Dictionary of the Vulgar Tongue – Day Fifty-Six

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

Cagg Maggs

Defined by the dictionary as “Old Lincolnshire geese, which having been plucked ten or twelve years, are sent up to London to feast the cockneys”. There’s not much to add to this precisely worded definition, but I like the slight north-south divide being hinted at here, send the old and scraggy meat down to London rather than keep it up north…. That assumes that Lincolnshire is in the north, which is perhaps pushing it though.