Block Island Turkey, subs. (American).—Salted cod-fish. Connecticut and Rhode Island. Slang delights in naming fish as flesh. For some curious examples, see Two-eyed steak.
Block Ornaments, or Blockers, subs. (common).—1. Small pieces of meat of indifferent quality, trimmings from the joints, etc. Exposed for sale on the blocks or counters of butcher's shops in cheap neighbourhoods.
1848. Fraser's Mag., XXXVII., 396. Forced to substitute a blocker of meat, with its cheap accompaniment of bread and vegetables . . . for poultry and rump steaks. [m.]
1851-61. H. Mayhew, London Lab. and Lon. Poor, vol. I., p. 54. For dinner . . . they buy block ornaments, as they call the small, dark-coloured pieces of meat exposed on the cheap butchers' blocks or counters. Ibid, p. 516. What they consider a good living is a dinner daily off good block ornaments (small pieces of meat, discoloured and dirty, but not tainted, usually set for sale on the butcher's block).
1884. Punch, No. 2063, p. 29. And eager-faced women must bargain for tainted block ornaments still.
1887. Standard, Jan. 20, The Poor at Market. Watching a man who stands with his wife and little girl before a butcher's shop, let us see what they have to choose from in buying for the next day's dinner. On the shelves set out in front of the shop meat scraps are offered at 3½d. the lb.; better scraps (or block ornaments, as they are termed) at 4d.; somewhat shapeless small joints of beef from inferior parts at 5d., one coarse shoulder of mutton at the same; tolerably good-looking meat at 6d.; mutton chops at 7d. and 8d.; and rump steak at 10d.
2. Applied to individuals, a block ornament signifies a queer looking man or woman—one odd in appearance.
Bloke or Bloak, subs. (common).—A man; a fellow. In saying 'not strictly "a man" as Hotten defines it, but a man in a contemptuous sense,' Barrère is himself wide of the mark. The word may sometimes be used contemptuously; but, generally speaking, any idea of reproach or praise is absent, and a bloke means a man pure and simple. In witness whereof are the following examples of its use.
1851. Mayhew, London Labour and London Poor, III., p. 397. If we met an old bloke (man) we propped him.
1857. Snowden, Mag. Assistant, 3 ed., p. 446. A gentleman.—A bloak.
1860. Sala, The Baddington Peerage, II., p. 49. My old bloke!
1862. Kingsley, in Macmillan's Mag., Dec, 96. Little better than blokes and boodles after all. [m.]
1863. Ouida, Held in Bondage, bk. I., p. 245. The girl is stunning, the blokes say, so we must forgive you.
1865. Miss Braddon, in Temple Bar, XIII., 483. The society of the aged bloke is apt to pull upon the youthful intellect.
1869. J. Greenwood, Seven Curses of London. It came out in the course of the evidence that the meaning of the word bloke was 'a man whom a woman might pick up in the street.'
1873. Robinson, Little Kate Kirby, I., p. 136. 'Give us a horder then, old bloke,' shrieked another gamin.
c. 1875. Broadside Ballad, 'Keep it Dark.' I have heard though may be it isn't a fact, Keep it dark! That the present Lord Chancellor's going to be sacked, Keep it dark! And Dr. Kenealy, that popular bloke, That extremely warm member, the member for Stoke, Is about to succeed him, the lawyers to choke— But, keep it dark!
c. 1869. Broadside Ballad, 'Shooting the Moon.' Spoken—Yes, and I used to do very well, until some ragged young urchin said to his pal, don't you varder, don't you know that ere bloke, that's the bloke we saw the other day with a barrow.
