Pipewipes

"... looking for a (lost) watch and purse on Battersby pipewipes was very like looking for a needle in a bundle of hay." Samuel Butler – “The Way of All Flesh”

A couple of times Butler mentions pipewipes in this book. The context seems to suggest they are unmown land or something of that ilk but I have not been able to find a single definition that fits the bill. (Though I can give you lots of tips on where to buy cloths for cleaning your cannabis pipe!)

Does anyone know what pipewipes were????

And while we are on the subject of words I cannot trace the origin/meaning of - does anyone know what exactly the hob-nails were in hob-nail boots?

Sizar

Reading Samuel Butler's “The Way of All Flesh” provided me with a number of new wrods included amongst which was sizar. "...Mr Clayton who was at that time senior tutor, and among the sizars of St John’s."

A sizar was a student of limited means, especially at the universities of Cambridge and Trinity College, Dublin, where they were charged lower fees. It was also applied to poor students who supported themselves by working in College, eg waiting on the Fellows, for which they received an allowance.

Gay

When I was young the word gay was usually used to mean amusing, cheery, high spirited, bright and pleasant. Or it might have been used to mean showy such as a bird with gay plumage. Gradually the meaning of homosexual took hold and we would rarely describe someone as gay nowadays if we simply meant they were cheery and bright.

But I had not realised the word had yet another connotation in Victorian times until I read Samuel Butler’s “Way of All Flesh”:-
"...and it’s a horrid lie to say she is gay; not but what I like a gay woman, I do: I’d rather give a gay woman half-a-crown than stand a modest woman a pot o’ beer, but I don’t want to go associating with bad girls for all that.”

Gay girls were bad girls – that is, they were given to social pleasures often including dissipation.

Haiku

A Haiku is a three line poem consisting of seventeen syllables with five in line one, seven in line two and five in line three. Traditionally the Japanese Haiku should be about what you see immediately and should have a seasonal theme. They are a fascinating form to write and should be written down and then left as they were written to capture that immediacy..
5        Japanese Haiku
7     Has seven syllables in
5     It’s middle section

Cavil

To cavil is to raise a trivial objection or quibble.
“...ready to accept without cavil whatever he was told by those who were in authority over him...”
Samuel Butler – “The Way of All Flesh”

Palliasse

A palliasse was a mattress consisting of a thin pad filled with straw or sawdust.

Timocracy

No, this is not being ruled by people named Timothy!

Constitutional theory defines a timocracy as either:
1 a state where only property owners may participate in government;
2 a government where rulers are selected and perpetuated based on the degree of honor they hold relative to others in their society, peer group or class.

Exculpation

To exculpate is to acquit; to pronounce not guilty of criminal charges. Exculpation is therefore the act of freeing from guilt or blame; exoneration.

Marmalade-droppers

"Staff on The Daily Telegraph had a wonderful expression to describe those prurient stories the paper used to report on page three about naughty vicars and the like; they were called “marmalade-droppers”, the idea being that the ghastly details would make Colonel Bufton-Tufton’s hand shake uncontrollably with outrage and excitement as he navigated the journey between plate and mouth, causing a dollop of Oxford Thick Cut to be deposited on the breakfast table." It’s a PC World by Edward Stourton

I have always loved the name Bufton-Tufton - I think it originated with Private Eye who used it to lampoon any Conservative MP, especially one from the shires, viewed to be particularly old- fashioned and bigoted.

Which in turn leads me to comment what a lovely word 'lampoon' is. Meaning a light, good-humored satire its origins are uncertain but may be from the French lampons, let us drink (from a common refrain in drinking songs),

Be afraid, be very afraid

Ostensibly, a warning that something dangerous is imminent. In reality, this is usually said with comic intent. The thing being warned of is more likely to be mildly unwelcome than actually dangerous. For example, "That fierce librarian was asking about your overdue books - be afraid, be very afraid."


This phrase originated in the 1986 horror film The Fly.