Wednesday 28 January 2015

Arcane Argot

M&S
Two examples of criminal cant whose origin you may have pondered on: 

"Moody", meaning dodgy, on the fiddle, not kosher (as in 'moody brief'). Rhyming slang, from Moody and Sankey, American revivalist preachers and hymnalists who visited the UK in the 1870s. Rhymes with 'Hanky-Panky'.

"Dock asthma": the histrionic intake of breath used to signal shock at the supposed severity of a sentence on its pronouncement.

I love 'em, me.