The more usual suffixes used are mar, anche, inche, in, ingue, o, orgue, aille, ière, muche, mon, mont, oque, ègue, igue, which give such terms as—
| épicemar | for | épicier, | |
| boutanche | — | boutique, | |
| aminceminche | — | ami, | |
| burlin burlingue | } | — | bureau, |
| camaro | — | camarade, | |
| bonorgue | — | bon, | |
| vouzaille | — | vous, | |
| mézière | — | me, | |
| petmuche | — | pet, | |
| cabermon | — | cabaret, | |
| gilmont | — | gilet, | |
| loufoque | — | fou, | |
| chamègue | — | chameau, | |
| mézigue | — | me. | |
The army has furnished a large contingent to slang, and has provided us with such words as colon (colonel); petit colon (lieutenant-colonel); la femme du régiment (big drum); la malle (prison); un bleu (recruit); poulet d’Inde (steed), and the humorous expression, sortir sur les jambes d’un autre (to be confined to barracks, or to the guard-room).
Much-maligned animals have been put into requisition, the fish tribe serving to denominate the Paris bully, that plague of certain quarters.
With the parts of the body might be formed a complete orchestra. Thus “guitare” stands for the head; “flûtes” for legs; “grosse caisse” for the body; “trompette” does duty for the face, “mirliton” for the nose, and “sifflet” for the throat.
The study of the slang jargon of a nation—a language which is not the expression of conventional ideas, but the unvarnished and rude expression of life in its true aspects—may give us an insight into the foibles and predominant vices of those who use it.
Now though the French as a nation are not hard drinkers, yet we must come to the conclusion—in the face of the many synonyms of the single word drunk, whilst there is not one for the word sober—that Parisian workmen have either a lively imagination, or that they would scarcely prove eligible for recruits in the Blue Ribbon Army. Intoxication—from a state of gentle inebriation, when one is “allumé,” or “elevated,” to the helpless state when the “poivrot,” or “lushington,” is “asphyxié,” or “regularly scammered,” when he can’t “see a hole in a ladder,” or when he “laps the gutter”—has no less than eighty synonyms.
The French possess comparatively few terms for the word money; but, in spite of the well-worn saying, “l’or est une chimère,” or the insincere exclamation, “l’or, ce vil métal!” the argot vocabulary shows as many as fifty-four synonyms for the “needful.” The English are still richer, for Her Majesty’s coin is known by more than one hundred and thirty slang words, from the humble “brown” (halfpenny) to the “long-tailed one” (bank-note).
Though there is no evidence that the social evil has a greater hold on Paris than on London or Berlin, yet the Parisians have no less than one hundred and fifty distinct slang synonyms to indicate the different varieties of “unfortunates,” many being borrowed from the names of animals, such as “vache,” “chameau,” “biche,” &c. Some of the other terms are highly suggestive and appropriate. So we have “omnibus,” “fleur de macadam,” “demoiselle du bitume,” “autel de besoin,” the dismal “pompe funèbre,” the ignoble “paillasse de corps de garde,” and the “grenier à coups de sabre,” which reflects on the brutality of soldiers towards the fallen ones.
For the head the French jargon can boast of about fifty representative slang terms, some of which have been borrowed from the vegetable kingdom. Homage is rendered to its superior or governing powers by such epithets as “boussole” and “Sorbonne,” and a compliment is paid to its inventive genius by the term, “la boîte à surprises,” which is, however, degraded into “la tronche” when it has rolled into the executioner’s basket. But it is treated with still more irreverence when deprived of its natural ornament—so that a man with a bald pate is described as having no more “paillasson à la porte,” or “mouron sur la cage.” He is also said sometimes to sport a “tête de veau.”
Grim humour is displayed in the long list of metaphors to describe death, the promoters of the slang expressions having borrowed from the technical vocabulary of their craft. Thus soldiers describe it as “défiler la parade,” for which English military men have the equivalent, “to lose the number of one’s mess;” “passer l’arme à gauche;” “descendre la garde,” after which the soldier will never be called again on sentry duty; “recevoir son décompte,” or deferred pay. People who are habitual sufferers from toothache have no doubt contributed the expression, “n’avoir plus mal aux dents;” sailors, “casser son câble” and “déralinguer;” coachmen, “casser son fouet;” drummers, “avaler ses baguettes,” their sticks being henceforth useless to them; billiard-players are responsible for “dévisser son billard;” servants for “déchirer son tablier.” Then what horrible philosophy in the expression, “mettre la table pour les asticots!”
A person of sound mind finds no place in the argot vocabulary; but madness, from the mild state which scarcely goes beyond eccentricity to the confirmed lunatic, has found many definitions, the single expression “to be cracked” being represented by a number of comical synonyms, many of them referring to the presence of some troublesome animal in the brain, such as “un moustique dans la boîte au sel” or “un hanneton dans le plafond.”
Courage has but one or two equivalents, but the act of the coward who vanishes, or the thief who seeks to escape the clutches of the police, has received due attention from the promoters of argot. Thus we have the highly picturesque expressions, “faire patatrot,” which gives an impression of the patter of the runaway’s feet; “se faire une paire de mains courantes,” literally to make for oneself a pair of running hands; “se déguiser en cerf,” to imitate that swift animal the deer; “fusilier le plancher,” which reminds one of the quick rat-tat of feet on the boards.
To show kindness to one, as far as I have been able to notice, is not represented, but the act of doing bodily injury, or fighting, has furnished the slang vocabulary with a rich contingent, the least forcible of which is certainly not the amiable invitation expressed in the words of the Paris rough, “viens que j’te mange le nez!” or “numérote tes abattis que j’te démolisse!”
What ingenuity and precision of simile some of these vagaries of language offer! The man who is annoyed, badgered, is compared to an elephant with a small tormentor in a part of his body by which he can be effectually driven to despair, whilst deprived of all means