that labour remains the same, is according to Cocker—to decrease the wages in precisely the same proportion.

1861. T. Hughes, Tom Brown at Oxford, ch. xxxii., p. 337. Well, so you ought to be, according to Cocker, spending all your time in sick rooms.

1883. G. A. S[ala], in Ill. L. News, Nov. 24, p. 499, col. 2. The average American may not know what we mean by according to Cocker; while the average Englishman may be unaware of the meaning of 'according to Gunter.' They both mean the same thing; implying irreproachable accuracy in computation.

1888. Grant Allen, This Mortal Coil, ch. ii. According to Cocker nought and nought make nothing.

Cock-Eyed, adj. (common).—Squinting. [Cf., Cock the eye.] For synonyms, see Squinny-eye.

1884. Daily News, Nov. 27, p. 2, col. 2. I am told the proper description of him would be a little man with a cock-eye.

Cock-Fighting. That beats cock fighting, phr. (common).—A general expression of approval—up to the mark; A 1. [From the esteem in which the sport was held.]

1659. Gauden, Tears of the Church, p. 228. Ministers' scufflings and contests with one another is beyond any cock fighting or Bear-baiting to the vulgar envy, malice, profaneness, and petulancy.

1884. W. C. Russell, Jack's Courtship, ch. vi. 'Well, roast me!' cried he, viewing me with a kind of admiration; 'if this don't beat cock fighting.'

Cock-Horse, adv. phr. (old).—Triumphant; in full swing; cock-a-hoop. Halliwell says, 'a somewhat slang expression not quite obsolete.'

Cocking.—See Cock, verb, sense 1.