#historical slang

[notallsandmen]

Thank you, Victorian slang dictionary, for that helpful tidbit

[wildernessfaery]

18th century slang we should bring back:

admiral of the narrow seas: ‘one who from drunkenness vomits into the lap of the person sitting opposite to him’

apple dumplin shop: ‘a woman’s bosom’

back gammon player: ‘a sodomite’

belly timber: ‘food’

bitch booby: ‘a country wench’

black spy: ‘the devil’

blowsabella: ‘a woman whose hair is dishevelled, and hanging about her face’

to box the jesuit, and get cock roaches: ‘a sea term for masturbation; a crime, it is said, much practised by the reverend fathers of that society’

burning shame: ‘a lighted candle stuck into the parts of a woman, certainly not intended by nature for a candlestick’

captain queernabs: ‘a shabby ill-dressed fellow’

circumbendibus: ‘a roundabout way, or story’

cock-a-whoop: ‘elated, in high spirits’

[tricornonthecob]

More excellent and sometimes oddly specific 18th c vocab to add to your vernacular (mostly from the Rs and Ss:)

"a girl apt to fall on her back" Is this literal or is this a cheeky way to describe a skank? I can't tell.

A rum dubber and a rum bubber walk into a tavern...

You could also talk about spilling tea and they would absolutely gather that you mean hot goss.

Which itch is which?

Also snails. (???)

Good for her!

And some words still exist today!

(petition to start saying Simple Anthony now)

[dallasgallant]

Time period post: General slang

Im going to keep my time period posts going, and since I pulled my “tough slang” up out of the depths of my blog I thought I’d also do a quick guide for more general 1960s slang that’s not greaser/JD specific.

Quick note:

There was also a greater use of expressions or sayings than we use today. Same goes for sarcasm, yes it still gets used but there’s a slight difference. People have always cursed even if it wasn’t the social norm/polite issue— so there was a a lot of creativity in insults, being rude or telling someone off.

This is just sort of a “quick guide” there is a lot out there and I recommend looking into more if you’re interested. Some sites repeat a lot of stuff but it’s neat to go digging

Amped - maximum, excited

Around the bend- crazy or strange

Ate it- wounded/got hurt

Back off- stop, leave alone

Bad scene- unpleasant place or event

Bag- someone deal

Bail- leave

Ball- Sex [Certain context]

Beats me- don’t know

Blast- good or great

Bitchin- good or great

Boss- cool / great

Book- leave fast

Cancer stick- cigarettes

Chick- female

Chicken- coward ; game of bluff usually played with cards

Chill/chill out - calm down

Cop a feel - second base with a girl

Crash- go to sleep/pass out

Dig- understand/agree

Establishment- part of status quo

Flake- quirky or weird

Full of it - wrong or lying

Groovy- something good

Heat- police

Hip- cool, with it

Hit- take a drag

“It’s been real”- it’s been nice (usually sarcastic)

“It’s a gas”-

Knock out- really good looking girl

Kiss off- stop or leave

Later- short for see you later/by

Lit- high/loaded/intoxicated

Loaded- high or drunk

Lump it- learn to live with

Mess around- to be playful in a general or in a sexual way

No sweat-

Preppie- someone who is well dressed in expensive conservative clothing and has a private education (becomes more common in 80s)

Ride- car/vehicle

Tube/boob-tube- television

Wig out- freak out

Wow-

[the-last-dillpickle]

waiting for the day someone has julian bashir refer to a cigarette as a "fag" in their omb fic

[dullahandyke]

Films good movies good banshees of inisherin was good

[captainkirkk]

The fic dialect thing isn’t just spelling or using British terms, etc. which I can ignore. I recently read a FMA fic where the author used Japanese honorifics for every character. Just because it’s an anime doesn’t mean it takes place in Japan. It threw me right out of the story. I’ve read a lot of FMA fics that have modern slang, religious terms, or anachronisms that don’t belong. Star Wars fics can also have those problems, so I think it might be more obvious or annoying when the fandom is in another world.

Oh yeah that makes sense!

[amphibious-thing]

One issue I see too often in queer historical fiction is that writers don’t want to use modern terminology because it’s anachronistic, but they don’t use historical terminology because their audience might not know it, so you end up not having any language for queer identity.

[swinging-stars-from-satellites]

thinking about how Les Mis is historical fiction that was written so soon after the historical event that inspired it in this Chili's tonight ladies

[incesthemes]

psst! i saw your tag. this is where i got the victorian slang from (if memory serves that is, as its been 84 years since i made that post): https://publicdomainreview.org/collection/a-dictionary-of-victorian-slang-1909/

THANK YOU SO MUCH.... i'm going to devour this. i appreciate your help 🥺

[mysteriouslybluepirate]

(I would love to hear your explanations in the tags, as always, share to get a larger data pool!)

[notallsandmen]

”Feeling punk” = 1890s slang for feeling ill

What a fin de siècle mood

[steve-rogers-new-york]

Featherbed Verb, to create work rules that require employment of workers who have no real tasks or not enough real tasks to justify their pay (US 1921)

The Concise New Partridge Dictionary of Slang and Unconventional English

[world-of-advice]

[sins-of-the-sea]

//I do have one thing you won't EVER see me do whenever I write my historical muses: Have them speak the Queen's English no matter what language they're actually speaking.

[professor-dumbledope]

Cool story about the origins of the word "hillbilly."