# Flashman. Decipher brit speak for me. **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [March 5, 2008, 11:42am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/flashman-decipher-brit-speak-for-me/440165 "2008-03-05T11:42:08Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 15\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Shirley\_Ujest](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/45deac/32.png) [@Shirley\_Ujest](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Shirley_Ujest)\ **Post date:** [March 5, 2008, 11:42am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/flashman-decipher-brit-speak-for-me/440165/1 "2008-03-05T11:42:08Z")
So, I’m thoroughly enjoying the [Flashman](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flashman) \* series and I’m more than acquainted with varies forms of british slang through the dark and sordid years of reading Regency Romances and watching loads of stuff on BBC. And Harry Potter and The Magic Rock. However, there is one word I can’t parse out. **Fag**. It isn’t homosexual. It isn’t a smoke. I have been guessing " tired". - everyone should read Flashman. ---
**Author:** ![Pushkin](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/ee59a6/32.png) [@Pushkin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Pushkin)\ **Post date:** [March 5, 2008, 11:46am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/flashman-decipher-brit-speak-for-me/440165/2 "2008-03-05T11:46:45Z")
I’ve never heard it used in this way in Northern Ireland, but from http://www.thefreedictionary.com/fag; > [@](#): > > 1. > > a. A student at a British public school who is required to perform menial tasks for a student in a higher class. > b. A drudge. > 2. Chiefly British Fatiguing or tedious work; drudgery. > v. fagged, fag·ging, fags > v.intr. > > 1. To work to exhaustion; toil. > 2. To function as the servant of another student in a British public school. > v.tr. > To exhaust; weary: Four hours on the tennis court fagged me out. > [From fag, to droop (obsolete), perhaps from Middle English fagge; see fag end.] ---
**Author:** ![Quartz](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/quartz/32/267_2.png) [@Quartz](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Quartz)\ **Post date:** [March 5, 2008, 11:58am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/flashman-decipher-brit-speak-for-me/440165/3 "2008-03-05T11:58:43Z")
**Pushkin** has it. What used to happen at many schools was that junior boys acted as gofers and servants for senior boys. This was called fagging and the boys were fags. ---
**Author:** ![jjimm](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/ba8739/32.png) [@jjimm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jjimm)\ **Post date:** [March 5, 2008, 12:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/flashman-decipher-brit-speak-for-me/440165/4 "2008-03-05T12:08:37Z")
But I’m guessing the OP means stuff like “it’s a fag” or “I’m fagged out”. Which is the “tired” meaning. ---
**Author:** ![Shirley\_Ujest](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/45deac/32.png) [@Shirley\_Ujest](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Shirley_Ujest)\ **Post date:** [March 5, 2008, 10:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/flashman-decipher-brit-speak-for-me/440165/5 "2008-03-05T22:21:50Z")
[QUOTE=jjimm] But I’m guessing the OP means stuff like “it’s a fag” or “I’m fagged out”. Which is the “tired” meaning. [/QUOTE] That is how I am guessing it is meant. Though, saying that I am fagging all over town might bring on a new barrel of hilarity. ---
**Author:** ![silenus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/silenus/32/166_2.png) [@silenus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/silenus)\ **Post date:** [March 5, 2008, 10:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/flashman-decipher-brit-speak-for-me/440165/6 "2008-03-05T22:23:59Z")
Actually, I think most of the time Flashman uses the term he is refering to his time at Rugby. ---
**Author:** ![Lemur866](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lemur866/32/434_2.png) [@Lemur866](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lemur866)\ **Post date:** [March 5, 2008, 10:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/flashman-decipher-brit-speak-for-me/440165/7 "2008-03-05T22:58:52Z")
[QUOTE=Quartz] **Pushkin** has it. What used to happen at many schools was that junior boys acted as gofers and servants for senior boys. This was called fagging and the boys were fags. [/QUOTE] Wasn’t there a Cecil column on this? Was there any evidence that homosexual=fag came from upperclassmen requiring unnatural acts from the junior boys? ---
**Author:** ![Spectre\_of\_Pithecanthropus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/spectre_of_pithecanthropus/32/12343_2.png) [@Spectre\_of\_Pithecanthropus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Spectre_of_Pithecanthropus)\ **Post date:** [March 5, 2008, 11:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/flashman-decipher-brit-speak-for-me/440165/8 "2008-03-05T23:59:05Z")
To the OP: Flashman first appears as the school bully in _Tom Brown’s School Days_. I don’t think you need to have read it to read the Flashman series, but it couldn’t hurt. If you can find it, that is. Despite it’s almost iconic status in the English language as a coming of age novel, I don’t think it’s been in print in many decades. When I did manage to find a copy in a library, it was so tattered as to be almost unusable. ---
**Author:** ![aldiboronti](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/9fc348/32.png) [@aldiboronti](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/aldiboronti)\ **Post date:** [March 6, 2008, 12:04am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/flashman-decipher-brit-speak-for-me/440165/9 "2008-03-06T00:04:11Z")
Here’s what OED has: > [@](#): > > fagged, ppl., a. > > 1. Flaccid, drooping. Obs. > 1578 BANISTER Hist. Man VI. 88 They incontinent become slacke, narrow together, fagde, and shorter. > > 2. Wearied out, excessively fatigued. > 1780 F. BURNEY Diary & Lett. May, I felt horribly fagged. 1841 CATLIN N. Amer. Ind. (1844) II. xlvii. 97 Leave him fagged out by the way-side. 1862 MRS. H. WOOD Mrs. Hallib. I. v. 25 You look thin and fagged. 1883 E. PENNELL-ELMHIRST Cream Leicestersh. 300, I have seldom seen as many fagged faces as on Saturday. _Fagged out_ for tired is still common in the UK. ---
**Author:** ![gaffa](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/e68b1a/32.png) [@gaffa](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/gaffa)\ **Post date:** [March 6, 2008, 12:46am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/flashman-decipher-brit-speak-for-me/440165/10 "2008-03-06T00:46:52Z")
[QUOTE=Spectre of Pithecanthropus] To the OP: Flashman first appears as the school bully in _Tom Brown’s School Days_. I don’t think you need to have read it to read the Flashman series, but it couldn’t hurt. If you can find it, that is. Despite it’s almost iconic status in the English language as a coming of age novel, I don’t think it’s been in print in many decades. When I did manage to find a copy in a library, it was so tattered as to be almost unusable. [/QUOTE] Thanks to Project Guttenberg, you can [read it for free and print your own copy](http://www.gutenberg.org/etext/1480). ---
**Author:** ![bonzer](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/45deac/32.png) [@bonzer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bonzer)\ **Post date:** [March 6, 2008, 12:47am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/flashman-decipher-brit-speak-for-me/440165/11 "2008-03-06T00:47:30Z")
[QUOTE=Spectre of Pithecanthropus] Despite it’s almost iconic status in the English language as a coming of age novel, I don’t think it’s been in print in many decades. When I did manage to find a copy in a library, it was so tattered as to be almost unusable. [/QUOTE] Actually, [Oxford World’s Classics still has it in print](http://www.amazon.co.uk/Browns-Schooldays-Oxford-Worlds-Classics/dp/0192835351/ref=pd_bbs_sr_2?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1204763853&sr=8-2). I’d even suggest that this is unsurprisingly so. Though I’d agree that, in my experience as someone who very vaguely recalls reading him many years ago, it’s hardly necessary to be familiar with Hughes to enjoy any Flashman book. Beyond knowing that that’s where Harry originates as a character. ---
**Author:** ![Eleanor\_of\_Aquitaine](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/a88e4f/32.png) [@Eleanor\_of\_Aquitaine](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Eleanor_of_Aquitaine)\ **Post date:** [March 6, 2008, 3:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/flashman-decipher-brit-speak-for-me/440165/12 "2008-03-06T15:06:20Z")
[QUOTE=Spectre of Pithecanthropus] To the OP: Flashman first appears as the school bully in _Tom Brown’s School Days_. I don’t think you need to have read it to read the Flashman series, but it couldn’t hurt. [/QUOTE] Netflix also has a couple of adaptations of this. I rented the one with Stephen Fry as the headmaster. (I’m reading _Flash for Freedom!_ right now.) ---
**Author:** ![Crotalus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/crotalus/32/41_2.png) [@Crotalus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Crotalus)\ **Post date:** [March 6, 2008, 3:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/flashman-decipher-brit-speak-for-me/440165/13 "2008-03-06T15:17:22Z")
[QUOTE=Lemur866] Wasn’t there a Cecil column on this? Was there any evidence that homosexual=fag came from upperclassmen requiring unnatural acts from the junior boys? [/QUOTE] In Surprised By Joy, C.S. Lewis describes the custom of fagging (younger students being required to do menial work for upper-classmen). He also describes the homosexual activity that went on at his school, referring to what I assume were the bottoms as tarts or house tarts. ---
**Author:** ![APB](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/8e8cbc/32.png) [@APB](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/APB)\ **Post date:** [March 6, 2008, 4:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/flashman-decipher-brit-speak-for-me/440165/14 "2008-03-06T16:06:30Z")
[QUOTE=Lemur866] Wasn’t there a Cecil column on this? Was there any evidence that homosexual=fag came from upperclassmen requiring unnatural acts from the junior boys? [/QUOTE] [How did “faggot” get to mean “male homosexual”?](http://www.straightdope.com/mailbag/mfaggot.html) ---
**Author:** ![Giles](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/giles/32/60_2.png) [@Giles](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Giles)\ **Post date:** [March 6, 2008, 4:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/flashman-decipher-brit-speak-for-me/440165/15 "2008-03-06T16:24:07Z")
[QUOTE=Spectre of Pithecanthropus] To the OP: Flashman first appears as the school bully in _Tom Brown’s School Days_. I don’t think you need to have read it to read the Flashman series, but it couldn’t hurt. If you can find it, that is. Despite it’s almost iconic status in the English language as a coming of age novel, I don’t think it’s been in print in many decades. When I did manage to find a copy in a library, it was so tattered as to be almost unusable. [/QUOTE] It’s also available, since it’s out of copyright, [as an e-text at Project Gutenberg.](http://www.gutenberg.org/etext/1480) ETA: And I see I was beaten to this by **Gaffa**.