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Showing posts with label insults. Show all posts
Showing posts with label insults. Show all posts

19 August 2016

10 Words That Sound Rude (But Really Aren’t) - 500 Words Ep. 32


A few days ago, HH tweeted this:


It’s one of those words that, if you’re not careful, could be taken in a very, very questionable direction. But there are plenty of words that don’t even have to be mispronounced to raise eyebrows—they’re just straight-up dirty. Or, at least, that’s how it might seem.




Peniaphobia, for instance, is nothing more than the fear of poverty and destitution. Pissasphalt is a type of bitumen. A tittynope is a crumb or portion of something, left over after all the rest has been used. A cockchafer is a beetle. A cock-bell an icicle. In fact, whether you’re talking about assart or spunk-water (you can thank Tom Sawyer for that one), there are quite a few words in the English language that sound rude, but really—genuinely—aren’t.

So brace yourselves, because it’s 10 of those that are the subject of this week’s YouTube video:




If you haven’t had your fill, there are nearly 100 words like these for your perusal over on Mental Floss, any one of which could have made the final cut here. One word that didn’t, however, and that perhaps needs a little more explanation, is this:


The key to this word (and others like it) is that sluttish originally meant just “untidy” or “slovenly”, while labelling someone (of either sex—Chaucer describes a man as sluttish in the Canterbury Tales) as a slut once simply implied that they were messy or disorganised.

But by the end of the fifteenth century that meaning had begun to broaden. Now it was people’s characters and morals—and, wholly unfairly, women’s morals in particular—that were being described as sluttish, if they were loose or disreputable, and it’s from there that the word’s modern connotations eventually emerged.


The older use of slut and sluttish to mean “untidy” survived right through to the early 1900s, giving the word coverslut more than enough time to emerge in the language in the mid-1600s. Essentially, it referred to nothing more than a garment warn to disguise untidy clothes underneath, or to protect your clothes from messy work or chores. So despite appearances, it was really nothing more than an apron.




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1 April 2016

Cacafuego


There’s really no nice way of putting this, but the fact is that poop crops up more often than it duly should on this blog. And thanks to a tweet from the HH feed the other day, we’re going back down that way again now:


There’s no denying that cacafuego is a brilliant (and unavoidably useful) word, but is it really genuine? Or, to put it another way:


Wow, imagine if that were true. A plot twist to put M Night Shyamalan to shame. But let’s not get bogged down in piss halfway through a blog about shit, so to speak.

No prizes for guessing that cacafuego was borrowed into English from Spanish, and combines the verb cacar (modern Spanish cagar, “to void excrement”) with fuego, “fire”. It first appeared in English as another word for a blustering braggart in the early 1600s, but we can be fairly sure that it was in use before then thanks to the somewhat unlikely-sounding involvement of Sir Francis Drake.
Sir Francis Drake: looking a little ruff
In 1578, part-way through his circumnavigation of the Earth, Drake rounded Cape Horn and entered the Pacific Ocean, hot on the heels of a 120-tonne Spanish galleon called the Nuestra Señora that he had heard was laden with a rich cargo of silver and jewels from the Spanish colonies. And he wanted it.

Sailing up the Pacific coast of South America, Drake’s Golden Hind caught up with the Nuestra Señora off the coast of Ecuador. Knowing that an attack made under the cover of darkness was his best bet, he slowed his progress by tying some of his ship’s store of wine to the stern and throwing it overboard, so that by the time the Hind reached the Nuestra Señora it was the middle of the night. The Spanish crew were taken by surprise, and after a brief skirmish they surrendered, allowing Drake and his men to take control of the ship.
Drake sailed both the Nuestra Señora and the Golden Hind back to the South American coast to unload her treasure. Knowing just how substantial a prize he had secured for England he treated the Spanish crew well, inviting the officers to join him for a grand banquet and giving every crewmember a parting gift and a letter of safe conduct, ensuring as safe a journey home to Europe as possible. Drake himself continued on his journey, and having completed his circumnavigation arrived back in Plymouth on 26 November 1580.

So where does all the flaming poop come into this? Well, Drake’s captured galleon might have been officially known as the Nuestra Señora de la Concepción, or “Our Lady of the Immaculate Conception”, but to her crew she was the Cacafuego, or “fire-shitter”. That might seem like an odd (and fairly uncomplimentary) nickname for—well, anything really, but just like the Spitfire centuries after her, it was probably intended to be a reference to her impressive weaponry and blazing cannon fire, or else to her speed through the water and her “fiery” temperament. 

And just as spitfire was once a nickname for an irascible, hot-tempered person, in the seventeenth century cacafuego became a byword for a blustering, swaggering braggart—a meaning perhaps influenced by the fact that, despite her impressive armoury, the Cacafuego had proved no match for Drake. 



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31 March 2016

10 Words For Fools And Nincompoops

No jokes, April 1 is April Fools’ Day. So in honour of that, this week on the HaggardHawks YouTube channel we’re looking at 10 Words For Fools And Nincompoops. 

 As explained in the video, the word nincompoop is something of an etymological mystery. Samuel Johnson suggested that it came from the Latin phrase non compos mentis, used to describe someone of less than sound mind, but a lack of early spellings following this template casts doubt on his theory. 

Alternatively, on its own the word poop (which crops up more often than it really should on this blog…) can be used as a verb meaning “to cheat” or “deceive”, but the nincom– part is a lot more challenging. Some accounts claim that it’s a twist on noddy or noddypoll, both even earlier words for fools or dunderheads, while others claim it comes from Nicodemite—a French-origin word for a follower of Nicodemus, but which became a byword for anyone who hides their faith to avoid persecution or ridicule. 

 Whatever the truth might be, the word nincompoop continues to fool etymologist. But this and nine more words to boost your April Fools’ Day vocabulary are listed here—from a word derived from a gullibly catchable freshwater fish to a general word for a fool that began life as a psychiatric category based on a person’s IQ…

← Last Week: 10 Words You Won’t Believe Exist
→ Next Week: 10 Words You Didn’t Know Have Opposites

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11 August 2015

Toad-eater

A few days ago, HaggardHawks tweeted this:
And, well, it’s all just a little too bizarre to leave unexplained... 

There’s an old language myth that claims toad-eater comes from the Spanish mi todita (literally “my little everything”), which is itself a diminutive of toda, the Spanish word for “all”. Todita, so the story goes, was once a jocular title used by well-to-do Spaniards for their closest and most servile assistants or aides, who were only too ready to help their masters out in whatever way necessary, hence the definition above. 

It’s a neat theory—but unfortunately it’s completely untrue. In fact, the true history of the toad-eater is much more interesting, much more literal, and considerably more revolting, than all that.

According to the OED, the earliest record we have of a toad-eater comes from a seventeenth-century diarist named John Rous. Rous kept a diary from 1625-43, during which time he was the Anglican vicar of the village of Santon Downham in Suffolk, England. He recorded a predictably eclectic mix of events from both home and abroad, ranging from the coronation of Charles I in 1625 (described as “very joyous to the well-affected, but to the Papists not very welcome”) to reports of a rebellion in Portugal, Spanish ships returning from the West Indies being attacked by Dutch pirates, and, inevitably, growing unrest across England in the lead-up to what would eventually become the Civil War.

Alongside all the headlines, however, Rous’s diary contains several accounts of local goings-on in and around his own parish—including, in 1629, this account of a conversation with a shopkeeper in the nearby village of Laxfield:
I inquired of him if William Utting the toade-eater … did not once keepe [i.e. stay] at Laxfield; he tould me yes, and said he had seen him eate a toade, nay two.
Rous goes on to explain how “the toade-eater” apparently went about his business:
The man in whose house he kept went to him and … tould him that a friend of his would give a groate [4 pence] to see him eate a toade (thus was the way to see it): he accepted the offer, and went and fetche in, from under blocks, ij toads … He swallowed them downe, but presently he cast them up into his hands, and after some pawse, “Nay,” sayeth he, “I will not loose my groate.” So taking that which came up last (saith he), “thou wentst in first before and shalte doe againe.” When both then were downe, his stomach held them, and he had his groate.
Seemingly, Utting somehow managed to swallow two toads whole (after having already vomited them up once), and thereby won himself the princely some of one groat—or just under £2 (or just over $3) in 2015. But how do we get from this fairly disgusting story to the considerably less disgusting meaning in the tweet above?

Well, back in Rous’s day, toads were widely believed to be incredibly poisonous. Not only that, but their warty skin, their fondness of dark, dank places, and their ability to survive both on land and in water led to an association with black magic and witchcraft; even the Devil’s coat of arms is traditionally said to be decorated with “three unclean spirits like frogs”. To even touch a toad was, frankly, to dice with death—and so to be able to eat one was quite some feat.

Can’t you two get a room?

 Rous’s toad-eater, and the many more like him who worked the country fairs and fêtes of Georgian England, knew precisely that. They also presumably knew that toads—or, by any rate, the two species of toad native to Great Britain—aren’t really as poisonous as most people believed: they can secrete a foul-tasting “milk” from glands on their skin when disturbed that contains an impressive battery of unpleasant chemicals, but unless you’re an overly-inquisitive dog or cat, or unless you fully digest the toad and its toxic skin (which toad-eaters seldom did, opting instead to either rely or sleight of hand, or else regurgitate them later), the chances are you’ll escape unharmed. 

Nevertheless, if these toad-eaters could convince people that they were somehow immune to the toad’s toxicity—or, better yet, that they had invented some kind of all-curing antidote or medical procedure—then they could not only put on an impressive show, but make an equally impressive profit.

Based on this presumption, by the late 1600s, quack physicians and itinerant charlatans all across England had begun working with toad-eaters to come up with a brand new sting: in front of an enthralled (and presumably somewhat nauseated) crowd, they would have their assistant eat, or pretend to eat, a live toad, just as William Utting had. Although unharmed, the assistant would then promptly collapse to the floor in feigned agony, whereupon the quack could either make a great show of his miraculous healing powers, or else administer some kind of homemade concoction to his assistant, who would consequently stage an immediate and impressive recovery—leaving his quack associate to sell vials of their bogus cure-all to the assembled crowd.

The original seventeenth century “toad-eater”, ultimately, was nothing more than a con artist’s assistant, and it’s from there that the sense of “someone who corroborates a lie” came about. Over time, however, toad-eater came to be used more loosely for any assistant or subordinate, and in particular one who acts obsequiously or servilely and is only too happy to perform any duty required of him—no matter how unpleasant it might be. 



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25 June 2015

Smellfungus

So. The other day, we tweeted this:
It’s another one of those “seriously?” words:
HaggardHawks make something up? The very idea of it. Well, there was that one time, but that was entirely different. No—seriously, this is true. And not only that, but there’s a brilliant story behind it.

Smellfungus dates back to 1768. For once, we can be absolutely positive about the date of a word, because we know precisely who invented it, when, and why. So no need to play etymological Cluedo here—it was Laurence Sterne, in the Sentimental Journey, aided and abetted (albeit indirectly) by Tobias Smollett.

Smollett was born in Dunbartonshire in Scotland in 1721. A prolific and well-respected writer, perhaps best known for his comic novel The Adventures of Peregrine Pickle (1751), Smollett’s output covered almost every literary genre and influenced many later literary giants, including Dickens, George Eliot, and William Thackeray. Even the normally unforthcoming George Orwell wrote a glowing essay calling him “Scotland’s Best Novelist”.

Wait—what?! Had Orwell not read any Sherlock Holmes?! Disgraceful. But, I digress.

In all, Smollett’s vast back catalogue includes plays, a non-fiction History of England, several volumes of poetry, half a dozen novels, and even English translations of the likes of Voltaire and Cervantes. But in 1766, he added one more genre to his literary checklist when he published his Travels Through France And Italy, an account of a two-year journey he and his wife embarked on from spring 1763 to summer 1765. Stopping off in the likes of Paris, Nice, Cannes, Pisa, Sienna and Rome, to many it would have been the trip of a lifetime—but Smollett, by and large, remained unimpressed.

Of Florence’s magnificent San Lorenzo chapel, for instance, he wrote that it “will, in my opinion, remain a monument of ill taste and extravagance”. The Pantheon left him “much disappointed”, because “after all that has been said of it, [it] looks like a huge cockpit.” He dismissed Michelangelo’s The Last Judgement, painted behind the alter in the Sistine Chapel, as “a mere mob, without subordination, keeping or repose”, and likened it to “a number of people talking all at once”. Even the Vatican itself didn’t escape unscathed:
[Its] relicks of pretended saints, ill-proportioned spires and bellfreys, and the nauseous repetition of the figure of the cross (which is in itself a very mean and disagreeable object, only fit for the prisons of condemned criminals) have contributed to introduce a vicious taste into the external architecture, as well as in the internal ornaments of our temples.
Michelangelo’s Last Judgement: Crap, apparently

 Unsurprisingly, when Smollett’s Travels were published, his fairly tactless and hypercritical attitude, as well as the disdainful way in which he wrote about many of the people he encountered (“At Brignolles … I was obliged to quarrel with the landlady and threaten to leave her house before she would indulge us with any sort of flesh-meat”), outraged his contemporaries. But his apparent arrogance and peevishness also made him a prime target for satire—which brings us to Laurence Sterne.
Sterne was born in Ireland in 1713, but spent much of his childhood in England. After graduating from Cambridge, he became the Anglican priest of a small church in rural Yorkshire where he remained for more than twenty years, dabbling in freelance writing in his spare time. In 1759, he self-published his first major work—two volumes of a vast satirical novel, The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman—and within months was one of the most famous authors in the country.

Flushed with success, Sterne quit the church and moved to London in 1760. But in the dank and dreary capital his already precarious health quickly deteriorated, so he and his wife left on a rejuvenating trip to the Mediterranean. They arrived in Montpellier in 1763—where, the following November, they were joined by Tobias Smollett.

It’s unclear exactly how much time Smollett and Sterne spent together, but a number of meetings and engagements are recorded in the letters they sent back home to England, before Smollett decided Montpellier’s cool mountain climate wasn’t for him and he continued on to Nice in early 1764. It’s also largely unclear how well the two men got along, but given what happened next, we can presume the pair hadn’t always seen eye to eye.

In 1768, in response to Smollett’s Travels, Sterne published his own Sentimental Journey Through France and Italy. Again, Sterne’s Journey was based around his own tour of the continent, but unlike Smollett his travelogue was also a part-fictionalized follow-up to his earlier novel, Tristram Shandy. 

Narrated by a genial English reverend named Mr Yorick (Sterne’s literary alter ego), the aptly-titled Sentimental Journey comprises a light-hearted series of comic episodes and romantic encounters, as Yorick travels down through France from Calais and on into Italy. Along the way, he meets a whole host of unusual and whimsical characters—including a glum, overcritical zoilist known only as “Smelfungus”:
The learned Smelfungus travelled from Boulogne to Paris, from Paris to Rome, and so on; but he set out with the spleen and jaundice, and every object he pass’d by was discoloured or distorted. He wrote an account of them, but ’twas nothing but the account of his miserable feelings.
Smelfungus—spelled with only one L by Sterne—is clearly a fairly unsubtle and unflattering caricature of Smollett, right down to his acerbic views on the architecture of Rome:
I met Smelfungus in the grand portico of the Pantheon—he was just coming out of it. ’Tis nothing but a huge cockpit, said he.
Unfortunately for Smollett the Sentimental Journey was an enormous success, even surpassing Tristram Shandy both critically and commercially. Nowadays it’s seen as having helped to establish travel writing as a respected literary genre in its own right—while Sterne’s acerbic lampoon of Smollett as “Smelfungus” gave the English language a whole new word for a carping, unhappy critic. 

Sadly, however, Sterne didn’t live to see any of the influence his novel would eventually have: he died just twenty days after its publication. And as for Smollett, well, his reputation as a glum, unimpressed tourist—“the most embittered and cantankerous Englishman that ever travelled abroad”, according to one account—might now be permanently installed in the language, but more recent commentators on his work have been considerably more understanding. They quite rightly point out that his Travels were written at a particularly difficult time in his life: both he and Sterne were suffering from the aftereffects of tuberculosis, and he and his wife were still reeling from the death of their only child, their 15-year-old daughter Elizabeth, the previous year.

Not only that, but modern readers who are aware of Smollett’s nit-picking are often surprised to discover how much admiration and positivity his Travels contain alongside the famously tactless criticisms. Indeed despite Smollett’s reputation, the Continent must have held some kind of attraction to him—having retired to Italy in his late 40s, he died in Livorno in 1771, and is buried in the Old English Cemetery in Tuscany.




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