THE PUBLIC SCHOOL WORD-BOOK ------------------------------------------------------------------------ THE PUBLIC SCHOOL WORD-BOOK A CONTRIBUTION TO A HISTORICAL GLOSSARY OF WORDS PHRASES AND TURNS OF EXPRESSION OBSOLETE AND IN PRESENT USE PECULIAR TO OUR GREAT PUBLIC SCHOOLS TOGETHER WITH SOME THAT HAVE BEEN OR ARE _MODISH_ AT THE UNIVERSITIES BY JOHN S. FARMER EDITOR OF “AMERICANISMS—OLD AND NEW,” “REGIMENTAL RECORDS OF THE BRITISH ARMY,” AND (WITH W. E. HENLEY) “SLANG AND ITS ANALOGUES,” ETC. LONDON PRIVATELY ISSUED FOR SUBSCRIBERS ONLY BY HIRSCHFELD BROTHERS 13 FURNIVAL STREET, E.C. MCM ------------------------------------------------------------------------ [Illustration] PREFACE It has been a matter of note and, maybe, of surprise that no attempt has hitherto been made to gather in one volume the numerous Words, Phrases, and Turns of Expression peculiar to OUR GREAT PUBLIC SCHOOLS. Bare lists of a dozen or more examples may be found in certain (mostly out-of-date) Records and Histories; but taking the Schools individually, only in one instance—Winchester—has there been anything but the most perfunctory attention given to the subject; and in no case has the question received that analytical, scientific treatment—historically and comparatively—which has proved so invaluable in the “Oxford Dictionary” and in “Slang and its Analogues.” It would, however, seem almost necessary to emphasise the fact that this Word-Book is not, _per se_, a dictionary of school slang. On the contrary, it is far more than that. For, though such colloquialisms as are _peculiar_ to Public School life are naturally and rightly included, yet by far the larger number of the examples here set down do not, by any accepted method of classification, fall within that category. I am led to make this clear at the outset by reason of a somewhat curious, but altogether erroneous idea that the present book was to be a mere reprint of extracts from the larger work on which, for many years, I have been engaged. That is not so. Nor, moreover, do these words and phrases appear, save in very few instances, in any other work—not even in so admirably complete a dictionary, in other respects, as “The Century,” while the monumental Oxford undertaking will not be available, as a complete authority, for many years to come.