Vanity Fair (Sept. 1914) 

THE KNUTS O' LONDON 

Desperate Fellows All, and the Distinction 
Between the "Knut" and the "Blood" 
Nuts, By P.G. Wodehouse 

I'M GILBERT, the filbert, 
The nut with a K., 
The pride of Piccadilly, 
The blase roue; 
Oh, Hades, the ladies, 
They'd leave their wooden huts 
For Gilbert, the filbert, 
The colonel of the nuts. 

So runs the refrain of the song which all London is whistling at the present moment, and 
American visitors probably wonder why Gilbert should apparently take pride in the absence of 
sanity implied by his description of himself as a Nut. But in England the word "nut" has a 
different meaning. The Nut of London is the descendant of the Beau, the Buck, the Macaroni, the 
Johnnie, the Swell, and the Dude. 

Nobody knows how the word came into existence in its present sense. London seemed to awake 
one morning convinced that the only proper term for the young man cutting a swathe through its 
midst on his father's money was the term "Nut," -- or "Knut," as you must spell it to be in the 
movement. Overnight it had been calling these young men "Johnnies," "boys" and "lads." 
George Grossmith was the first to emphasize the distinction between the Nut and the Blood. The 
Blood was a young man who caused riots in restaurants: the Nut is too listless to do anything so 
energetic. For listlessness and a certain air of world-weariness, combined with a colored collar, a 
small moustache, a drooping carriage, the minimum of frontal development, and a high-power 
racing-car, are the chief qualifications of the Nut. He is bored to death, but he does it simply 
because it's done. 

The Nut is faithful to tradition. He appears on Church Parade: he never misses the Eton and 
Harrow cricket-match with its promenade between the innings: on Sundays aged and decrepit 
Nuts may be seen in Boulter's Lock, dreaming peacefully while their female equivalents, the 
flappers, wield the punt-poles, for women must work through men may sleep, and the Bath Club, 
with its mixed bathing, is one of his chosen retreats. 

His chief forms of relaxation are dancing and bread-throwing. The only time a Nut really sits up 
and begins to display animation is when a hard roll, thrown by a friend across the table, takes 
him in the eye, and he reaches out for another to throw back. 
WHAT becomes of the Nuts is as great a problem as what becomes of the pins. Perhaps they die: 
perhaps they turn into something else: though it is difficult to imagine a genuine Nut being 
anything but himself. With the Blood it was different. After he had thrown a sufficient number of 
plates at a sufficient number of waiters, and wrenched enough knockers from their doors to 
soothe his too energetic soul, he turned naturally to pursuits where energy was a commercial 
asset. But the Nut is not a product of misdirected energy: he is a sort of clam, endowed with just 
enough power of motion to enable him to get into a taxicab and say "Murray's." The most 
plausible theory is that he just evaporates like a fog, and somebody, passing by, sees his clothes 
lying there and takes them away. 

He speaks a language of his own. Pleasant happenings "brace him awfully": unpleasant 
happenings "feed" him. A friend is a "stout fellow": an enemy a "tick." Just at present he affects 
a few Americanisms, and will attach the word "some" to practically every noun he uses. 

(note - in the poem above, the words "blase" and "roue" have accent marks over the 'e'.)