The following definitions are from the “H” section of Captain Grose’s Dictionary of the Vulgar Tongue (1811).
HABERDASHER OF PRONOUNS. A schoolmaster, or
usher.
HACKNEY WRITER. One who writes for attornies or
booksellers.
HACKUM. Captain Hackum; a bravo, a slasher.
HAD’EM. He has been at Had’em, and came home by Clapham; said of one who has caught the venereal disease.
HAIR SPLITTER. A man’s yard.
HALBERT. A weapon carried by a serjeant of foot. To get a halbert; to be appointed a serjeant. To be brought to the halberts; to be flogged a la militaire: soldiers of the infantry, when flogged, being commonly tied to three halberts, set up in a triangle, with a fourth fastened across them. He carries the halbert in his face; a saying of one promoted from a serjeant to a commission officer.
HALF A HOG. Sixpence.
HALF SEAS OVER. Almost drunk.
HAMLET. A high constable. Cant.
HAMS, or HAMCASES Breeches. Continue reading “Entries under “H” from Captain Grose’s Dictionary of the Vulgar Tongue (1811)”
Last week on Three Books, I featured three books I kinda sorta maybe plan to read in 2016. Here are three more:
Slow Learner by Thomas Pynchon. First edition hardback by Little, Brown (1984). Jacket design by Fred Marcellino. I’ve only read “Entropy” from this collection so far. (I actually tried to use it in my Intro American Lit class—it’s in The Norton Anthology of American Literature, Vol. E, somehow—and no, it didn’t go over well, but hey).
The Weight of Things by Marianne Fritz; English translation by Adrian Nathan West. First edition trade paperback from Dorothy (2015). Cover art is Anonymous by Hella van ‘t Hof. Book design by Danielle Dutton. I started this as the chaser to Ishmael Reed’s The Free-Lance Pallbearers—proved to be a false start (went on a Le Guin jag instead). Feels like a one-sitting read.
The Easy Chain by Evan Dara. First edition trade paperback from Aurora (2008). Cover and design by Todd Michael Bushman. Does anyone want to read The Easy Chain with me?
While the staff members think in terms of good or bad codes – how well everyone did what they were supposed to do, whether the patient responded or not – I think in terms of good or bad deaths.
Bad deaths are ones with the manager of a hotel as next of kin, or the cleaning woman who found the stroke victim two weeks later, dying of dehydration. Really bad deaths are when there are several children and in-laws I have called in from somewhere inconvenient and none of them seem to know each other or the dying parent at all. There is nothing to say. They keep talking about arrangements, about having to make arrangements, about who will make arrangements.
Gypsies are good deaths. I think so. . . the nurses don’t and security guards don’t. There are always dozens of them demanding to be with the dying person, to kiss them and hug them, unplugging and screwing up the TVs and monitors and assorted apparatus. The best thing about gypsy deaths is they never make their kids keep quiet. The adults wail and cry and sob but all the children continue to run around, playing and laughing, without being told they should be sad or respectful.
Good deaths seem to be coincidentally good Codes – the patient responds miraculously to all the life-giving treatment and then just quietly passes away.
From Lucia Berlin’s short story “Emergency Room Notebook, 1977.”
Biblioklept 