Noisy Arabs

Posted by Smokey Stover on July 06, 2009 at 00:19

In Reply to: Noisy Arabs posted by Victoria S Dennis on July 05, 2009 at 15:21:

: : Something from the depths of memory - "Noisy Arabs" or "Shut-up you noisy Arabs". Phrases that I know and use but don't know from where they come.

: I've never heard that one. But in the second half of the 19th century "city Arab" or "street Arab" was British slang for a homeless guttersnipe child, presumably because they were "nomads" of no fixed abode, like Bedouin. Perhaps your phrase derives from this? "Shut up you noisy guttersnipes" sounds pretty plausible to me.(VSD)

I think it would also sound plausible to the editors of the OED. Under guttershipe, after explaining that a snipe is a bird, they give, as one meaning:

"b. A child brought up 'in the gutter'; one of the lowest class; an urchin. Also attrib. and as adj.

[One example of many:] 1884 Century Mag. XXVIII. 557 The gutter-snipes and Arabs of the streets of Gravesend."

• Noisy Arabs Gary Martin 11/July/09