"Slang" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... can't tell, It's plain to understand; An sure aw am it saands as weel, Tho' happen net soa grand. Tell fowk they're courtin, they're enraged, They call that vulgar slang; But if aw tell 'em they're engaged, That's net mi ...
— Yorkshire Lyrics • John Hartley
... so much of her life under the all-pervading eye of authority, she is so drilled, and lectured, and ruled and regulated, that, when the eye of authority is off her, she seems naturally to degenerate into licence. No speech so interwoven with slang as the speech of a schoolgirl—except that ...
— The Golden Calf • M. E. Braddon
... four in the morning we were wakened by having pebbles thrown up at our windows, and we had to get up and dress in a brace of shakes.' (Reggie's face darkened. Tricksy was fond of using slang picked up from her brothers, and he felt it his duty to disapprove.) 'Then we didn't know what to do to fill up the time, so we went to Neil's mother's cottage, and Reggie knocked at Neil's window, so that he came out to see what ...
— The Adventure League • Hilda T. Skae
... our forefathers—and we have had burlesques in which the loved fairy tales that have charmed the imaginations of thousands, or subjects of mythology that belong to the religious history of the greatest people on record, are turned into coarse pot-house jests, with slang for wit, but without the playful elegance by which Planche justifies his sport. It is a sign of intellectual barrenness in the writers; for what is easier than parody? what means of raising a laugh so certain and so cheap as to ...
— The International Magazine, Volume 2, No. 3, February, 1851 • Various
... interest you to know that my opinion of your intellect is no higher than my opinion of your character. You seem to me to have a vast conceit of your own cleverness, which is not justified by the facts. You are a very stupid fellow; a—a—what is the slang ...
— The Cruise of the Jasper B. • Don Marquis
... use a little modern slang—going to "give myself away" on canoeing, or talk of startling adventure. But, for the possible advantage of some future canoeist, I will briefly relate what happened to me on a certain windy morning one summer. It was on one of the larger lakes—no matter which—between Paul Smith's and the ...
— Woodcraft • George W. Sears
... right. That's one time Prudence was away off." She smiled as she recognized a bit of Carol's slang upon her lips. "Don't worry about her. You needn't keep an eye on her any ...
— Prudence Says So • Ethel Hueston
... keys were put in motion, and he opened the grate to let them pass, eyeing John Ayliffe with considerable attention as he did so. Locking the grate carefully behind him, he lighted them on with his lantern, muttering as he went in the peculiar prison slang of those days, various sentences not very complimentary to the tastes and habits of young John Ayliffe, "Ay, ay," he said, "clerk be damned! One of Tom's pals, for a pint and a boiled bone—droll I don't ...
— The International Monthly, Volume 3, No. 2, May, 1851 • Various
... button hole"—a slang term for the mouth, has been well "threshed out"—as it is called. Of "My Prooshian Blue," as his son affectedly styled his parent, Mr. Lang correctly suggests the solution, that the term came of George IV's intention of changing the uniform ...
— Pickwickian Manners and Customs • Percy Fitzgerald
... with him; a slang word used to express uncommon pleasure, such as had been afforded by a trip abroad, or by a run to Cuba or Mexico, or by the perusal of something especially pleasing in ...
— Cheerfulness as a Life Power • Orison Swett Marden
... with rejoicing that dear old Noll was to marry Sue. "She had always made him think of Noll, and his ways and likings, ever since that day of the game of chess that by his means came to grief. It was awful slang, but he could not help it: it was ...
— Junior Classics, V6 • Various
... mountains of Tennessee her special province. Chicago has several novelists of her own: for example, Mr. Henry Fuller, author of The Cliff Dwellers, Mr. Will Payne, and that close student of Chicago slang, Mr. George Ade, the author of Artie. The Middle West counts such novelists as Miss "Octave Thanet" and Mr. Hamlin Garland, whose Main Travelled Roads contains some very remarkable work. The Far West is best represented, ...
— America To-day, Observations and Reflections • William Archer
... retorted, trying hard to hold back her anger. "Mother, I should think you'd make Graham stop using his horrid slang!" ...
— Highacres • Jane Abbott
... enough." Martha reddened and patted his arm, looking pleased. Neither of them had talked that way, even in the old days, but the out-dated slang brought back memories—school parties, dances at the Rocketport Club, the early years of the war when Donegal had jockeyed an R-43 fighter in the close-space assaults against the Soviet satellite project. The ...
— Death of a Spaceman • Walter M. Miller
... was a very dignified gentleman and did not revert to his boyhood's slang except under extreme provocation. "He shouldn't have allowed you to urge him. And what about the brilliant prospect you gave up once just because his father ...
— The End of the Rainbow • Marian Keith
... judges, the lawyers, the ministers of the Crown, and many other distinguished people were accustomed to use the same expression, I would fain hope that it was not meant for profanity, but was a sort of fashionable slang intended only to be emphatic. Fifty years have seen a great improvement in the use of language, and the vulgarism which then appeared to be of slight importance is now regarded, almost universally with gentlemen, to be at least in very bad taste. How far Byron transgressed beyond the ...
— Beacon Lights of History, Volume XIII • John Lord
... (pronounced Was-Salam); meaning "and here ends the matter." In our slang we say "All right, and the child's ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 1 • Richard F. Burton
... generation; he could order a dinner at Sherry's as readily as drinks at Sharkey's. Most valuable accomplishment of all, he learned to laugh. In the way of by-products he picked up a working acquaintance with American, English and German slang—French slang he already knew as a mother-tongue—considerable geographical knowledge of the capitals of Europe, America and Illinois, a taste that discriminated between tobacco and the stuff sold as such in France, and a genuine passion ...
— The Lone Wolf - A Melodrama • Louis Joseph Vance
... said Bailey. "And you'll come near beating, too. We shall have to work harder than ever, but I'll beat Jack Allingham—or bust! Excuse the slang, Gertie, but I've got to ...
— A Woman for Mayor - A Novel of To-day • Helen M. Winslow
... entertained, that Gypsey language was composed only of cant terms, or of what has been denominated the slang of beggars, has probably been much promoted and strengthened by the dictionary contained in a pamphlet entitled, "The Life and Adventures of Bampfylde Moore Carew." It consists for the most part of English words, vamped up apparently not so much for the purpose of concealment, ...
— A Historical Survey of the Customs, Habits, & Present State of the Gypsies • John Hoyland
... Cabral's pilot also, who had been with him before to that same island, declared that of the two great mountain peaks which he had noticed at the two ends of the island, east and west, only the Eastern was now standing. The slang name of "Azores" or "Hawks" now began to take the place of the old term of "Western" islands, from the swarms of hawks or kites that were found in the new discovered St. Michael, and in the others which came to light soon after. For the Third Group, ...
— Prince Henry the Navigator, the Hero of Portugal and of Modern Discovery, 1394-1460 A.D. • C. Raymond Beazley
... a conversation with Lord Lisle was about as unpleasant a matter as one could well experience. His language was coarse; his ideas coarser still. There was very little to redeem it. He mistook slang for wit, told stories that made his wife shudder, and misbehaved himself as only such ...
— The Coquette's Victim • Charlotte M. Braeme
... now quite "on his own hook," as people who speak slang say. There was no one to consult as to what he should do; and though this freedom was enjoyable in the full daylight, he began to feel lonesome as evening drew on. He found a good supper where he had found his dinner, then crept into a nice, thick rose-bush, ...
— The Story of a Robin • Agnes S. Underwood
... following year, Studies for Stories was published, of which the Athenaeum said, "They are prose poems, carefully meditated, and exquisitely touched in by a teacher ready to sympathize with every joy and sorrow." The five stories are told in simple and clear language, and without slang, to which she heartily objects. For one so rich in imagination as Miss Ingelow, her prose is singularly free ...
— Lives of Girls Who Became Famous • Sarah Knowles Bolton
... is a slang expression, used to express incredulity. It has somewhat the same meaning as the slang phrase heard in the United ...
— Journeys Through Bookland, Vol. 6 • Charles H. Sylvester
... whale's side was presented just after the blow, sending his lance quivering home all its length into the most vital part of the leviathan's anatomy. Turning his happy face to me, he shouted exultingly, "How's dat fer high?"—a bit of slang he had picked up, and his use of which never failed to make me smile. "High" it was indeed—a master-stroke. It must have pierced the creature's heart, for he immediately began to spout blood in masses, and without another wound went ...
— The Cruise of the Cachalot - Round the World After Sperm Whales • Frank T. Bullen
... in his time a journeyman pressman, a "bear" in compositors' slang. The continued pacing to and fro of the pressman from ink-table to press, from press to ink-table, no doubt suggested the nickname. The "bears," however, make matters even by calling the compositors monkeys, on account ...
— Two Poets - Lost Illusions Part I • Honore de Balzac
... can't make it all out—" she smiled at him—"but I think you are right in saying that it is all O.K." He laughed, and stretched out his long legs comfortably. "You've got the idea. That's the way to get the good of traveling and seeing other kinds of folks. You learn my queer slang words, ...
— Short Stories of Various Types • Various
... plenty of that effective style of criticism which consists in the use of such expressions as "dogmatism," "intolerance," "presumptuous," "arrogant." Together with accusations of such various faults a "virtual abandonment of the inductive method," and the use of slang and vulgarisms. ...
— The Life and Letters of Charles Darwin, Volume II • Francis Darwin
... together for the purpose of preying upon the patriots, and then retreating behind the shelter of the royal fortifications, were composed of the vilest miscreants that could be gathered from the dregs of any community, and were generally known by the slang name ...
— The Old Bell Of Independence; Or, Philadelphia In 1776 • Henry C. Watson
... to Minook will have to hustle." The slang of everyday energy sounded strangely from dying lips—almost a whisper, and yet like a far-off bugle calling a captive ...
— The Magnetic North • Elizabeth Robins (C. E. Raimond)
... deeds of exploit. Similarly in athletic sports there is almost invariably present a good share of rant and swagger and ostensible mystification—features which mark the histrionic nature of these employments. In all this, of course, the reminder of boyish make-believe is plain enough. The slang of athletics, by the way, is in great part made up of extremely sanguinary locutions borrowed from the terminology of warfare. Except where it is adopted as a necessary means of secret communication, the use of a special ...
— The Theory of the Leisure Class • Thorstein Veblen
... not so much at the slang as at the friendly spirit which prompted it. "It doesn't hurt at all now," she answered, truthfully, and then she told ...
— Miss Pat at Artemis Lodge • Pemberton Ginther
... one author uses it so differently from another. Language itself in its very origination would seem to be traceable to individuals. Their peculiarities have given it its character. We are often able in fact to trace particular phrases or idioms to individuals; we know the history of their rise. Slang surely, as it is called, comes of, and breathes of the personal. The connection between the force of words in particular languages and the habits and sentiments of the nations speaking them has often been pointed out. And, while ...
— The Idea of a University Defined and Illustrated: In Nine - Discourses Delivered to the Catholics of Dublin • John Henry Newman
... pathway where they stood, his hands in his pockets, and his quid in his mouth, with very much the air of one who had nothing to do but look about him, and spit right and left; addressing this old tar, Charley made known to him his wish in slang, which to Mary was almost inaudible, and quite unintelligible, and which I am too much of ...
— Mary Barton • Elizabeth Gaskell
... know whether the furies are let loose, and is very clever about Lucretia Borgia, and Mary Manning, and Mary Newell! One would think English mothers were all going to boil their children. This is just what has happened about everything else. In certain English circles slang is talked: therefore women have become coarse and vulgar. The Divorce Court has been a busy one of late; and scandals have been 'going round' as the American ladies in this hotel say; therefore there ...
— The Cockaynes in Paris - 'Gone abroad' • Blanchard Jerrold
... in full force against my neck, and I and my squeegee went head-over-heels into the lee scuppers. It was the boatswain himself who picked me out, and who avenged me on his subordinate by a round of abuse which it was barely possible to follow, so mixed were the metaphors, and so cosmopolitan the slang. ...
— We and the World, Part II. (of II.) - A Book for Boys • Juliana Horatia Ewing
... catch if possible a little of their conversation. This he soon found was to no purpose for what did actually reach his ears was disguised so completely by the use of cant words and the thieves-latin called slang, that even when he caught the words, he found himself as far as ever from the sense of their conversation. At length ...
— Redgauntlet • Sir Walter Scott
... case was this: My friend Sir J. L., with a large cluster of intellectual qualities, and another of social qualities, had one point of character which I will not call bad and cannot call good; he never used a slang expression. To such a length did he carry his dislike, that he could not bear head and tail, even in a work on games of chance: so he used obverse and reverse. I stared when I first saw this: but, to my delight, I found ...
— A Budget of Paradoxes, Volume I (of II) • Augustus De Morgan
... other, seating himself, "or you would have brought one of the 'busy fellows' with you. Here again you must pardon the slang but we call the detective the 'busy fellow' to distinguish him from the 'flattie,' who is the regular cop. Unless you should be under any misapprehension, Mr. Beale, it is my duty to tell you that I am a representative of the criminal classes, a fact which our learned friend," he nodded toward ...
— The Green Rust • Edgar Wallace
... he said, grinning at my slang. "Well, to begin with, I'm in Loueyville. It's in the fall, 'n' I'm just back from Sheepshead. One way 'n' another I've had a good year. I'm down on two or three live ones when the odds are right, 'n' I've grabbed off a bundle I ain't ashamed to flash ...
— Blister Jones • John Taintor Foote
... turn away, were unworthy entertainment even for the most ruffian enemy, when helpless and a captive; and such, alas! was the fare in those casernes. And then, those visits, or rather ruthless inroads, called in the slang of the place {23} "straw-plait hunts," when, in pursuit of a contraband article, which the prisoners, in order to procure themselves a few of the necessaries and comforts of existence, were in the habit of making, red-coated battalions ...
— Lavengro - The Scholar, The Gypsy, The Priest • George Borrow
... episode in his martial career, which, as it happened, had taken place in full view of his retainers, among whom it remained the greatest of jokes. Indeed, he wanted to kill a man, the wag of the party, who gave him a slang name ...
— She and Allan • H. Rider Haggard
... you would call her by her right name, Neale," said Ruth, sharply, for she did not approve of Neale's slang. ...
— The Corner House Girls Growing Up - What Happened First, What Came Next. And How It Ended • Grace Brooks Hill
... without a roof, in the snow. We might well be silent, as we were, save the quartermaster Poitevin. He was a veteran,—sallow, wrinkled, with hollow cheeks, mustaches an ell long, and a red nose, like all brandy drinkers. He had a lofty way of speaking, which he interspersed with barrack slang. When the rain came down faster than ever, he cried, with a strange burst of laughter: "Ay, ay, Poitevin, this will teach you to hiss!" The old drunkard perceived that I had a little money in my pocket, and kept near me, saying: "Young man, if your ...
— The Conscript - A Story of the French war of 1813 • Emile Erckmann
... article in turn. The other gentleman on top received them all rather grimly, and had not perhaps been amused by the situation but for the exploit of his hat. It was of the sort called in Italian as in English slang a stove-pipe (canna), and having been made in Italy, it was of course too large for its wearer. It had never been any thing but a horror and reproach to him, and he was now inexpressibly delighted to see it steal out of the diligence in company ...
— Italian Journeys • William Dean Howells
... "Isn't it nice? Miss HENRIQUES'S dress is perfectly beautiful, and it sounds so cunning to hear her talk slang." ...
— Punchinello, Vol. 1, No. 5, April 30, 1870 • Various
... at the Lyceum was to get everything "rotten perfect," as the theatrical slang has it, before the dress rehearsal. Father's test of being rotten perfect was not a bad one. "If you can get out of bed in the middle of the night and do your part, you're perfect. If you can't, you ...
— The Story of My Life - Recollections and Reflections • Ellen Terry
... Copenhagen. We rounded the Scaw in a thick mist, saw the remains of four ships that had run aground upon it, and were nearly run into ourselves by a clumsy merchantman, whom we had the relief of being able to abuse in our native vernacular, and the most racy sea-slang. ...
— Letters From High Latitudes • The Marquess of Dufferin (Lord Dufferin)
... Olivia; she was pretty and merry and kind; and, above all, she had mastered to perfection the rare art of letting children alone. If we kept ourselves tolerably clean, and refrained from quarrelling or talking slang, Aunt Olivia did not worry us. Aunt Janet, on the contrary, gave us so much good advice and was so constantly telling us to do this or not to do the other thing, that we could not remember half her instructions, ...
— The Story Girl • Lucy Maud Montgomery
... called John spoke up sharply and said, it was "rum" to hear me "pitchin' into fellers" for "goin' it in the slang line," when I used all the flash words myself just ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes
... of your age who can talk nothing but barrack slang, and are eminently uncomfortable when they have to chat for five minutes to a lady, are naturally glad when they are free from the restraint of having to talk like reasonable beings; but it is not so with older and wiser ...
— The Queen's Cup • G. A. Henty
... the drawing-room was not tedious, nor indeed very secret, for anyone acquainted with the diplomatic slang in which such affairs were conducted might have learned in the lobby, or indeed in the hall, so mighty was the voice of the stranger, that there was no chance of any settlement without a meeting which was fixed ...
— The House by the Church-Yard • J. Sheridan Le Fanu
... occurred. In their return the spirit of Fritz von Hartmann had entered into the body of Alexis von Baumgarten, and that of Alexis von Baumgarten had taken up its abode in the frame of Fritz von Hartmann. Hence the slang and scurrility which issued from the lips of the serious Professor, and hence also the weighty words and grave statements which fell from the careless student. It was an unprecedented event, yet no one knew of it, least of all those ...
— The Captain of the Pole-Star and Other Tales • Arthur Conan Doyle
... Legend's younger son, a sailor and a "sea-wit," in whose composition there enters no part of the conventional generosity and open frankness of a British tar. His slang phrase is "D'ye see," and his pet oath "Mess!"—W. Congreve, Love for Love (1695). I cannot agree with the ...
— Character Sketches of Romance, Fiction and the Drama, Vol 1 - A Revised American Edition of the Reader's Handbook • The Rev. E. Cobham Brewer, LL.D.
... [Footnote A: Caput—a German slang expression with the general significance of the English "gone to smash," but also a hundred other and wider meanings, ...
— The First Violin - A Novel • Jessie Fothergill
... something more in a school. I hope the fresh teacher will be a regular sport, and that she'll use slang sometimes, and play hockey. That's my ideal ...
— Monitress Merle • Angela Brazil
... Therefore its stationery and the manner of its correspondence should be eminently dignified. It must not draw comparisons between the service it offers and the service any other bank offers. It must not make flamboyant statements. Neither may it use slang, for slang connotes in the minds of many a certain carelessness that does not make for confidence. Above all, a bank cannot afford to be entertaining or funny in its soliciting letters. The best bank letter is usually a short ...
— How to Write Letters (Formerly The Book of Letters) - A Complete Guide to Correct Business and Personal Correspondence • Mary Owens Crowther
... been to a well educated sharp-sighted employer to find work? You did not need to be at any trouble to tell him the names of the books you have read, because they have left their indelible mark upon your face and your speech. Your pinched, starved vocabulary, your lack of polish, your slang expressions, tell him of the trash you have given your precious time to. He knows that you have not rightly systemized your hours. He knows that thousands of young men and women whose lives are crowded to overflowing with routine work and duties, manage to find ...
— Pushing to the Front • Orison Swett Marden
... time to catch the Post! Pheugh! But the Pats would have "had me on toast" (As 'ARRY would say in his odious slang), If I had been but a little bit later. Out o' breath as it is. Ah, hang This hurrying business! My mouth's like a crater, Dreadfully dry, and doosedly hot. Rather a downer, this is, for SCOTT's lot! Feared Mrs. ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 101. October 17, 1891 • Various
... what the Abbaye de Cinq-Pierres is, or rather what it was? Mind, not Saint-Pierre, but Cinq-Pierres (Five Stones). Gavroche,[55] who loves puns and is very fond of slang, gave this nickname to a set of huge stones which stood before the prison of La Roquette, and on which the guillotine used to be erected on the mornings when a capital punishment was to take place. The ...
— Paris under the Commune • John Leighton
... the act of the judge, and the act of any man in coming carefully to any decision, consist mainly in estimating the relative values of all the factors, and their relations to each other ("sizing them up" is the expressive slang), and then perceiving with more or less correctness what the answer is. Some men do not have good judgment; some men highly educated, brilliant, and well-meaning, seem never to get quite the correct answer to any problem in life. ...
— The Navy as a Fighting Machine • Bradley A. Fiske
... created Granger for a fisher of men; greed had sent him into the South Florida land business. His bland self-possession, his impressive physique, his confidence-winning voice and bearing constituted a profitable stock in trade. In the slang of his craft—shall we say "graft"?—he "played the church game strong." Under the sway of his hypnotic personality God-fearing, bank-fearing old couples brought forth hidden wealth to place in his dexterous hands; school-teachers wrecked their savings to invest with Granger. And Granger ...
— The Plunderer • Henry Oyen
... fortunate could do little more than drink, and tempt others to drink. But to-day the fortunate farmer in the dog-cart, dressed like a gentleman, drove his thorough-bred, and carried his groom behind. Frank D——, Esq., in the slang of the time, 'did the thing grand!' The dog-cart was a first-rate article. The horse was a high-stepper, such as are not to be bought for a song; the turn-out was at the first glance perfect. But if you looked keenly at the groom, ...
— Hodge and His Masters • Richard Jefferies
... had divined this near-at-hand truth along with the rest. Lowell, almost the greatest and finest realist who ever wrought in verse, showed us that Elizabeth was still Queen where he heard Yankee farmers talk. One need not invite slang into the company of its betters, though perhaps slang has been dropping its "s" and becoming language ever since the world began, and is certainly sometimes delightful and forcible beyond the reach of the dictionary. I would not have any one go about for ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells
... it with your melodious Klaxon working overtime?" queried Tom. "Great Fishes isn't slang, though! Ask Jack." ...
— Boy Scouts in Southern Waters • G. Harvey Ralphson
... kind of leader who kept very close to the plain people. He knew their every-day lives, their weaknesses, their temptations. To use a slang phrase, he knew exactly what they "were up against" whether they lived in country or city. Within a comparatively short period before his death he addressed two audiences as widely separated by distance and environment ...
— Booker T. Washington - Builder of a Civilization • Emmett J. Scott and Lyman Beecher Stowe
... been lookin' consid'ble like rain, lately, hereabouts," continued the captain, coolly, in a kind of amphibious slang, characteristic of the man, "but in these yer latitudes no man kin set up to be ...
— Drift from Two Shores • Bret Harte
... Cleopatra, Antony and Caesar. Thus we saw traffic policemen with their Stop and Go signals in the middle of the Sahara; telephones, check books, motorcycles and automobiles in use, and so on. In addition, the leaders were filled with modern business and other slang; and the spectacle of a huge negro wrapping Cleopatsy in a modern Axminster rug and carrying her in to show her to Antony (instead of, as according to history, Caesar) kept the spectators in a roar of laughter. For an originally-worked-out idea such as this ...
— Writing the Photoplay • J. Berg Esenwein and Arthur Leeds
... whose great eyes almost popped from his head at the continuous display of tropical marvels, and whose exclamations of astonishment and surprise, enriched from his inexhaustible store of American slang and miner's parlance, burst from his gaping mouth at every turn of the sinuous trail. From the outset, he had constituted himself Carmen's special protector, although much to Rosendo's consternation, for the lank, awkward fellow, whose lean shoulders bent ...
— Carmen Ariza • Charles Francis Stocking
... indeed was free from her loveless and long-since irksome alliance with Waldron, calmly enough returned to the club-house. Head well up, and eyes defiant, she walked up the broad steps and into the office. Little cared she whether the piazza gossips—The Hammer and Anvil Club, in local slang—divined the quarrel or not. The girl felt herself immeasurably indifferent to such pettinesses as prying small talk and innuendo. Let people know, or not, as might be, she cared not a whit. Her business was her own. No wagging of tongues could one hair's breadth disturb that ...
— The Air Trust • George Allan England
... progress of Scientific Inventions, hailing from the keen-brained West, you could condone the degradation of the English language in the mouths of Shakespeare's countrymen and countrywomen by the use of American slang phrases, common, vulgar, coarse, alternating with choice expressions culled from the vocabulary of the East ...
— The Dop Doctor • Clotilde Inez Mary Graves
... tried her, and her reflections were rather bitter. For the twentieth time she asked herself why her nephew had fallen in love with this unknown girl from London, who loathed the country. From Miss Heredith's point of view, a girl who smoked and talked slang lacked all sense of the dignity of the high position to which she had been called, and was in every way unfitted to become the mother of the next male Heredith, if, indeed, she consented to bear an heir at all. It was Miss Heredith's constant regret that ...
— The Hand in the Dark • Arthur J. Rees
... lift a corner of the mask That makes these solemn days so much more solemn? A very little ray is all I ask To light the utter darkness—say a column Of "stories" which your slang describes as "snappy;" With these I could ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 147, August 19th, 1914 • Various
... advise you to avoid slang, my dear cousin,—professional slang especially; and to remember that in London there are no ...
— The Vicar's Daughter • George MacDonald
... slang nor sarcasm what I was usin'," sez I, smoothin' it over. "That gigantic maid you mentioned is part o' the tale that you ...
— Happy Hawkins • Robert Alexander Wason
... friends of every peasant they met, every fellow traveler on the road, and taught Ruskin in turn a good bit about humdrum, picturesque mankind. And he would have made him laugh! Possibly you think it incongruous, impossible, the picture of happy-go-lucky, ridiculous Bobbie, with his slang and his grin and his outlook on life, and Ruskin, the great critic, the master of style, the intellectual giant. But then you reckon without Bobbie's quality of Penguinity, and without Ruskin's humanness. It is alike impossible to ...
— Penguin Persons & Peppermints • Walter Prichard Eaton
... Phil. "Oh, why must a minister's wife be supposed to utter only prunes and prisms? I shan't. Everybody on Patterson Street uses slang—that is to say, metaphorical language—and if I didn't they would think me insufferably proud and ...
— Anne Of The Island • Lucy Maud Montgomery
... hands grew plump and sleek. But for all sign of wealth he wore He swaggered neither less nor more. He talked the stuff he talked before, And bragged as he had bragged of yore, With his Yankee chaff and his Yankee slang, And his Yankee bounce and his Yankee twang. And, to tell the truth, we all held clear Of the impudent little adventurer; And any man with an eye might see That, though he bore it merrily, He recognised the tacit scorn Which dwelt about ...
— Successful Recitations • Various
... shrink away as though the doomed man were tainted. Monstrous it is to hear the remarks made about a lost soul who is plunging with accelerated speed down the steep road to ruin. His companions compare notes about him, and all his bodily symptoms are described with truculent glee in the filthy slang of the bar. So long as the wretch has money he is received with boisterous cordiality, and encouraged to rush yet faster on the way to perdition; his wildest feats in the way of mawkish generosity are applauded; and the very ...
— The Ethics of Drink and Other Social Questions - Joints In Our Social Armour • James Runciman
... or the creeping thing itself? You are no better than a man pouring water into a mortar and braying it with an iron pestle; he thinks he is doing a necessary useful job, whereas, let him bray till all's blue (excuse the slang), the water is as much water as ...
— Works, V2 • Lucian of Samosata
... foreign, but to him his own native soil, he is always bursting out into snatches of our British National Anthem, or he sings the line above quoted. In France he will insist on talking about London, England, Ireland, Scotland, with imitations in slang or of brogue, as the case may be, on every possible or even impossible opportunity; and, when the subject of conversation does not afford him any chance for his interpolations, then, for a time, he will "lay low," like. Brer Fox, only to startle us with some sudden ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 101, August 29, 1891 • Various
... Downs the fleet was moored." "Handled his fives well" of course refers to the "sparring" of the cabman who wanted to fight Mr. Pickwick. "Friend in the green jemmy" refers to Mr. Winkle, who, we are told in Chapter I., "wore a new green shooting-coat," &c. "Pig's whisper" is slang for a very brief space of time. Bartlett says the Americans have "pig's whistle" the ...
— Fly Leaves • C. S. Calverley
... be said that this poetry is peculiar to the country populace, and that the dim democracies of our modern towns at least have lost it. For some extraordinary reason they have not lost it. Ordinary London slang is full of witty things said by nobody in particular. True, the creed of our cruel cities is not so sane and just as the creed of the old countryside; but the people are just as clever in giving names to their sins in the city as in giving names to their joys in the wilderness. ...
— Alarms and Discursions • G. K. Chesterton
... But, excited by the example of those about her, Kitty tried to enact the fashionable young lady, and, like most novices, she overdid the part. Quite forgetting her cousin, she tossed her head, twirled her fan, gave affected little shrieks at college jokes, and talked college slang in a way that convulsed Fletcher, who enjoyed ...
— Kitty's Class Day And Other Stories • Louisa M. Alcott
... viciousness of our social hierarchy lies in the fact that it is based solely upon material success. We have no titles of nobility; but we have Coal Barons, Merchant Princes and Kings of Finance. The very catchwords of our slang tell the story. The achievement of which we boast as the foundation of our aristocracy is indeed ignoble; but, since there is no other, we and our sons, and their sons after them, will doubtless continue to struggle—and perhaps steal—to prove, to the satisfaction of ourselves ...
— The "Goldfish" • Arthur Train
... odd smile).—"Many things useful. I can split a bullet on a penknife; I know the secret tierce of Coulon, the fencing-master; I can speak two languages (besides English) like a native, even to their slang; I know every game in the cards; I can act comedy, tragedy, farce; I can drink down Bacchus himself; I can make any woman I please in love with me,—that is, any woman good for nothing. Can I earn a handsome livelihood out of all this,—wear kid gloves ...
— The Caxtons, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... may merely have struck a pocket and exhausted it, but I don't believe so, and am willing to risk twenty thousand dollars on the continuance of the vein. If it is there, that sum of money ought to enable us to reach it from your present shaft; and if we do strike it, why, in the slang of the day, the Copper Princess is simply a 'peach.' Are you game to accept my offer and go in for raising that kind ...
— The Copper Princess - A Story of Lake Superior Mines • Kirk Munroe
... give "freak dinners," when the guests themselves would be dressed up, the men in women's clothes, the women in men's, the male imitating the piping treble of the female voices, and the female the over-vowelled slang of the male, until, tiring of this foolishness, they would end up by flinging the food at the pictures on the walls, the usual pellet being softened bread and the favourite target the noses in the family portraits, which, hit and covered with ...
— The Woman Thou Gavest Me - Being the Story of Mary O'Neill • Hall Caine
... with him, he will often send her on their recommendation. They say he sent a girl last year who hadn't much of a voice at all just because her father had been an old business crony of his. But Sylvia doesn't know anyone at all who would, to use a slang term, have any 'pull' with Andrew Cameron, and she is not acquainted with him herself. Well, I must be going; we'll see you at the Manse on Saturday, I hope, Miss Lloyd. The Circle meets ...
— Chronicles of Avonlea • Lucy Maud Montgomery
... slang, but sometimes nothing else is quite so expressive. I thought that I was getting to be very wise, but, oh, what a little ignoramus I have been. And to think that I thought I was following Philip's advice, and did not realize what he really meant until I read a story about ...
— 'Smiles' - A Rose of the Cumberlands • Eliot H. Robinson
... Edward was never considered either dull or stupid by competent judges; but, quite the contrary—a sensible, well-informed, gentlemanly personage. But, then, he had no great friends, no patrician weaknesses; he knew nothing about racing, or betting, or opera-dancers, or slang in general. In short, he seemed flat and insipid to Bab, who had been compared to the beautiful Lady Mary Manvers by the soft and persuasive tongue of Lady Mary Manvers's dear friend. Yet, in her secret heart of hearts, Bab drew comparisons ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 441 - Volume 17, New Series, June 12, 1852 • Various
... through several pages consecutively—just as Canter and Canterbury gallop, of which the one was at first the mere shorthand expression of the other, were at one period interchanged, and for the same reason. The abbreviated form wore the air of plebeian slang at its first introduction, but its convenience favoured it: soon it became reconciled to the ear, then it ceased to be slang, and finally the original form, ceasing to have any apparent advantage of propriety ...
— The Posthumous Works of Thomas De Quincey, Vol. 1 (2 vols) • Thomas De Quincey
... feet, mentally at least. I don't suppose any one could set me permanently on my physical, corporeal pins. Beg pardon for the slang, Conny, I don't forget how you and Sybil used to lecture me for that, and my other vices. Poor sis, she had given up the drink talks latterly, given me over as hopeless, and so I am. Con., I have made a ...
— The Diamond Coterie • Lawrence L. Lynch
... still perpetuated; the "man" still speaks his "plain Anglo-Saxon," and the "gentleman" still speaks his refined Latinized speech. In every language, it is true, there are social distinctions in speech, and every language has its slang. But in English these distinctions are perpetuated in the very structure of the language. Elsewhere the working-class speak—with a little difference in the quality—a language needing no substantial transformation to become the language of society, ...
— The Task of Social Hygiene • Havelock Ellis
... complete language must be, with its long and arbitrary vocabulary, its intricate system of sounds; the many forms that single words may take, especially if they are verbs; the rules of grammar, the sentence structure, the idioms, slang and inflections. Heavens, what a genius for tongues these simians have![1] Where another race, after the most frightful discord and pains, might have slowly constructed one language before this earth grew cold, this race will create literally ...
— This Simian World • Clarence Day Jr.
... poor are reproduced in the education of the poor? I do not wish the coster's irony to appeal as coarsely in the school as it does in the tap room; but does it appear at all? Is the child taught to sympathize at all with his father's admirable cheerfulness and slang? I do not expect the pathetic, eager pietas of the mother, with her funeral clothes and funeral baked meats, to be exactly imitated in the educational system; but has it any influence at all on the educational system? ...
— What's Wrong With The World • G.K. Chesterton
... of Virtue and Truth, And the sweet little innocent prattle of Youth! The smallest urchin whose tongue could tang, Shocked the Dame with a volley of slang, Fit for Fagin's juvenile gang; While the charity chap, With his muffin cap, His crimson coat, and his badge so garish, Playing at dumps, or pitch in the hole, Cursed his eyes, limbs, body and soul, As if they did not ...
— Playful Poems • Henry Morley
... room with brown whiskers, and I says "Blessings on you sir where is the Darling!" and he says "In Kennington Station House." I was dropping at his feet Stone at the image of that Innocence in cells with murderers when he adds "He followed the Monkey." I says deeming it slang language "O sir explain for a loving grandmother what Monkey!" He says "Him in the spangled cap with the strap under the chin, as won't keep on—him as sweeps the crossings on a round table and don't want to draw his sabre more than he can help." Then I understood ...
— Mrs. Lirriper's Lodgings • Charles Dickens
... came at last, and all the slang epithets with which our regiment had been received were duly transferred to the newly arrived squads of the next in order. Then we began to speculate on the time and mode of our departure. It was remarkable how ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. III, No. V, May, 1863 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various
... Heaven's sake!" said Tom, "or we shall have you blue next, my good fellow. I'd go myself, but they'd not hear me, for certain; I am no Christian, I suppose: at least, I can't talk their slang:—but I know who ...
— Two Years Ago, Volume II. • Charles Kingsley
... a dirty job; but Johnny and I were vulgar enough to like it. I like young people because theyre not too afraid of dirt to live. Ive grown out of the mud pies; but I like slang; and I like bustling you up by saying things that shock you; and I'd rather put up with swearing and smoking than with dull respectability; and there are lots of things that would just shrivel you up that I ...
— Misalliance • George Bernard Shaw
... The slang was new to Hiram Ranger, but he understood. In important matters his fixed habit was never to speak until he had thought well; without a word he turned and, with a heaviness that was new in his movements, went into the dressing room. The young man ...
— The Second Generation • David Graham Phillips
... industriously weave the woollen tobes, jibbahs, or frocks; they are very cheap, warm, and comfortable in the water. But the Soudan cottons are the great Saharan consumption. There are also now introduced from Europe quantities of, I think, what are called "Indians" in mercantile slang, or coarse white cottons. The merchants call them "new". These cottons are much liked in Morocco because they are cheap and pleasant clothing in summer. Men and women are clothed with them, and they are made ...
— Travels in the Great Desert of Sahara, in the Years of 1845 and 1846 • James Richardson
... want to get looking at that for?" she asked Anna-Felicitas, when she had edged through the crowd staring at the Vaterland, and got to where Anna-Felicitas stood listening abstractedly to the fireworks of American slang the young man was treating her to,—that terse, surprising, swift hitting-of-the-nail-on-the-head form of speech which she was hearing in such abundance for ...
— Christopher and Columbus • Countess Elizabeth Von Arnim
... on yourself, Scotch!" advised Jenks, dropping into the slang he had overheard some boy use. "This is an ...
— Frank Merriwell's Chums • Burt L. Standish
... not fear it; I'm no disembodied spirit— I am Lampton, the Slang Poet, with a price upon my head. I am watching by this portal for some late lamented mortal To arise in his disquietude and leave his ...
— Shapes of Clay • Ambrose Bierce
... keep their powder dry,—with a mind deep indeed, but distracted by internal conflicts, and prolific only in enormous, half-shaped ideas, which stammer into expression at once obscure and ominous, the language a strange compound of the slang of the camp and the mystic phrases of inspired prophets and apostles,—we still feel throughout, that, whatever may be the contradictions of his character, they are not such as to impair the ruthless energy of his will. ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 15, No. 90, April, 1865 • Various
... Selby listened in surprise to names which were new to him, and eulogies on the latest Prix de Rome winner. He was delighted to hear opinions boldly expressed and points honestly debated, although the vehicle was mostly slang, both English and French. He longed for the time when he too should be plunged ...
— The King In Yellow • Robert W. Chambers |
