B Not to know b from a battledore, phr. (old).—To be entirely illiterate; very ignorant. This old cant phrase has several variants, all of them alliterative in character. For example, not to know b from a bull's-foot—from a broomstick—chalk from cheese, etc. Each and all indicate inability to distinguish between familiar objects that differ. Battledore is an old name for the hornbook from which children used to learn the alphabet.
1401. Pol. Poems, II., 57. I know not an a from the wynd-mylne, ne a b from a bole foot. [M.]
1609. Dekker, Guls-Hornebooke, 3. You shall not neede to buy bookes; no, scorne to distinguish a b from a battledore; onely looke that your eares be long enough to reach our rudiments, and you are made for ever.
1846. Brackenridge, Modern Chivalry, 43. There were members who scarcely knew b from a bull's-foot. [M.]
B (fenian).—Mr. H. J. Byron, the playwright, in his annotated copy of the Slang Dictionary, mentions this as the title of a captain in the 'army of the Irish Republican Brotherhood.'
B's.—See B flat.
Babe, subs. (parliamentary).—The last elected member of the House of Commons. The oldest representative of the chamber is called the father of the house (q.v.).
(American).—The youngest member of a class at the United States Military College at West Point. A term sans wit, sans point, sans almost everything.
Babe in the Wood, subs. phr. (old).—1. A victim of the law's solicitude; in other words, a culprit sentenced to the stocks or the pillory. Obsolete.
2. Dice are also called babes in the wood.
Babes, subs. (auctioneers').—A set of auction thieves, who attend sales for the express purpose of blackmail. Their modus operandi is as follows. In consideration of a small bribe of money or beer, or both, they
