Green’s Dictionary of Slang

1. the rote method of teaching.

1918		Mullumbimby Star (NSW) 13 June 2/7: At present, it was said, there was too much ‘chalk and talk’ by the teacher, and throughout his address he advocated to allow the pupil more ‘talk’.
[1907		Advertiser (Adelaide) 4 June 9/1: Mr. J. H. Chinner addressed the meeting on ‘More chalk and less talk.’ He referred to the benefits of the use of the blackboard and chalk in Sunday-school work].
1934		W. Australian (Perth) 1 Mar. 3/5: The printed word and the picture have largely superseded the spoken word and the tendency in schools has been to replace the chalk-and-talk lesson by providing the means for [...] personal and individual study by the pupil himself.
1943		Dly News (Perth) 30 Oct. 11/4: Adult educators have been powerless to offer much more than chalk-and-talk, a depressing diet for ordinary folk. Instead of chalk-and-talk we need instructional films, exhibitions [etc.].
1954		West Australian (Perth) 12 Oct. 4/6: Teaching aids [...] were making learning pleasant for children, and doing away with the old chalk and talk methods.
2000		Guardian Education 25 Jan. 🌐 it was called an Individual Learning Scheme. It had come to save us from the hated chalk-and-talk method. Mr Snave, dedicated chalk-and-talker, did not agree.

2. (Aus.) a schoolteacher, esp. an old-fashioned, trad. teacher; also used of any form of trainer.

1941		Baker Popular Dict. Aus. Sl.
1955		N. Pulliam I Travelled a Lonely Land (1957) 231/2: chalk-and-talker a school teacher.
1997		S. Punter at Staff Training Associates (NZ) Dec. 🌐 Yes, there are ‘trainers’ – I use the term loosely – out there who will work for peanuts. The desperate, the tired, the untested, and the low-grade (but cheap) chalk-and-talker.
2002		Guidance Channel 19 Nov. 🌐 Today, infusing technology into schools to enhance the delivery of instruction has transformed the traditional role of the teacher as a ‘chalk and talker’ to an ‘enabler using a variety of print and nonprint materials’ to move the message forward.

(US gambling) a gambler who prefers betting on short-priced favourites; thus chalk horse, a short-priced favourite.

1938		D. Runyon ‘Lonely Heart’ in Runyon on Broadway (1954) 482: A chalk eater being a character who always plays the short-priced favourites.
1956		‘Toney Betts’ Across the Board 313: Chalk eaters: favorite bettors.
1974		G. Radano Stories Cops Only Tell Each Other 142: By posing as a Hunkie who liked to bet ‘chalk’ horses he had managed to bust open many a bookmaking operation.

see separate entries.

one who is good at calculating figures.

1852		Huddersfield Chron. 22 May 3/1: It proved you were up to accounts, / And possess’d of a decent ‘chalk head’.
1861		Reading Mercury 28 Sept. 8/4: In these gentlemen the chalk head appears to be associated with a heart of stone.
1872		Glasgow Herald 10 Oct. 2/4: You’ve a head on your shoulders, from some of your talk, But [...] you’ve a chiefly a chalk heart, if partly a chalk head.

(Irish) the first Sunday in Lent.

1857		Living Age 2 Sept. 609/1: Chalk Sunday [...] on the first Sunday in Lent it is usual for the girls slyly to chalk the coats of those young men who have allowed the preceding festival to pass without having made their choice of a partner.
1862		Penny Illus. Paper (London) 8 Mar. 5/4: Chalk Sunday in Kilkenny, Ireland. The First Sunday in Lent is styled ‘Chalk Sunday’ from a custom [of the] village belles of Kilkenny of chalking all over the clothes of inveterate bachelors.
1902		Northants. Eve. Teleg. 17 Feb. 3/8: The magistrate urged that the police should take action, but [...] the exclamation of a brother magistrate: ‘Is it to put a stop to Chalk Sunday you want?’.
1940		Nottingham Eve. Post 12 Feb. 4/6: Chalk Sunday. the first Sunday in Lent used to be an embarrassing day for bachelors in some parts of Ireland.
1986		P. O’Farrell Tell me, Sean O’Farrell 34: It was called Chalk Sunday in some places because single people were marked with chalk by some joker – usually kneeling behind the person at mass.

completely.

1849

Bell’s Life in Sydney 10 Feb. 2/5: As regards size and flintiness Hot Roll’s stone beat Jane’s all to chalks.

by a long way; often in negative phr. not by a long chalk.

1833		S. Smith Major Downing (1834) 51: Not by two chalks, says Steve – I know which side my bread is buttered.
1838		Kendal Mercury 17 Nov. 1: It does more than trimmin’ and groomin’ a horse by a long chalk.
1841		R. Barham ‘Lay of St. Romwold’ in Ingoldsby Legends (1842) 236: Sir Alured’s steed was ‘by long chalks’ the best.
1848		J.R. Lowell Biglow Papers (1880) 115: ’T will take more emptins, a long chalk, than this noo party’s gut.
1852		Dundee Courier 16 June 4/5: We know an inveterate Cockney who declares that London milk beats the country milk, and beats it ‘by many chalks’.
1859		‘Timothy Titcomb’ Letters to young people 141: If you imagine that you may ‘go it while you are young, for when you are old you can’t,’ you won’t ‘come it,’ ‘by a long chalk.’.
1861		Fife Herald 6 June 3/6: The latter were beaten by a long chalk.
1868		Dundee Courier 29 Dec. 3/6: The farmer had beat his challenger by a long chalk.
1873		Sl. Dict. 112: Chalks ‘to beat by long chalks,’ i.e., to be superior by many degrees.
1876		Besant & Rice Golden Butterfly II 95: The only one? Not by a long chalk.
1883		E.C. Grenville-Murray People I Have Met 133: The finest thing in the world; or, as he himself would have expressed it, ‘the best thing out by many chalks’.
1885		Bulletin (Sydney) 17 Jan. 14/1: This is meaner than hedge-potting, by long chalks.
1888		R. Barnett Police Sergeant C 21 88: Your form’s too good for me by long chalks.
1898		W. Pett Ridge Mord Em’ly 225: Wouldn’t be the first time, I lay, neither, not by a long chalk.
1899		Kipling ‘Slaves of the Lamp — Part II’ in Complete Stalky & Co. (1987) n.p.: The only flaw was that his Emperor wasn’t appeased by very long chalks.
1901		‘Miles Franklin’ My Brilliant Career 239: I have heard of pianos sounding like a tin dish, but this was not as pleasant as a tin dish by long chalks.
1908		A.N. Lyons Arthur’s 220: Yaller Boots ain’t no blue-eyed novice by a long chalk.
1916		W.P. Ridge Madame Prince 288: You’d have to mention other people’s names. Which wouldn’t suit you, not by a long chalk.
1921		D.L. Sayers Unpleasantness at the Bellona Club (1977) 15: Which is a very different thing, by a long chalk.
1922		Joyce Ulysses 153: Best paper by long chalks for small ad.
1929		K.S. Prichard Coonardoo 60: ‘Everything looks just the same,’ Hughie said. ‘But it isn’t,’ Sam replied. ‘Not by long chalks.’.
1937		J. Curtis You’re in the Racket, Too 168: That’s not good enough, old man. Not by a long chalk.
1941		G. Kersh They Die with Their Boots Clean 219: Last drinks. Not by a definitely very long chalk, my cocko!
1943		R. Llewellyn None But the Lonely Heart 23: ‘Look here, Ma,’ He says, talking bigger than he felt, by long chalks.
1953		T.A.G. Hungerford Riverslake 117: You aren’t the first by a long chalk.
1958		A. Sillitoe Sat. Night and Sun. Morning 135: To have a young man was all very well, but it didn’t mean, not by a long chalk, that you were going to be married.
1969		A. Garve Boomerang 141: Sitting in a posh hotel in Darwin could be better [...] By a bloody long chalk!
1974		D. Ireland Burn 111: I’m not a big man. Not by a long chalk.
1979		F. Norman Too Many Crooks Spoil the Caper 137: It wasn’t all I wanted to know by a long chalk, but it would’ve done for starters.
1995		I. Rankin Let It Bleed 81: ‘Forgotten, Miss Profitt?’ Rebus shook his head. ‘I don’t think so, not by a long chalk.’.
2001		K. Waterhouse Soho 240: He wanted that mobile back [...] Selby wasn’t the only one he wanted to talk to on it, not by a long chalk.

by a long way.

1836		Leeds Times 26 Nov. 3/1: This beats all the mirrors in England by chalks.
1845		J. Lindridge Sixteen-String Jack 222: He beats Turpin by chalks, and leaves him nothing to brag of.
1853		Bell’s Life in Sydney 13 Aug. 2/7: According to all accounts it is unbearable warm there; beats old Byers’ kitchen fire by chalks.
1863		Birmingham Jrnl 15 Aug. 2/7: He knows a professional philanthropist who can beat him at the game — by chalks.
1876		Pall Mall Gaz. 26 Oct. 10/1: That wouldn’t have done for me — not ‘by chalks’.
1888		‘Rolf Boldrewood’ Robbery Under Arms (1922) 92: It was the worst road by chalks we’d ever seen in our lives.
1891		F.W. Carew Autobiog. of a Gipsey 417: I dessaay you ’d ’er thought ’s how that ’d ’er finished it, but it didn’t, not by chalks.
1903		Bulletin (Sydney) 10 Dec. 38/4: Ye’re no jaynius, Patsy. Ye’ve no intleck – not enough, by chalks, to d’reck op’rashuns in S’th Afrikey, ayvin.
1911		A. Bennett Card (1974) 266: ‘Should I be the youngest mayoress?’ ‘Not by chalks,’ said he. ‘Huskinson’s sister was only sixteen.’.

to cheat, to swindle, to get the better of.

1866		J. Greenwood Little Ragamuffin 300: He was a swindling young whelp, who thought he could give me a chalk in the game I had taught him.
1923		J. Manchon Le Slang.

to ‘give someone odds’ at, i.e. to be superior to.

1895		Truth (Sydney) 19 May 1/5: The former owns up to a goodly array of criminalities in his day, but this later witness confesses that he can give him chalks and a whipping, having been accused [...] of almost every item in the criminal catalogue.
1933		(con. WWI) F. Richards Old Soldiers Never Die (1964) 31: We all admired the Adjutant very much: he could give us all chalks on at swearing and beat the lot of us.

one’s credit at a public house is exhausted.

1902

H. Baumann Londinismen (2nd edn).

to bet on short-priced favourites.

2001

C. Stella Eddie’s World 151: I play the chalk and get burned by the long shots. I play the long shots, they trip coming out of the gate.