I think you’ll agree with me, dear readers, when I say we should make an effort to revive some foolishly forgotten Victorian terms.

Victorians were masters of the English language and could wield slang like nobody’s business. Adopting a few of these expressions will certainly spice up your conversation! And if you’d like a little music to go with your slang, I have a few tracks to go with this post:

Let’s pick up a couple of compliments first. You can describe nearly anything as a daisy, meaning it’s fresh and charming. “What a daisy she is!” A daisy five-o’clocker referred specifically to 5 o’clock tea. You can also complement someone’s mental acuity by congratulating them for having all their buttons on.

But if we’re being honest, Victorians weren’t much for compliments. They were much more comfortable in other realms, such as giving practical directions and expressing their disapproval.

The Victorians frowned upon ostentatious displays of– well, anything. If you wore clothing that was too elaborate or decorated your home a little too gaudily, you should mentally prepare yourself to be told it was just a bit “butter upon bacon.”

If you really irritated someone, they might say, “Devil take you!” Refined people might give you a more genteel, “Deuce take you!”

If you needed to get past a crowd of people, you could shout out, “Mind the grease!” and people would move out of your way.  (This is fun to say in an exaggerated cockney accent.)

You can and should issue friendly warnings to steer clear of a crazy person by advising others that he’s orf his chump.

But if there is one thing Victorians really enjoyed, it was hurling abuse at each other in the form of elaborate insults.

Cowards were contemptuously dismissed as “pigeon-livered.”

It was well to be on the lookout for flirtatious men and when you spotted one to call him a “gal sneaker.” Men who wore tight pants were ridiculed as wearing “gas pipes.” My intuition tells me that there’s probably some cross-over. I bet many gal sneakers wore gas pipes.

Victorians seemingly had a specific insult for the most obscure situations. A Sunday promenader was a man who was in debt and therefore only went out on Sundays, because arrests were never made on a Sunday.  A witty woman who was fond of making cutting remarks might be accused of “eating vinegar with a fork.”

The word podsnappery vanquished me.

Podsnappery means “willfully ignoring the objectionable or inconvenient while at the same time assuming airs of superior virtue and noble resignation.”  When is it appropriate or justified to accuse someone of podsnappery? It cost me some thought, but I’ve come up with something:
You observe two women sitting on an airplane. One woman is sitting in Row 17, and she has a window seat. She is dressed very nicely and her hair is perfectly styled. Unfortunately, the middle and aisle seats are occupied by rowdy 8-year-old boys who are on a school field trip.  The kids shout at each other, they knock over her drink as they twist excitedly in their seats, and she is continually jostled as they fight with each other. At last the exasperated lady exclaims, “Don’t you have an adult with you?”
Overhearing her comment, another woman seated in Row 18 taps her on the shoulder. “I’m sorry the boys are annoying you,” she says. “I’m their chaperone and we should have been seated together. Somehow the airline put me behind the boys instead of putting us all in the same row. But I’d be happy to switch seats with you.”
The woman in Row 17 glances back at the chaperone briefly and notices she is in a cramped middle seat. “No, thank you,” she replies icily.
After ten more minutes of the kids misbehaving, the very particular lady in Row 17 once again registers her disapproval by saying, “Kids really ought to sit with their chaperone.”
At that point, I believe the woman in the middle seat in Row 18 would be justified in saying, “Oh, enough with the podsnappery!”

Well. I do have more slang and euphemisms and insults, but that bit of creative writing wore me out for the time being. More Victorian slang to come at a future date!