Some words never die

Thanks to the unearthing of a 17th-century text, we can now learn the sorts of word-sounds heard on the streets of London by the likes of John Milton, Andrew Marvell and probably even Shakespeare himself, Alexander Theroux writes in The Wall Street Journal.

This was the first book dedicated to English slang words, the lingo of sharpsters, shills and vagabonds. Originally printed as A New Dictionary of the Terms Ancient and Modern of the Canting Crew, it has been newly released as The First English Dictionary of Slang, 1699.

Drinking and its effects are heavily represented. A drunk ("pot-valiant") might be described as "cup shot" or "half seas over" and labeled a "swill-belly" or "Malmesey-nose." A "fuddle" is an "excellent tipple." As for "rum," it was once an adjective with a positive meaning, as in "rum-bluffer" (a jolly host) and "rum-bung" (a full purse). The late 17th century was not an age for delicacy. The Dutch were derisively called "butter-boxes." A "foul Jade" was an ordinary coarse woman. A phrase for women in general was "mutton-in-long-coats." The colorful words for prostitute could make up a dictionary in itself.

There are hundreds of words here that have rarely been used since, although this dictionary keeps them brightly alive: "tarum" (for milk) and "fubbs" (a fond word for children). But many old words have kept their meanings to this day: "shop-lift" and "hen-peckt," for instance, and "grinders" for teeth.

"Slang," Theroux writes, "is eternal."

Don't be a sketchoid

Sketchy is a word heard often in our house. It's a popular word. Variations include sketch, skeazy, sketchball, sketcher and sketchmaster. They are used to refer to unfamiliar, suspicious or anxiety-producing outsiders.

They have popped up frequently on lists of slang words collected by students of linguist Connie C. Eble in the English department of the University of North Carolina. Words with the same meaning include rando and creeper.

Eble believes their use is related to the rise of social media like Facebook, through which women are often approached by undesirable men.

“With Facebook and texting,” student Natasha Duarte said, “it’s easier to contact someone you’re interested in, even if you only met them once and don’t really know them. To the person receiving them, these texts and Facebook friend requests or wall posts can seem premature and unwarranted, or sketchy.” 

And yet these words predate Facebook.

A list of slang compiled from students at the University of Arkansas, Fayetteville, published in the journal American Speech in 1975, included sketch as an adjective meaning “dangerous, risky” (“I think we’re in a sketch situation”). By 1996, one of Eble’s U.N.C. students offered sketch as a noun meaning “someone who is hard to figure out.”

The Urban Dictionary defines it: 1) someone or something that just isn't right. 2) the feeling you get the morning after using a lot of drugs, most commonly associated with extacy. 3) something unsafe 4) someone or something that gives off a bad feeling.

Rando is just as old.

As early as 1971, according to the Oxford English Dictionary, M.I.T.’s student paper, The Tech, was using random as an adjective meaning “peculiar, strange” or as a noun to disparage people outside a community, particularly the community of computer hackers. (The 1991 New Hacker’s Dictionary provides the example “The audience was full of randoms asking bogus questions.”) Eventually it could refer to unfamiliar faces in any social situation, like a party or a bar, with rando as a slangy 21st-century shortening.

I'll offer my contribution to the list: sketchoid. You can assign a meaning of your choice.