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