Kite You Are

The OED Has Got It Wrong, So Has Partridge.

The page concerns the origin and meaning of the 19th-century London slang word: kite. The Oxford English Dictionary (OED) and Eric Partidge’s Dictionary of Historical Slang both define it as meaning stomach, though that is different from both my understanding and, it appears, the evidence.

According to the Oxford English Dictionary, 2nd edition, vol. VIII, p. 471, ‘kite’ (also ‘kyte’), a dialect word, originally derived from an old English word for the womb, which – by extension – came to mean the belly. What a load of old toffee!

The idea that kite refers to stomach comes from the song sung by Harry Champion, Boiled Beef and Carrots, where he sings: ‘From morn til night blow out yer kite, on boiled beef and carrots.’

The deepus thinkers assume that ‘Blow out yer kite’ means fill your stomach (though without any backup evidence so far as I can make out) on the basis that it seems obvious. These academics, they are a laugh, cor blimey wot a laugh.

From the song you might surmise that kite refers to stomach, but I don’t think it does, I think it quite simply means what it says, it’s an allegory. When a kite fills out in the sky it fills out, though this particular kite is perhaps the nautical version, it’s a type of sail used in light winds, apparently. Blow out yer kite means, well, blow out yer kite. The words don’t need taking literally, only a non-artist who cracks nuts in their teeth would do that.

There is another slang meaning of kite, which seems to have escaped the folks who compile the OED, which is to do with the face, and it could be more plausible to translate ‘Blow out yer kite’ as ‘Fill yer face’.

That is how I remember the word being used in my childhood in London, and the following would tend to back me up:

1. On a site called A Cockney Rhyming Slang Dictionary someone asks the meaning of ‘kite’, and a reply comes thus:

<< Tony adds: “Kite” is a reference to “nose”. I have no idea why it does, but my dad has used that term all my life “You’ve got a snotty kite”, “get you finger out of your kite” or “wipe your kite”. I was a very grubby boy. >>

Could be nose, though could also be face.

2. In another song sung by Harry Champion, Don’t Do It Again Matilda, he sings:

Matilda she went to a fancy dress ball

And she played an original part.

She rubbed herself over with raspberry jam

And she went as a raspberry tart.

I went up to hug her and give her a kiss,

Well the jam went all over me kite.

I know she’s a sticker,

But Lor’ what a licker!

I shouted: ‘you’ve done it tonight!’

Ah, don’t do it again, Matilda

Don’t do it again!

That raspberry jam was made of glue

It cannot be helped but I’m sticking to you.

My luck, our noses are stuck and I’m starting to lose me train.

I can’t walk about with you stuck on me snout,

So don’t do it again!

Their noses would logically be stuck if kite means face (or even nose), but not if it means belly. Not at all.

3. My mother would use the phrase ‘face a long as a kite’ to mean you look glum. This is also used in a Harry Champion song: The Old Dun Cow, where he sings:

Some pals and I in a public house were playing dominoes last night,

When all of a sudden in the potman runs with a face just like a kite.

Incidentally the lyrics to these three songs were not all written by the same person, being respectively Charles Collins, Fred Murray and Harry Wincott, I think that’s right.

So all in all, I think that the OED has it wrong. What they have written just doesn’t ring true.

But we won’t tell them, we’ll keep it to ourselves.

I have another page where I think the dictionary-compliers have missed the bleedin’ obvious with regard to a word, this time the word hassle. See These Academics They Are a Funny Lot.

There’s also the way that places are announced on London Buses. See London’s Talking Buses.

There’s an analysis of the language used in Don’t Do It Again Matilda on my page Don’t Do It Again Matilda and another on Boiled Beef and Carrots.