Auk's dimber tip to all flash coves

Gwern Branwen · 10 Jul 2009, 12:16 · from 2009-July.txt.gz

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From: gwern0 at gmail.com (Gwern Branwen)
Date: Fri, 10 Jul 2009 08:16:11 -0400
Subject: (urth) Auk's dimber tip to all flash coves
In-Reply-To: <44fb53d10907092123s5cc08821y5d88fe9e22031f17 at mail.gmail.com>
References: <cbf55b100907090958g76c30a74wc96e9961cea9f66a at mail.gmail.com>
	<44fb53d10907092123s5cc08821y5d88fe9e22031f17 at mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <cbf55b100907100516i520f2ceej7fd4d3d29ae0010a at mail.gmail.com>

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On Fri, Jul 10, 2009 at 12:23 AM, Matthew Keeley wrote:
> That's pretty great. Makes me want to go and dig out the bilingual
> Villon I bought for a college French class on medieval violence.
>
> Thieves' cant shows up in quite a few Victorian novels - There's a bit
> in Oliver Twist, for example. A quick Google search says that William
> Harrison Ainsworth's novel Rookwood is full of it. A slightly longer
> Google search turned up this ebook:
>
> http://gutenberg.net.au/ebooks06/0600111.txt
>
> It's an 1812 dictionary of thieves' cant by an ostensibly reformed thief. Enjoy!
>
> -Matt

That's a nice link too. But while we're on the topic, what's the
Urth.net consensus on the cant in the Long Sun? Did Wolfe make it up,
only patterning it on English thieves' argot, or have we found a
source yet?

(I know it can't be that 1812 dictionary because it's missing dimber,
abram, and cully just off the top of my head. I've been keeping a list
as I read through, but there's no point in checking the rest if it's
missing those...)

- --
gwern
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