Currently Reading ...
Thursday, March 27th, 2003 20:03![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
kittiwake"The Quincunx" by Charles Palliser (all 1100+ pages of it)
One of the most interesting things about "The Quincunx" is that it is written as if it is a real early 19th century novel. There are obsolete spellings; sopha for sofa, clew for clue and lanthorn for lantern, and archaic slang; blunt for money, flatt for fool/naive person, fakement for job (as in a criminal undertaking), pink for stab and prig for steal. There is no glossary; the reader has to guess the meanings from the context.
yourdictionary.com is a fantastic reference library of dictionaries in all (or almost all) languages and subjects. It was the only place to go to check out the slang and archaic expressions used in "The Quincunx".
Lanthorn is my new 'favourite word'
From two different dictionaries I found that lanthorn is an obsolete variant of lantern, that horn is one of the materials that lanterns were made of (so presumably that is the derivation of the alternate spelling):
Lanthorn \Lan"thorn\, n. See {Lantern}. [Obs.]
Something inclosing a light, and protecting it from wind, rain, etc. ; -- sometimes portable, as a closed vessel or case of horn, perforated tin, glass, oiled paper, or other material, having a lamp or candle within; sometimes fixed, as the glazed inclosure of a street light, or of a lighthouse light.
What is a Quincunx?
From Webster's 1828 English Dictionary
QUIN'CUNX, n. [L. composed of quinque, five, and uncia, ounce.]
In gardening, the quincunx order is a plantation of trees disposed in a square, consisting of five trees, one at each corner and a fifth in the middle, thus :.:; which order repeated indefinitely, forms a regular grove or wood, which viewed by an angle of the square or parallelogram, presents equal or parallel alleys.
"Quote"
And there were links to other useful sites:
1736 Canting Dictionary
19th Century British Lower Class & Criminal Slang
One of the most interesting things about "The Quincunx" is that it is written as if it is a real early 19th century novel. There are obsolete spellings; sopha for sofa, clew for clue and lanthorn for lantern, and archaic slang; blunt for money, flatt for fool/naive person, fakement for job (as in a criminal undertaking), pink for stab and prig for steal. There is no glossary; the reader has to guess the meanings from the context.
yourdictionary.com is a fantastic reference library of dictionaries in all (or almost all) languages and subjects. It was the only place to go to check out the slang and archaic expressions used in "The Quincunx".
Lanthorn is my new 'favourite word'
From two different dictionaries I found that lanthorn is an obsolete variant of lantern, that horn is one of the materials that lanterns were made of (so presumably that is the derivation of the alternate spelling):
Lanthorn \Lan"thorn\, n. See {Lantern}. [Obs.]
Something inclosing a light, and protecting it from wind, rain, etc. ; -- sometimes portable, as a closed vessel or case of horn, perforated tin, glass, oiled paper, or other material, having a lamp or candle within; sometimes fixed, as the glazed inclosure of a street light, or of a lighthouse light.
What is a Quincunx?
From Webster's 1828 English Dictionary
QUIN'CUNX, n. [L. composed of quinque, five, and uncia, ounce.]
In gardening, the quincunx order is a plantation of trees disposed in a square, consisting of five trees, one at each corner and a fifth in the middle, thus :.:; which order repeated indefinitely, forms a regular grove or wood, which viewed by an angle of the square or parallelogram, presents equal or parallel alleys.
"Quote"
And there were links to other useful sites:
1736 Canting Dictionary
19th Century British Lower Class & Criminal Slang
