Toko

The internet is full of message boards on which weird and wonderful knowledge is shared. This is not new. A very odd nineteenth century journal which you can read here for free on line, and which is still published is called "Notes and Queries." Learned men send in questions and answers for what seems simple enjoyment of the odd and and quizzical. Its 1895 edition mentions a Haileybury slang word of which I had never heard before. On Page 14 the question is posed by Edward Belben (C 1884) who seems to be replying to an earlier comment by one M R Lloyd. On Page 98 it is answered.

" Toko " was a very general slang word at Haileybury ten years ago, and is probably so still. M R. LLOYD need not have gone back " at least sixty years " to find its use among the vulgar, including schoolboys." Why " including " ? It may be general in other public schools. Can any of your correspondents record it ? 

The correspondence is picked up with the explanation as follows:

In D. C. T.'s note on this subject a most amusing blunder is made in deriving toko from Gr. TOKOS. The word is really the imperative of the Hindi word tokna, to hammer; and to " give toko to " means to give a sound hammering or drubing to. The word was no doubt brought to England from the East by our soldiers and sailors who had 
served there. MELANCTHON MADVIG. 

It is unsurprising that a Haileybury slang word should be derived from Hindi. The signature on this entry shows that the business of odd pseudonyms for message boards is by no means something that came in with the internnet.