Some writers have contributed enormously to English. Shakespeare, of course, is the one everybody thinks of. John Milton added even more words than Shakespeare. And don’t forget about Charles Dickens!
Dickens usually wrote about working-class people in 1800s England. His characters were often poorly educated and communicated in slang, and some of what Dickens contributed to the language has also been slang. The characters were pretty memorable, and that’s where some of the language comes from.
Take “gamp,” for example, It’s become a bit rare — at least in the US; evidently it’s a bit more common in the United Kingdom — but it’s a term for an umbrella, like “brelly” or “bumbershoot.” A “gamp” a large umbrella, and often one that closes fairly loosely. As for why an umbrella of any sort should be called a “gamp,” you just have to read “Martin Chuzzlewit,” an 1846 novel by Dickens. Or, well, just keep reading this.
One of the memorable characters in “Martin Chuzzlewit” is Mrs. Gamp. She was a sort of professional mourner, or something like that, and was hired when Old Chuzzlewit (not Martin) died. She was kind of a seedy character: “The face of Mrs Gamp—the nose in particular—was somewhat red and swollen, and it was difficult to enjoy her society without becoming conscious of a smell of spirits.” It’s not entirely clear in the book quite what Mrs. Gamp actually does, but when she shows up, she’s always carrying a big umbrella “in colour like a faded leaf, except where a circular patch of a lively blue had been dexterously let in at the top”.
Dickens’ books were so popular in the 1800s that everybody at the time knew exactly who you meant by “Mrs. Gamp.” She always appeared with her umbrella, so if you referred to a “gamp,” it was obvious what you meant. Nowadays “Martin Chuzzlewit” is nowhere near as well known, of course, which is probably why “gamp” isn’t either. It’s not even easy to find professional mourners these days, so we can’t even give “gamp” a proper sendoff.
