A mere vulgarism is not slang except ing when it is purposely adopted and in the process acquires an artificial currency among a class of persons to whom it is not native. By "vulgarism" may here be understood such col loquial expressions which are rejected as un dignified by speakers of a certain grade in the scale of culture.
Ancient Greek and ancient Latin each had its slang; its argot. See in this connection the plays of Aristophanes, the comedies of Plautus, the satires of Horace, Persius and Juvenal; and especially the surviving, serious fragment of Petronius, known as the 'Satiricon.' Likewise every modern European tongue has its quantum of slang. From the 17th century onward it has been more and more difficult to distinguish between English cant of the thieves and vagrants and slang of other classes more or less characterized by disorderly habits of life, such as pugilists, strolling players, professional gamblers — in brief, of all such classes as are addicted to low pleasures and vices. The speci men of the earliest English "cant* or "Peddler's French" in Copeland's 'The Hyeway to the Spyttel House' (1517) bears characteristics that resemble closely those of the German Rotwelsch of the same period. An example of the latter may be found in the Old High German Liber Vagatorum of 1510; and it is easily seen that the most noteworthy point of difference between Peddler's French and 16th century Germanic Rotwelsch lies in the absence of those Hebrew words from Peddler's French in which Rot welsch abounds. In the English of Hudibras and the literature of England, dating from the 18th century, slang is to be found. A peculiar growth of the 19th century is the so-called back slang, current chiefly among London coster mongers, which is a cryptic jargon formed by pronouncing words backward, as in the phrase, "eno dnuop and a flah," for "one pound and a half, thirty shillings." When Sir Walter Scott wrote, the word slang itself had apparently no wide currency, and that author felt the need of defining it for his public in one of his works. He seems to have meant what is practically thieves' cant in using the word, but nowadays one should understand by thieves' cant merely one species of an extensive group of expres sions called slang. (Consult Scott's (Redgaunt
let)). Coster-monger's slang is thieves' slang, in which the middle vowel of a word is taken as the initial letter so the other letters or syllables are added to give it, as it were, a finish; thus, lock becomes ockler and pitch, itch per. Slang, and cant, in particular, as in the phrases "thieves' cant" or "printers' slang," or the cant of any craft or calling, really designates a language within a language, and it is sometimes intended to conceal the thoughts of those who utter it from the uninitiated. There is a slang attached in this way to nearly every profession and occupation; and different classes of society have their slang. Thus there is a slang of commerce, of the army, of the race-track, of the college and school, of the stock exchange, of the prize ring, of the ball field, of politics, and even a slang of art and die ministry. Very often slang adopts technical language to the general use; its expressions may be per fectly correct as originally used, but they be come slang when used metaphorically. The gaming-table, the turf and all the varieties of fast" or "Bohemian" life, each has its own eccentric vocabulary, and these vocabularies are either identical with or in general character resemble the slang of criminal and vagrant classes.
Some examples of slang may now be noted. A user of slang will characterize a feeble minded or silly person as having a "screw loose," a "slate off,' "bats in his belfry," off his base," or as being "cracked," "touched" or "dotty." He will call his child or wife a "kid.' He will say "rum" for "queer," "gay" for "dis solute' and call a watch a "ticker.' He will say "corned,' "pickled," "tight," "stewed' or "slued" for intoxicated; and use "awfully' as substitute for exceedingly. "Daisy" with him will characterize some person who is charming or some thing which is admirable; and the user of slang will announce the death of a per son by telling one that someone has "kicked the bucket," "cashed in" or "hopped a twig.* To be angry means that he has "got your goat,* and he will allude to the clergyman present as a "sky pilot"; while in a museum he will show you the latest "pot-boiler," and in so doing he both names and stigmatizes certain works of art.