Unleash Your Inner Victorian: Challenge Yourself with our Slang Quiz!

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If you think about the 1960s, a particular fashion, hairdo, language, and attitude come to mind. The 1980s and 1990s are no different. In fact, it seems as though each decade has its own unique style and slang. At the turn of the century, author Andrew Forrester, whose real name was James Redding Ware, took advantage of this unique concept and wrote Passing English of the Victorian Era: A Dictionary of Heterodox English Slang and Phrase.

It was published in 1909 and included "Thousands of words and phrases in existence in 1870 [that] have drifted away, or changed their forms, or been absorbed, while as many have been added or are being added."

Andrew Forrester details words that are delightful, funny, or informative. He introduced the book writing "Passing English ripples from countless sources, forming a river of new language which has its tide and its ebb, while its current brings down new ideas and carries away those that have dribbled out of fashion."

Can you define this Victorian slang? Maybe we should bring some of these words back into conversations?!

Kyle, Heywise Staff

Quiz WriterKyle, Heywise Staff

If you’ve never cracked open a quiz by Kyle, you’re missing out. This savvy examinator writes his knowledge from a place of passion - he made it to the final round in a quiz show as a child, and his love of the question-answer format was born. Never one to sit on his laurels, after losing out to a well-read young lady named Myrtle, Kyle set out become the best quiz master the internet has ever known. In his six-year tenure as a test-writer, has Kyle written for a) three quiz sites b) no quiz sites c) more than 30 quiz sites d) National Geographic. Yes - his friends also find him kind of obnoxious (and the answer is C). If you’re serious about your status as a supreme quizard and are determined to make your way through the ranks to our Expert level, you won’t be able to escape a few of Kyle’s challenging, informative projects.

Did you know?

Meet James Redding Ware

James Redding Ware did not only write Passing English of the Victorian Era: A Dictionary of Heterodox English Slang and Phrase. He also composed the first fictional female detective character. The book was appropriately titled The Female Detective and was penned under the same pseudonym of Andrew Forrester. It was published in 1864 and paved the way for other female detectives to emerge later in the 20th century including Nancy Drew and Miss Marple.

James Redding Ware was born in London in 1832. He passed away at the turn of the century in 1909, but not before he wrote a plethora of books including Before the Bench: Sketches of Police Court Life, Wonderful Dreams of Remarkable Men and Women, and Mistaken Identities: Celebrated Cases of Undeserved Suffering, Self-deception, and Wilful Imposture along with a handful of other books. His very last book was Passing English of the Victorian Era: A Dictionary of Heterodox English Slang and Phrase the last recorded year of his life.

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