Page:The king's English (IA kingsenglish00fowlrich).pdf/65

Rh centre we mean especially the many words taken originally from particular professions, pursuits, or games, but extended beyond them. Among these a man is naturally less critical of what comes from his own daily concerns, that is, in his view, from the centre. Frontispiece, for face, perhaps originated in the desire of prize-ring reporters to vary the words in their descriptive flights. Negotiate (a difficulty, &c.) possibly comes from the hunting-field; people whose conversation runs much upon a limited subject feel the need of new phrases for the too familiar things. And both these words, as well as individual, which must be treated more at length in the next section, are illustrations of a tendency that we have called polysyllabic humour and discussed in the Chapter Airs and Graces. We now add a short list of slang phrases or words that can most of them be referred with more or less of certainty to particular occupations. Whether they are recognized as slang will certainly depend in part on whether the occupation is familiar, though sometimes the familiarity will disguise, and sometimes it will conceal the slanginess.

To hedge, the double event (turf); frontal attack (war); play the game, stumped (cricket); to run—the show, &c.—(engine-driving); knock out, take it lying down (prize-ring); log-rolling, slating, birrelling (literature); to tackle—a problem, &c.—(football); to take a back seat (coaching?); bedrock, to exploit, how it pans out (mining); whole-hogging, world policy (politics); floored (1. prize ring; 2. school); the under dog (dog-fighting); up to date (advertising); record—time, &c.—(athletics); euchred, going one better, going Nap. (cards); to corner—a thing—(commerce)—a person–(ratting); chic (society journalism); on your own, of sorts, climb down, globetrotter, to laze (perhaps not assignable).

Good and sufficient occasions will arise—rarely—for using most of these phrases and the rest of the slang vocabulary. To those, however, who desire that what they write may endure it is suggested that, as style is the great antiseptic, so