Wednesday, February 7, 2018

Wednesday's Random Slang-o-rama: Domino-thumper and dominoes

The slang term for this week is "domino-thumper," with the extra-added bonus term "a box of dominoes."

So... domino thumper. A poor loser at a game of dominoes?

Guess again.
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Give up?

According to Slang and Its Analogues, Past and Present, complied by John S. Farmer and W. E. Henly (1891), a domino thumper is a pianist.
And dominoes are... the keys of a piano. They can also mean teeth, and to "sluice one's dominoes" is another way of saying "to drink."

I was happy to find this as the music world (and pianists) play an important role in my upcoming book, A DYING NOTE, and trying to find period-appropriate slang was not easy.

Not THIS kind of domino-thumper... [A painting of two old men playing a game of dominoes, circa 1903, by John St Helier Lander.]




2 comments:

Liz said...

You might want to check out the 1\31\2018 post on Type M for Murder.

Ann Parker said...

Hi Liz!
I just did! This is very cool... another person who wanders through the dictionary for fun. :-) I shall have to make note of this for a future post... Thank you!