[Loch-Ruadh] Word of the Day, March 18
Cait O'Hara
lady_cait at lycos.com
Mon Mar 18 10:09:36 PST 2002
biter of peeters
One that makes a trade of whipping [stealing] boxes and trunks from behind a coach, out of a wagon, or off a horses back; [from] peeter, a cloak-bag.
-- B.E.s Dictionary of the Canting Crew, 1699
On this date in 1662, public-transportation service began in Paris as large, six-horse carriages with eight seats each took passengers on a fixed route through the city. Although this earliest forerunner of urban mass transit was aimed at citizens of modest means, it also was briefly popular with the well-to-do. The fashion faded, however, and ridership among the elite declined quickly I this class-conscious society. The experiment was abandoned and not tried again until 1827. James Vauxs Glossary of the Flash Language (1819) lists napping a peter as cutting portmanteau or trunk.
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