Dictionary of the Vulgar Tongue – Day 228

The Dictionary of the Vulgar Tongue was first published at the end of the eighteenth century, and given that the current health crisis is giving too much time to read books, I thought I’d pick a daily word from it until I got bored….

Numbers

If nothing else, this definition from Grose shows that politics in the late eighteenth century isn’t perhaps much different to politics today in terms of Ministers not answering questions…. The definition of this word is “to consult the book of numbers: a term used in the House of Commons, when, instead of answering or confuting a pressing argument, the minister calls for a division, ie, puts the matter to the vote.”