#Vulgar tongue

[petitelappin]

Another one of these. A horse godmother, according to The Classical Dictionary of the Vulgar Tongue, is "a large masculine woman, a gentlemanlike kind of lady". (Captain Grose also includes a definition for her younger counterpart who is a bit more familiar to modern folks, the tomboy).

[clove-pinks]

Even if the word funky apparently dates to the 17th century, I did not expect to read about a funky canoe in 1813:

We both sat on the sound end of the wooden Canoe, cocked her broken bow over the water and launched our bark for fame and glory. It was, in vulgar parlance, a funky affair but we got over safe. (x)

[tricornonthecob]

perusing the Good Book, the Scriptures, the Truth (Francis Grose's Dictionary of the Vulgar Tongue) and I finally found an old-timey word for teenager:

Honestly, petition to use this instead of teenager now.

[slavicafire]

sis, time to spill the scandal broth.

[officialgleamstar]

Every single day I wake up and dress up in slutty little outfits to make women crave me

[beggars-opera]

You guys drank the seawater again didn't you

[dimity-lawn]

Do you have any favorite bits of slang from that book that you noticed Pratchett using in discworld?

Unfortunately not any that I can think of off the top of my head. Sometimes I'll write "18th c" or "18th c slang" on a piece of scrap paper and use it as a bookmark to mark examples I come across, but I'm not very consistent about doing this...

I might make a list of terms upon rereading the series, but I'd probably miss terms.

While I can't think of favorites right now, I've included a few of the many examples that I think are neat, as well as a few that would be nice below, followed by their respective entries:

Something that catches my attention is when "foot pad" is used. It's not my favorite, but I find it somewhat amusing because it seems a rather mild term for what it is.

It's not a favorite term, but as I mentioned in another post, the man who runs/owns the livery stable and said that he always gave the customer what he wanted is named Hobson, and I like that Pratchett was able to make a character out of "Hobson's Choice".

In Going Postal, Vetinari mentions the "sisal twostep" and "hemp fandango", and while I'm not sure if those were real terms, there are certainly similar ones (such as "the Paddington Frisk"), and I think it's cool that Pratchett seems to have based it off of period terms (or perhaps used real term(s) that I'm not familiar with).

Honestly, I'm somewhat disappointed that the Nac Mac Feegle didn't (at least to my memory) call a cat a "Grimmalkin", and I'm really hoping that there's (even a minor) witch named Mrs. Evans...

I wonder how bad it would've been if someone tried to say "you are a thief and a murderer: you have killed a baboon and stolen his face" in the presence of the Librarian. Or the Librarian, a licensed thief, an assassin, a watchperson, and an Igor...

I think it would've been funny if Ankh-Morporkians referred to Vimes as something along the lines of "Old Smoaky", "Smoaky Vimes", or "Commander Smoaky", or if someone (perhaps Nobby?) referred to Cheery and Vimes as "Cheery and Peery".

For anyone wondering what this is about:

[yridenergyridenergy]

[theladyofbloodshed]

I stuck out my tongue, but scowled as I scanned the cluttered desk for any spare space.

“I expected better from an artist.” I stuck out my tongue at him.

Mor stuck out her tongue at him.

I sent back an image of me sticking out my tongue at him.

The general of the High Lord’s armies stuck out his tongue. Mor returned the gesture.

Mor and Cassian now stuck out their tongues at him.

Viviane stuck out her tongue at him.

I stuck out my tongue. Rhys laughed again.

sorry but how old are these people???

[marryat92]

Sent to Coventry by the officers, I sought the society of the men. I learned rapidly the practical part of my duty, and profited by the uncouth criticism of these rough warriors on the defective seamanship of their superiors.

— Frederick Marryat, The Naval Officer (Frank Mildmay)

"Coventry" is found in the 1811 Dictionary of the Vulgar Tongue by Captain Francis Grose (online at Project Gutenberg):

To send one to Coventry; a punishment inflicted by officers of the army on such of their brethren as are testy, or have been guilty of improper behaviour, not worthy the cognizance of a court martial. The person sent to Coventry is considered as absent; no one must speak to or answer any question he asks, except relative to duty, under penalty of being also sent to the same place. On a proper submission, the penitent is recalled, and welcomed by the mess, as just returned from a journey to Coventry.

Sailors repairing boats, drawing by William Payne, 1815.

[petitelappin]

"Admiral of the Narrow Seas. One who from drunkenness vomits into the lap of the person sitting opposite him."

A third installment of phrases from the Classical Dictionary of the Vulgar Tongue.

[clove-pinks]

The actor Charles James Mathews in character as George Rattleton, in his own comedy "The Humpbacked Lover," print made c. 1836. Full text of the play in an 1837 edition on Google Books. It's very short and I read the whole thing last night. The clothing of the small cast is described, with Mathews' character of Rattleton in "Fashionable dress coat—velvet waistcoat—kerseymere trousers". The Dictionary of Fashion History by Valerie Cumming elaborates on this last textile:

Kerseymere

Period: 18th and 19th centuries.

“A fine twilled woollen cloth of a peculiar texture, one third of the warp being always above and two thirds below each shoot of the weft” was a 19th-century description. However, its nature in the 18th century is uncertain. It seems to have been introduced as a rival to the patented cassimir, and was possibly very similar; the name first appears in an advertisement in the Bath and Wilts Chronicle, 30 January 1772, as “Kerzymear”. Whether it was made of English or Spanish wool is uncertain, but after 1820 the Saxony merino wool was replacing the Spanish and at the same time the names “kerseymere” and “cassimir” were being used interchangeably in fashion journals. By 1845 writers on textiles, such as Perkins, regarded them as merely a matter of spelling, an example followed by Beck in 1885, and by later writers. The confusion in the earlier records is increased by the habit, in inventories and tailors’ bills, of abbreviating names of materials, e.g., “Saxon drab kersey” (1822) may have been short for “kerseymere”.

As for the question, would a title like "The Humpbacked Lover" sound as suggestive to an 1830s audience as it does today—the answer is probably yes. (They loved their bawdy songbooks, after all).

Turning to the 1811 Dictionary of the Vulgar Tongue by Francis Grose (I like to use the easily searchable version on Project Gutenberg), the word HUMP is defined as, "To hump; once a fashionable word for copulation."

[tricornonthecob]

Looking up some good 18th century insults to hurl at a catcaller in the Dictionary of the Vulgar tongue that isn't prick or dildo and just

"It was once fashionable. It's still fashionable, but it was also once fashionable."

Honestly this book just keeps on giving

[catenaaurea]

So true what you said about word salads and the exponential growth of magisterial documents. I sure wish there was some ancient language we could use to express theological ideas in terms that are no longer liable to reinterpretation, so that everyone who reads them has the same baseline understanding of what they mean.

Yea..aha...would be so cool if that existed...

[slavicafire]

never before have I thought of myself as having a grind mindset - and alas. 

[thebotanicalarcade]

n166_w1150 by Biodiversity Heritage Library Via Flickr: Alpen-Flora für Touristen und Pflanzenfreunde Stuttgart :Verlag für Naturkunde Sprösser & Nägele,1904. biodiversitylibrary.org/page/10384144