Page:Farmer - Slang and its analogues past and present - Volume 6.pdf/177

 1630. Taylor, Works [Nares]. And let those shifters their own judges be, If they have not bin arrant thieves to me.

1637. Heywood, Royal King [Pearson, Works (1874), vi. 38]. He scorns to be a changeling or a shift.

1639. Fletcher, The Bloody Brother, iv. 2. "They have so little As well may free them from the name of shifter."

1659. Milton, Civil Power [Century]. Sly and shifting.

2. (thieves').—An alarm: as given by one thief in watching to another 'on the job.'—Vaux (1812).

Shifting-ballast, subs. phr. (old nautical).—Landsmen on board ship: spec. soldiers (Grose).

Shift-work (or Service), subs. phr. (venery).—Fornication.

Shig, subs. (East End).—In pl. = money: specifically silver. At Winchester shig = a shilling (Mansfield, c.1840).

Shiggers, subs. pl. (Winchester).—White football trousers costing 10s.: see Shig.

Shikerry. See Shicer.

Shillagalee, subs. (American).—A loafer.

Shilling. To take the King's (or Queen's) shilling, verb. phr. (colloquial).—To enlist.

c.1702. [Ashton, Social Life in the Reign of Queen Anne (1882-3), ii. 203]. The Queen's shilling once being taken there was no help for the recruit unless he was bought out.

1706. Farquhar, Recruiting Officer, ii. 3. Capt. P. Come my lads the army is the place to make you men for ever. Pear. Captain, give me a shilling; I'll follow you.

Shilling-shocker (or -dreadful), subs. phr. (literary).—A sensation novel sold at a shilling: a fashion initiated (1887) by The Mystery of a Hansom Cab, by Mr. Fergus Hume: cf. Penny-awful.

1885. Athenæum, 14 Nov., 638. Mr Stevenson is writing another shilling-dreadful.

1887. Ill. London News, 17 Sept., 349, 1. The three-volume novel may be dying out, as they tell us; but we have the shilling shocker rampant among us.

1890. Academy, 22 Feb., 130, 2. I have often wondered why the experiences of the Styrian arsenic-eaters has not been utilised by the writer of some three-volume novel or shilling shocker.

Shilly-shally (also shally-shally), verb. phr. (colloquial).—To trifle; not to know one's mind; to stand shilly-shally = to be irresolute (Grose). Hence shilly-shally (or shilly-shallying) = indecision [Shall I? Shall I?]; shilly-shallier = a trifler.

1630. Taylor, Works, iii. 3. There's no delay, they ne're stand shall I shall I: Hermogenes with Dallila doth dally.

1665. Howard, Committee, iii. Tell her your mind! ne'er stand shilly shally.

1699. Congreve, Way of the Worldy iii. 15. I don't stand shill I, shall I, then; if I say't, I'll do't.

1703. Steele, Tender Husband, iii. 1. Why should I stand shally-shally like a Country Bumpkin.

1709. King, Eagle and Robin, 92. Bob did not shill-I-shall-I go, Nor said one word of friend or foe.

1782. Burney, Cecilia, v. 119 [Oliphant, New Eng., ii. 188. The shill I, shall I of Congreve becomes shilly shally].

1809. Malkin, Gil Blas [Routledge], 27. I never stand shilly-shally: begone, you are free.

1830. Lytton, Paul Clifford (1854), 177. Your friends starve before your eyes, while you are shilly-shallying about your mistress.