Page:Notes and Queries - Series 12 - Volume 9.djvu/419

 12 s. ix OCT. 29, i92i.] NOTES AND QUERIES. 341 LONDON, OCTOBER 29, 1921. CONTENTS. No. 185. XOTES : English Array Slang as used in the Great War, 341 Passing Stress, 348" Intriguing " Admiral Vernon Epitaphs, 35.0 Dr. Johnson and the Rev. George Butt Signs of Old London. 351. QUERIES : Watt Statue Tudor Coast Defences Old Hunting Pictures Fenny Corapton Terrar : Explana- tion of Words sought Nickname of William Pitt (the Younger) The Right to bear Arms, 352 The Travels of Ephraim Chambers' The Death-boat of Heligoland ' Richard Coeur de Lion American Humorists : Captain G. H. Derby Title of Anno Quinto Edwardi III. Sir Tanfleld Leman, 353 Mangles Cardinal Newman and Wales Cardinal Vaughan and Wales Mules on Mountains T.R.E.O. Captain John Gore" Born out of a tole-dish " Jonathan Edwards's ' Doctrine of Original Sin 'George Trappe Whittenbury Family, 354 George Seton, 5th Earl of Winton Epigram on the Walcheren Expedition Author wanted, 355. REPLIES .-Tavern Signs : " The Five Alls," 355 Nelson's Signalman at Trafalgar ' Album Amicorum ' of Wandering Scholars Sir Richard Brown, Bart., 356 ' Ruddigore ' Anne Boleyn's Execution John Craw- ford. 357 Early History of Cricket P.R.S.V.R. Wilson : Pratt : Symes : Le Hunte Culcheth Hall Oliver Cromwell in Hungary. 358 E. R. Hughes, Artist- Burial-places of Eminent Scientists Bad Season : Tragic Occurrence I. Donowell, 359. NOTES OX BOOKS : ' The Merry Wives of Windsor.' Notices to Correspondents. EDITORIAL NOTE. IN opening our columns for the collection and discussion of English Army Slang, we are following the suggestion of MR. A. FORBES SIEVEKING a name already well known to our readers who, ever since he has been Librarian of the Imperial War Museum, has busied himself with this study. His work in it has been many- sided, including excursions into French and German war slang, and the stimulation of other people to take up the subject. It is hoped that all who are interested will send in to N. & Q.' not only words and phrases with their meanings, but also notes of or suggestions as to derivations, together with corrections or amplifications. To the collector of Army Slang it soon becomes evident that a large proportion of the words come from the Old Army. Such words will be included in our lists, provided only that they were in use during the Great War. The three sections A., Nicknames and Personal Appellations; B., -Military Terms; C., Miscellaneous .into which the first list 3 divided, will be retained as a cadre for slang words in general use throughout the Army. Airman's Slang and Initials will be treated separately later on. JJote*. ENGLISH ARMY SLANG AS USED IN THE GREAT WAR. ON SLANG IN GENERAL AND WAR SLANG IN PARTICULAR. WE all use slang. How many of us know the origin of the word ? Dr. Johnson defines it only as the " preterite of sling." " David slang a stone and smote the Philistine ' ' (I. Sam. xvii.). But slang is very much of the present ever putting fresh pebbles in its sling -with which the lusty and exu- berant Davids of language slay the Aca- demic Goliaths of Grammar and Philology. Grose,* in his ' Classical Dictionary of the Vulgar Tongue,' calls slang " cant lan- guage," and " to cant " = to toss or throw : as "Cant a slug into your bedroom " = " to drink a dram," where we see the con- nexion of " canting " with the " preterite of sling." Hotten cites 'Jonathan Wild's Advice to his Successor ' (J. Scott, 1758) as the earliest English literary authority for " slang patter." But the Oxford ' N.E.D.' out-hottens Hotten by quoting from Tolderby (1756): "Thomas Throw had been upon the town, knew the slang well." If, for our present purpose, we say slang is the language our jaws sling, we shall not be far from what Skeat takes to be its Scandinavian original " sleng, a slinging, device, burthen of a song" (slengja kjetten : lit. to sling the jaw). We use slang, too, very often, without suspecting it. How many of our gunners, when they talk of high explosives, realize they are speaking what was once slang ; high slang if you like, but slang unmistakably, the word was in the first instance. For the Latin was explodere Jj.e., ex-plaudere) meaning to drive an actor off by clapping (the Romans clapped their players off the stage as we used to hiss them off). Thence by a metaphor ^slang is packed full of metaphors and thereby verges on poetry a gun or bullet is driven off by the gunpowder, which explodes it. I Do not fancy this was a sudden metamor- ghosis look up your 'N.E.D.' and you will nd R. Burton in 1621, Cowley in 1633, and Fielding as late as 1752 writing of " exploding (i.e., ex-plauding) an actor off J the stage." The missing link you have in ! Burns's " chiel amang ye, takin' notes."
 * Grose, it must never be forgotten, was Robbie