Page:Farmer - Slang and its analogues past and present - Volume 6.pdf/351

 Standing-dish, subs. phr. (colloquial).—Any person or thing making a frequent appearance: e.g., a sponging diner out; a stock play; &c., &c.

Standing-patterer, subs. phr. (streets').—A street-vendor who, taking a stand (q.v.), 'slings the patter' to sell his wares: almost obsolete since police control under the Metropolitan Streets' Act, 1867: cf. Running Patterer.

Stand-off, subs. phr. (colloquial).—Polarity; a holding off. As adj. = distant, reserved; also stand-offish and stand-offishness.

1873. Robinson, Her Face was Her Fortune, v. If the landed gentry were stand-offish Miss Shaldon was all the more grateful for their reserve.

1888. Ward, Robert Elsmere, i. 2. People generally like the other two much better. Catherine is so stand-off.

1888. D. C. Murray, Weaker Vessel, xxxii. I told him I did not like this pride and stand-offishness between man and man.

1890. Atlantic Mag., lxvi. 672. The preferences of other clients, perhaps equal in number and value, who are fighting with Fabian tactics, make a complete stand-off.

Stand-up, subs. phr. (colloquial).—1. A meal or SNACK (q.v.) taken standing; a perpendicular (q.v.).

2. (venery).—An act of coition against a wall, tree, post, &c.; a knee-trembler: a perpendicular (q.v.).

Stang. Riding the stang, subs. phr. (old).—See quots. and Skimmington. Hence stangey = a hen-pecked husband.

1674. Ray, Proverbs, 44. This word is still used in some colleges in the University of Cambridge: to stang scholars in Christmas being to cause them to ride on a coltstaff or pole for missing of chappel.

1782. Callander, Two Ancient Scottish Poems, 154. A custom [is] still prevalent among the country people of Scotland: who oblige any man, who is so unmanly as to beat his wife, to ride astride on a long pole, borne by two men, through the village, as a mark of the highest infamy. This they call riding the stang; and the person who has been thus treated seldom recovers his honour in the opinion of his neighbours. When they cannot lay hold of the culprit himself, they put some young fellow on the stang or pole, who proclaims that it is not on his own account that he is thus treated, but on that of another person, whom he names.

1847. Halliwell, Archaic Words, s.v. Riding the stang [One] cry or proclamation is as follows:—Ran, Tan, Tan, the sign of the old Tin Can; Stephen Smith's been paying his daughter Nan: He paid her both behind and before, He paid her 'cause she wouldn't be his whore. He lick'd her neither with stake nor stower, But up wi' his fist and knock'd her ower. Now if Steenie Smith don't mend his manners, The skin of his prick shall go to the tanner's; And if the tanner don't tan it well; Skin, tanner, and prick shall go to hell.

1892. Sydney, England and the English, ii. 255. Riding stang was another local punishment inflicted occasionally upon the intemperate, particularly in the county of Cheshire.

Stangey, subs. (common).—1. A tailor: see Trades.

2. (old).—See Stang.

Star, subs. (common).—1. A white 'blaze' on a horse's forehead.

1845. Longfellow, Spanish Student, iii. 6. Onward, cabillito mio, With the white star in thy forehead.

2. (printers').—An asterisk: cf. dagger, spear, &c. French-stars = : a mark of division between paragraphs, &c.

3. (auctioneers').—An article introduced into a sale after the catalogue has been printed: marked in the official copy by a star, sense 2.