Oxford "-er"

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The Oxford "-er" is a colloquial, sometimes facetious, abbreviation, prevalent at Oxford University from about 1875, which is thought to have been borrowed from the slang of Rugby School. The term was defined by the New Zealand-born lexicographer Eric Partridge in his Dictionary of Slang and Unconventional English (several editions 1937–61).

Contents 1 Rugger, footer and soccer 2 What is and isn't 3 Test Match Special 4 Other personal forms 5 Oxford 5.1 University and City locations 5.2 Other Oxonian forms 6 Other examples 6.1 P G Wodehouse & E F Benson 6.2 Anecdotal examples 7 Moving on - but not entirely: Jen, Harry Potter and Gazza 8 Notes

[edit] Rugger, footer and soccer

The "-er" gave rise to such words as rugger for Rugby football, soccer (or the rarer togger) for Association football and the now archaic footer for either code (but more usually soccer). In Stiff Upper Lip, Jeeves (1963), a novel of P G Wodehouse (1881–1975), Bertie Wooster is asked whether he is fond of rugger, to which he replies, "I don't think I know him". The sports writer E. W. Swanton, who joined the London Evening Standard in 1927, recalled that "Rugby football ... in those days, I think, was never called anything but rugger unless it were just football" ^[1]. As late as 1972 the retired headmaster of a Hertfordshire grammar school recalled "the footer" (by which he meant rugby) having had a poor season in 1953–4 ^[2].

Henry Watson Fowler recommended socker in preference to "soccer" to emphasise its correct pronunciation (i.e. hard "cc/ck") ^[3]. In this context, he suggested that "baccy", because of the "cc" in "tobacco", was "more acceptable than soccer" (there being no "cc" in "Association").

[edit] What is and isn't

Typically such words are formed by abbreviating or altering the original word and adding "-er". Words to which "-er" is simply suffixed to provide a word with a different, though related, meaning – such as "Peeler" (early Metropolitan policeman, after Sir Robert Peel) and "exhibitioner" (an undergraduate holding a type of scholarship called an exhibition) – are not examples. Nor are slang nouns like "bounder" or "scorcher", formed by adding "-er" to a verb. "Topper" (for "top hat") may appear to be an example, but in fact, as a word meaning excellent person or thing, existed from the early 18th century. Both "top hat" and "topper" as synonymous terms date from Regency times (c.1810–20) and Partridge (op. cit.) seems to suggest that the former, itself originally slang, may have been derived from the latter ^[4].

Words like "rotter" (a disagreeable person, after "rotten") are somewhere in between. However, fiver and tenner (for five and ten pound note respectively) probably do fit the "-er" mould, as, more obviously, does oncer (one pound note), though this was always less prevalent than the higher denominations and is virtually obsolete following the introduction of the pound coin in 1983.

During the First World War the Belgian town of Ypres was known to British soldiers as "Wipers". This had some hallmarks of an "-er" coinage and the form would have been familiar to many young officers; however, "Wipers" was essentially an attempt to anglicize a name ("ēpr[ə]") that some soldiers found difficult to pronounce. In the BBC TV series Blackadder Goes Forth (Richard Curtis and Ben Elton, 1988), a comedy series set in the trenches during the First World War, Captain Edmund Blackadder (Rowan Atkinson) often referred to Private Baldrick (Tony Robinson) as Balders.

[edit] Test Match Special

The "-er" form was famously used on BBC radio's Test Match Special (1957-) by Brian Johnston (1912–94), ex-Eton and New College, Oxford, who bestowed nicknames on his fellow commentators on test cricket: thus, Blowers for Henry Blofeld, Aggers (Jonathan Agnew), Bearders (scorer Bill Frindall, known also as "the Bearded Wonder") and McGillers (Alan McGilvray of ABC) ^[5].

The former Hampshire County Cricket Club captain Colin Ingleby-Mackenzie was addressed as Ingers when he made occasional appearances on TMS. The programme's producer, Peter Baxter, cited Backers as his own nickname and Jenkers that of commentator and cricketing journalist, Christopher Martin-Jenkins ^[6] (though the latter was better known by his initials, "CMJ").

Johnston himself was known as Johnners. Following his death in 1994, the satirical magazine Private Eye published a cartoon of Johnston arriving at the gates of heaven with the greeting "Morning, Godders".

[edit] Other personal forms

Other "-er"'s as personal names include:

• Athers: Lancashire and England cricket captain Michael Atherton (b.1968), who subsequently became a commentator on both radio and TV;
• Beckers: former England football captain David Beckham (b.1975) became known almost universally as "Becks" (and with his wife Victoria, formerly of the Spice Girls, as "Posh and Becks"), but there are some instances of his being referred to as "Beckers" ^[7]);
• Betjers: as an undergraduate, the poet John Betjeman (1906-1984) was generally known as "Betjy" or "Betj", but Philip Larkin, among others, later adopted the "-er" form;
• Blashers: the magazine Country Life referred to the explorer Colonel John Blashford-Snell (b.1936) as "Blashers" (as in "Hats off to Blashers", reporting his having assisted in the design a hat for explorers ^[8]);
• Britters: American singer Britney Spears (b.1981) was often described in the British press as "Britters" ^[9]. Unsurprisingly, her boy friend when she first rose to fame, the singer Justin Timberlake (b.1981), was Timbers.
• Cheggers: broadcaster Keith Chegwin (b.1957);
• Griggers: recounting how she met John Betjeman, Alice Jennings, a programme engineer at the BBC during the Second World War referred to producer Geoffrey Grigson (1905-85) as follows: "'John said, 'Who's that girl?' And Griggers from a great height said, 'That's your PE'" ^[10];
• Hatters was used by Private Eye with reference to Roy, Lord Hattersley (b.1934), former Deputy Leader of the British Labour Party ^[11];
• Nickers: it is perhaps inevitable that people named Nicholas will continue, from time to time, to be addressed as such; and
• Pragger Wagger: Charles, Prince of Wales (b.1948);
• Widders: former British Government Minister Ann Widdecombe (b.1947) was so described by journalist Hugo Vickers ^[12].

[edit] Oxford

[edit] University and City locations

"-Er" forms of Oxford locations ^[13] include:

• Adders: Addison's Walk, Magdalen College;
• All Soggers: All Souls (as, e.g., in the Letters of Philip Larkin);
• the Giler: the street St Giles'; also St Giles' Café;
• Jaggers: Jesus College;
• memugger: memorial, particularly the Martyrs' Memorial, which has also been referred to as Maggers Memoggers ^[14];
• the Radders: Radcliffe Camera;
• Staggers: St Stephen's House;
• Stanners: St Anne's College;
• Wuggers (or sometimes, Wuggins): Worcester College.

[edit] Other Oxonian forms

• Bonners was undergraduate slang for bonfire (c1890s), possibly, as Partridge suggests, an allusion to Bishop Edmund Bonner of London (c1500–1569) who was involved in the burning of alleged heretics under Queen Mary I.
• Bumpers for a bumping rowing-race was in use at both Oxford and Cambridge from about the turn of the 20th century and may have arisen first at Shrewsbury School.
• Congratters (or simply, gratters), now very dated indeed as a form of congratulations, was recorded by Desmond Coke (1879-1931) in Sandford of Merton (1903).
• Cuppers is an inter-collegiate sporting competition, derived from "cup".
• Divvers referred to divinity as a subject of study, as, for example, when John Betjeman, as an undergraduate in 1928, published "a special 'Divvers' number of The University News, complete with cut-out Old and New Testament cribs in the form of shirt cuffs to enable candidates to cheat in the exam" ^[15].
• Eccer (pronounced ekker) for excercise ^[16].

The Oxford Dictionary of Quotations, first published in 1941, has jokingly been called the Oxford Dikker of Quotaggers.

[edit] Other examples

Brekker or brekkers (for breakfast) is a coinage from the 1880s still in occasional use. Simon Raven (1927–2001), describing an episode on military service in the late 1940s, referred several times to a particular brigadier as "the Brigger" ^[17].

Terms from Harrow School include bluer (blue blazer) and yarder (school yard).

A flat-sided conker (fruit of a horse-chestnut) is known as a cheeser, an "-er" contraction of "cheese-cutter" ^[18]. The names applied to conkers that have triumphed in conker fights are argubaly "-er" forms ("one-er", "twelver", etc), though "conker" itself is derived from a dialect word for the shell of a snail.

[edit] P G Wodehouse & E F Benson

There are surprisingly few "-ers" in the books of P G Wodehouse, though, with reference to a boundary in cricket scoring four runs, his poem, "The Cricketer in Winter" contained the line, "And giving batsmen needless fourers" (which he rhymed with "more errs") ^[19]. The "-er" was evident also in the school cricketing stories of E F Benson: "Owlers (this, of course, was Mr Howliss)" (David Blaize, 1916).

[edit] Anecdotal examples

Evidence of badders for the racquet sport of badminton ^[20] is largely anecdotal, as it is in respect of the horse trails held since 1949 in the grounds of Badminton House, Gloucestershire. The same is true of Skeggers (the Lincolnshire seaside resort of Skegness, famously described in a railway poster of 1908 as "so bracing") and Honkers, for the former British colony of Hong Kong, though this form (probably late 20th century) does appear on a number of websites and Wodehouse's first employer, the Hong Kong and Shanghai Bank (HSBC, founded 1865), is sometimes referred to in the City of London as "Honkers and Shankers".

[edit] Moving on - but not entirely: Jen, Harry Potter and Gazza

Test Match Special aside, by the mid 20th century the "-er" was being replaced by snappier nicknames. Thus, in the stories of Anthony Buckeridge (1912–2004), set in a preparatory school of the 1950s, Jennings was "Jen", and not Jenners. Even so, in the Harry Potter books of J. K. Rowling (b.1965), Dudley Dursley was addressed as Dudders.

The adjective butters, abbreviated from "butt ugly", is a 21st century example of the "-er" as "street" slang ^[21], as in "She's well butters, innit" ^[22]. This is similar in concept to the well-established starkers (stark naked). The origin of bonkers (initially meaning light-headed and, latterly, crazy) is uncertain, but is most likely an "-er" coinage derived from "bonk" (in the sense of a blow to the head) ^[23].

The late 20th century form, probably Australian in origin, that gave rise to such nicknames as "Gazza" (Paul Gascoigne), "Hezza" (Michael Heseltine) and "Prezza" (John Prescott) has some similarities to the Oxford "-er". In Private Eye's occasional spoof romance, Duchess of Love, Camilla, Duchess of Cornwall addressed her husband, Prince Charles, as "Chazza", while he referred to her as Cammers ^[24].

[edit] Notes