Page:The American language; an inquiry into the development of English in the United States (IA americanlanguage00menc 0).pdf/387

 joke-smith in Saintsbury; one could scarcely imagine either in Walter Pater. But by the same token one could not imagine chicken (for young girl), Roughly equivalent to the English flapper, the French ingenue and the German backfisch. In 1921 chicken was suddenly abandoned and flapper adopted in its place, and with the change came an acute consciousness of the fair creature herself. Perhaps it was largely due to the popular success of T. Scott Fitzgerald's novel, This Side of Paradise; New York, 1920. At all events the newspapers began to be filled with discussions of the flappers' indiscretions, both in conduct and in language, and this interest presently extended to England. I set down some of the new slang thus dredged up:


 * bell-polisher: a young man addicted to lingering in the vestibule after bringing his inamorata home.
 * biscuit: a flapper willing to be petted.
 * brush-ape: a young man from the country.
 * boffos: dollars.
 * cake-eater: a poor young man who frequents teas and other entertainments, but makes no attempt to repay his social obligations.
 * cat's pajamas: anything that is good.
 * cellar-smeller: a young man who always turns up where drinks are to be had free.
 * clothesline: a retailer of neighborhood secrets.
 * crape-hanger: a reformer.
 * crasher: one who comes to parties uninvited.
 * crashing-party: a party where many of the young men have come uninvited.
 * dewdropper: a young man who does not work, but sleeps all day.
 * dim-bow: a taxicab.
 * dincher: a half-smoked cigarette.
 * dumdora: a stupid flapper.
 * dudd: one given to reading or study.
 * duck's quack: something superior even to the cat's pajamas.
 * fire-alarm: a divorced woman.
 * egg: a swain who lets his girl pay her own way into a dance-hall.
 * egg-harbor: a dance at which no admission is charged.
 * finale-hopper: the spendthrift who arrives after the ticket-takers have departed.
 * flat-wheeler: one who takes his girl to an egg-harbor.
 * Father Time: a man above thirty.
 * goof: a sweetheart.
 * goofy: to be in love.
 * grummy: in the dumps.
 * grease-ball: a foreigner.
 * handcuff: an engagement ring.
 * hush-money: allowance from father.
 * ironsides: a girl who wears corsets when dancing.
 * low-lid: the opposite of a high-brow.
 * lallygagger: a young man who attempts spooning in hallways.
 * mad-money: money reserved to pay a flapper's way home in case she quarrels with her beau.
 * necker: one given to cheek-to-cheek dancing.
 * nice-girl: one who introduces her beau to her family.
 * out on parole: divorced.
 * ritz: stuck up.
 * strike-breaker: a flapper who goes to dances with her friend's beau during a coolness.

aber nit, to come across or to camouflage in Saintsbury.