Stubble It! And other vulgar phrases of 1811

Monday, August 22, 2011

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If you wish your writing to be in fine trim when using language of the 1800's and not sound like a puzzle-text, check out The 1811 Dictionary of the Vulgar Tongue: Buckish Slang, University Wit, and Pickpocket Eloquence. I am not tweaking your nose when I say this book can help you add some flavor to your riff raff. Just be careful that your writing cronies don't nip the book from your possession. Make them get their own copy. If necessary, you can find it on Project Guttenberg.

So roll the bones and take a chance to have some fun with vulgar language. Put your characters in a pickle with some rogues. You'll discover naming jokes authors have used such as Fflewddur Fflam's name in the Prydain Chronicles. (Flam is a lie or sham story.) And some words may surprise you with their familiarity. I used a few in this post, can you find them all?

(Puzzle-text - an ignorant blundering parson)

4 comments:

Gwen Gardner said...

Oh, too fun! Let's see: fine trim, tweaking your nose, roll the bones, in a pickle, riff raff, nip the book....
How'd I do?

Jaleh D said...

I'll give the answers out tomorrow. :D But you did real well. Let's see if anyone else wants to try, too.

Anonymous said...

And that book is hopefully coming my way soon for my birthday.

A test you say? fine trim, puzzle-text, tweaking your nose, riff raff, cronies, nip, roll the bones, in a pickle, rogues, Fflewddur Fflam...

Not to mention part of the title of the book itself.

You realize, though, that I'll be talking like this the rest of the day, with a spot of accent to me, too.

Jaleh D said...

Well Flewddur himself isn't in the book, just flam. But you are sharp, Joshua.

Stubble It! (sort of a given, but yes)
trim
puzzle-text (a given considering I didn't think anyone would know what it meant)
tweaking your nose
riff raff
cronies
nip
roll the bones
in a pickle
rogues
flam (given)

You both did really well. Yeah! I'm glad you played. This was a fun post, even if it did take longer than its length would indicate.

The only downside to the book is there is no reverse direction search, like say you want a phrase pertaining to drunks. As it is, you just have to browse until you find a suitable word or phrase. But otherwise, it is a great book.

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