Closely connected with professional slang is cant, and the two often overlap so as to bedis tinguishable only by some arbitrary rule. Cant differs from slang in that it is originally de signedly unintelligible to any but members of the profession, although it may of course spread and even become a part of the literary language. Cant, like slang, is of all grades. It ranges from thieves' cant, as 'douse the glim' for 'put out the light.' or 'pinch a cove's wad and ticker,' for `steal a man's money and watch,' through stage cant, such as 'see the ghost walk,' for 'get one's salary,' angel' for `patron,' up to financial cant, as 'to take a flyer in futures,' and artists' jargon, as 'to chic' for 'to sketch from memory,' or 'to sky' for `to bang a picture so high as to escape notice in an exhibition.' Slang has many minor varieties. Among these may be mentioned hack slang, centre slang, and rhyming slang. Back slang is founded by roughly spelling words backward, sometimes with consid erable mutilation of the original sound, as 'gyp' for 'bitch.' Centre slang is more elaborate. The middle vowel of the word to be turned into slang is taken as the initial letter, followed by the lat ter part of the original word. To this the first part of the word is added, often with extra let ters to give it a finished sound, as 'ockler' for 'lock.' In rhyming slang, a phrase which rhymes with the word to be disguised is substituted, as 'apples and pears' for 'stairs.' The linguistic ne
cessity of slang is shown by its universality. Not only is it current in all modern languages, but it reaches its acme in the most highly de veloped tongues, as English, French, and Ger man, and is used by the most cultured society, despite puristic attempt to suppress it. Further more, it is not a characteristic of modern lan guages alone, but of ancient ones as well. Slang abounds in the more popular literature of Greece and Rome, as in the comedies of Aristophanes and Plautus, or in the Satyria of Petronius.
Consult: Rotten, Slang Dictionary (2d ed., London, 1885) ; Barrere, Argot and Slang (ib., 1887) ; Farmer and Henly, Slang and Its Ana logues (ib., 1890-96) ; Maitland, American Slang Dictionary (Chicago, 1891) ; Barrere and Le land. Dictionary of Slang, Jargon, and Cant (New York, 1893) ; Kluge, Deutsche Studon-ten spraeha (Strassburg, 1895) ; Francisque-Michel, Etudes de philologie compare stir l'argot et slit les idiomes analogues parle's en Europe et en Asie (Paris, 1855) ; Rigaud, Dietionnaire de l'argot nioderne (ib.. 1885) ; Delvan, Dictionnaire de la langne rerte (ib., 1889) Larchey, Dietionnoire historique de l'argot (10th ed., ib., 1887-89) ; Timmermans, L'argot parisien (ib., 1893).