Ripper-Related Victorian Vocabulary

[Archaic]

Hi Martin, another great great observation! Thanks very much.

James Greenwood is one of my favorite Victorian authors and an invaluable source of information.

I love his little pen-name, "The Amateur Casual". (Adopted because he disguised himself as a poor person in order to get an inside view of the 'Casual Wards'.)

Best regards,
Archaic

[martin wilson]

Well,perhaps he did it just for jolly wouldnt you,
From James Greenwood The 7 Curses Of London 1869

One who assists at a sham street row for the purpose of creating a mob and promoting robbery from the person - jolly.

All the best.

[Cogidubnus]

At least you didn't say "Liz's better half"...

No, that'd be too much like two prisoners comparing life sentences!

Dave

[Archaic]

At least you didn't say "Liz's better half"...


Archaic

[Cogidubnus]

Kidney

Ah but if Kate's kidney were a clever reference to Liz's other half, that'd probably constitute a conspiracy theory!

All the best

Dave

[Archaic]

Hi Dave.

I see what you mean. Yes, it could be regarded as a reference to Stride.

I was thinking more along the lines that the kidney could be a wider reference to the killer's views of all prostitutes, or even of all women.

"They don't matter individually; they're all the same." That kind of attitude.

Best regards,
Archaic

[Cogidubnus]

Hi Archaic

'All The Year Round' was published by Charles Dickens. Here's the full entry from All the Year Round, 1875:

Kidney.—Of the same kidney, i.e. alike, resemblant. "Two of a kidney," says the Slang Dictionary, "means two persons of a sort, or as like each other as two peas, or two kidneys in a bunch." Gaelic, ceudna (pronounced kidna), identical, the same, similar. Ceudnachd, similarity.

- Perhaps by mailing Kate's kidney to George Lusk the killer was making the symbolic statement "They're all the same",
i.e. "One dead whore is the same as another"?

Re Kate Eddowes, isn't the Kidney reference just as much appropriate (if not more so) to Stride?

Dave

[Archaic]

"Of The Same Kidney" + Kate's Kidney = "One Dead Whore Is the Same As Another"?

Hi Martin.

Thank you for that contribution, it's a really good one!

'All The Year Round' was published by Charles Dickens. Here's the full entry from All the Year Round, 1875:

Kidney.—Of the same kidney, i.e. alike, resemblant. "Two of a kidney," says the Slang Dictionary, "means two persons of a sort, or as like each other as two peas, or two kidneys in a bunch." Gaelic, ceudna (pronounced kidna), identical, the same, similar. Ceudnachd, similarity.



- Perhaps by mailing Kate's kidney to George Lusk the killer was making the symbolic statement "They're all the same",
i.e. "One dead whore is the same as another"?

Best regards,
Archaic

[Cogidubnus]

Dead Reckoning

Beware the (controversial and at times heated) "dead reckoning" debate...As "dead reckoning" was used in navigational terms as early as the 17th Century (and deduced reckoning can only be factually referenced back to the early 1930s) most people reckon the origin is a comparison of positions deduced by currents/speed of sailing from a theoretical object laying dead in the water...

With landsmen assuming it related to complete accuracy (it didn't - just the nearest they could get before Harrison's horological work) it could indirectly be the origin of all the other "dead" phrases above!

Dave

[martin wilson]

Victorian Slang.

This caught my eye in The Victorian Dictionary, from All The Year Round,October 17 1874.
Kidney; Of the same kidney i.e. alike,resemblant.
All the best

[Archaic]

"Dead To Rights" = Detective Speech

1889 dictionary:

Dead to rights (police slang), employed by detectives when they have quite convicted a criminal, and he is positively guilty. "I've got him dead to rights." It is often employed in a more general sense to indicate certainty of success. It seems to have originated in America.

[Archaic]

"Dead Certain", etc.

An explanation of the slang term "dead", as in "dead certain", from an 1889 dictionary:

Death is a natural metaphor for completeness, for exhaustion or exhaustiveness; dead is a common prefix, expressing the same idea in "dead on," "dead-nuts," "dead certain," "dead beat," "dead heat."

Dead right!
Archaic

[Cogidubnus]

Slightly less palatable than the eels!

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jellied_eels

Dave

[Rubyretro]

Will you be making your famous Peanut Butter and Eel Jelly sandwiches?

Not at all, Bunny.

I was going for the rather more staid recipé of sticking it on top of some stale
biscuits steeped in the ends of yesterday's party, a can of tinned peaches, a bit of that whippy pressurised 'cream' ET VOILA !

(how does THAT sound to you, Dave ?).

[Archaic]

[QUOTE=Rubyretro;230001]

...how do you make 'eel jelly' ? (just in case I ever invite you round to my place...! ).

Hi Ruby.

Will you be making your famous Peanut Butter and Eel Jelly sandwiches?

Hmm, the consistency of that combo might require a beverage to wash it down with... Like whiskey, or maybe a shot of drain-cleaner.

Archaic