"Slang" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... to steal from an unkind world, but he does not like the idea that she has slaved for him without any help in return. Katie did not prove to be a good pupil. She was not naturally "wise," in the slang sense, but gained what she gained by hard labour. Even while she was housekeeper for the old guy she felt she earned all the ...
— An Anarchist Woman • Hutchins Hapgood
... in upon you, but I saw you from afar, and you looked awfully good to me." Her clear enunciation made the slang phrase sound like the purest English. "I have just been with your principal in her office. She told me to come here and look over the list of subjects. Do you think me unpardonably rude?" She looked appealingly at the ...
— Grace Harlowe's Junior Year at High School - Or, Fast Friends in the Sororities • Jessie Graham Flower
... educated, for he has used the usual business formulas, 'on receipt of this,' and 'advices received,' which I won't merely say I don't use, but which few but commercial men use. Next, here's a man who uses slang, not only ineptly, but artificially, to give the letter the easy, familiar turn it hasn't from beginning to end. I need only say, my dear Stacy, that I don't write slang to you, but that nobody who understands slang ever writes it in that way. And then the knowledge of my opinion of Barker is ...
— The Three Partners • Bret Harte
... 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 compartment, as he indicated to her the comfortable ...
— Studies in love and in terror • Marie Belloc Lowndes
... yet permitted to continue in his responsible office. A trait, after the manner of the find in the Lido, forces itself upon me here. It was to this man that some youthful colleagues in the hospital adapted the then popular slang of that day: "No Goethe has written that," "No Schiller composed ...
— Dream Psychology - Psychoanalysis for Beginners • Sigmund Freud
... matures as his life and thought mature; but when a man has had much life and very little expression, he is confused by his own thoughts, and does not know how much to attempt or how to discriminate. When such a person falls on honest slang, it is usually a relief, for then he uses language which is fresh and real to him; whereas such phrases in a cultivated person usually indicate mere laziness and mental undress. Indeed, almost all slang ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 20, No. 122, December, 1867 • Various
... I have the time—say during our voyage to Cairo, whence we start inland up the Nile for Ethiopia—I shall make love whenever you like. And, confound it, Selina, I admire you no end—to use a slang phrase. You are a fine woman and a sensible woman, and I am afraid that you are throwing yourself away on a ...
— The Green Mummy • Fergus Hume
... that fights were going on, longed for some object on whom he could soothe his disturbed blood. He had flung his jacket over his arm, and, like a true bully, was striking his naked breast with his fist, and daring in his own low, disgusting slang, the best man in the room ...
— Sinks of London Laid Open • Unknown
... to encounter in the comparative study of languages. It may, no doubt, be argued with great force that no one knows English who is ignorant of the spoken dialects, of the jargon of sailors and miners, or of the slang of public-houses and prisons. It is perfectly true that what we call the literary and classical language is never the really living language of a people, and that a foreigner may know Shakespeare, Milton, and Byron, and yet fail to understand, if not the debates ...
— Chips from a German Workshop - Volume IV - Essays chiefly on the Science of Language • Max Muller
... "An extremely interesting slang word, by the way," Marshall said. "'Shoot.' Superficially an invitation to violence. I wonder—" A glance from Malone was sufficient. "Getting back to the track, however," he went on, "I should begin by saying that Her Majesty appears to have suffered ...
— Occasion for Disaster • Gordon Randall Garrett
... awfully nice. He did not forget my birthday, but he says that at that time he was stoney, in student's slang that means that he hadn't any money, and then he could not find anything suitable, but that he will repair the omission as soon as we get back to Vienna. But I don't know what I should like. Oswald is going to stay until we all go back to Vienna, ...
— A Young Girl's Diary • An Anonymous Young Girl
... shouting," 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 scrupulously ...
— The Story of a Play - A Novel • W. D. Howells
... anarchists. Does a man of that—of that—persuasion still remain an anarchist when alone, quite alone and going to bed, for instance? Does he lay his head on the pillow, pull his bedclothes over him, and go to sleep with the necessity of the chambardement general, as the French slang has it, of the general blow-up, always present to his mind? And if so how can he? I am sure that if such a faith (or such a fanaticism) once mastered my thoughts I would never be able to compose myself sufficiently to sleep or eat or perform any of the routine acts of daily life. I would ...
— A Set of Six • Joseph Conrad
... notion made him feel happier. He'd have hated reporting the old man. Something in the outdated slang made him feel—almost patriotic. The old man was a part of America, ...
— Pagan Passions • Gordon Randall Garrett
... Bill, it's Billina; and you're talking slang, which is very undig'n'fied," said Dorothy, reprovingly. "Come here, Billina, and I'll let you out; for Ozma of Oz is here, and has set ...
— Ozma of Oz • L. Frank Baum
... 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
... and followed her into the hotel. "More slang," he said. "I'll have to set you right on ...
— The Ragged Edge • Harold MacGrath
... went at the double-quick, with occasional rests. The road lay along Deer Creek, passing several plantations; and occasionally, at the bends, it crossed the swamp, where the water came above my hips. The smaller drummer-boys had to carry their drums on their heads, and most of the men slang their cartridge-boxes around their necks. The soldiers generally were glad to have their general and field officers afoot, but we gave them a fair specimen of marching, accomplishing about twenty-one ...
— Memoirs of Three Civil War Generals, Complete • U. S. Grant, W. T. Sherman, P. H. Sheridan
... that you will not indulge in slang out of your proper sphere—the kitchen. (Aside.) He's right! I am "squiffy"—in fact, I never was "squiffier." Fetch my smoking cap! (Exit DIBBS, R.) It would be rash of me to assert that I was not "off color" and as to being prepared to take my oath that I did not feel ...
— Three Hats - A Farcical Comedy in Three Acts • Alfred Debrun
... The slang was new to Hiram Ranger, but he understood. In important matters his fixed habit was never to speak until he had thought well; without a word he turned and, with a heaviness that was new in his movements, went into the dressing ...
— The Second Generation • David Graham Phillips
... rather nice. You'll find a bunch of clippings in my second drawer there. Be sure and show them to your father, and don't fail to keep him in touch with your work: he can help you once he's aroused to what you can do. By the way, you must boil the slang out of your system. It's charming, but it won't do. First thing you know it will be slipping in to your ink-pot and corrupting your manuscripts. You know better; I don't! As you go on Nan Bartlett can probably save you a good many bumps: she's a clever woman. ...
— Otherwise Phyllis • Meredith Nicholson
... Virtue and Truth, And the sweet little innocent prattle of Youth! The smallest urchin whose tongue could tang, Shocked the Dame with a volley of slang, Fit for Fagin's juvenile gang; While the charity chap, With his muffin cap, His crimson coat, and his badge so garish, Playing at dumps, or pitch in the hole, Cursed his eyes, limbs, body and soul, As if they did ...
— Playful Poems • Henry Morley
... are—but you want something more in a school. I hope the fresh teacher will be a regular sport, and that she'll use slang sometimes, and play hockey. That's my ideal of ...
— Monitress Merle • Angela Brazil
... see you don't put in your telly time, Mr. Tracy. Slang goes in cycles these days. They simply don't dream up a whole new set of expressions every generation anymore because everybody gets tired of them so soon. Instead, older periods of idiom are revived. For instance, scram is coming ...
— Subversive • Dallas McCord Reynolds
... said the other, seating himself, "or you would have brought one of the 'busy fellows' with you. Here again you must pardon the slang but we call the detective the 'busy fellow' to distinguish him from the 'flattie,' who is the regular cop. Unless you should be under any misapprehension, Mr. Beale, it is my duty to tell you that I am a representative of the criminal classes, ...
— The Green Rust • Edgar Wallace
... an earful that time," spoke Bud, in picturesque, western slang. "We'll have to let the bottle-breaker wait for a spell, until we size up this rustler question. We may have to get up a sheriff's posse and clean out ...
— The Boy Ranchers on the Trail • Willard F. Baker
... what Christine called a "turnip nose." He wore a very new school blazer and real cricket trousers, with a flannel shirt and school tie that gave Roy's tussore shirt and soft brown bow almost a girlish air. Something in his manner and the way he aired his school slang, made Roy—who never shone with strangers—feel "miles younger," which did not help ...
— Far to Seek - A Romance of England and India • Maud Diver
... but sailors' language," said Flora, "and I am sure he did not learn that of Mr. Ernescliffe. You never hear slang from him." ...
— The Daisy Chain, or Aspirations • Charlotte Yonge
... authority, do you mean?" asked Margaret, who could not abide slang of any kind. "No, indeed, Basil. Your Uncle John is the head of the house, in every possible way. I hope you are all going to be very good and obedient. He is the kindest, best ...
— Margaret Montfort • Laura E. Richards
... "American slang," he explained penitently. "I am sorry. I meant that it was very pleasant to be here alone with ...
— Mr. Grex of Monte Carlo • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... what she says," said Mr. Polteed, unlocking a bureau drawer and taking out a file of papers; "she sums it up somewhere confidentially. Yes, here it is! '17 very attractive—conclude 47, longer in the tooth' (slang for age, you know)—'distinctly gone—waiting his time—17 perhaps holding off for terms, impossible to say without knowing more. But inclined to think on the whole—doesn't know her mind—likely to act on impulse some day. Both ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... a dog as any of them, and far more than a match for the best of them at a tournament of slang, being on his preferment, thought it best to be civil, and replied, with a touch of his hat, that they were ...
— Mr. Sponge's Sporting Tour • R. S. Surtees
... polite, almost old- fashioned in his acknowledgment of the introduction. The women were suddenly conscious of a new-found glory in themselves. The "boneless wonder" talked of his elegance for weeks, and always without resorting to slang. ...
— The Rose in the Ring • George Barr McCutcheon
... together for the purpose of preying upon the patriots, and then retreating behind the shelter of the royal fortifications, were composed of the vilest miscreants that could be gathered from the dregs of any community, and were generally known by the slang name ...
— The Old Bell Of Independence; Or, Philadelphia In 1776 • Henry C. Watson
... seemed 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
... fairy tales. They blew soap-bubbles out on the lawn and let them float away over the garden and the orchard like fairy balloons. They had glorious afternoon teas under the beech tree. They made ice cream themselves. Jims even slid down the bannisters when he wanted to. And he could try out a slang word or two occasionally without anybody dying of horror. Miss Avery did not seem to mind it ...
— Lucy Maud Montgomery Short Stories, 1909 to 1922 • Lucy Maud Montgomery
... appearance of 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 ...
— The Irrational Knot - Being the Second Novel of His Nonage • George Bernard Shaw
... a far larger vocabulary available and in common use, and we possess slang not only of the different nations constituting the United Kingdom, but also slang from the United States, and from our Colonies, whilst we have a lawlessness in the use of our language not permitted to the French. There are disadvantages as well as advantages ...
— Our Stage and Its Critics • "E.F.S." of "The Westminster Gazette"
... tell of it 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 so much ...
— In Blue Creek Canon • Anna Chapin Ray
... surprise the girls were to receive that day. The other followed quickly on the heels of the first. It was Mollie who "sprung it," as Will said afterward, and even Grace did not rebuke him for his slang. ...
— The Outdoor Girls in a Winter Camp - Glorious Days on Skates and Ice Boats • Laura Lee Hope
... form of literature that calls for absolutely no equipment in the author. Writing a play, for instance, presupposes some acquaintance with a few plays already written. No one can succeed as a novelist without a fair knowledge of the technique of millinery or a tolerable mastery of stock exchange slang. The writer of scientific articles for the magazines must have fancy, and the writer of advertisements must have poetry and wit. But to produce a book of epigrams on Woman requires nothing but an elementary knowledge of spelling and the courage necessary to put the ...
— The Patient Observer - And His Friends • Simeon Strunsky
... torrent of abuse by declaring that Scott has encouraged the lowest panders of a venal press, 'deluging and nauseating the public mind with the offal and garbage of Billingsgate abuse and vulgar slang;' and presently he calls Scott—by way, it is true, of lowering Byron—'one of the greatest teachers of morality that ever lived.' He invents a theory, to which he returns more than once, to justify the contrast. Scott, he says, is much such a writer as the Duke of Wellington (the ...
— Hours in a Library - New Edition, with Additions. Vol. II (of 3) • Leslie Stephen
... paint precisely what it sees. To 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 are not sufficiently ...
— Continental Monthly , Vol. 5, No. 6, June, 1864 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various
... born of gratitude and close association, but it was the liking, also, which the steady, dull, stolid nature is apt to feel for one who is light and vivacious. Barnard's way of talking, particularly his own brand of slang, was very captivating to sober Tom, who could do big things but not little things. He had told himself many times that Barnard's scouts "must be crazy about him." And Barnard had laughed and said, "They must be crazy ...
— Tom Slade at Black Lake • Percy Keese Fitzhugh
... Lind's table, in fact. He was a man of about twenty-eight or thirty, slim and dark, with a perfectly pallid face, a small black mustache carefully waxed, and an affectedly courteous smile. He wore a pince-nez; was fond of slang, to show his familiarity with English; and aimed at an English manner, too. He seemed bored. He regarded this man whom Brand introduced to him without surprise, ...
— Sunrise • William Black
... novel, A Stumble on the Threshold, to Cambridge men or Camford men (for in this story the names are synonymous), will be the small-beer chronicle of small College life in their University some thirty years ago. The slang phrases of that remote period are perhaps somewhat confused with those of a more modern time, just as an old Dutch Master will introduce his own native town and the costume of his fellow-countrymen into a picture representing some great Scriptural subject, thus bringing it, ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 103, December 17, 1892 • Various
... the evening, when Diana had left him, and he had been thinking seriously of his own career, and those many transactions of his troubled life which, in the slang denomination of the day, would be called "shady," he derived some scrap of comfort from ...
— Charlotte's Inheritance • M. E. Braddon
... he, firmly, using more western slang than was necessary, though he was dependent upon such expressions for the force of ...
— Hope and Have - or, Fanny Grant Among the Indians, A Story for Young People • Oliver Optic
... of the Castle exhausted their adulation, and had received their last reward for upholding the appointment. The Tory press, hungry for the spoil which it maddened the others to lose, paid back the compliments by intense vituperation. The slang of party warfare was bandied in the usual fashion, without thought or a care beyond the interest of party. The Register, to everybody's astonishment, took up the one cause not represented, namely, that of the country. Davis ...
— The Felon's Track • Michael Doheny
... 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 ...
— The Physiology of Marriage, Part II. • Honore de Balzac
... gayety, latent cynicism, and an egregious assumption. When Lee had introduced him to the young ladies at Sarita Creek, he had made himself at home in three minutes. He had the latest witticisms of restaurants and theatres, the newest stories, the most recent slang; his clothes were of the autumn's extreme mode; he was intelligent if frankly materialistic; and he interested, amused, and diverted the two girls. From his gay and airy talk they gathered that he had been married and divorced, that the West might ...
— The Iron Furrow • George C. Shedd
... was Tom assured that the man was from the West. His speech savored of Mexican phrases and slang terms used mainly by Western citizens. And his abrupt and masterly manner and speech aided in this supposition. Tom Swift stayed not to utter a word. It was true he was not so frightened as he had at first been. But he was quite ...
— Tom Swift and his Electric Locomotive - or, Two Miles a Minute on the Rails • Victor Appleton
... about your appearance," said Mrs. Houghton, turning her eyes upon Lord George. He simpered and looked pleased and did not seem to be at all disgusted by their friend's slang, and yet had she talked of "awfully swell" parties, he would, she was well aware, ...
— Is He Popenjoy? • Anthony Trollope
... low-looking half-breeds in gaudy shirts, and wearing their black hair long and unkempt, were filling in the time waiting for breakfast, shooting "crap dice." The only words spoken between them were the filthy epithets and slang they addressed to the dice as they threw them, and the deep-throated curses ...
— The One-Way Trail - A story of the cattle country • Ridgwell Cullum
... held to be inexcusable, and Punch is pointed at with scorn for a misquotation from Horace; or an incorrect rendering in one of his drawings of an antiquarian inscription; or a slip in a Shakespearean line; or an inaccuracy in slang or dialect. Scottish, Irish, Suffolk, or Yorkshire must all be perfectly rendered, or the natives will know the reason why. In August, 1894, Mr. Hodgson sent from the Yorkshire moors a story of a keeper who, dissatisfied with the calendar, replies ...
— The History of "Punch" • M. H. Spielmann
... dread of tautology which, together with a fondness for misplaced pleasantry, gives rise to the vicious style described above. It gives some practical rules for writing a long sentence clearly and impressively; and it also examines the difference between slang, conversation, and written prose. Both for translating from foreign languages into English, and for writing original English composition, these rules have been used in teaching, and, we venture to think, with ...
— How to Write Clearly - Rules and Exercises on English Composition • Edwin A. Abbott
... the Duffer. "Only you mustn't slang Harrow. And you'd better get it into your silly head that it's the best school in this or ...
— The Hill - A Romance of Friendship • Horace Annesley Vachell
... "your eternal friend's delicate insinuation that you are a donkey. Here, come with me and I'll take you to be patted on." Henderson's exuberant spirits prevented his ever speaking without giving vent to slang, bad puns, or ...
— St. Winifred's - The World of School • Frederic W. Farrar
... follow, to stand a siege of kicks, cuffs, and bayonet pricks, and to be reduced, or what would be more appropriate in their case, raised at length by the application of a mud plaster to the nostrils, which would bring the beast up in an effort to breathe freely; from which may arise the slang phrase of "bringing it up ...
— Red-Tape and Pigeon-Hole Generals - As Seen From the Ranks During a Campaign in the Army of the Potomac • William H. Armstrong
... the same time. All the robbers are eager to see what Juan's scheme was. When they find out what Juan has done, and see the holes in the bottom of all the pots, they cannot help laughing. The captain, however, addresses Juan with all the epithets found in a common slang dictionary. The captain now decides never to let Juan stay in the house alone, and from that time on takes him with them on ...
— Filipino Popular Tales • Dean S. Fansler
... which will work without effort on the part of the people, we can sit at home while elections run themselves so well that only what the good people desire in political action will necessarily result. We want the equivalent of what, in the slang of practical mechanics, we call a fool-proof machine, because anybody can run it and no fool can interfere with its normal operation. So these political reformers are hunting a corrupt-politician-proof machine for government. It does not and cannot exist. No government can ...
— Ethics in Service • William Howard Taft
... like most of his class in Minnesota at that day, the Superior Being had enriched his vocabulary of slang with divers Indian words. Then, after a pause, he said: "What does he call it? I believe it's 'Charlton,' or suthin' of that ...
— The Mystery of Metropolisville • Edward Eggleston
... wanderings from Billingsgate to Limehouse Hole, from Petticoat Lane to Whitechapel Road; out of eel-pie shop and penny gaff; out of tavern and street, and court and doss-house, he had gathered together slang words and terms and phrases, and they came back to him now, and he stood up ...
— John Ingerfield and Other Stories • Jerome K. Jerome
... word wizardry, he had Billy Sunday, master of slang and argot of one language, skinned by miles. For in Abel Ah Yo were the five verbs, and nouns, and adjectives, and metaphors of four living languages. Intermixed and living promiscuously and vitally together, ...
— On the Makaloa Mat/Island Tales • Jack London
... fight. If soldiers come up to Colonel Roosevelt's standard of courage, their friends have no reason to feel ashamed of them. His commendation is equivalent to a medal of honor for conspicuous gallantry, because, in the slang of the camp, he himself is "a fighter from 'way back." I can testify, furthermore, from my own personal observation in the field-hospital of the Fifth Army-Corps Saturday and Saturday night, that the colored regulars who were brought in there ...
— Campaigning in Cuba • George Kennan
... it. Unfortunately, there may be a dictionary, and one may have it, and yet the word may not be there. It may be an old dictionary, and the word a new one; or a new dictionary, and the word an old one; a grave dictionary, and the word a slang one; a slang dictionary, and the word a grave one; and so on through a double line of battle of antitheses. Such is assuredly matter for serious cogitation: and voluntarily to encounter those anomalous perplexities requires no small amount of ...
— The Sailor's Word-Book • William Henry Smyth
... Everywhere was violent advertisement, until his brain swam at the tumult of light and colour. And Babble Machines of a peculiarly rancid tone were abundant and filled the air with strenuous squealing and an idiotic slang. "Skin your eyes and slide," "Gewhoop, ...
— The Sleeper Awakes - A Revised Edition of When the Sleeper Wakes • H.G. Wells
... do begin to understand your broken English better than I did; but no wonder I could not make it out very well at first, as you come from London; for every body knows that London slang is the most dreadful in the world. How queer it is now, that all the people that live in London should put the h where it is not, and never will put ...
— Domestic Manners of the Americans • Fanny Trollope
... any one else was doing. Miss Rutherford sat in the stern of the Tortoise and shouted encouraging remarks from time to time. She had, apparently, boated on the Thames at some time in her life, for she was mistress of a good deal of rowing slang which she used with vigour and effect. It cheered Frank greatly to hear the more or less familiar words, for he realised almost at once that neither Priscilla nor Jimmy Kinsella understood them. He felt a warm affection for Miss Rutherford rise in his heart when she told ...
— Priscilla's Spies 1912 • George A. Birmingham
... catalogue would fill pages. We will only add, that a few months since, in the city of London, Governor Hamilton, of South Carolina, went armed with pistols, to the lodgings of Daniel O'Connell, 'to stop his wind' in the bullying slang of his own published boast. During the last session of Congress Messrs. Dromgoole and Wise[41] of Virginia, W. Cost Johnson and Jenifer of Maryland, Pickens and Campbell of South Carolina, and we know ...
— The Anti-Slavery Examiner, Omnibus • American Anti-Slavery Society
... of Spanish thieves, justice is called "la justa" (the just), and this name is given in French slang to the Assizes, but, as Mayor observes, it may ...
— Criminal Man - According to the Classification of Cesare Lombroso • Gina Lombroso-Ferrero
... took hold of her—the fierce desire to be first in all the competitions of the atelier. David had the greatest difficulty in following her rapid speech, with its slang, its technical idioms, its extravagance and variety; but he made out that she had been for a long time deficient in sound training, and that her rivals at the atelier had again and again beaten her easily in spite of her gift, ...
— The History of David Grieve • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... sentimentality; and even a carping critic will find little to cavil at in her productions. If fault should be found with any of them it would probably be with such a narrative as "Wolverine." It "bites," like all her Indian pieces, and conveys a definite meaning. But, written in the conventional slang of the frontier, it jars with her other work, and seems out of form, if not ...
— The Moccasin Maker • E. Pauline Johnson
... a la porra is a vulgarism almost the same in meaning and use as the English slang, "Tell it to the policeman," porra being the Spanish term for the ...
— The Social Cancer - A Complete English Version of Noli Me Tangere • Jose Rizal
... into tears. "You've recently," she observed, "got into a new way. Whatever slang you happen to hear outside you come and tell me. And whenever you read any improper book, you poke your fun at me. What! have I become a ...
— Hung Lou Meng, Book II • Cao Xueqin
... to the man, and the mystery surrounding his appearance and disappearance. What did the woman mean by "halibi"? She supposed it must be a slang word, so it would be no use looking in a dictionary; perhaps ...
— Hunter's Marjory - A Story for Girls • Margaret Bruce Clarke
... uses slang of any kind, but this was a little too much, and with a most rueful expression of countenance he asked me "what in thunder I supposed a hint of a tint of a shade ...
— Miss McDonald • Mary J. Holmes
... fond of all kinds of sporting, it was not in his former crude way; he had even become something of a connoisseur of pictures and was cultivating a respect for the purity of the English language that made him wince at Susan's and Brent's slang. But when he spoke thus frankly and feelingly of the change in him, Susan looked at him—and, not having seen him in two weeks and three days, she really saw him for the first time in many a month. She could not think of the internal change he spoke of for noting the external change. He had grown ...
— Susan Lenox: Her Fall and Rise • David Graham Phillips
... talked a jargon of fashionable slang which Halcyone hardly understood. Some transient gleam of her beloved mother kept suggesting itself to her when Mabel smiled. The memory was not distinct enough for her to know what it was, but it hurt her. The big, bouncing, overdeveloped girl had so little ...
— Halcyone • Elinor Glyn
... to look closely at. If this is so, the history of the transition in meaning is unknown. J. B. Greenough (Harvard Studies in Classical Philology, i. 96) has suggested that the word is a military slang term. According to this theory desiderare meant originally to miss a soldier from the ranks at roll-call, the root being that seen in sedere, to sit, sedes, ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 8, Slice 2 - "Demijohn" to "Destructor" • Various
... Walter Scott, Byron, and Burns; so here there must be an inevitable reaction from austerity to a daring freedom which will take many various forms. From Carlyle's solemnising liturgy we were bound to pass to the slang and colloquialism of the man in the street and the woman in the modern novel. Body and spirit are always in unstable equilibrium, and an excess of either at once swings the fashion back to the other extreme. Carlyle had his day largely in consequence of what one may call the eighteenth-century ...
— Among Famous Books • John Kelman
... "It's worse than slang in the Army," laughed Hal. "The army 'goat' is the very new officer who has a lot of extra duties thrust upon him that the older officers don't want. Those duties of the 'goat' are generally both very trifling and ...
— Uncle Sam's Boys as Lieutenants - or, Serving Old Glory as Line Officers • H. Irving Hancock
... J. 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 ...
— The End of the Rainbow • Marian Keith
... shrewdly judicious of mankind; handled her pistol with experienced confidence; spoke, in a voice of surpassing sweetness, with decision and considerable overt contempt for the phraseology of convention—swearing without the least affectation, slanging heartily when slang best suited her humour.... ...
— The Day of Days - An Extravaganza • Louis Joseph Vance
... gone on his pedestrian trip. Not that he had any sportsman accoutrements, or used any slang as to the particulars of his expedition. In one respect he was prepared for his excursion on the strictest modern principles. He was lightly equipped as to clothing, and in woollen garments from top to toe. Better still, he had a light heart within, ...
— The Golden House • Mrs. Woods Baker
... difficult to find words to describe Nieuport as it is to talk of metaphysics in slang. The words don't seem invented that will convey that haunting sense of desolation, that supreme quiet under the shock of continually firing guns. Hardly anything is left now of the little homely bits that, when I saw the place last autumn, reminded one that this was once a city of living ...
— My War Experiences in Two Continents • Sarah Macnaughtan
... several gentlemen who have spoken on 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 a fertilizer for ...
— Lectures of Col. R. G. Ingersoll, Volume I • Robert Green Ingersoll
... mean hot weather, discomfort, parting, and death. That smell in our nostrils, and Adam's servant in waiting, we naturally fell back more and more on the old slang, recalling at each glass those who had gone before. We did not sit at the big table, but in the bay window overlooking the park, where they were carting the last of the hay. When twilight fell we would not have candles, but waited for the ...
— Actions and Reactions • Rudyard Kipling
... Sheitan. How that monstrous orange-tawny head grinned and wagged! How those flaps of ears were projected forwards, like unto those of a dog! How balefully those atrabilious eyes glistened! You laughed, and yet you shuddered. He spoke in mere doggerel and slang. He sang trumpery songs to negro melodies. He danced the Lancashire clog-hornpipe; he rattled out puns and conundrums; yet did he contrive to infuse into all this mummery and buffoonery, into this salmagundi of the incongruous and the outre, ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 13, No. 80, June, 1864 • Various
... Souvenirs, 1900: "Whoever reads Berlioz's scores before hearing them played can have no real idea of their effect. The instruments appear to be arranged in defiance of all common sense; and it would seem, to use professional slang, that cela ne dut pas sonner, but cela sonne wonderfully. If we find here and there obscurities of style, they do not appear in the orchestra; light streams into it and plays there as in the ...
— Musicians of To-Day • Romain Rolland
... Caput—a German slang expression with the general significance of the English "gone to smash," but also a hundred other and wider meanings, impossible to render ...
— The First Violin - A Novel • Jessie Fothergill
... literally this time slang is unknown to him; and re-reads it. That girl has come! There can't be any doubt of it. He had almost forgotten her existence during these past tranquil months, when no word or hint about her reached him, but ...
— A Little Rebel • Mrs. Hungerford
... 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
... Christmas present you can imagine, Adam?" she said. "If you are not suited with this it must be because, in the old slang, you 'want ...
— The Master-Knot of Human Fate • Ellis Meredith
... heard only the rattle of table utensils, but, with the sharp edge of appetites dulled, talk and joking retort ran about the board. Bud took his part, but the two easterners were silent, preferring to listen and learn. And they picked up many a gem of slang from ...
— The Boy Ranchers - or Solving the Mystery at Diamond X • Willard F. Baker
... age of colloquial idioms, when to write in a loose slang had become a mark of loyalty, this is the only L'Estrange vulgarism I have met with ...
— Coleridge's Literary Remains, Volume 4. • Samuel Taylor Coleridge
... indignation was curbed, however, by the bookmaker, who, having no views, but seeing an opportunity for fun, brought up reinforcements of chaff and slang, easily construable into profanity, and impregnated with terse humour. Many of the ladies had spoken of the bookmaker as one of the best-mannered men on board. So he was to all appearance. None dressed with better taste, nor carried himself with such ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... What of that? Was this singular apparition—as full of character as of terror—therefore the creature of my fancy, or the invention of my poor stomach? Was it, in short, subjective (to borrow the technical slang of the day) and not the palpable aggression and intrusion of an external agent? That, good friend, as we will both admit, by no means follows. The evil spirit, who enthralled my senses in the shape of that portrait, may have been just as near me, just as ...
— J. S. Le Fanu's Ghostly Tales, Volume 1 • Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu
... island of American territory in the harbor of Chefoo. Perhaps we were not content to sit at the mahogany table in the glistening white and brass bound wardroom surrounded by those eager, sunburned faces, to hear sea slang and home slang in the accents of Maine, Virginia, and New York City. We forgot our dark-skinned keepers with the slanting, suspicious, unfriendly eyes, with tongues that spoke the one thing and meant the other. All the memories of those six months of deceit, of broken ...
— Notes of a War Correspondent • Richard Harding Davis
... and these called to him to come back and take up his wanderings and his discoveries. Some day, I will tell you how he broke his promise to help a friend. That was long since, and he has, by this time, been nearly spoilt for what he would call shikar. He is forgetting the slang, and the beggar's cant, and the marks, and the signs, and the drift of the undercurrents, which, if a man would master, he must always continue ...
— The Works of Rudyard Kipling One Volume Edition • Rudyard Kipling
... "if you desire the continuance of my friendship, and if you wish to respect the dignity of morality and the English language, you must refrain from using such insinuating balderdash and bar-room-slang." ...
— The Black-Sealed Letter - Or, The Misfortunes of a Canadian Cockney. • Andrew Learmont Spedon
... guiding hand. The ex-gold-diggers, Baldwin Burr and Jacob Buckley, fought their battles over again, and sang the camp-fire songs. Philosopher Jack sat beside his mother, who was a little deaf, to explain the miners' slang and point the jokes. Watty Wilkins became involved in Susan, and was comparatively useless; but he laughed at the jokes, whether he saw them or not, and joined with telling effect in the choruses. Polly sang, in a voice that corresponded ...
— Philosopher Jack • R.M. Ballantyne
... tediousness. I have flaunted these truisms before you in order to exorcise that modern slang of yours which is more false than the overstrained forms of a feudal France. To shut out glory is not to be practical. You are not adjusting your life artistically; there is too much strain, too little warmth, ...
— The Kempton-Wace Letters • Jack London
... picture passed, sold it as a curiosity, not an original portrait, for L5. The buyer, being a person of ingenuity, and fonder of money than curiosities, fabricated a series of letters to and from Sir Kenelm Digby, and, passing over to France, planted—the slang term used among the less honest of the curiosity-dealing fraternity—the picture and the letters in an old chateau near Paris. Of course a confederate managed to discover the plant, in the presence of witnesses, ...
— The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb (Vol. 6) - Letters 1821-1842 • Charles and Mary Lamb
... I attended some readings where one of the clergy read a long extract from Bailey's "Festus," whilst he was succeeded by a vulgar fellow, evidently put in for "the gods," who delivered himself of a parody on Ingoldsby, full of the coarsest slang—nay, worse than that, abounding in immoralities which, I hope, made the parochial clergy sit on thorns, and place the reader on ...
— Mystic London: - or, Phases of occult life in the metropolis • Charles Maurice Davies
... seeks escape From all the carking cares that vex it, I will not plunge thee into crape By any ordinary exit: So when—in slang—I "take my hook," Detesting all that's mean and skimpy, a Reserved and numbered seat I'll book, And hie to ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Volume 102, January 16, 1892 • Various
... was still waiting at the footlights, evidently for the expected applause from the higher latitudes. And the gallery responded—how heartily, those who were present have never forgotten: roar upon roar, call upon call, round after round of applause, cries of approbation couched in choice Bowery slang, a genuine stampede that shook the spectators in their seats. It was an irresistible, insatiable, unappeasable, overwhelming clamor for more. The infection of enthusiasm was communicated to floors, balconies, ...
— Flamsted quarries • Mary E. Waller
... suspended from it by a cord, which is called the umbilical cord. When the child is born, the umbilical cord is cut, and the scar or depression in the abdomen where the umbilical cord was attached constitutes the navel or umbilicus (in slang language—button or belly button). The umbilical cord consists of two arteries and one vein embedded in a gelatin like substance and enveloped by a membrane, and it is through the umbilical cord that the blood from the placenta is brought ...
— Woman - Her Sex and Love Life • William J. Robinson |
