The
street boys of our day and early home were wont to term the _hetairai_
of the public walks "scup." The young Athenians applied to the classic
courtesans the epithet of [Greek: saperdion], the name of a small fish
very abundant in the Black Sea. Here now is a bit of slang which may
fairly be warranted to keep fresh in any climate.
But boy-talk is always lively and pointed; not at all precise, but very
prone to prosopopeia; ever breaking out of the bounds of legitimate
speech to invent new terms of its own. Dr. Busby addresses Brown, Jr.,
as Brown Secundus, and speaks to him of his "young companions." Brown
himself talks of "the chaps," or "the fellows," who in turn know Brown
only as Tom Thumb. The power of nicknaming is a school-boy gift, which
no discouragement of parents and guardians can crush out, and which
displays thoroughly the idiomatic faculty. For a man's name was once
_his_, the distinctive mark by which the world got at his identity.
Long, Short, White, Black, Greathead, Longshanks, etc., told what a
person in the eyes of men the owner presented. The hereditary or
aristocratic process has killed this entirely. Men no longer make their
names; even the poor foundlings, like Oliver Twist, are christened
alphabetically by some Bumble the Beadle.
Pages:
85
86
87
88
89
90
91
92
93
94
95
96
97
98
99
100
101
102
103
104
105
106
107
108
109