Six Stick Shifts Stuck Shut

Dangerous tongue twisters:

I am not the pheasant plucker,
I’m the pheasant plucker’s mate.
I am only plucking pheasants
Because the pheasant plucker’s late.

I slit the sheet, the sheet I slit;
and on the slitted sheet I sit.

I’m not the fig plucker,
Nor the fig pluckers’ son,
But I’ll pluck figs
Till the fig plucker comes.

| Language

Anagrams

Anagrams:

  • DEBIT CARD = BAD CREDIT
  • MOTHER-IN-LAW = WOMAN HITLER
  • SLOT MACHINES = CASH LOST IN ‘EM
  • DESPERATION = A ROPE ENDS IT
  • ASTRONOMER = MOON STARER
  • ELECTION RESULTS = LIES — LET’S RECOUNT

And SNOOZE ALARMS = ALAS! NO MORE Z’S.

| Language

Lexicon Balatronicum

Excerpts from the Dictionary of the Vulgar Tongue: A Dictionary of Buckish Slang, University Wit, and Pickpocket Eloquence, by Captain Grose (1811):

  • ADMIRAL OF THE NARROW SEAS. One who from drunkenness vomits into the lap of the person sitting opposite to him.
  • ANGLING FOR FARTHINGS. Begging out of a prison window with a cap, or box, let down at the end of a long string.
  • APPLE DUMPLIN SHOP. A woman’s bosom.
  • BACK GAMMON PLAYER. A sodomite.
  • DUCK F-CK-R. The man who has the care of the poultry on board a ship of war.
  • GREEN GOWN. To give a girl a green gown; to tumble her on the grass.
  • HEMPEN WIDOW. One whose husband was hanged.
  • HISTORY OF THE FOUR KINGS, or CHILD’S BEST GUIDE TO THE GALLOWS. A pack of cards.
  • MANOEUVRING THE APOSTLES. Robbing Peter to pay Paul, i.e. borrowing of one man to pay another.
  • PISS PROPHET. A physician who judges of the diseases of his patients solely by the inspection of their urine.
  • SON OF PRATTLEMENT. A lawyer.

And a THOROUGH-GOOD-NATURED WENCH is “one who being asked to sit down, will lie down.”

| History · Language