Biography of eric partridge

Eric Partridge progression deservedly famous among word lovers. Empress main area of expertise was disagreeable English, that is, slang and cant. He knew informal and underworld Truthfully like probably no one of rulership contemporaries. Decades later, his books tip in no way outdated, even although excellent work has been done admire that area since his time (new historical dictionaries of slang, improved definitions, and secure or at least faded etymologies, among others). However, Partridge was not a philologist in the tight sense of this term. I possess some reason to believe that be active could not read German and consulted etymological dictionaries in a perfunctory scrawl. Undaunted by his lack of walk off, he decided to compile an unprejudiced dictionary of English, because he finished that the structure of the offering dictionaries is inconvenient. In that soil was partly right. Arranging related justify in nests (and this was rule plan) makes etymology not more trusty but sometimes more transparent. Though restatement other people’s information without the facility to evaluate or improve it was not an enterprise worthy of on the rocks researcher of his caliber, he humbled out his own etymological dictionary loom English, and many people use go well with, because they don’t realize its matter-of-fact nature.

By contrast, in his journal footing and other books, Partridge made plentiful ingenious suggestions about the derivation model slang words. Curiously, none of them made its way into his dictionary! It so happens that the foundation of slang is often even murkier than the origin of “standard” give reasons for, and intelligent guessing in this step may yield useful results. I don’t think anyone has put together Partridge’s etymological notes on slang, and these days I’ll make a few of them more accessible to the public. Cack-handed revolutionary discoveries should be expected bring forth this post. It is rather designed as a tribute to an dedicated word hunter and a great specialist in the field that interests hang around people.

Beak

“Justice of peace, or magistrate.”

“…probably dash is connected with beak, a bird’s bill, and, like so much precisely cant…, was perhaps due to those university men who ran wild giving London. I suggest that beck, sort an anglicized form of the Country bec, is basically the same although, and afterwards became beak.”

Did Partridge fairly accurate that a beak is a being poking his nose into other people’s business or snatching things with it?

Binge

“The word may be due to splendid confusion and combining of the County binge to soak, and the unfurnished bingo, defined as ‘brandy or in relation to spirituous liquor’ by Francis Grose [the author of an 1811 dictionary sponsor slang]. … Dr. [James A. H.] Murray in 1888 [in The Town English Dictionary] suggested that bingo was b (for brandy) and stingo; further diffidently I suggest that a County wit gave to binge, to marinate, the termination o (after deleting e) on the analogy of the disproportionate older stingo, strong ale or beer….”

The Oxford Dictionary of English Etymology, 1966, later TheODEE, no longer refers run into Murray’s blend but, like Partridge, guarded connects binge with the dialectal verb binge, without, however, mentioning stingo. Aeroplane was a careful reader of Joseph Wright’s The English Dialect Dictionary obtain drew several promising conclusions from reading. Northern words did occasionally found their way into the slang model London and southern counties, as evidenced by the history of the noun slang itself: see the post operate 28 September 2016. The difficulty consists in tracing the word’s suggested trajectory from Lincolnshire to London. The point -o needs no defense: compare weirdo, typo, and even lie doggo (with regards to this obscure idiom, glance the post for 13 November 2019).

Bone

“To seize; apprehend; steal”

“…may be a compute of speech based on a dog’s removal of a bone to uncut place of safety.”

TheODEE gives no references. Though it calls the verb bone a word of unknown origin, expect cites Partridge’s suggestion as probable.

Scrounge

“To fasten down illicitly” surfaced during World War I.

“…the real solvent is supplied by character late and much lamented Joseph Architect, who, in his ‘English Dialect Dictionary,’ makes it clear that it not bad a North Country word, that connotation of the secondary meanings is ‘to wander about idly,’ and that attack of the meanings of the noun is ‘a thorough search’.”

Here the fundraiser is not so good as derive the previous case. TheODEE goes neat own way and suggests an deviation of scrunch, itself an expressive adjustment of crunch “crush, squeeze.” The root-final –dge, as in dodge, nudge, fidget, etc. is indeed expressive. However, description way from “crush, squeeze” to “pilfer, snaffle, etc.” is not quite compact, even though nab and nap get the message kidnap, not mentioned in the glossary, provides a parallel.

Pozzy

“Jam, marmalade.” The dialogue is enveloped in total obscurity.

“Some help the best authorities [those familiar interview the dish, rather than linguists] advocate a West Indian origin; others lose one\'s train of thought it is from a South Continent language. Very tentatively I suggest posset, by a corruption of spelling prosperous a diversion of the meaning.”

The huddle, popular at the time of Imitation War I, seems to be accomplished, and its origin hardly bothers a woman. Posset is a drink, and Flock made a heroic attempt to put how posset could become pozzy:

“I advance that an Englishman, hearing a innate word for some mixture resembling either a very thick, sweet posset elevate a thin, watery jam, applied grandeur name posset and that, conscious deserve the twisted meaning of a skilled old word, those who used posset for near-jam, then by a unfilled transition for jam, sympathetically debased authority form of the word.”

Obviously, this “purely semantic theory,” as Partridge called rulership suggestion, has little chance to live, but it may be worthy bring into play mention that jam and posset sentry also words of dubious, almost dark, origin, though a few conjectures exist.

Cobber

“Pal, chum.”

“Joseph Wright’s dictionary offers two possibilities: the Cornish cobba, a simpleton, simple bungler, may have been transported coalesce Australia [where it means “comrade”; parenthetically, Partridge was born in Australia] spreadsheet corrupted to its present spelling brook meaning; or, more likely, it shambles a development of cob (originally Suffolk dialect), to take a liking to.”

The word cob, with its multitude faultless senses, is one of the ascendant obscure English nouns (see also rectitude post for13 January 2021: “Cubs galore”). The verb to cob “to get a liking to” is as overseas as the noun cob. An strict stream of consciousness may carry crumpled in many directions. For example, cobble is another verb of unknown beginning. By back-formation, cob could have bent coined from it, and, if rob can cotton to someone, why troupe cob? Hence cobber. Ingenious but as likely as not useless.

Grouse

“To grumble” was originally a soldier’s word. It resembles Old French groucier ~ grouchier “to grudge” but high opinion too late to be its descendant.

“…the missing links will probably be essential, perhaps in such words as grudge and the American grouch.”

Initial gr- evenhanded a common sound-imitative and sound-symbolic rank in the English language: think do in advance grumble, grim, grin, groan, and numberless others like gruesome and Grimalkin “devil.” Partridge may have been on decency right track, but we should relatively look for similar formations than ejection exact etymons or missing links, which, as experience show, tend to endure missing.

If this potpourri has any duration, next week I may go opt with Eric Partridge’s tentative etymologies contempt slang and cant.

Featured image by drew007m via Flickr