Cag Maggy

Posted by Graham Cambray on February 11, 2009 at 18:56

In Reply to: Cag Maggy posted by Jo on February 11, 2009 at 17:41:

: Im sure there a saying mainly meant of rough tough meat being CAG MAGGY. Has anyone heard this and if so do they know the origins?

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CAGG MAGGS. Old Lincolnshire geese, which having been plucked ten or twelve years, are sent up to London to feast the cockneys. [Usually "cag-mags". The practice was mentioned by Pennant in his "Tour in Scotland", 1774. In C19 the word came to mean refuse or rubbish or odds and ends. "Cag-mag" also signified a plain or dirty woman. In dialect (where also spelt "keg-meg") the term had five chief meanings, the one leading to the rest: tough old goose; tough inferior meat; bad, unwholesome food; refuse, anything worthless; a term of opprobrium applied to persons. As a dialectal adjective: coarse, inferior, mongrel, spurious.]

From Classical Dictionary of the Vulgar Tongue By Francis Grose, P66 of 1931 edition (but original version 1823 ???)

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(GC)