It's a shame that so many very apt words fall out of common use over time, like "blobber-lippd," which means having lips that are very thick, hanging down, or turning over; and "chounter," which is to talk pertly, and sometimes angrily. Both words can be found in The First English Dictionary of Slang, originally published in 1699 as A New Dictionary of Terms, Ancient and Modern, of the Canting Crew by B. E. Gentleman. Though a number of early texts, beginning in the sixteenth century, codified forms of cant--the slang language of the criminal underworld--in word lists which...