Heading
1871. City of London Directory. 'Facts and Anomalies.' The valetudinarian has not much choice in the city for a constitutional, seeing that it possesses but three walks, and 'Long Walk' is the shortest.
Contango, subs. (Stock Exchange).—A
fine paid by the buyer to the
seller of stock for carrying over
the engagement to another
settling day, and representing a
kind of interest for a fourteen
days' extension. [Thought to be
a corruption of 'continuation.']
1853. Notes and Queries, 17 Dec., p. 586, col. 2. Contango: a technical term in use among the sharebrokers of Liverpool, and I presume elsewhere, signifying a sum of money paid for accommodating either a buyer or seller by carrying the engagement to pay money or deliver shares over to the next account day.
1871. Daily News, 27 Feb. A large amount of money was offered in the Stock Exchange, in connection with the fortnightly settlement, which began this morning, and the contangoes on British railway securities were light, while the supply of stock was small.
1872. Evening Standard, 11 Dec. 'City Intelligence.' Erie Shares are steady; the contango is 3d. to 9d.
1884. Daily News, Nov. 13, p. 5, col. 1. City shop is not less baffling, and it is perhaps impossible for laymen to understand what contango means. Contango, by the way, would be a proud motto for an ennobled stockbroker, and would look well under a crest.
1887. Atkin, House Scraps. B stands for broker, for bull and for bear, C's the contango that's paid by the bull.
Content, adv. (old).—Dead. For
synonyms, see Aloft and Hop
the twig.
1785. Grose, Dict. Vulg. Tongue. The cull's content: the man is past complaining (cant), saying of a person murdered for resisting the robbers.
Continent, adv. (Winchester College).—Ill;
on the sick list.
[From continens cameram vel lectum,
keeping one's room or bed.]—See
Abroad.
1870. Mansfield, School Life at Winchester College, p. 146. When a boy felt ill, or inclined to quit school for a period, he had to get leave continent which was done by sending a boy in the morning first to get leave from his tutor, and then from the Head Master.
1878. Adams, Wykehamica, p. 224 We suggested the 'continent room'; and on being required to say what was to become of the sick boys? replied, that it was notorious that there was never anything the matter with them!
Continental. Not to care or
be worth a continental or
continental damn, phr.
(American).—To be worthless;
not to care in the least degree.
[Continental was the common
qualification at the time of the
Revolution of whatever concerned
the American Colonies before
they were united into a confederacy;
hence continental
congress, continental money,
continental troops; while the
people themselves were generally
spoken of as continentallers
or continentals. Continental
damn, a term almost universally
applied to the worthless
continental paper money of
those days is, nevertheless held
by James Grant White (Words
and their Uses) to be a counterpart,
if not a mere modification,
of other phrases of the same
kidney—a tinker's or trooper's
damn, etc.—and as the colonial
troops were called continentallers
or continentals
during the war, and for many
years afterwards, it is probable
that it began as a continental's
damn. Passing to the general
phrase 'not worth a damn' Mr.
White thinks that the 'damn' =
A.S. cerse. = watercress. Piers
Ploughman (1362) says 'wisdom
and witt nowe is not worth a
kerse' and transition, by reason
