regshoe: Close-up of a grey heron, its beak open as if laughing (Heron 2)
[personal profile] regshoe
Charlie is my darling, the Young Chevalier...

Flight of the Heron (under the title The Jacobite Trilogy) is doing very well in Yuletide sign-ups—3 requests and 4 offers at present :D

Next week we'll read the second half of Part II, chapters 3 and 4.

Date: Oct. 24th, 2021 11:22 am (UTC)
hyarrowen: (Action Hero)
From: [personal profile] hyarrowen
The poet Patricia Beer was similarly confused. In her memoir, Mrs Beer's House, she says that her sister suggested 'shit.' Which nearly caused a lively argument. But I think that if a poet can't figure it out, the rest of us have very little chance.

Date: Oct. 24th, 2021 02:15 pm (UTC)
luzula: a Luzula pilosa, or hairy wood-rush (Default)
From: [personal profile] luzula
Surely one would not say 'hampering myself with a shit'.

Okay, I've gone through all the S words in this slang dictionary, and found these insults:

SAUCE BOX. A term of familiar raillery, signifying a bold
or forward person.
SCAB. A worthless man or woman.
SCOUNDREL. A man void of every principle of honour.
SCRUB. A low mean fellow, employed in all sorts of dirty work.
SLAG. A slack-mettled fellow, one not ready to resent an
affront.

The only one that fits the situation is 'sauce box', but I don't know if it really sounds right. Possibly 'scab', but that does seem a bit harsh! 'Slag' is about the opposite of Ewen at that point. : )

Date: Oct. 25th, 2021 05:58 am (UTC)
hyarrowen: (Action Hero)
From: [personal profile] hyarrowen
The Beer sisters, and their mother, were reading the book in the early 1930s, much closer in time to publication date than we are, and they couldn't work it out. It'll probably remain forever a mystery. Personally I'm still inclined to 'spy' - in the sense of "You're Lochiel's eyes and ears amongst my staff and that's going to curtail my freedom to do whatever I like," rather than the espionage/enemy agent sense. I suppose 'snitch' would be nearer the mark in present-day lingo. It's obviously a dreadful insult anyway.

Date: Oct. 28th, 2021 03:01 am (UTC)
cahn: (Default)
From: [personal profile] cahn
"Snitch" was my guess as to the mysterious s-word! Though maybe it's too modern a word for that?

Date: Oct. 28th, 2021 06:29 am (UTC)
hyarrowen: (Action Hero)
From: [personal profile] hyarrowen
Online etymology says "informer," 1785, probably from underworld slang meaning "the nose" (1700), which apparently developed from an earlier meaning "fillip on the nose" (1670s). Snitcher in same sense is from 1827. More etymologically-inclined persons might be able to share more light on it!

So it's not far off the date, but perhaps a bit too slangy for a Prince who grew up in Rome.

Definitely getting there, though.

Date: Oct. 24th, 2021 10:33 pm (UTC)
ethelmay: (Default)
From: [personal profile] ethelmay
I thought "shit" or "sod."

Date: Oct. 25th, 2021 04:53 pm (UTC)
luzula: a Luzula pilosa, or hairy wood-rush (Default)
From: [personal profile] luzula
I looked up the origin of 'sod', and wow, I didn't know it was originally short for 'sodomite'! According to the OED, the earliest use is from 1814, but there are still examples of it used that way in the 20th century. And then later in the 19th century it also became 'a general term of abuse or contempt for a person (originally a man), esp. someone irritating, difficult, or troublesome', which is pretty much what I thought it meant, though it's not a word in my active vocabulary.

Date: Oct. 26th, 2021 12:07 am (UTC)
ethelmay: (Default)
From: [personal profile] ethelmay
The OED's earliest use isn't necessarily the earliest there is, just the earliest the definition-writers were able to find - they are always on the lookout for earlier ones. One difficulty that occurs to me is that there may have been some overlap with "sot" (for which there are far earlier attestations), which could mean a foolish fellow as well as a drunken one. But I think there's a definite implication that they can't spell it out, because it's rude, which does argue for something more like "shit" or "sod" than like "spy." However well "spy" fits otherwise (and in fact I do think it's one of the most likely possibilities), I wouldn't have thought it would be so unmentionable an insult. And I like the idea of Broster working in a glancing reference to sodomy without saying so.

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