a smattering of cant language

your lost dirty word of the day

This book, which I found a few months ago in an open-air flea market in Amsterdam, has proved a bottomless source of amusement. Like it says on the the cover it’s a dictionary of criminal and near-criminal words — old-fashioned English street slang, insults, slurs and brilliantly specific descriptions of weird/aberrant/illegal behaviour. It’s out of print but there are lots of used copies floating around the internet however none quite as handsome as this one with its quirky inverted pyramid cover design. I love it ‘for death,’ (as my five-year-old son Frank would say), I swear to god it’s better than Tik Tok.

So every Friday on Juvenescence I’m going to post a lost dirty word of the day for your enjoyment over the weekend. (If you have any lost dirty words, please post them in the comments, let’s start a collection, shall we?)

Today’s lost dirty word is actually its a phrase.

half-flash and half-foolish.

‘This character is applied sarcastically to a person who has a smattering of the cant language, and having associated a little with family people, pretends to a knowledge of life which he really does not possess, and by this conduct becomes an object of ridicule among his acquaintance.’ : 1812, J.H. Vaux ; 1823, Egan’s Gross ; app by 1890. See flash, adj. 1 and 2.

Have a flash and foolish weekend!

LMx