I’ve been reading J. Redding Ware’s 1909 book Passing English of the Victorian Era, a collection of words and phrases once used—some by many, some only by a few—during the period of the book’s title. It’s so fascinating, it’s hard to stop reading.

Now that I’ve made my way through the letter C, here are the ones that tickled me so far.

Acknowledge the Corn (American English)

Adroit confession of minor offence to intensify the denial of the major offence: e.g., “Sir, I believe you are after my wife—and you certainly pocketed my meerschaum last Sunday evening at 10.30.” To which the answer might be: “Well, I acknowledge the corn—I took the pipe by incident, so to speak; but as to Mrs H., I’m as innocent as the skipping lamb.” Said to arise from an ordinary horse-lifting case in the West of U.S.A. The victim was accused of stealing four horses from one point and four feeds of corn from another for the said four horses. “I acknowledge the corn,” said the sufferer—but legend says he was lynched in spite of the admission.

Biscuit and Beer Bet (Street, 19 cent.)

A swindle—because the biscuit backer invariably loses, it being intended that he should lose—to the extent of glasses round, for instance. The bet is as follows: that one youth (the victim) shall not eat a penny biscuit before his antagonist has swallowed a glass of beer by the aid of a teaspoon without spilling any of the beer. The biscuit is so dry, and the anxious bettor so fills his mouth in the desire to win that he generally loses; e.g., “Yere’s a mug—let’s biscuit an’ beer ‘un.”

Bitch the pot (University, down to 1850)

Amongst a tea-drinking party of men it was asked, “Who’ll bitch the pot?”—meaning who will pour out the tea.

Butter upon Bacon (Household English)

Extravagance—resulting out of the condemnation of eating bread and butter with bacon, instead of the plain loaf. “What—are you going to put lace over the feather—isn’t that rather butter upon bacon?”

Chamber of Horrors (Society)

The name of the corridor or repository in which Messrs Christie (King Street, St James’s) locate the valueless pictures that are sent to them from all parts of the world as supposed genuine old masters; sent, as a rule, with directions to sell at certain prices most preposterously fixed very high. Phrase borrowed from Madame Tussaud’s wax-work, where this chamber is coloured black, and filled with the effigies of murderers.

Crushed (Society, 1895)

Spoony, in love with. Quite new is the slang “crushed.” It is used in place of the expression, “mashed,” “struck,” etc., and is quite au fait with the summer resort girls. One hears everywhere murmurs of Charlie Binks being utterly “crushed” on Mabel Banks, and so on with regard to various things. Dora tells Flora that she is “crushed” on Jim’s new sailor, when she really isn’t damaging his headgear at all, and so it goes. The English language is getting awfully queer!—American Paper.

Cyclophobist (Literary, 1880)

An invented word to describe haters of tradesmen’s circulars. The word “cyclophobist” is still comparatively new to the English language, and perhaps it is not a very scholarly compound to express “a man who hates and dreads tradesmen’s circulars.”—D. N.. 6th January 1882.

I have no idea how I’d use these were I to write a short story set in the Victorian era, because some would be difficult to make comprehensible through context alone.

But it sure would be fun to try!