Wednesday's Random Slang-o-rama: Scaredy cat

 Halloween  comes a-creepin' on little cat feet (apologies to Carl Sandberg and his poem Fog), so delving into the phrase scaredy cat seems very appropriate.

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Scaredy cat was a common childhood taunt when I was growing up. However, I suspect this term, which is defined by Merriam-Webster as "an unduly fearful person," is much older than mid-20th century. Sure enough, M-W dates it to 1904. The Online Etymological Dictionary punts it forward a couple of years to 1906. Idiom Origins says this "children's slang" first appeared in 1930. Whaaaat?? Time to consult Google Ngram, methinks. 

From there, the earliest I could find was 1906, in the children's book Billy Bounce, by Dudley A. Bragdon, in the following passage.

WordSense credits Dorothy Parker with coining the phrase in 1933, in her short piece,"The Waltz." However, Billy Bounce in 1906 clearly beats her to it.

In any case, scaredy cat is not as "old" as I'd like it to be (here's hoping I haven't used it in one of my Silver Rush books somewhere!), but still far older than I am.

Wishing you a peaceful Halloween, and keep your pets safe! No scaredy cats or scaredy dogs, please. 

Image by YuliaSlept from Pixabay

Image by YuliaSlept from Pixabay

Wednesday's Random Slang-o-rama: Ragamuffin

I was on the hunt for words with a Halloween connection (besides those I've covered in the past, including heebie-jeebies, bugaboo, in a dither, and ghouls and vampires) when I bumped into ragamuffin, a word with an interesting history!

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... And, as you probably know, I'm all about words (and phrases!) with interesting histories.

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At Merriam-Webster, I learned that ragamuffin first appeared in relation to Thanksgiving before drifting back a month in the calendar to Halloween:

Ragamuffin has a long-established history of referring to a ragged person, but in the early 19th century the word became associated with the children who would dress up for Thanksgiving as ragamuffins and parade asking for handouts, parodying begging and beggars. Though these "ragamuffin parades" died out, children continue to dress up, but now on Halloween.

M-W adds that the word has several definitions, besides the common one listed above, including "a type of music (also known as raggamuffin or ragga), and a demon in the 14th-century poem Piers Plowman." The origin of the word, according to M-W, is "uncertain," but goes waaaay back.

In Middle English the word functioned both as a surname and generically to denote a ragged and sometimes stupid person.... The muffin part of the word may have its origin in either of two Anglo-Norman words for a devil or scoundrel, but that too is uncertain. As English lexicographer Samuel Johnson put it, "From rag and I know not what else."

Well, if Samuel Johnson "knows not," then I suppose Slang-o-rama can rest easy. But not quite yet, because the Online Etymological Dictionary has the following:

Ragamuffin. mid-14c., "demon;" late 14c., "a ragged lout," also in surnames (Isabella Ragamuffyn, 1344), from Middle English raggi "ragged" ("rag-y"?) + "fanciful ending" [OED], or else perhaps second the element is Middle Dutch muffe "mitten." 

OED also added a little fascinating info on the related word ragged: 

Ragged was used of the devil from c. 1300 in reference to his "shaggy" appearance. Raggeman (late 13c. as a surname, presumably "one who goes about in tattered clothes") was used by Langland as the name of a demon (late 14c.), and compare Old French Ragamoffyn, name of a demon in a mystery play. Sense of "dirty, disreputable boy" is from 1580s. Also compare ragabash "idle, worthless fellow" (c. 1600). 

Hmmmm. It seems both rag and muffin have connections to "devil." Sure enough, I found the following from a post titled "What the Deuce, Or, Etymological Devilry"on Oxford University Press:

...Sometimes we discover only the root of the name we investigate. Such is rag(g)-, known in Swedish, Lithuanian, English (the first element of ragamuffin; its second element, -muff-in, also means “devil,” from the French word for “ugly”), and possibly Italian, if ragazzo “boy” formerly meant “imp” (this ragg– is not related to rag “a piece of cloth”)

Before you go, let's re-visit Merriam-Webster's tale of ragamuffin parades....

The use of ragamuffin to describe "a child in masquerade costume" started in the late 19th century, in reference to the children who dressed up on Thanksgiving Day for what was called "Thanksgiving masking." This strange custom began as a parody of begging. Children dressed in costumes, often as ragamuffins, and begged for handouts for their Thanksgiving meals; they often received fruit, pennies, and candy. The practice became so widespread that Thanksgiving was nicknamed "Ragamuffin Day," and cities and towns began holding parades in which children could don their costumes and march. By 1930, the parades and tradition began to wane....  By the mid-1900s, the Thanksgiving ragamuffin became a thing of the past. The practice of dressing up and going out to beg, however, lived on in another holiday—Halloween.

So, when those little ragamuffins come knocking on your door on October 31, be kind. Treats only—no tricks or turkeys!

Back in the day. (Ragamuffin parade, circa 1910)
Library of Congress https://www.loc.gov/pictures/item/2014694901/)

Wednesday's Random Slang-o-rama: Whistle britches

 I bumped up against the phrase whistle britches, and thought whaaaaaaat??

So do any of you know what whistle britches means? Or where it came from?

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Well, this is what I found....

A Way with Words defines whistle britches as "a Southern term for fellows who draw a lot of attention to themselves, comes from the sound corduroy trousers make when you walk and the wales rub against each other" and has a short (5-minute) audio session about whistle britches. (A Way with Words is a fascinating site, btw... heartily recommended for word nerds. I can personally attest that there is great danger of falling in and not emerging for some hours. But back to britches...)

A Google group conversation dove into whistle britches back in 1995 (egads, they had Google groups that far back??). You can read the thread here. The previous definition comes up in the discussion, but one poster said that's wrong, adding "it's a southern term of endearment meaning someone who is very physically attractive, especially in jeans, slacks, etc that because of such could garner whistles from men because of her figure." Another poster said this is a Southern term dating to the Depression era for someone who suffers from (ahem) flatulence. A third comments "My father called me 'whistle britches' affectionately. He grew up during the depression (but on the North Shore of Massachusetts). I thought it referred to one whose pants had so many holes the wind whistled through them."

Words and Phrases of the Past defines it as the trousers themselves, aka "corduroy pants," and provides a date of 1900. My hardcopy of Green's Dictionary of Slang agrees with that definition (although opting for whistling-BREECHES). For reference, Green's points to (taking a deeep breath here) Slang and its analogues past and present. A dictionary, historical and comparative of the heterodox speech of all classes of society for more than three hundred years. With synonyms in English, French, German, Italian, etc (Vol. VII) by John Stephen Farmer and William Ernest Henley, publication date 1904. I checked it out, and sure enough, there it is!

To add to the etymological variety of this phrase, The Online Slang Dictionary defines whistle britches as "a term for anybody whose name you don't know."

Choices, choices. I guess that if I ever use the term whistle-britches/breeches in a story, I'd better define it.

Whistle while you walk in a pair of these.
Image by tookapic from Pixabay

Wednesday's Random Slang-o-rama: Blatteroon

Do your virtual meetings include someone who talks or boasts incessantly and constantly, requiring the host to forcefully hit the "mute" button and/or everyone else to surreptitiously "stop video" so they can actually get some work done??

Ah, then you may have a blatteroon in your midst.

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This lovely word, which has so much resonance (at least, for me!) in present-day affairs, dates from the 18th century, according to The Little Book of Lost Words by Joe Gillard. World Wide Words (which dates it to the 17th century) has a post on blatteroon, well worth reading in its entirety. The word was apparently taken from the Latin blatero (a babbler) "to generate an insult which Thomas Blount defined in his Glossographia of 1656 as 'a babbler, an idle-headed fellow.'" (Note: I tried to find a digital version of Glossographia, but failed.) 

The WWW post adds that blatteroon was listed in a variety of commercial code books. Such books weren't intended to provide "secret" codes, but to provide one-word equivalents for common phrases to reduce the cost of cablegrams. WWW goes on to say: 

Lieber’s code of 1896 said blatteroon meant “did you reserve?”; the New General and Mining Telegraph Code of 1903 translated it as “almost certain to float”; while the Western Union Telegraphic Code of 1901 left its meaning blank for sender and recipient to select their own. 

Of course, I had to check out these code books, which I'd never heard of before. I found blatteroon in Lieber's Standard Telegraphic Code by Benjamin Franklin Lieber (1896). Then I wondered if these commercial code books existed in the 1870s and 1880s. Wouldn't THAT be fun to work into a mystery?? So, of course, I dug around a little more and found The ABC universal commercial electric telegraphic code by William Clauson-Thue (1873) as well as the Private telegraphic code with James Adam, son & co Volume 59 by Adam James son and co (1881). They all look fascinating and now the wheels of imagination are spinning furiously, so I shall cease blattering and go make some notes for my "future stories" files.

If this is a blatteroon speaking, I'm going to need a LOT more coffee.
Image by Tumisu from Pixabay