I thought that the Clink Prison took the name from the river nearby. A number of the Thames tributary rivers are now under the city.

I remember once hearing the term "the laughing factory" to describe a mental hospital. Of course, now it is the name of a chain of comedy clubs, which I suppose makes a certain amount of sense.

LOL friedag, aren't all the threads "devoted to" words? ;) Your wit is wonderfully dry.

I have heard hoosegow and clink but had no idea how they came to mean jail. I have heard "booby hatch" too. Here in California the Camarillo State Mental Hospital was called that. Camarillo has been closed for more than a decade, but at one time its inmates were unkindly referred to as "boobies." They were not the violent criminal types (those went to Atascadero and now Coalinga) but were usually dangerous only to themselves. I still hear mentally ill persons called boobies occasionally, usually by older people, since that word means something else to younger people.

Annpan, I'm not familiar enough with the Thames tributaries to correlate. I do know about the River Fleet, now underground, that gave the name to the street, which in turn lent itself to publishing. I was at the Clink Prison Museum a few days ago and got most of my information from the exhibits and guides. There is a Clink Street, but I don't know which came first, the prison or the street. I tend to think the 'clink' name from the clinking sound is probably folk etymology. In that case, I would have called the prison "The Clank," clank being a harsher sound and word than 'clink' to me. But the guide added an alternate theory that the clink was the sound of the warden's keys as he made his rounds, locking up. It's a neat little tale, I think, and I'm likely to remember it over the more prosaic naming of the prison for a nearby street or river -- that's just how my mind works.

Tim, "laughing factory" and "funny farm" -- I'm reminded that once upon a time normal people visited asylums to be entertained by the crazy folks' antics. They must have been desperate for laughs, but then there's a lot about humor that completely mystifies me, including the love of slapstick, slipping on banana peels and all. It's still alive on some of those television shows where people hurt themselves doing stupid things and the bystanders think it's hilarious.

Ha! Lydia, you caught me. My wit might be dry if it's intended. I'll accept the compliment, though. :-)

I wonder where 'booby/boobies' come in for folk without all their mental faculties. (Or for that matter, the use to describe part of female anatomy.) There's a bird called a "booby"; does it act oddly or entertainingly?

Friedag, I read once that when the first asylum opened in Toronto (in the mid nineteenth century) that the new building was inaugurated with an elegant ball attended by the city wealthiest families. Weird, weird, weird!

I've also heard the term "laughing academy" to describe a mental hospital.

My favorite, outdated term for prison is "slammer". In old movies, someone is always getting hauled off to the slammer.

Annpan, the prison named after the Thames tributary was the Fleet. Dickens put Mr Pickwick in there for debt. In real-life CD's father, also a debtor, was in the Marshallsea Prison, quite near the Clink South of the Thames as were Mr and Little Dorrit. Don't know where the Clink word comes from. Could it have been a narrow alley?
Frieda, did you ever get the chance to read Gillian Tindell's The House by the River? Set in the area that you have just visited and, from looking at photos on Google, a place that has got rather trendy and up-market. When I was last there (mid 80's) the 'docklands' development was just happening and I made a point of visiting St Mary Overie (Southwark Cathedral) to see the tomb of Shakespeare's brother Gilbert. Before the '80's it was a part of London one did well to keep away from, especially after dark.
Re booby - booby house We don't use that expression over here and a Mental Hospital (nearly all gone with their sorry inmates undergoing 'care-in-the-community' ie often out in the street harming themselves and other people) was uncharitably know as the 'loony bin' or just by the name of the nearest such institution to your home.
I believe I'm right in saying that one of Bill Bryson's first jobs on coming over to the UK was as a ward-orderly in such a place.
I don't think booby means someone mad in 'English' just perhaps rather weak in the head, drippy/dopey. Apparently it comes from the Latin balbus meaning stammering. From there we get booby prize and booby trap.
As you say Frieda, in times past quality folk used to pay to visit the Bethlehem Hospital, better know as Bedlam . . . must have been a noisy place. It was where Liverpool St Station now stands. There is no accounting for humour.

friedag, to me "The Big House" is synonymous with "The Pen." I think the nickname "Pen" is a better description of the place than "penitentiary." Few of the felons housed in one come out penitent, do they? A building inside a pen (with fences) is exactly where they are held.

I think you are right about jails in the U.S. being short-term holding places and prisons are for longer terms. Pens would be for the longest possible terms.

The word reformatory has been replaced with Youth Detention Center. Juvenile delinquents are now "youthful offenders." I guess the change of name is supposed to be a more hopeful outlook. Fat chance, I'm afraid.

Vee: You are correct about the Fleet but I also thought that the Clink was similarly named after a river. It would make sense to locate a building such as a prison near a river for sanitary(!) waste disposal.
RPers: I recently looked up a word I was not familiar with and found it related to a sexual practice and there were numerous other words for this! Then I got some spam that made me wonder if someone had tracked this on-line quest. Can this happen? I hope it was just a co-incidence!

Yes Ann, it most certainly can. You have picked up some spyware but don't worry, it can be fixed. You can download a program that will hunt down and remove the vile things. In addition to the obvious, spyware will slow your computer considerably.

In line with the penal theme, when my cousins and I would yell at my grandfather to drive faster down the big hill in town, he tell us if he did, the police would "pinch" him. Is that common? We thought it was a riot. In another vein, we use booby-trap as slang for a particular undergarment in my house.

Siobhan, thanks for that advice. I have asked my 'computer guy' to help me sort it out.

Tim, "slammer" is a good one. I think of Jimmy Cagney or maybe Robert Mitchum saying it, although it must have been common in a lot of film noir.

Lydia, your summation of jail/prison/penitentiary sounds exactly right to me. I was going to say "spot on," but I'm beginning to tire of that phrase. I'm not sure why Americans have embraced this borrowing from the English so wholeheartedly unless we needed to replace our own worn out phrases: what were some of them? One was on the money.

Vee, yes, I read The House by the Thames. Three years ago I ventured within four to six feet of the front door, trying to be nonchalant, because I wanted to get that view of St. Paul's. I think I saw the area about the same time you did, circa 1985. The place looked like a gigantic rubbish tip. It has tidied up quite well; but I just can't see the modern buildings aging with any grace, and certainly not lasting three or four hundred years. But who knows? If they do last, future folk might think late 20th-century architecture is quaintly appealing. BTW, I finally got a clear day to go on the London Eye. In 2007 it was raining so hard that I felt I was in a submarine.

Bookmom, I don't think I've heard "pinch" used that way. Your "booby trap" reminds me of a similar phrase used in my family: "t*tty corraler." :-)

I just thought of another word for an undergarment that, as far as I know, is unique to my family. I don't really know how to spell it, but it sounds like groyces, rhymes with the possessive royce's. It means underpants. No one in my family remembers its origin, yet I've suspected it must be our rendering of a non-English word. I've checked German, French, and Norwegian, but nothing seems to fit. Any ideas from you all?

"pinch" must be regional, because that meaning is common where I live.

i.e.: The cops pinched him for soliciting. (There really was a big sting downtown last weekend....they hauled in many "lonely men" and many "ladies of the evening.")

I have heard 'pinched' used in that way.

Gaol (or maybe jail, although I would never spell it that way) or prison are commonly used in Australia.

With regard to the 'loony bin', I think it is very common to use the local name. In Adelaide, it is Glenside.

We also had an institution for mentally disabled people which was called Minda Home. As a child at school, we called others 'a Minda' as a tease. Using the name properly still makes me feel uncomfortable.

We never used the words at home, but at school a bra could be an 'over shoulder boulder holder' (the last three all rhyme in Auslish) or an 'upper decker flopper stopper'.

Sadly, unlike Frieda, we had no good word for underpants, merely calling them undies.

Of course, in Australia, Speedo bathers/cossies/bathing costumes for men are called budgie smugglers. Sadly, the Leader of the Opposition is keen on triathlons and has been photographed wearing them. Don't click on the link if you have recently eaten.

Here is a link that might be useful: {{gwi:2117373}}

Kath, just had to re-log in after seeing that photo; it 'froze' the computer; really.
The term 'undies' in the UK usually refers to the frilly sort of underwear worn by females, otherwise we say pants or, for men, underpants . . which must be a word borrowed from the US as we don't call the outer garment 'pants', but 'trousers'.
Can't think of a word that matches 'groyces'. Was it a family reference to 'pants' Frieda? I wonder if it could be to do with the material from which they were made . . such as 'grossgrain'?
Over here, until recently men/boys wore grey (or white for cricket) 'flannel' trousers/shorts (especially as school uniform or 'casual' wear with a sports jacket) They were always just known as 'flannels'.

A word new to me and found in The Lost Garden by ex English writer and now CA rose grower, Anthony Eglin.
Conniption. "Granny would have a conniption if she knew I'd borrowed the car". Never heard of it. Apparently it is US slang for a tantrum/rage. And as with Ms Simonson in Major Pettigrew . . . Eglin, although writing a story set in England has mixed his languages . . .several other eg's I keep noticing. Doesn't detract from the story but I find it interesting. ;-)

I meant to add that pinch is a very common word over here for 'steal', usually of small items or perhaps shop-lifting.
Often the police are described as having nicked someone ie arrested them. On TV shows the copper, old bill, filth 'feels the collar' of the perp (as you say in the US) and tells him "You're nicked". He is then put in a Black Maria (Paddy Waggon) and taken to the 'nick' . . . the police station . . . although nick can also mean prison.
The word 'bobby' for police officer is rarely used these days.

With Dh being a homicide detective, I get to hear the inside scoop on these things. He uses "slammer" for prison, and "cherries and berries" for the red/blue lights on the top of the cars. A POPO is a Pissed off police officer, but now we use it as a catch-all for any black-and-white car we see. "Watch out, there's a POPO"... (said to rhyme with "no-no"..)

I get annoyed with people called the police "pigs" or different, but I am curious when the slang term came from.
We used to have friends (before Dave's police days) who would make oinking noises when they saw a POPO, and actually someone who was very drunk said a lot of uncouth words about Dh on a call he was investigating. The guy ended up w a disorderly conduct on his record. (There was much more to it than just being rude in case you think Dave is being badge-heavy...)

I wonder if other PDs across the nation use similar slang or if they invent their own. I do know that the guys show no mercy to each other - you expose one weakness, one sliver of skin in your armour, and BAM. They're in like a pack of wolves. Kinda funny.

It is probably passe now, but a few years ago when my grandson and his friends were graduating from little-boy underwear to grown-up boxer shorts, they referred to the former as "tighty whities."

Kentuckians use pinch and conniption fit.

Re spot on:

Hit the nail on the head, eventually shortened to
Nailed
Hit the bullseye, shortened to
Bullseyed

I agree, friedag, that all of the above are hackneyed. I think Americans latched on to "spot on" because it sounded fresh...for a while. I have never know what "spot" was being referred to though. Is it the center spot (bullseye) of a target?

I remember when the fashion reporters said the Princess of Wales was fond of fabrics with spots. I envisioned something like inkspots. Then I saw that they meant dots (polka dots) to Americans.

I do not know why police were called pigs. I recall "fuzz" was another (mildly?) insulting term, but I have not heard it recently.

I have heard "pinch" meaning to steal, pilfer, &c but not in the sense of a policeman writing a citation.

Police are also called 'pigs' in Australia, but I think it is not as common now as a few years ago.
British TV crime shows have taught me to use 'blues and twos' for flashing lights and sirens. I guess the 'twos' comes from the two different tones of the siren - wee wah, wee wah. Here we have blue and red lights on police cars and I don't know of any local name for them.

Conniption fit is a term I have used. It is known of but not widely used here.

My son is an Aussie hiphop artist and the language he uses is interesting. Anything really good is 'dope' and he calls his mates 'mang', as in 'how's it going mang?' If he agrees, he is 'down with that'.

What about drinking establishments? In Australia, we would 'go down the pub' for a drink and possibly a meal. A bar is usually a part of a pub (hotel) and until the 1970s women didn't go into the 'front bar'. They were relegated to the more expensive and theoretically nicer 'lounge bar'.

Kath, wasn't it the case until not SO long ago that Aussie pubs closed at 6pm when a great deal of last-minute drinking had to take place?
A UK pub used to have two or three 'bars'. The public, maybe a saloon bar and sometimes a 'lounge' with prices graded accordingly. Today most of the places have been opened up, dining rooms have been added, TV for big games/matches and even those horrible fruit machines. Far more places serve meals (not much profit to be made from booze alone) Hotels and pubs are not the same, as pubs don't provide beds for the night . . although inns do.
In the UK under the New Labour Govt of T Blair, the licensing restrictions on pub opening hours was 'deregulated' and they could choose when/how long they stayed open. I think the Govt saw us as following the Continental pattern of families sitting outside on summer evenings sipping cocktails. They seemed to have forgotten that young Anglo-Saxon males (and now almost worse, females) see the whole purpose of a Friday/Saturday night 'on the 'town' as an excuse to get bevvvied up, to pour gallons of booze down their throats, vomit, urinate in the streets and often land up in the over-stretched casualty dept of the local hospital.
I am all for people having a good time but many cities and towns throughout the country have become w/end 'no-go' areas between 10 at night and 3 the next morning.

Since I'm usually about two decades behind whatever is current in slang, I'm learning new things from you all. Of course by the time I have the opportunity to actually use these words and phrases, they will be so yesterday. Using "so" already is, I think. Oh well, I like my comfortable shoes -- not giving a fig for fashion -- but, I swear, it's easy to misinterpret what people say and write. For instance:

Kath, if I had heard your son and his mang say "down with that," I would have assumed just the opposite of agreement. Down isn't usually a positive. Except maybe in "gid down" (get down). Yikes! Slang is meant to be perverse, though -- inclusive to only those who know, especially generationally.

Lydia, all those phrases and words convey the meaning, but I'm not sure if there really is, or ever was, a particular spot meant -- it's just the right spot. My daddy always said after a good meal, "That hit the spot." Of course the spot was physically his stomach, but his meaning was more of satisfaction, perhaps of a craving that he didn't know he had until he was finished eating. I was told by an English friend that "spot on" was either a catchphrase in an advertisement or possibly the brandname of a product, but the details have evaporated from my mind. Perhaps Vee can help us with that derivation.

Vee, thanks for the suggestion of checking out materials/fabrics. I will. I figure that whatever the origin I will be smacking my forehead at the obviousness. I am rather fond of groyces, actually. After all, I've only known it for going on sixty years. I plan to teach it to my granddaughter -- did I tell you that DS#2 and DDIL are expecting a girl? Girls are rare gems for our side of the family; thus we are over the moon. :-)

The only drinking establishment that has ever made sense to me is the Biergarten. The rest have purposes and rules that I can't keep straight. My older DS was a bartender for a couple of years in Hilo, HI. Whew! The tales he can tell.

Vee, the 'six o'clock swill' finished in SA in 1967 when our forward thinking Premier, Don Dunstan, made it 10pm closing for hotels. Dunstan was definitely progressive, wearing pink shorts into Parliament at one time, and later 'came out'.
We also suffer from young people drinking way too much - binge drinking as it is called. The clubs are open all hours it seems.
Our hotels are also now very conscious of serving food, much of it very good.

Hello Friedag,
I seem to recall a word much like groyces for underpants being used in the Canadian prairies. My recollection is that it was derived from an eastern European word for horseman`s pants.
At one time a lot of people from the Ukraine settled in the Canadian prairies. Does your family have any eastern European connections?

I also get confused with phrases being opposite to what they appear to be. e.g. "Fully sick" meaning "Excellent!". In the book I am reading "Lucked out" is used in the sense of getting lucky, as I came to realise. At first I thought the dauntless detective had been foiled in her search!

Frieda, I didn't realise that spot-on was just a UK expression. I don't know what its 'root' is. Often said over here after a long cool drink on a hot day.
Congratulations to the parents-to-be, didn't even know you son was married . . . although these days, in the UK, the wedding ceremony and childbirth have little connection. As my late Father used to say (he was given to silly comic lines) "Married in the nick of time and born in the Vestry". Our son and d-in-L are 'expecting' in mid-Nov, a couple of weeks before our DD gets married. D-in-L is Japanese and seems to come from a tradition of treating pregnancy as an 'illness'. She tells me that after the birth the new mother is 'nursed back to health' at her parents home for a month. In the UK the modern trend is for the NHS to have you out of hospital within hours and despite home visits from the mid-wife you are left rather high and dry . . .unless you count paternity leave granted to all fathers.
Back to 'words'! Ian's explanation of 'groyces' sounds realistic. I like the US expression 'skivvies' for underwear, over here the word just means a drudge/lowly servant.

I was intrigued by the word "groyces" to describe underpants on the Canadian prairies. When I was a child (in Ontario), these garments were described as "gotchies", or sometimes "gotches". These words were not at all respectable, and were twittered by naughty children when no adults were within earshot.

Vee, what on earth is a "fruit machine"?

A fruit machine is a gambling machine that pays out money when certain combinations of diagrams, usually fruit, appear on a dial. Do you not have a similar name for them in the US?

I think the US term for "fruit machines" is slot machines. The fruit machine name comes from the fact that the items in the windows that twirl (and you try to match) were various, but the most (perhaps only?) successful pattern was three fruits in a row.

I am not too sure though - I have never paid much attention to that stuff.

I remember being told that my father (an aspiring actor before his marriage) had a speaking part in a theatre production. He had to "play" a fruit machine, make a disgusted face and his one line was "Three lemons!" so it would seem that not all triple combinations paid out.

Even though I feel like the pervy poster popping back in to discuss underwear... Timallen, your post brought tears to my eyes. My mom had a dear friend, a Canadian, who was a ball of fire and so so much fun. She called them undergotchies and so sometimes my family does also. I was going to post and ask if any Canadians were familiar with the term because we just thought she had made it up. Sadly, the friend died of cancer while still in her 40's.

Young people drinking to excess is endemic in the US also. Baltimore has Fells Point, loaded with bars. Same situations, vomiting, public urination, rowdiness but what is scary is the violence that often crops up too. "Partying" is like a rite of passage for late teens through twenties. I engaged in the same sort of behavior almost 30 years ago and it was nothing new for college students. Now two drinks on my deck makes for a wild evening.

I have been noticing lately in some of the books I have been reading that the authors/editors have not been putting the period/full stop after someone's title (e.g. Mrs would not have a period/full stop after it). It has cropped up in books both written/printed in the US and other places, so am wondering if this is a new trend. It looks wrong to me though.

Has anyone else spotted this or am I being particularly pedantic?

Bookmom41, your mother's friend was using a variation which I had forgotten. I haven't thought about "gotchies" in decades, but for some reason, my brain did not let go of that silly childhood memory. Siobhan had a post on that topic not long ago.

lemonhead101, yes I have noticed that many "minor" punctuation marks are disappearing. The periods after abbreviations no longer seem to be required. Apostrophes indicating contractions are another casualty. I see dont, doesnt, werent... I do not like those, but they usually do not slow my reading. However wont, Id, cant...without apostrophes are completely different words and I often stumble over them.

It must be the Internet that is popularizing minimum punctuation. Unfortunately book publishers seem to be following the trend.

I was digging around and found this interesting historical site stuffed with interesting tid bits. Related to the discussion about why things are called what they are called, here is a blog post about the historical background of some of London's place names...

The blog is really well done should you decide to poke around...

Here is a link that might be useful: Two Nerdy History Girls blog

Oh, and this has been irritating me lately: the spelling of "vampire" like "vampYre".... Huh?

This could easily go in the "down home expressions" thread, but I'm too lazy to hunt for that one, so I'll put it here.

I was reading something this morning where the character put on her Friday face. Hadn't come across that expression in a very long time, which made me wonder where the expression originated. I found this explanation:

"A dismal countenance. Before, and even long after the Reformation, Friday was a day of abstinence, or jour maigre. Immediately after the restoration of king Charles II. a proclamation was issued, prohibiting all publicans from dressing any suppers on a Friday."
Taken from The 1811 Dictionary of the Vulgar Tongue, originally by Francis Grose

Re the Internet popularizing minimum punctuation, I think advertising is just as much of a culprit.

Lydia, I get confused with possessive apostrophes. My post in the "Summer" thread had me puzzling whether to put "its or it's beak". I think I went for the wrong one!

Liz, re a full stop after a word 'contraction'. I think with Mrs, Mr etc there is no full stop because the word ends in the last letter of the full word. (Mister/ Mr). It is when a word such as Captain is shortened to Capt or Reverend to Rev that it should be followed by the full stop . . . although this is frequently no longer the case.

Thanks, Vee. I hadn't thought about that side of things...

And Annpan re: its/it's:

"Its" = possessive (i.e. its beak)....

"It's" = contraction of "it is".... (It's raining.)

Took me a while to sort that out, but when you have to teach it, you have to know it so I finally got it squared away. I used to have problems with "definitely" but got it in my head by remembering "de-finite-ly" using "finite" as the opposite of "infinite"... For some reason that works.

Plus "affect" vs "effect" but got that sorted out by remembering the alphabet: a comes before e, verb comes before noun, (you affect an effect)... :-)

Lemonhead: Thanks, hooray! I got it right then. "It's beak" did look wrong and so I altered it but was a bit dubious, wondering if this was a contraction of "it HIS beak" which seemed clumsy. My grammar lessons were nearly sixty years ago and now I go by sound and sight with the language!

I am re-reading the delightful "A Child of the Forest", set in the Forest of Deane area of England. Deciphering the "Anglicisms" therein started me wondering why it is the English like to add the "ie" or the "y" onto the endings of so many nouns. Examples: "pinafore" becomes "pinny" and "present" morphs into "prezzie." I've noticed many other like examples in my readings.

Wood - Glad you are enjoying the wonderful "Child/Forest" book. My library has the prettiest edition of this, and I donated the other two in the trilogy, but have a strong feeling they went into the FoL book sale instead of on the shelves which I had intended to make up the trilogy for other people.

As for the adding of the "-ie" sound to words in English, that is quite common even now.

"Brekkies" - breakfast
"Sarnies" - sandwiches
"Prezzies" - presents/gifts

Also, there used to be a penchant for reducing some names to "-az" such as:

Sharon --> Shaz or Shazzer
Barry --> Baz or Bazzer
Des --> Dezzie

This might just be my group of friends though... We had a mixed bunch (social class speaking) and I think this shortening was a lower class trend... I could be mistaken as it may vary in other regions...

lemonhead/Liz, I think those names are considered very chavvy these days (whether shortened or not). Endless lists of Sharon's, Kevin's, Tracy's, Wayne's, Jason's etc. all very popular in the '80's. Not that they can help what their parents chose to call them! Things are more exotic these days with Bailey, Tyler, Aran and so on . . for either sex.
And as you say, to a large extent it is still a 'class' thing over here. In the long-ago days when I was born nearly everyone had a Christian name (as the first name is still often known) . . .exotic was frowned upon especially in my family. My surname was 'Rose' and my Mother wanted my youngest brother to be called 'Tudor' . . . I can still remember what my Father said.

I was told by a British person that the addition of 'ie' to words was a very Australian trait. We have so many words like that:
Uni - university
Tinnie or coldie for a beer
Sickie - sick day
Blowie - blowfly
Footy - football
u-ie - u turn

I could go on, but I won't :-)

Vee, what does "chavvy" mean?

I am finding that "A Child in the Forest" is quite reminiscent of Laurie Lee's "Cider With Rosie".

I thought this might be a suitable thread to share something I saw that would amuse RP'ers.
I sometimes use the subtitle button on my TV and am amazed by the inaccuracies. Understandable when the poor subtitler has to bash out some live program but no excuse when there is a film etc. with preparation time.
Last night I watched a murder mystery and we were informed that the dead person was "diseased" and there was "Louis Cannes" furniture.
I get double enjoyment from watching the show and working out the true meaning. The only time I can put up with errors!

Punctuation seems to be going out of style, and I hold the US Post Office partly responsible. If you've ever tried to send anything by its online system for doing address labels, you know that the system refuses to accept punctuation marks, insists on block capitals, and if you want to write out "south" instead of using the letter S, it won't allow you to. That's the letter S without a period.

I did try repeatedly to get "south" written out instead of abbreviated because my address at the time came out looking like 4015 JAY ST instead of 401 S JAY ST, and letters failed to reach me because mail carriers misread the address. If there had even been a period after the S, the problem probably wouldn't have arisen.