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Show ORIGIN. (JF DIFFERENT WORDS Common Slang Term "Mash" It From Gypsy Word, "Mafada" Meaning "to Charm By the Eyes." "Pow-wdw" comes from the North American Indians. The word boss comes from the low Dutch and means master. Kidnap comes from the napping or stealing of a kid, gipsy for child. Calaboose, a prison; picaroon, a pirate; pi-rate; palaver, to talk, are all Spanish. Span-ish. "A rum chap" Is simply a gipsy lad; It has no- relation to the product of the still. Pal is a brother, and "conk," for nose, comes from the spouting fountain, foun-tain, the concha of the Romans. Demijohn comes from the Arabic damaghan, itself taken from the Persian Per-sian glass making town of Demaghan. The common slang word "mash" is from a beautiful gipsy word, "mafada," "ma-fada," which means "to charm by the eyes." Why should a man. be called a spoon? Why spoony when he Is making mak-ing love? Simply because he is a "loeffel," which also means spoon. A tinker's dam has nothing to do with swearing. It is merely the dam or stoppage, made of flour and water, which which tyhe tinker stops the gap he is mending until the tin or the pewter he is using had cooled. |