You Gouty-Legged Ninnycock!
You would probably get a confused look in today’s world if you called someone ‘tarse’ or ‘nippy’, but it would have caused plenty of trouble centuries ago.
That’s because the unusual terms are among Britain’s best long-lost swear words, which also include ‘bald-a***’ and ‘hollow-mouthed’ – indicating a lack of teeth.
Dr. Todd Gray MBE has studied historic insults, with ‘gouty-legged’ and ‘copper-nosed’ – from the practice of treating syphilis with copper – among the others.
The research fellow at the University of Exeter spent years trawling through 40,000 documents from the church and state courts in the 1500s and 1600s.
Other highlights in 58-year-old Dr. Gray’s book published this month include ‘tarse’, meaning penis; and ‘wittol’, meaning a husband complicit in his wife’s adultery.
Other old swear words include ‘polecat’, meaning a lewd woman; and ‘cucumber’, which was another word for a cuckold – the husband of an adulteress.
Current Prices on popular forms of Gold Bullion
His research is in the monograph ‘Strumpets and Ninnycocks: Name calling in Devon, 1540-1640’, and in the book ‘How to Swear Like an Elizabethan in Devon’.
Many of the documents he found were related to slander cases, in which people would complain that they had been verbally insulted.
Dr. Gray said: ‘At the very heart of everything is the need to keep a good reputation.
The post You Gouty-Legged Ninnycock! appeared first on LewRockwell.
Leave a Reply