dictionary of the vulgar tongue
June 8th, 2006
Are you writing a story set in 1811 featuring scalawags, ne’rdowells, and hooligans? You are? Wow, that’s odd. Good luck, and this is really going to help you out — it’s a dictionary of slang from almost 200 years ago:
RIDING SKIMMINGTON. A ludicrous cavalcade, in ridicule of a man beaten by his wife. It consists of a man riding behind a woman, with his face to the horse’s tail, holding a distaff in his hand, at which he seems to work, the woman all the while beating him with a ladle; a smock displayed on a staff is carried before them as an emblematical standard, denoting female superiority: they are accompanied by what is called the ROUGH MUSIC, that is, frying-pans, bulls horns, marrow-bones and cleavers.
~jeff
Thanks Jeff! I was just visiting the war of 1812 in my time machine and I was wondering what all those smocks on sticks were emblematic of!
That is some good stuff there.
“The blowen kidded the swell into a snoozing
ken, and shook him of his dummee and thimble; the
girl inveigled the gentleman into a brothel and robbed him
of his pocket book and watch.”