14 NOVEMBER 1903, Page 15

"TO BOSS " ==" TO MISS."

[To THE EDITOR OP THE "SPECTATOR:] Sin,—In the short notice of "An Armchair Adventurer" (Spectator, November 7th) your reviewer writes : "But is there any English-speaking land where to boss' is to miss ? He bossed a catch' is surely an error." Your reviewer is evidently not versed in all the intricacies of schoolboy slang. I can assure him that it was a very common expression twenty-five years ago amongst youngsters, and is so still. A person with oblique vision is said to " boss," and is, I presume, the source from which the other use of the expression is