Page:Farmer - Slang and its analogues past and present - Volume 2.pdf/240

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Curious. To do curious, verbal phr. (common).—To act strangely.

Curl. Out of curl, adv. phr. (common).—Out of sorts; out of condition.

To CURL UP, verbal phr. (familiar).—To be silent; to 'shut up.'

To curl one's hair, verb. phr. (common).—To administer chastisement; to 'go for' one.

To curl one's liver or to HAVE ONE'S LIVER CURLED, verbal phr. (common).—To make one feel intensely. Cf., Turn THE LIVER [q.v.).

1877. S.L.Clemens ('Mark Twain'), Life on the Mississippi, pp. 414-415. This is sport that makes the body's very liver curl with enjoyment.

Curle, subs. (old).—Clippings of money.—Grose,

Curl Paper, subs. (common).—Paper for the W.C.; toilet paper; 'wipe - bummatory' (Urquhart), or 'sanitary' paper; bum-fodder; bumf; ammunition.

Curlycues or Carlicues, subs. (common).—Fantastic ornaments worn on the person or used in architecture; also, by implication, a strange line of conduct. Used by Burns in The Merry Muses.

1858. Home Journal, 24 July. Architects have a wonderful predilection for all manner of curlycues and breaks in your roof.

CURRANTS AND PLUMS, sub. phr. (rhyming slang).—A threepenny bit; or thrums (q.v.).

Currency, subs. (Australian).—A colonist born in Australia, those of English birth being sterling (q.v.). [In allusion to the colonial and home mintages, which, identical in value, present one or two strongly marked points of difference.]

1856. C. Reade, Never Too Late, ch. 1xxxv. When gold was found in Victoria he crossed over to that port and robbed. One day he robbed the tent of an old man, a native of the colony, who was digging there with his son, a lad of fifteen. Now these currency lads are very sharp and determined.

Curse. Not to care or be worth A curse, phr. (common). —To care or be worth little—or nothing at all. [Curse may either = (1) the wild cherry; or (2) a corruption of A.S. cerse, watercress. Cf., Continental (q.v.).

1362. William Langland, Vision of Piers Ploughman. Wisdom and witt nowe is not worth a kerse, But if it be carded with cootis as clothers Kemble their woole.

1838. Dickens, Nicholas Nickleby, ch. xvi., p. 124. With regard to such questions which one can't be expected to CARE A CURSE ABOUT.

187(?). G. R. Sims, Dagonet Ballads (In the Workhouse). I care not a curse for the guardians.

Curse of God, subs. phr. (old).—A cockade.—Lexicon Balatronicum [1811].

Curse of Scotland, subs. phr. (popular).—The nine of diamonds. [The suggested derivations are inconclusive. The locution has nothing to do with Culloden and the Duke of Cumberland, for the card was nicknamed the justice-clerk, in allusion to the Lord Justice-Clerk Ormistone, who, for his severity in suppressing the