"Slang" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... must possess energy, decision, and force, and these qualities should be conspicuous in his correspondence in order to command respect. Never use loose or slang expressions. The business man should be a gentleman. Indulge in no display of superior knowledge or education, but temper each paragraph with respect and deference to others. The learner who would aspire to ...
— Burroughs' Encyclopaedia of Astounding Facts and Useful Information, 1889 • Barkham Burroughs
... were moved by one muscle, all the faces were turned toward him with wide, derisive grins. He seemed to hear some one make a humorous remark in a low tone. At it the others all crowed and cackled. He was a slang phrase. ...
— The Red Badge of Courage - An Episode of the American Civil War • Stephen Crane
... critic folk the poet's use of vulgar slang upbraid, But, when I'm speaking by the card, I call a spade a spade; And I, who have been touched of that same mania, myself, Am well aware that, when it comes to parting with his pelf, The curio collector is so blindly lost in sin That he doesn't spend ...
— John Smith, U.S.A. • Eugene Field
... glanced involuntarily at her wonderful crown of hair. She had taken off her hat. He was thinking of the typical crime of American parents,—and suddenly it struck him that her speech had changed, that she had dropped the suggestive slang of the surroundings ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... said Louise. She liked to use a bit of slang when it was perfectly safe—as in very good company, or among those she loved; at other times she ...
— The Story of a Play - A Novel • W. D. Howells
... Frank used slang, but just then he was in want of a better expression by means of which to give vent to ...
— The Outdoor Chums on the Gulf • Captain Quincy Allen
... The people across the brine Are exceedingly strong on Auld Lang Syne, But they're lost in the push when they strike a gang That is strong on American new line slang! ...
— Grimm Tales Made Gay • Guy Wetmore Carryl
... the slang phrases, picked up from Bathurst, with mechanical precision; and Honor, still smiling, went over to the piano—a flamboyant instrument of rosewood and gold. After a second of hesitation Lenox followed, opened it for her, and ...
— The Great Amulet • Maud Diver
... all with; totter to its fall. destroy; do away with, make away with; nullify; annual &c 756; sacrifice, demolish; tear up; overturn, overthrow, overwhelm; upset, subvert, put an end to; seal the doom of, do in, do for, dish [Slang], undo; break up, cut up; break down, cut down, pull down, mow down, blow down, beat down; suppress, quash, put down, do a job on; cut short, take off, blot out; dispel, dissipate, dissolve; consume. smash, crash, quell, squash, squelch, crumple up, shatter, shiver; batter ...
— Roget's Thesaurus of English Words and Phrases: Body • Roget
... slang. Fancy calling Bradshaw a chicken!" she exclaimed. "Besides, you have a college called Keble, and my father knew Dr. Keble, so that can't be hundreds of years old. No, Cambridge have chosen their names better ...
— Godfrey Marten, Undergraduate • Charles Turley
... pony, pulled up the lariat pin which held him out upon the prairie and scampered for home, and Billy and Davie Dunn, his chum, were forced to "hoof it," as the western slang goes, home. ...
— Beadle's Boy's Library of Sport, Story and Adventure, Vol. I, No. 1. - Adventures of Buffalo Bill from Boyhood to Manhood • Prentiss Ingraham
... represent nature is the aim of all our best modern landscapists. Of course, no painting can give all that is in any scene, but every painter must select the means best adapted to convey the idea he has himself received. Now, in the ultra ideal school (to use a slang word which we detest) we recognize but little known to us in nature; and in the ultra matter-of-fact (pre-Raphaelite) school of this country, we find the same absence of abstract truth, together with a painful stiffness, and the want of a sense for beauty. We ...
— Continental Monthly , Vol. 5, No. 6, June, 1864 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various
... regard: dainty packets of sweets, nosegays of simple flowers, bottles of scent. To Somerville "Miss Bulstrode" hinted that if he really did desire to please her, and wasn't merely talking through his hat—Miss Bulstrode apologised for the slang, which, she feared, she must have picked up from her brother—he might give her a box of Messani's cigarettes, size No. 2. The suggestion pained him. Somerville the Briefless was perhaps old-fashioned. Miss Bulstrode cut him short by agreeing that he was, and ...
— Tommy and Co. • Jerome K. Jerome
... "you picked up your slang from your mother, who, however, had some education. The education ruined her for the quiet life here and she plunged into the world to get the excitement she craved. Hasn't she been sorry for it ...
— Mary Louise in the Country • L. Frank Baum (AKA Edith Van Dyne)
... THE YOUNG.—Avoid all boastings and exaggerations, backbiting, abuse, and evil speaking; slang phrases and oaths in conversation; depreciate no man's qualities, and accept hospitalities of the humblest kind in a hearty and appreciative manner; avoid giving offense, and if you do offend, have the manliness to apologize; infuse as much elegance ...
— St. Nicholas, Vol. 5, No. 2, December, 1877 • Various
... my brother, do not fear it; I'm no disembodied spirit— I am Lampton, the Slang Poet, with a price upon my head. I am watching by this portal for some late lamented mortal To arise in his disquietude and leave his ...
— Shapes of Clay • Ambrose Bierce
... romance had become fulfilment. Dakie Thayne was wild with rejoicing that dear old Noll was to marry Sue. "She had always made him think of Noll, and his ways and likings, ever since that day of the game of chess that by his means came to grief. It was awful slang, but he could not help it: it was just the very ...
— Junior Classics, V6 • Various
... effort, working hard to captivate those who were to be won by bold smiles and arch glances. She displayed her person less freely than her colleagues, being, not more modest, but more skilful in the art of seduction. The slang that served for dialogue in her part was delivered in all sorts of intonations, now demure and mischievous, anon strident and mock tragic. ...
— The Irrational Knot - Being the Second Novel of His Nonage • George Bernard Shaw
... in her speech at times, and she occasionally used slang of the best brand, but she avoided those colloquialisms which were of the vocabulary of the uneducated. Indeed, she had had no inclination to use them, for her father had set her a good example, and she liked to ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... sewing-room; nor are you unprofitable because you do not now earn the so many dollars a week you will sometime gain. There is large hope of you, even when you forget yourselves in the use of fashionable slang, because your minds and hearts are open to receive kind warnings, and to learn to despise such terms as mar the beauty of ...
— Hold Up Your Heads, Girls! • Annie H. Ryder
... irksome alliance with Waldron, calmly enough returned to the club-house. Head well up, and eyes defiant, she walked up the broad steps and into the office. Little cared she whether the piazza gossips—The Hammer and Anvil Club, in local slang—divined the quarrel or not. The girl felt herself immeasurably indifferent to such pettinesses as prying small talk and innuendo. Let people know, or not, as might be, she cared not a whit. Her business was her own. No wagging of tongues could ...
— The Air Trust • George Allan England
... "I can't make it all out—" she smiled at him—"but I think you are right in saying that it is all O.K." He laughed, and stretched out his long legs comfortably. "You've got the idea. That's the way to get the good of traveling and seeing other kinds of folks. You learn my queer slang words, and I'll ...
— Short Stories of Various Types • Various
... into approximate meaning in English, saying it was as difficult to translate these intimate and slang phrases as it would be to put "Yankee Doodle" into French or German. His translation, as he wrote it on ...
— Mystic Isles of the South Seas. • Frederick O'Brien
... must know, is styled 'plew' on board, in the slang of the training-ship; possibly, through some association with the 'sky blue' known in the boarding-schools of ...
— Young Tom Bowling - The Boys of the British Navy • J.C. Hutcheson
... the Carthaginians with the most expert slingers in the world, who did them great service in battles and sieges.(582) They slang large stones of above a pound weight; and sometimes threw leaden bullets,(583) with so much violence, that they would pierce even the strongest helmets, shields, and cuirasses; and were so dexterous in their aim, that they scarce ever missed the mark. The inhabitants of these ...
— The Ancient History of the Egyptians, Carthaginians, Assyrians, • Charles Rollin
... under the all-pervading eye of authority, she is so drilled, and lectured, and ruled and regulated, that, when the eye of authority is off her, she seems naturally to degenerate into licence. No speech so interwoven with slang as the speech of a schoolgirl—except ...
— The Golden Calf • M. E. Braddon
... increasingly, to fit your word to your thought, and your thought to the fact. Being accurate does not mean being dull. Effective speech has much need for imagination, but very little for common slang. You ...
— Manners And Conduct In School And Out • Anonymous
... slang words like those. The girls had no business to be using them. You must copy the best, ...
— The Leader of the Lower School - A Tale of School Life • Angela Brazil
... considerable body of aristocratic feeling that lurks beneath this republican simplicity. I have on several occasions been made the confidant of these romantic but delusive vagaries, of which the stronghold appears to be the Empire City,—a slang name for New York. I was assured in many quarters that that locality, at least, is ripe for a monarchy, and if one of the Queen's sons would come and talk it over, he would meet with the highest encouragement. ...
— The Point of View • Henry James
... about the kid," says the Crow, in his elegant slang. "I don't believe she ever saw him before. Besides, she's nuts on Jack, and ain't likely to ...
— For the Term of His Natural Life • Marcus Clarke
... 48. And it came to pass, when the Philistine arose, and came and drew nigh to meet David, that David hasted, and ran toward the army to meet the Philistine. 49. And David put his hand in his bag, and took thence a stone, and slang it, and smote the Philistine in his forehead, that the stone sunk into his forehead; and he fell upon his face to the earth. 50. So David prevailed over the Philistine with a sling and with a stone, and smote the Philistine, and slew him; but there was no sword in the hand ...
— Expositions Of Holy Scripture - Volume I: St. Luke, Chaps. I to XII • Alexander Maclaren
... exclaimed, a weak smile on his lips. "I'm no boob!" Obviously, he meant this lapse into the slang of the Tenderloin to convey his intimate knowledge of police methods. "You can't soft-soap me! You don't want explanations! You want me to get myself in bad. But you won't get anything out of me. I ...
— The Substitute Prisoner • Max Marcin
... (the demi-savans (I don't mean Napoleon's in Egypt, but the provinvial editors—in some cases it amounts to the same thing) having proved the word to be Greek, I suppose it is slang no longer), the Tenth Illinois regiment (Dick Wolcott, you know) camped a few miles to the northward, near the woods; and hasty but shady structures were soon reared in front of the officers' tents; but one morning there arose a great wind, and the 'arboresque' screens ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol 2, No 6, December 1862 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various
... peculiarity" has been well described by Ward as "a buoyant blackguardism which recovers itself instantaneously from the most complete exposure, and a picturesqueness of speech like that of a walking dictionary of slang." ...
— Volpone; Or, The Fox • Ben Jonson
... get looking at that for?" she asked Anna-Felicitas, when she had edged through the crowd staring at the Vaterland, and got to where Anna-Felicitas stood listening abstractedly to the fireworks of American slang the young man was treating her to,—that terse, surprising, swift hitting-of-the-nail-on-the-head form of speech which she was hearing in such abundance ...
— Christopher and Columbus • Countess Elizabeth Von Arnim
... suppose that I am indulging in the vulgar English slang against French governesses, I will add, that our own was the very worst, in every respect, I ever saw, in or out of France; and that I have met with ladies in this situation every way qualified, by principles, attainments, ...
— Recollections of Europe • J. Fenimore Cooper
... of the curate's, who had come to spend a few days with him in the country. The friend was a harsh-featured, swarthy young man, belonging to what may be called the muscular variety of high Ritualism; much given to a sort of aggressive slang—he had been known to refer to the bishop of his diocese as "the sporting old jester that bosses our show"—and representing militant sacerdotalism in its most blusterous and rampant form. He was also in the habit of informing people that he was "nuts" on ...
— Austin and His Friends • Frederic H. Balfour
... 22d of February, the President greatly damaged his cause by denouncing a Senator and a Representative, and using the slang of the stump against the Secretary of the Senate in the midst of an uproarious Washington mob. The people were mortified that the Executive of the nation should have ...
— History of the Thirty-Ninth Congress of the United States • Wiliam H. Barnes
... language of the "fence's" parlour, and that of the literary salon; on being able to appear as much at home in one as in the other. Delighted at our prowess, we often whispered, "The princess, I swear, would not believe her eyes if she saw us now;" and then in terrible slang we shouted a benediction on some "crib" that was going to be broken into that evening. And we thought there was something very thrilling in leaving the Rue de la Gaieté, returning home to dress, and presenting our spotless selves to ...
— Confessions of a Young Man • George Moore
... conversation might have taken place between two men. Indeed, they often were brutally frank to each other. Fanny had the vision, Fenger the science to apply it. Sometimes her intuition leaped ahead of his reasoning. Then he would say, "I'm not sold on that," which is modern business slang meaning, "You haven't convinced me." She would go back and start afresh, ...
— Fanny Herself • Edna Ferber
... said Mr. Clare, with a zest that only the slang word could imply, removing all Rachel's scruples, and in effect Mr. Clare did enjoy the spice of adventure in a most amusing way. He knew perfectly well how to manage, laid out the plan of operations, gave ...
— The Clever Woman of the Family • Charlotte M. Yonge
... he must not use the name of Deity, nor should he refer so often to kings. At once, he doubled his Topseys and put on his stage three Uncle Toms when one might have answered. Like Shakespeare, he used idioms and slang with profusion—anything to express the idea. Will this convey the thought? If so, it was written down, and, once written, Beelzebub and all his hosts could not make him change it. But in the interest of truth let me note ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Vol. 1 of 14 - Little Journeys to the Homes of Good Men and Great • Elbert Hubbard
... door, and from there turned round. "So long!" he cried out cheerily, and she was surprised, for Varick seldom made use of any slang or colloquialism. ...
— From Out the Vasty Deep • Mrs. Belloc Lowndes
... yarns frequently stretched through a watch, and kept all hands awake. They were amusing from their improbability, and, indeed, he never expected to be believed, but spun them merely for amusement; and as he had some humor and a good supply of man-of-war slang and sailor's salt phrases, he always made fun. Next to him in age and experience, and, of course, in standing in the watch, was an Englishman named Harris, of whom I shall have more to say hereafter. Then came two or three Americans, who had been the common ...
— Two Years Before the Mast • Richard Henry Dana
... which appeared after its termination, in the Kennebec Journal, published at Augusta, the Hon. James G. Blaine, the writer, declared epigrammatically that, in the defence of Judge Chase, "Paine furnished the logic, Choate the rhetoric, and Smith the slang." ...
— The Bay State Monthly, Volume 3, No. 6 • Various
... Olivia; she was pretty and merry and kind; and, above all, she had mastered to perfection the rare art of letting children alone. If we kept ourselves tolerably clean, and refrained from quarrelling or talking slang, Aunt Olivia did not worry us. Aunt Janet, on the contrary, gave us so much good advice and was so constantly telling us to do this or not to do the other thing, that we could not remember half her instructions, ...
— The Story Girl • Lucy Maud Montgomery
... a liberal man: liberal in the true classical sense, not in the slang sense of modern politicians and education-mongers. Being so, I am sure that you will sympathize with my case. I am an ill-used man, Dr. North—particularly ill used; and, with your permission, I will ...
— Miscellaneous Essays • Thomas de Quincey
... use of slang terms. There are surely words enough in the English language to express all the thoughts and ideas of the mind, and it is a sign of pure vulgarity to employ synonyms, the only remarkable part of which is that they derive their existence solely from ...
— Frost's Laws and By-Laws of American Society • Sarah Annie Frost
... only objection to the activities of M. Bazin is that, not content with a golden popularity, he cannot refrain from sneering at genuine artists. Thus, to the interviewer, he referred to Stephane Mallarme as a "fumiste." No English word will render exactly this French slang; it may be roughly translated a practical joker with a trace of fraud. There may be, and there are, two opinions as to the permanent value of Mallarme's work, but there cannot be two informed and honest opinions as to his ...
— Books and Persons - Being Comments on a Past Epoch 1908-1911 • Arnold Bennett
... complicated a complete language must be, with its long and arbitrary vocabulary, its intricate system of sounds; the many forms that single words may take, especially if they are verbs; the rules of grammar, the sentence structure, the idioms, slang and inflections. Heavens, what a genius for tongues these simians have![2] Where another race, after the most frightful discord and pains, might have slowly constructed one language before this earth grew cold, this race will create literally ...
— This Simian World • Clarence Day
... gate, Delia and Sandy lingered behind with alarming significance. He began to hate Cossie and to revolt against the slap-dash untidy menage, Delia and her train of rowdy boys, the shouting, the practical jokes, and the slang. Then suddenly the Levison cloud burst! One night, when he was flying upstairs to his sky parlour, his mother waylaid him on the landing and, with an imperative gesture, beckoned ...
— The Road to Mandalay - A Tale of Burma • B. M. Croker
... cricket matches, at both of which more attention is paid to fashion than to the field, follow one another in a dizzy succession. She has naturally no time for thought, but in order to avoid the least suspicion of it, she learns to chatter the slang of the youthful Guardsmen and others who are her companions. A certain flashing style of beauty ensures to her the devotion of numerous admirers, to whom she babbles of "chappies" and "Johnnies," and "real jam" and "stony broke," and "two to one bar one," as if her life depended upon the correct ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 98, March 15, 1890 • Various
... this subject—the Rev. Mr. Collyer, a gentleman standing as high as anybody, and I have nothing to say against him—because I denounced God who upheld murder, and slavery and polygamy, he said that what I said was slang. I would like to have it compared with any sermon that ever issued from the lips of that gentleman. And before he gets through he admits that the Old Testament is a rotten tree that will soon fall into the earth and act as ...
— Lectures of Col. R. G. Ingersoll, Volume I • Robert Green Ingersoll
... time over seventy years of age his mind was notably clear, orderly and active, and his talk (usually a carefully constructed monologue) was stately, formal and precise. He used no slang, and retained scarcely a word of his boyhood's vernacular. The only emotional expression he permitted himself was a chuckle of glee over an intellectual misstatement or a historical bungle. Novels, theaters, music possessed ...
— A Daughter of the Middle Border • Hamlin Garland
... done now?" came in rather injured accents. "I'm sure I didn't use any slang; and as for not having all my things packed as quickly as you, why, Ruth, my dear, you must remember that you are an exception—the one ...
— The Moving Picture Girls in War Plays - Or, The Sham Battles at Oak Farm • Laura Lee Hope
... slang. I use only the purest, most refined, and cultured English. I leave slang to those who can get by with it and put it over. So where I have used dashes you may use your favorite slang words. Mine ...
— Diet and Health - With Key to the Calories • Lulu Hunt Peters
... seems to think it is necessary to be coarse and fast in order to be men. The more money they can spend, the more beer they can drink, the more chorus girls' photographs they can get to paste up in their rooms, the more tobacco pipes they can display over and under their mantels, the more slang and indecency they can learn, the more college atmosphere they think they are creating. I wonder sometimes why the professors don't seem to care about the morals of us students. We never hear anything in the class room or the shop except the technical ...
— The High Calling • Charles M. Sheldon
... disapprove of "fast lots," and she had progressed from radical eighteen to critical twenty-one. She worked off her superfluous spirits at the outdoor games which may be indulged in California for eight months of the year, rode horseback every day, used all her brothers' slang she could remember when in the society of such uncritical friends as her young Aunt Alexina, and bided her time. Sooner or later she was determined to "get out and hustle,"—"shake a leg." That would be the only complete change from her present life, not matrimony and running with fast sets. ...
— The Sisters-In-Law • Gertrude Atherton
... use a phrase which he himself would not have used, for he avoided the use of slang—"given himself away." Over his lantern-shaped face, across his thin, determined mouth, there had still lingered a trace of the supercilious smile with which he had been looking round him. And, as he had helped Mrs. Archdale into the ...
— Studies in love and in terror • Marie Belloc Lowndes
... she to attract Ware and make him neglect that dear angel over there? See, yonder is Daisy. There's a face, there's charm, there's hair!" finished Mrs. Parry, quite unconscious that she was using the latest London slang. "I call ...
— A Coin of Edward VII - A Detective Story • Fergus Hume
... tempted to write more. She rather fancied that term "witless wight" as applied to Johnny Jewel. It had a classical dignity which atoned for the slang made necessary by her instant need of a rhyme ...
— Skyrider • B. M. Bower
... can't tell, It's plain to understand; An sure aw am it saands as weel, Tho' happen net soa grand. Tell fowk they're courtin, they're enraged, They call that vulgar slang; But if aw tell 'em they're engaged, That's net ...
— Yorkshire Lyrics • John Hartley
... and twangs are objectionable everywhere, but the slang and twang of the conventicle—as bad in its way as that of the House of Commons, and nothing worse can be said of it—should be studiously avoided under such circumstances as I describe. The avoidance was not complete on this occasion. ...
— The Uncommercial Traveller • Charles Dickens
... stereotyped in modern slang, and yet the idea could not but have existed under other words in the days of those flush individuals, Midas and Croesus. The first of these moneyed gentlemen found gold too plenty for comfort, while the latter, by his unfortunate end, ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 2, No. 2, August, 1862 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various
... natural gentility that put to confusion the mannerisms of the "smart" finishing school which had not succeeded in concealing the strain of a plebeian origin, and Beth's dropped g's and her quaint inversions and locutions were infinitely more pleasing to Peter than Miss Peggy's slang and self-assurance, which reflected the modernity of the ...
— The Vagrant Duke • George Gibbs
... she cried with a blush, "don't you know me? Have I changed much? I should have known you anywhere; and I am glad to see you, awfully glad (excuse the slang, but it is such a relief to be able to say 'awful' without being pulled up by Aunt Chambers). Just think, it is three years since we met. Do you remember Grumps? How do I look? Do you think you will like me as much ...
— Dawn • H. Rider Haggard
... be a young, and as Fong had said, "awful smart boy." Smuggled into the country in his childhood, he spoke excellent English, interspersed with slang. He repeated his story with a Chinaman's unimaginative exactness, not a detail changed, omitted or overemphasized. The young men were impressed by him, intelligent, imperturbable and self-reliant, a man admirably fitted to put in execution the move ...
— Treasure and Trouble Therewith - A Tale of California • Geraldine Bonner
... which Plautus gives us glimpses and which the graffiti may perhaps help to restore. When Varius was emperor, this phrase of the kitchen was as rife as when Plautus wrote—a proof that occasionally slang has ...
— Cooking and Dining in Imperial Rome • Apicius
... spelt in one letter. But she deftly excused herself by saying that she used archaic forms. "Never mind St. George," she writes good-humouredly, to Mrs. E. G. Burton, "I like old spelling." She did not excuse her slang by calling it old, or refer her friends to Chaucer for ...
— The Life of Sir Richard Burton • Thomas Wright
... English freer from dialectic peculiarities—than the English themselves. We have but one conventional form of expression from Maine to California, and whatever lies outside of this may be bad grammar or slang, but ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. XVII. No. 101. May, 1876. • Various
... sensible girl as she is, that it made her nervous all the time. She felt as if she were sailing under false colors. If your every-day language is not fit for a letter or for print, it is not fit for talk. And if, by any series of joking or fun, at school or at home, you have got into the habit of using slang in talk, which is not fit for print, why, the sooner you get out of it the better. Remember that the very highest compliment paid to anything printed is paid when a person, hearing it read aloud, thinks it is the remark of the reader made in conversation. Both writer and reader then receive the ...
— How To Do It • Edward Everett Hale
... a certain amount of slang and fun that's allowable, but noblesse oblige must always come first. You don't understand French yet? Well, never mind. All that matters is that you simply must realize, Rona—do listen, please—that all of us here, including you, mustn't—couldn't—cheat at lessons. For ...
— For the Sake of the School • Angela Brazil
... writing "homely verse," With country phrases, jokes and slang; With "jiminies!" "by hecks!" and such, With "backwoods" odor, taste and tang— This thing, I say, of making light Of country life is funny—Not! I'd like to know where we would be If farms were all to go ...
— With the Colors - Songs of the American Service • Everard Jack Appleton
... dance a jig, you know. I'll go to New York, and let myself as the 'Eminent and Graceful Queen of Terpsichore, imported from Paris at a cost of Forty Thousand Dollars in Gold.' And then I'll make a tour of the New England States. Or I'll learn to play the banjo and get off slang phrases, and then I'll appear as 'The Beautiful and Gifted Artist, ANNETTA BRUMMETTA, who has, by her guileless vivacity, charmed our most Fashionable Circles.' Or I'll go as Assistant Teacher in a Select Boarding School for Young Ladies. I ain't ...
— Punchinello, Vol. 2, No. 36, December 3, 1870 • Various
... the difficult part of the subject to make clear, the most vulgar slang like that quoted above, is scarcely worse than the attempted elegance which those unused to good society imagine to be ...
— Etiquette • Emily Post
... writer's and the publisher's pocket benefited, by the recital of the most active horrors. What more exciting than a ruffian (with many admirable virtues) in St. Giles's, visited constantly by a young lady from Belgravia? What more stirring than the contrasts of society? the mixture of slang and fashionable language? the escapes, the battles, the murders? Nay, up to nine o'clock this very morning, my poor friend, Colonel Altamont, was doomed to execution, and the author only relented when his victim was actually ...
— The History of Pendennis • William Makepeace Thackeray
... apparently in the same attitude, and with the same grave, sleepless expression on his cast-iron features. The boy, Robin Tips, was at the helm, looking very sleepy. He was an English boy, smart, active, and wide-awake—in the slang sense—in which sense also we may add ...
— The Eagle Cliff • R.M. Ballantyne
... 7 consisted of eleven horizontal stripes, viz. six red and five white. Flag No. 8 had nine horizontal stripes, viz. red, white, blue repeated three times, the red being uppermost. I submit that in sailor's slang these signals would be commonly referred to as "stripes." Consequently whatever flags subsequently would be used to signal a chase would be known also as "stripes." Therefore whatever signal might be flown in the Revenue service when chasing would ...
— King's Cutters and Smugglers 1700-1855 • E. Keble Chatterton
... place that counts when the anchor goes down or up, it's the Who and the When; and in view of what has filled all the foregoing pages I trust that the reader will sympathize with Rosina and pardon my slang if I state that Genoa appeared to her upon this occasion very much more rocky ...
— A Woman's Will • Anne Warner
... the Rock of Ages? Surely we might appeal to them, in the name of their own brothers and others with whom they are intimately thrown, to work out these higher possibilities of their own womanhood; not to lower it by picking up slang words from their brothers—a woman ought to be above coarsening and vulgarizing God's great gift of speech—not to engage in games or romps that involve a rude rough-and-tumble with boys, which may develop a healthy hoyden, but ...
— The Power of Womanhood, or Mothers and Sons - A Book For Parents, And Those In Loco Parentis • Ellice Hopkins
... to re-echo in his consciousness. The flavour of her slang was piquant to him. Whether he would or not, she signified the real world to him. He wanted to come up to her standards, fulfil her expectations. He knew that her criterion was the only one that mattered. The others were ...
— Women in Love • D. H. Lawrence
... I'd care to," Dozia answered witheringly. "I can't see that the adventure 'got us anywhere' as brother Tom would say. I haven't any brother, you know, Jane dear, but it always sounds better to blame one's slang on ...
— Jane Allen: Junior • Edith Bancroft
... to him; Longfellow told him how he came to write "Excelsior"; Whittier told the story of "The Barefoot Boy"; Tennyson wrote out a stanza or two of "The Brook," upon condition that Edward would not again use the word "awful," which the poet said "is slang for 'very,'" ...
— The Americanization of Edward Bok - The Autobiography of a Dutch Boy Fifty Years After • Edward William Bok (1863-1930)
... yourselves," said Allie doubtfully. "I don't half like it; and if Howard won't help meet him, he ought to keep clear out of the way. But there's one thing about it, boys, you must, you really must, stop talking so much slang. It's bad enough with us girls, and I'm getting to use it as much as you do; but you'll scare Charlie to pieces if you talk ...
— In Blue Creek Canon • Anna Chapin Ray
... gently. "I'm sorry if I hit too hard. But I feel rather strongly on that subject. I've no wish to slang you. I only want to set you on your feet, and keep you there. So we may as well get to ...
— Captain Desmond, V.C. • Maud Diver
... found near the Bald-faced Hind, dressed in a red cloak and a large beaver; her appearance is bold and reckless—she is dukkering low tradesmen and servant girls behind the trees at sixpence a head, or is bandying with the voice of a raven slang and obscenity with country boors, or with the blackguard butcher-boys who throng in from Whitechapel and Shoreditch to the Gypsy Fair. At Goodwood, a few weeks after, you may see her in a beautiful half-riding dress, her hair fantastically plaited and adorned with pearls, standing beside the carriage ...
— Romano Lavo-Lil - Title: Romany Dictionary - Title: Gypsy Dictionary • George Borrow
... here to mention the use, or rather misuse, of words which are often called "slang," such as "awfully jolly," "fearfully tedious," "horribly dull," or the expression "quite alarming," which young ladies, I think, have now happily forgotten, and the equally silly use of the word "howling" by young men. Such expressions mean absolutely ...
— Interludes - being Two Essays, a Story, and Some Verses • Horace Smith
... easily and as certainly as a cowboy can tell a cow from a horse by the like process, the result of observation and culture. I should explain that I am speaking of legitimate verbs, those verbs which in the slang of the grammar are called Regular. There are other—I am not meaning to conceal this; others called Irregulars, born out of wedlock, of unknown and uninteresting parentage, and naturally destitute of family resemblances, as regards ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... would, but that is a boy's word, and it is slang besides. Miss Pomeroy says a lady doesn't use slang. I will use 'great'. No, that isn't much better. Well, 'splendid' ...
— Tabitha at Ivy Hall • Ruth Alberta Brown
... slang," defended Clara. "I've heard lots of girls use it. I mean it in the right sense. But have you really lost your place ...
— Baseball Joe in the Big League - or, A Young Pitcher's Hardest Struggles • Lester Chadwick
... all, the whole kit o' you, to come to my house tomorrow morning to see Rebecca Mary. I'm going to say it over again. Tomorrow morning, to see Rebecca Mary!" setting apart the syllables with the pointing finger. "You can play in my back yard," said Aunt Olivia, sublimely unconscious of slang. ...
— Rebecca Mary • Annie Hamilton Donnell
... praise having been expended upon persons of infinitely small merit, what was to be done when those of real superiority entered upon the scene? It was impossible to apply to them the forms of laudation adapted to their inferiors. Well, then, a species of slang was invented, by which it was thought practicable to make the genuine great men conceive they had passed into the condition of demigods. A language was devised that was to express the fervor of the adorers who were suddenly allowed to penetrate ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 2, Issue 10, August, 1858 • Various
... He was, I think, without exception, the very handsomest and most fascinating man I ever met. You would never dream—never!—that he was an American. Gwendoline will tell you the same. The sister was thoroughly trans-Atlantic, talked slang, said 'I guess,' spoke with an accent, and looked you through and through with an American girl's broad stare. The father and mother were common, to a degree; but the son—well, Gwen and I both came very near losing our ...
— A Terrible Secret • May Agnes Fleming
... "sea togs," the students began to feel salt, as well as to look salt. Some of them tried to imitate the rolling gait of the boatswain when they walked, and some of them began to exhibit an alarming tendency to indulge in sea slang. ...
— Outward Bound - Or, Young America Afloat • Oliver Optic
... one of those broad high-cheeked faces one sees so much in the West, with the funniest quick yellowish grey eyes and the most disreputable moustache I ever saw, yellow and ragged, If he must eat it, I wish he would eat it off even clear across. And he's likely to talk the most execrable slang, or to quote Browning. But he was making real love, and you know I'm not used to that. I'm accustomed to go my pace before sharply calculating eyes, to show if I'm worth the asking price. But here was real love being made off down in the earth (we'd ...
— The Spenders - A Tale of the Third Generation • Harry Leon Wilson
... season, interval; catch, clasp; fillip, crack, smack, fico; (Collog.) energy, briskness, vigor; (Slang) sinecure. ...
— Putnam's Word Book • Louis A. Flemming
... that it has become a habit; they make more, the walls of exhibitions blush with them; and death finds these aged students still busy with their horn-book. This class of man finds a congenial home in artist villages; in the slang of the English colony at Barbizon we used to call them "Snoozers." Continual returns to the city, the society of men further advanced, the study of great works, a sense of humour or, if such a thing is to be had, a little religion or philosophy, ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 16 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... so much sorrow, and begged so hard and so earnestly that the Reverend's heart was not hard enough to hold out against the pleadings —so he went away with the parent-honoring student, like a right Christian, and took supper with him in his lodgings, and sat in the surf-beat of his slang and profanity till near midnight, and then left him—left him pretty well talked out, but grateful "clear down to his frogs," as he expressed it. The Reverend said it had transpired during the interview that "Cholley" Adams's father ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... ambition to hold myself on my pillow as the king of kings Agamemnon holds himself, from the day that I was seized with dread of being seen during sleep by any other eyes than those of Providence. In the same way, too, from the day I heard my old nurse snorting in her sleep "like a whale," to use a slang expression, I have added a petition to the special litany which I address to Saint-Honore, my patron saint, to the effect that he would save me from indulging in this ...
— The Physiology of Marriage, Part II. • Honore de Balzac
... are poorly performed, and, indeed, little understood. Not many of those who think at all think beyond the line of established custom and routine. They may take pains in their letters to obey the ordinary rules of grammar, to avoid the use of slang phrases and vulgar expressions, to write a clear sentence; but how few seek for the not less imperative rules which are prescribed by politeness and good sense! Of those who should know them, no small proportion habitually, from thoughtlessness or ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. II, No. 8, June 1858 • Various
... most provocative angle, and she knew just when to let Bud catch a slow, sidelong glance—of the kind that is supposed to set a man's heart to syncopatic behavior. She did not do it too often. She did not powder too much, and she had the latest slang at her pink tongue's tip and was yet moderate in her use ...
— Cabin Fever • B. M. Bower
... arbitrary private vocabulary of words and phrases for the purpose of disguising references to functions and parts of the body regarded as immodest and indecent, first began to become common. Such private slang, growing up independently in families, and especially among women, as well as between lovers, is now almost universal. It is not confined to any European country, and has been studied in Italy by Niceforo (Il Gergo, ...
— Studies in the Psychology of Sex, Volume 1 (of 6) • Havelock Ellis
... felt that I could never look you in the face again, or any of the girls. It was not as bad as I expected, but oh, so different from what I had always thought the stage was. We all had to dress in a little room that was as cold as ice, and most of the girls were so loud and coarse, and talked slang, and they all took a dislike to me because I was queen. They called me "old prudy," and had all kinds of coarse jokes that made me feel as though I would die of shame; I took cold the first night, the stage was so windy, and our dresses as thin as wisps, and then I was so ...
— Six Girls - A Home Story • Fannie Belle Irving
... Oriental corruption failsuf. It recalls to my mind a Hindu who was very fond of the word, and especially of applying it to certain of his fellow-servants. But as he used it, bara failsuf,— "great philosopher"—meant exactly the same as the modern slang "Artful Dodger"! ...
— The Travels of Marco Polo Volume 1 • Marco Polo and Rustichello of Pisa
... will write to men of means of their acquaintance, informing them in some cipher or slang phrase that they have a new importation in their house awaiting eligible disposition. Large sums are often paid under such circumstances, and the fresh importation is usually sold in this way five or six times. In other words, she is represented ...
— Danger! A True History of a Great City's Wiles and Temptations • William Howe
... of his usual talk, I reminded him that he had just joined the church. "Yes, Linda," said he. "It was proper for me to do so. I am getting in years, and my position in society requires it, and it puts an end to all the damned slang. You would do well to join the church, ...
— Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl - Written by Herself • Harriet Jacobs (AKA Linda Brent)
... disturbing to them than to their hostess. Undine felt only his crudeness, and the tacit criticism passed on it by the mere presence of such men as her husband and Bowen; but Mrs. Fairford' seemed to enjoy provoking him to fresh excesses of slang and hyperbole. Gradually she drew him into talking of the Driscoll campaign, and he became recklessly explicit. He seemed to have nothing to hold back: all the details of the prodigious exploit poured from him with Homeric volume. Then he broke off abruptly, thrusting his hands into his trouser-pockets ...
— The Custom of the Country • Edith Wharton
... horses and other topics of jockey lore, and, above all, endeavor to imitate his air and carriage. Every ragamuffin that has a coat to his back thrusts his hands in the pockets, rolls in his gait, talks slang, and ...
— The Sketch Book of Geoffrey Crayon, Gent. • Washington Irving
... remember that the Prince of Wales, the Lord Chancellor, the judges, the lawyers, the ministers of the Crown, and many other distinguished people were accustomed to use the same expression, I would fain hope that it was not meant for profanity, but was a sort of fashionable slang intended only to be emphatic. Fifty years have seen a great improvement in the use of language, and the vulgarism which then appeared to be of slight importance is now regarded, almost universally with gentlemen, to be at least in very bad taste. How far Byron transgressed beyond the frequent use ...
— Beacon Lights of History, Volume XIII • John Lord
... P. was a very dignified gentleman and did not revert to his boyhood's slang except under extreme provocation. "He shouldn't have allowed you to urge him. And what about the brilliant prospect you gave up once just because his father was ...
— The End of the Rainbow • Marian Keith
... mood, Mr. Todd's speech was choicest English or the cosmopolitan, technical slang of the sea, mingled with wonderful profanity. But one habit of his early days he never dropped: he wore, in the hottest weather, and in storm and battle, the black frock and choker of the clerical profession. ...
— "Where Angels Fear to Tread" and Other Stories of the Sea • Morgan Robertson
... long howl on Oonalaska's shore' is not in it with that of mine," said George Henry—for since his coat had become threadbare his language had deteriorated, and he too frequently used slang—"but I'm thankful that I alone hear my own. How different the case from what it is when one's dog barks o' nights! Then the owner is the only one who sleeps within a radius of blocks. The beasts ...
— The Wolf's Long Howl • Stanley Waterloo
... their forefathers brought the greater part of them from Britain, as many of those phrases are to be found in the works of old English authors still extant. The English language as spoken in America, is elegance itself, compared to the provincial dialects of Britain, or even to the vile slang one hears in the streets of London. This is a fact that every unprejudiced person who has travelled ...
— Notes of a Twenty-Five Years' Service in the Hudson's Bay Territory - Volume II. (of 2) • John M'lean
... and he opened the grate to let them pass, eyeing John Ayliffe with considerable attention as he did so. Locking the grate carefully behind him, he lighted them on with his lantern, muttering as he went in the peculiar prison slang of those days, various sentences not very complimentary to the tastes and habits of young John Ayliffe, "Ay, ay," he said, "clerk be damned! One of Tom's pals, for a pint and a boiled bone—droll I don't know him. He must be twenty, and ought to have been in the stone pitcher often enough before ...
— The International Monthly, Volume 3, No. 2, May, 1851 • Various
... contradictions. He is most precise in statement, yet often very careless of fact; he is most courteous in manner, yet inexcusably inconsiderate in his behavior. Again, he sets up a high standard of purity of diction, yet uses slang quite unnecessarily and inappropriately; and though a great master of style, he is guilty, at times, of digression within digression until all trace of the original subject ...
— The English Mail-Coach and Joan of Arc • Thomas de Quincey |
