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Friday, April 20, 2012

"R" is For Reading!

Reading and Commenting...
Who doesn't love a comment on your blog, someone saying something nice on your latest post...cause why write it if no one reads it. I am putting up a few slang terms that start with the letter "R" from a old book I had found in my travels, if you know me... well then you know me and this makes sense.

Rook (Old Eng.), a cheat, a card sharper.
Rook (Eng.), a clergyman, from his black clothes.
Rook, to cheat or swindle.
Rooked, cheated.
Rookery, a low neighborhood, street or collection of houses.
Rooky, rascally, scampish.
Roorback (Am.), a false allegation issued for political purposes.
Roost, a resting-place, "Going to roost," going to bed.
Rooster, the male barnyard fowl.
Root of all evil, money.
Root, hog, or die (Am.), signifies that one must hustle for a living.
Rope, to cause a horse to win or lose a race. See Pull.
Rope-in (Am.), to swindle; to induce one to enter a scheme in which he will be cheated. Shakespeare uses "ropery" for roguery.
Roper-in (Am.), a "capper" for a gambling house or for any other swindle.
Ropes, "to know the," to be "up to snuff;" to know the way about; familiarity with city life and tricks.
Roping, pulling or otherwise restraining a horse in a race.
Rose, "under the," quietly, in secret.
Rot, nonsense.
Rot-gut (Am.), bad whisky.
Rough and tumble, a fight in which all rules are ignored.
Rough diamond, a man whose character is better than his appearance.
Rough it, to put up with inferior accommodations or food ;to work hard, as at mining in the Territories.
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Rush, spirit, energy, vim.
Rush, to come suddenly on one. To give a man the rush is to spring a demand for money on him.
Rushing the can or the growler, sending to the saloon for beer with a can or pitcher.
Rush it (Am.), hurry up.
Rust, "to nab the" (Eng.), to take offense.
Rustle, to move about sharply ; to hustle.
Rustler, a hustler.

I Love Comments... So go ahead, say something nice... or I will send "Bugsy the Chimp Boy" to your site and trust me no one wants that.

Jeremy [Retro-Zombie]
Visit the Madness

43 comments:

Unknown said...

Great Post. You must have done a lot of research. There's a book there,I think, if you add the rest of the alphabet. It's part of the pleasure of writing to discover and experiment with these slang terms.

RHYTHM AND RHYME said...

Great post, I always try and post a commnet on a blog who has not got many followers, I agree it's awful to take the time to write a blog and no one comments.

Yvonne.

Hilary Melton-Butcher said...

Hi Jeremy .. great R post .. and I love the picture .. Rook is also Castle in chess ... great list though ..

Writing a blog and getting no feedback would be just terrible .. cheers R for Retro-Zombie Jeremy ... thanks - Hilary

Arthur Brill said...

Cool stuff! I had only known of a Rook as a chess piece. But it never made sense... the Rook is the Castle. Seems Rook is a Persian derivation of "chariot"

However, with definition 2 above of Rook, it would make more sense for the Bishop!

My R is for Role Playing Games, a one of my favorite hobbies and jobs
http://mainstreetarts.blogspot.com/2012/04/role-playing-games.html

Martha Reynolds said...

Love it! So many great words and phrases. And I'm appreciative of all the new friends vie made through the A to Z Challenge. (Tough letters coming up!)

Rebecca said...

you had me at the word reading

Anonymous said...

;-) Very good. You're roped me in.

Anonymous said...

Sometimes my typing is rot. Shouldn't rush it really, read and then release without rubber typos. Well, you have roped me in! ;-)

Kelly said...

My father used to say he was "rookie-doo'd"...I think that may be a blog post. Thanks for the inspiration!

T. Powell Coltrin said...

Gee, that's a neat choice for your entry. I like these.

Teresa

Youmna09 said...

That's a great post ...I suppose it required a lot of research. Keep it up !

Anonymous said...

Lots of great words. I hesitate to ask how old the book you found these sayings in was because a good many are quite familiar to me. Shall we just say it was "vintage"?

Arlee Bird said...

Like Delores I was wondering how old of a book that is. Those sound like terms used in dime novels in the 19th or early 20th century. I felt like I was in a seedy bar in the Bowery in about 1910. And Bugsy the Chimp Boy fits right in.


Lee
An A to Z Co-Host
Tossing It Out
Twitter: @AprilA2Z
#atozchallenge

Tracy MacDonald said...

Great minds... my R post is also about Reading.
http://a2zmommy.blogspot.com/2012/04/r-is-for-reading.html
Perhaps not an original idea for the A to Z, but I agree, comments are lovely and they only take a second.

Lynn Proctor said...

love your work--and yes the commenting is so encouraging--you made me think of the long nights playing rook with dear friends :)

Torggil said...

Haven't heard rookery in ages. Love that post.

Alex J. Cavanaugh said...

Like how the words all linked together. No chimp, please. He'd just make a mess and I'd have to go all Ninja on him.

Clint said...

What a grreat post. I do like how you roped these words together to show that there is a pattern..:)

Jeremy [Retro] said...

The book is from 1891... it's an awesome find, cause I love old books...and the subject matter is sometimes so interesting it's hard to put down. Who doesn't love words and the stranger meanings that they once held.

Jeremy [Retro-Zombie]

Donna B. McNicol said...

I always love your posts, just don't always take time to comment. Yes, I love to get comments and need to take more time to leave them. ;-)

Jolie du Pre said...

Your post is rockin'!

Jolie du Pre
Precious Monsters

Anonymous said...

Maybe I should call Guido and Knuckles to protect me this weekend. Chimp Boy looks a bit menacing.

Anonymous said...

*raises hand* I'm reading it! :)

loverofwords said...

Very, very descriptive choice of words. Challenge: write a short-short story using 10 of these words!

Tracy Moore said...

Great post! I try my best to visit at least ten blogs a day to support fellow challengers. :)

Love your list of r terms. It's a lot of fun going through older books to see the terminology used in different eras.

Julie Jordan Scott said...

I think this is the favorite new word I learned from you today:

"Rookery, a low neighborhood, street or collection of houses."

I am going to throw it into conversations randomly today. :~)

As a word-lover, ohhhhh how I enjoyed nibbling, gobbling and finally ROARING through your post today.

THANK YOU!

Julie Jordan Scott
Fellow A to Z Challenge Writer
twitter: @juliejordanscot
R is for Rosmarie
On a Mission to Spread Word-Love Throughout the World

Jarm Del Boccio said...

I love the word "rot"...very British! I enjoyed reading all those words from yesteryear, along with their definitions. Great post...thanks!
MakingTheWriteConnections

Dana said...

Loved the post! :)

nutschell said...

great post! you did a great job of choosing your R words:)
Nutschell
www.thewritingnut.com
Happy A-Zing!

Pat Tillett said...

I love words and this is a great post! There are so many words and we use so few of them in our regular lives.

DayDreamer said...

I love reading different meanings for the same word. Rook as a meaning for black clad clergyman - doesn't that go back way further than 1891, used in some of Shakespeare's plays?

Joyce said...

Stopping by from the A-Z....something nice? I'm loving the challenge : ) Enjoy your weekend!

Unknown said...

A book like that would be very helpful for students reading Shakespeare or Austen, or any other English authors from the Victorian era or earlier, don't you think? Kinda wish I had one when I was in college....
Dawn

Pa Ul said...

love it :)

Jeremy [Retro] said...

I am glad you all are getting something out of this post, as I stated before I am a fan of words... I also might take the challenge to use 10 of these in a story. Maybe over the weekend use them in my or your travels... now stay away from the rot-gum...Bugsy sees you stopping by... he is happy Chimp-Boy.

Jeremy [Retro-Zombie]

Catch My Words said...

I love comments too. Thanks for leaving one on my blog and sponsoring this fun blog hop.

Catch My Words
http://joycelansky.blogspot.com/

Nicole said...

Reading AND Commenting should both be required portions of the A to Z Challenge, IMHO.

I used to jump *Rope* during my childhood and enjoyed it, now I'm *Roughing* it in a studio Apartment that sometimes appears to get smaller and smaller...or maybe I need to just stop getting more stuff lol, however, I'm usually in a *Rush* to get home and take care of my cat.

~Nicole
Blog: The Madlab Post
@MadlabPost on Twitter

Erin M. Hartshorn said...

Rad.

Erin

Sonia Lal said...

Hehe I chose R is for Reading, too. LOL


Sonia Lal, A to Z challenge

Diane said...

Love this post, if I could not read my life would fall apart me thinks. No wonder people say English is hard to learn when there are so many similar words with different meanings! Diane

Betty Alark said...

Think I'll copy and paste that on a word document!

Thanks for the vocabulary lesson!

http://bettyalark.blogspot.com

Anonymous said...

Interesting post for the letter R.

Musiqal1 said...

I lik ewhat you did with R. It was really creative. I don't think I would have came up with that many words.