“Wagger,” or “wagger-pagger-bagger,” which was used to denote “waste-paper basket,” is an example of that strange argot prevalent in the 1920s and 1930s that caused the Prince of Wales to be known as the Pragger-Wagger. Even today, in the giddy world of High Anglicanism in such temples of bells, smells and cotters as St. Mary’s, Bourne Street, SW3, I have heard with my own two ears Holy Communion referred to by pert, campy priests as “haggers-commaggers” and my mother still describes the agony and torture of anything from toothache to an annoying traffic jam as “aggers and torters.”
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