1884. Punch, 11 Oct. Fancy, old chump, Me doing the sawdusty reglar, and follering swells on the stump.
1893. Milliken, 'Arry Ballads, 41. That's true poetry, ain't it Not sawdust and snivel.
2. (American).—A variety of the confidence trick.
1888. Pittsburg Times, 8 Feb. He is implicated in the robbery of 10,000 dollars from William Murdock on Saturday a week ago. Murdock was drawn into a sawdust game in an office whose location he could not remember, on Grant street.
1888. New Orleans Times Democrat, 6 Feb. The prominent men you speak of are never at the front in any of these sawdust transactions. . . . The courts find it very difficult to send a man to State prison for this kind of swindling, and the sawdust man who fights hard is generally certain of acquittal.
Sawney (or Sawny), subs. (old).—1.
A lout: see Buffle (B. E.).
As adj. = stupid.
1567. Edwards, Damon and Pithias [Dodsley, Old Plays (Hazlitt), iv. 74]. [Oliphant, New Eng., i. 566. A servant speaks French to astonish a friend, and calls him petit Zawne (zany or sawny).]
1871. Mrs. H. Wood, Dene Hollow, viii. That wench Pris . . . she's a regular sawney, though, in some things.
1873. Miss Broughton, Nancy, vii. The bronze of his face is a little paled by emotion, but there is no sawny sentiment in his tone, none of the lover's whine.
2. (Scots').—A Scot; Sandy (q.v.).—B. E., Grose.
d. 1704. Brown, Highlander [Works, i. 127]. And learn from him against a time of need To husband wealth, as sawny does his weed.
1714. Gay , Shep. Week, vi. 115. He sung of Taffy Welch, and Sawney Scot.
1748. Smollett, Rod. Random, xiii. [Addressing a Scotchman] 'Is it oatmeal or brimstone, Sawney?' said he.
1772. Bridges, Burlesque Homer, 138. A queer look'd whelp, called Sawney Dunn; His men from Caledonia came. Ibid. As firm as Sawney's rubbing post.
1822. Scott, Fortunes of Nigel, ii. Jockey . . . a name which at that time was used, as Sawney now is, for a general appellative of the Scottish nation.
1892. Henley and Stevenson, Deacon Brodie, Tabl. 11. ii. Jock runs east, and Sawney cuts west.
3. (common).—Bacon; also stolen cheese; hence, sawney-hunter = a bacon thief: Fr. spec.—Grose, Vaux.
1851-61. Mayhew, London Lab., i. 275. Of very ready sale "fish got from the gate" (stolen from Billingsgate; sawney (thieved bacon). Ibid., Gt. World of London (1856), 46. Sawney-hunters, who purloin cheese or bacon from cheesemongers' doors.
Sawneying, adj. (old).—Soft-speaking;
pimping; carneying
(q.v.).
1808. Southey, Letters, ii. 63. It looks like a sneaking sawneying Methodist parson.
Sawyer, subs. (American).—A
snag: a fallen tree, rising and
falling with the waves.
1847. Robb, Squatter Life, 106. Snags and sawyers, just thar, wur dreadful plenty.
1884. Clemens, Huckleberry Finn, and Life on the Mississippi (1883), passim.
Say. See Ape's Paternoster;
Boh; Jack Robinson; Knife;
Mouth; Nothing; Parson;
Prayers; Te Deum; Thing;
When.
Say-so, subs. phr. (colloquial).—An
assertion; also a mild oath:
on my say-so = 'On my word
of honour': also sammy say-so.
1885. Craddock, Proph. of Great Smoky Mountains, xii. Pete Cayce's say-so war all I wanted.
1890. Barr, Friend Olivia, xvii. Kelderby stands in the wind of Charles Stuart's say-so.
You say you can, but can you? phr. (American).—'You lie.'
