[The English Gipsies and Their Language by Charles G. Leland]@TWC D-Link bookThe English Gipsies and Their Language CHAPTER VI 12/25
"Stop your bosherin," or "your bosh," is what they would term _flickin lav_, or current phrase. "BATS," a low term for a pair of boots, especially bad ones, is, I think, from the Gipsy and Hindustani _pat_, a foot, generally called, however, by the Rommany in England, Tom Pats.
"To pad the hoof," and "to stand pad "-- the latter phrase meaning to stand upright, or to stand and beg, are probably derived from _pat_.
It should be borne in mind that Gipsies, in all countries, are in the habit of changing certain letters, so that _p_ and _b_, like _l_ and _n_, or _k_ and _g_ hard, may often be regarded as identical. "CHEE-CHEE," "be silent!" or "fie," is termed "Anglo-Indian," by the author of the Slang Dictionary, but we need not go to India of the present day for a term which is familiar to every Gipsy and "traveller" in England, and which, as Mr Simson discovered long ago, is an excellent "spell" to discourage the advances of thimble-riggers and similar gentry, at fairs, or in public places. CHEESE, or "THE CHEESE," meaning that anything is pre-eminent or superior; in fact, "the thing," is supposed by many to be of gipsy origin because Gipsies use it, and it is to be found as "chiz" in Hindustani, in which language it means a thing.
Gipsies do not, however, seem to regard it themselves, as _tacho_ or true Rommanis, despite this testimony, and I am inclined to think that it partly originated in some wag's perversion of the French word _chose_. In London, a man who sells cutlery in the streets is called a CHIVE FENCER, a term evidently derived from the Gipsy _chiv_, a sharp-pointed instrument or knife.
A knife is also called a _chiv_ by the lowest class all over England. COUTER or COOTER is a common English slang term for a guinea.
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