(urth) Auk's dimber tip to all flash coves

[Gwern Branwen]

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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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