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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).
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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).
The term "soccer" was popularised by a prominent English footballer, Charles Wreford-Brown (1866–1951). The first recorded use of soccer was in 1895.19th Cent. Nov. 862. "When the boat~race, sports, and ‘soccer’ are in most men\'s minds." OED (soccer) However two years earlier The Western Gazette reported that "W. Neilson was elected captain of ‘rugger’ and T. N. Perkins of ‘socker’"1893 Westm. Gaz. 17 Oct. 5/3. OED (rugby) and, Henry Watson Fowler recommended socker in preference to "soccer" to emphasise its correct pronunciation (i.e. hard "cc/ck").A Dictionary of Modern English Usage, 1926 In this context, he suggested that "baccy", because of the "cc" in "tobacco", was "more acceptable than soccer" (there being no "cc" in "Association").
In Stiff Upper Lip, Jeeves (1963), a novel of P G Wodehouse (1881–1975), Bertie Wooster was asked whether he was fond of rugger, to which he replied, "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".E W Swanton (1972) Sort of a Cricket Person Around the same time the Conservative Minister Leo Amery noted that, for his thirteen year old Harrovian son Jack (who was executed for treason in 1945), "footer in the rain [was] a very real grievance".See David Faber (2005) Speaking for England 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.Ernest H Jenkins, Elizabethan Headmaster 1930–1961 In Evelyn Waugh\'s Brideshead Revisited, Oxford undergraduate Anthony Blanche claims that "I was lunching with my p-p-preposterous tutor. He thought it very odd my leaving when I did. I told him I had to change for f-f-footer."
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.Dictionary of Slang and Unconventional English, op.cit.
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 (/ipʁ/) 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.
Oxford "-er" coinages may be embellished by preceding the slang formulation with the word "Harry". Thus an apology to Atkins for non-provision of champagne might take the form:
"No shampers tonight, Atters. I\'m Harry Skinters (= low on funds)".
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).Brian Johnston (1992) Someone Who Was The habit extended to cricketers such as Phil Tufnell (Tuffers), but the \'-ie\' suffix is more common for the current crop of players, such as Michael Vaughan (Vaughnie).
The former Hampshire County Cricket Club captain Colin Ingleby-Mackenzie, whose most usual nickname was McCrackers,Wisden 2007 was sometimes addressed as Ingers when he made occasional appearances on TMS and former Middlesex bowler and journalist Mike Selvey was referred to as Selvers.Test Match Special, 2 January 2007 The programme\'s producer, Peter Baxter, cited Backers as his own nickname and Jenkers that of commentator and cricketing journalist, Christopher Martin-JenkinsPeter Baxter (ed 1981) Test Match Special) (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". An earlier Eye cartoon by McLachlan, reproduced in the 2007 edition of Wisden, included in its long caption a reference to former England bowler Fred Trueman as Fredders (in fact, his common nickname, bestowed by Johnston, was "Sir Frederick"), while yummers (i.e. "yummy") was applied to "another lovely cake sent in by one of our listeners".
Other "-er"\'s as personal names include:
"-Er" forms of Oxford locationsSee generally Partridge, op. cit. include:
Preggers (pregnant, in the sense of "with child") is one of the most commonly used "-er" terms.
Brekker, breakker or brekkers (for breakfast) is a coinage from the 1880s still in occasional use. In 1996, Jessica Mitford (1917–1996) in one of her final letters to her sister, Deborah, Duchess of Devonshire, referred to "proper boiled eggs for breakker".Letter, 23 July 1996: Decca: the Letters of Jessica Mitford (ed Peter Y Sussman, 2006) Shampers (champagne) occurs frequently, often spelt champers: "They like champers up north".thelondonpaper, 23 March 2007
Simon Raven (1927–2001), describing an episode on military service in the late 1940s, referred several times to a particular brigadier as "the Brigger".Shadows in the Grass, 1982
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".See Country Life, 14 September 2006 The names applied to conkers that have triumphed in conker fights are arguably "-er" forms ("one-er", "twelver", etc), though "conker" itself is derived from a dialect word for the shell of a snail.
Wagger pagger bagger (waste-paper basket) may have fallen into disuse.
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").Murray Hedgcock (ed, 1997) Wodehouse at the Wicket The "-er" was evident also in the school cricketing stories of E F Benson: "Owlers (this, of course, was Mr Howliss)" (David Blaize, 1916). In the two Chimneys novels of Agatha Christie, a pompous Cabinet Minister was nicknamed Codders because of his bulging eyes (presumably an allusion to the cod fish).Agatha Christie (1925) The Secret of Chimneys; (1929) The Seven Dials Mystery
Evidence of badders for the racquet sport of badmintonFor example, in North London in the 1980s is largely anecdotal, as it is in respect of the horse trials 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 Hongkong and Shanghai Banking Corporation (HSBC, founded 1865), is sometimes referred to in the City of London as "Honkers and Shankers". The stadium at Twickenham in South West London, used for major Rugby Union fixtures, including the annual Oxford v. Cambridge \'Varsity match, is often abbreviated to Twickers and journalist Frank Keating has referred to the annual lawn tennis championships at Wimbledon as Wimbers.The Oldie, June 2007
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, meaning ugly (probably an abbreviation of "but her face ..."), is a 21st century example of the "-er" as "street" slang,Susie Dent (2004) Larpers and Shroomers as in "She\'s well butters, innit".The Oldie, September 2006 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 seems to date from the Second World WarSee Alex Games (2007) Balderdash and Piffle: One sandwich short of a dog\'s dinner and is most likely an "-er" coinage derived from "bonk" (in the sense of a blow to the head).See The Word Detective, December 2003 [2] Similarly, crackers is probably derived from "cracked" and ultimately from "crazy"; Partridge cited "get the crackers" as a late 19th century slang for "to go mad"Partridge, op.cit.
The late 20th century form, probably Australian in origin, that gave rise to such nicknames as "Gazza" (Paul Gascoigne), "Hezza" (Michael Heseltine), "Prezza" (John Prescott), "Bozza" (Boris Johnson), "Wozza" (Antony Worrall Thompson) and "Mozza" (Morrissey) 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.For example, Private Eye, 4 August 2006
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