XXVII. THE SOCIAL SLANG OF PARIS.

Whether it is owing to the French origin of my family, to the fact that the French tongue was as familiar to me as English when I was a child, or simply because of my many visits to the “City of Light,” as its inhabitants proudly call Paris, I do not know; but it has always been one of my favorite amusements to investigate the picturesque intricacies of the French language in all its ramifications, and surely no more amusing study can exist than the branch of a language which is known as slang.

French slang is wonderfully replete with imagery. Is a man very keen and impossible to hoodwink? French slang will inform you that “he has not caught cold in his eyes.” This, of course, illustrates a medical truth, that people with inflamed eyes are temporarily blind, therefore that the person in question is clear-sighted in the extreme. To express that one has an excellent opinion of one’s self, it is casually remarked that the person “does not wipe his nose with his foot.” That curious action seems to denote moral and physical self-abasement. This phrase is classic, since Molière uses it in “Tartuffe.”

Actors complain bitterly in France that a comrade insists on “pulling the bedquilt toward him,” which means that he tries to concentrate attention on himself to the exclusion of others, as a selfish person rolls himself up in the bedclothes, regardless of his companion’s discomfort.

Retiring for the night is characterized as “wrapping up the meat in its cloth.” This rather obscure expression is derived from the fact that in France butchers hang legs of mutton in front of a snowy background of white napkins, and at nightfall carefully envelop the aforesaid legs of mutton in the above-mentioned napkins, and tuck them away for the night. “Chic,” an expression which in its broad meaning of good style is now incorporated in the language, considered as slang, describes something non-existent. An author writes “de chic” when he discourses of something whereof he knows nothing; an artist who paints a picture without a model says that he did it “de chic.”

Many French slang phrases are very commonly used in polite society. It is by no means unusual to hear a lady taking leave of her hostess remark casually, “I cannot stay, for I have a gnawing worm at the door.” This mysterious announcement simply means that she has a carriage by the hour, and, of course, the longer it is kept, the larger the hole gnawed in the finances. Another generic name for a cab is “sapin” (pine tree), in allusion to the fact that they are built of pine wood. Umbrellas are christened “pepins,” as they were supposed, on what authority I do not know, to have been invented by Pepin, one of the early kings of France. I have seen foreigners, deeply learned in the classic French, stunned and distracted by the (to them) incomprehensible remark that some one had “left a pepin in the sapin,” which meant that an umbrella had been found in a cab.

An expressive slang phrase is the one by which you gently intimate to a person that his presence is unwelcome; you request him to “go to the Boulevards and look if I am there.” This, although indirect, is most certainly categorical. If a thing is utterly impossible of execution, it is said that “there is no wick,” which would undoubtedly prevent a lamp from being practicable. A wild-goose chase is called “a search for a bluebird,” and a thing that will never happen is announced as waiting for “the week of four Thursdays,” and when you say something that were best unsaid, you “put your feet in the dish.” The height of condemnation is reached when you say of any one, “He is as stupid as the good Lord is good.” Unhappily, with the present mania for abbreviating, the words “is good” are sometimes omitted, to the horror of the uninitiated, which is intensified by the placidity of those who know the whole saying.

To give useless advice is “to stab water with a sword,” and to go on an expedition and be disappointed is “to break your nose against a closed door.” “The holy name of a little dog” is a very emphatic oath, and to call a Frenchman a canary bird is a deadly insult, for which complaints are sometimes lodged in courts of justice. If you are in very unpleasant predicament, they say, “you are spinning bad cotton,” and if you come definitely to grief in any way you are said to be “in the water.” If anything at once surprising and disagreeable occurs, the shock is supposed to leave you “with your four horseshoes in the air.” If you refresh exhausted nature with a drink of absinthe, its green color causes the remark that you are “strangling a parrot,” and if you drink champagne of the Clicquot brand, they say “you make eyes at the widow,” in allusion to Veuve Clicquot, whose name adorns the bottle.

The word “pig” is considered most vulgar in French. If you wish to designate the animal, you refer to him as “the gentleman dressed in silk,” as “the companion of St. Anthony;” and yet the expression “my little pink pig” is a term of endearment among plebeians, as is also the term “my little cabbage.” If one suffers from nausea, they say one is “as sick as a walrus,” and if you die, that you “have broken your pipe,” unless you have been guillotined, when they say “you have sneezed in the basket,” in allusion to the fact that the criminal’s head drops into a wicker receptacle prepared for it; and if you are hanged, you are supposed to have “danced a jig without any floor.” A man condemned to be beheaded is said to be “about to be shortened.” If for murder, because “he cooled off an individual,” and the cart which takes the criminal’s body to the grave is graphically described as the “cold meat wagon.”

Servants who leave a place are said to have “given back their aprons,” and when they dip unduly into the marketing money, and charge large prices for small things, they are said to “set the handle of the market-basket dancing.” The derivation of that phrase no one seems to know. An unreliable person is designated as “a basket with a hole in it,” and a bore is termed “a shaver.” If any one protests loudly against anything, he is said to utter “the screams of a peacock.” If you are restless in your movements it is asserted that you “wiggle like the devil in a holy water font.” A person who accepts flattery complacently is said to be “drinking milk,” presumably because that beverage is easily swallowed. The equivalent of the English phrase in reply to the announcement of an old and well-known fact as something new and original is existent, though where we would declare that “the Dutch had taken Holland,” a Frenchman would say sardonically that “Henri Quatre is on the Pont Neuf Bridge,” in allusion to the fact that the bridge in question had been adorned, ever since its erection in the days of Louis XIII., by a very handsome equestrian statue of the fourth Henry in all his glory. Many comic songs have been woven round this statue, the most popular and most modern being the one entitled “The Statue’s Wail,” in which the bronze monarch sets forth his woes with the recurring refrain:

This does not sound profound nor telling, but, such as it is, all Paris howled, whistled, and hummed it, in season and out of season.

Quantities of the slang phrases of Paris originate in the comic songs. At one time a popular melody was set to a song, whereof the burden was:

It had a tremendous run, and was killed in a very odd manner. A miserable murderer, named Jean Mathieu, was guillotined, and as usual the Place de la Roquette, where executions take place, was filled with a noisy rabble. The execution was rather late, which irritated the waiting multitude, and finally, when the prison doors were opened and the criminal appeared, half dead with terror and dragged along by two of his guards, some one, more irreverent than the rest, shouted:

and the whole crowd took up the song and danced in time to its cadence. The contrast to the wretch shivering on the brink of eternity, and the unseemly mirth of the crowd was so ghastly, that the horror felt by the spectators and shared by those who heard of the occurrence caused the once popular song to be promptly tabooed.

One of the most in vogue of all modern slang phrases was the peculiarly senseless remark, “You would think it was veal.” This denotes admiration and approval. A glorious sunset or a pretty woman was alike greeted by the same enthusiastic remark, “You would think it was veal.” This phrase originated in a comic song, with an inordinate number of verses, of which the following example will give an idea:

Anything more strangely idiotic cannot be imagined, but its very silliness was an additional attraction, and the phrase ran like wild-fire through all strata of society.

All these ridiculous comic songs are made popular through the medium of open-air concerts on the Champs Elysées. Picturesque places they are, with their blazing festoons of colored lights, their succession of singers, who vie with each other as to which can possess the worst voice and sing the most complacently out-of-tune inane ballads. All traveling Americans know these places where one can dine sumptuously in a restaurant at the back of the inclosure, and then come out to sit on the high balcony to sip coffee and enjoy the intellectual (?) treat afforded by the performance on the tiny stage opposite. When any of the more fashionable songs are sung, the whole audience joins in the chorus and keeps time by flapping their spoons against their glasses. The result is strangely discordant; but as the music fills its perpetrators with intense and soulful enjoyment, objection would be cruel and heartless, besides being utterly useless, as these concerts are virtually Liberty Halls.

To return to slang pure and simple. If one sits up very late and pines for soda water in the morning hours, his sense of malaise is described as “an ache of the hair.” If renouncing the solution of a problem you “give your tongue to cats,” and friskiness of conduct is denominated as “throwing one’s cap over the mill.” Should a husband pay attention to any other woman than his wife, “he sticks a penknife into the marriage contract.” The dignified gentleman who acts as censor and judges plays, as does the Lord Chamberlain in London, is called by the strangely incongruous name of “Anastasia.” Wherefore this peculiar nickname, no one can tell, any more than they can unravel the origin of the nickname for the guillotine, which grewsome machine is called Louisette. If you run at full speed, they say you “put your legs on your neck;” the fury of a storm is gauged by the fact that is “too bad weather to put even one’s mother-in-law out-of-doors.” A sarcastic way of saying that a man is stupid is to remark that “where there is nothing, the king collects no taxes,” and a bow-legged person is said to “squint with his legs.” If you buy things on credit, you get them “on your eye,” and if you have savings you have put aside a “pear for your thirst,” and if you pay cash down you have settled “a ruby on the finger-nail.” Why? Ah! that I do not know.

I fear we have drifted into what might be denominated the erudite section of slang; for, as a rule, profound erudition and dense incomprehensibility go hand in hand. Under these circumstances it is better to close the chapter.