A New and Comprehensive Vocabulary of the Flash Language

A New and Comprehensive Vocabulary of the Flash Language

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4.5
(2 Reviews)
A New and Comprehensive Vocabulary of the Flash Language by James Hardy Vaux

Published:

1812

Pages:

127

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1,959

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A New and Comprehensive Vocabulary of the Flash Language

By

4.5
(2 Reviews)
Australian slang dictionary.

Book Excerpt

x.

CHATS: lice.

CHATTY: lousy,

CHAUNT: a song; to chaunt is to sing; to throw off a rum chaunt, is to sing a good song.

CHEESE IT. The same as Stow it.

CHEESE THAT. See STOW THAT.

CHINA STREET: a cant name for Bow Street, Covent Garden.

CHIV: a knife; to chiv a person is to stab or cut him with a knife.

CHRISTEN: obliterating the name and number on the movement on a stolen watch; or the crest, cipher, etc., on articles of plate, and getting others engraved, so as to prevent their being identified, is termed having them bishop'd or christen'd.

CHUM: a fellow prisoner in a jail, hulk, etc.; so there are new chums and old chums, as they happen to have been a short or a long time in confinement.

CHURY: a knife.

CLEANED OUT: said of a gambler who has lost his last stake at play; also, of a flat who has been stript of all his money by a coalition of sharps.

CLOUT: a handkerchief of any kind.

CLOUTING: the practice of picking

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Players of fantasy games and avid readers of the fantasy genre know what thieves' cant is, a combination of language and slang to allow communication to pass between two people who want their conversations to be private even if overheard by the uninitiated.

A New and Comprehensive Vocabulary of the Flash Language is a dictionary of thieves' cant from the turn of the century used in the British Isles and Australia. The dictionary is certainly fascinating for linguists and historians, but for the casual reader, the main surprise is how much slang has entered our own language little knowing its origin in the dark streets and alleys of London and Newcastle.