Worse things happen at sea

This phrase meaning if things are bad ashore, then they could be a lot worse at sea is quoted on one website as having come into the English language in Neville (sic) Shute's 'No Highway' in the 1940s. In practice Nevil Shute's 'No Highway' (1948) was written 100 years after the first record I can trace which is in Joan Fleming's 'Screams from a Penny Dreadful'. (Penny Dreadfuls were the cheap horror and murder stories of the Victorian era; a topic about which I wrote a dissertation at college). In that book, Fleming quotes a diary entry of 24 August 1842 which includes the phrase. There may well be older references I haven't found.


The illustration above was in the 1889 Royal Academy exhibition (Ten years before Nevil Shute was born!).

The elephant in the room

The elephant in the room - a phrase used to describe a major problem or controversial issue which is obviously present but avoided as a subject for discussion because it is more comfortable to do so.

Terpsichorean

Terpsichorean is both a noun and an adjective. As a noun it is a dancer; a performer who dances professionally.

As an adjective it means of or relating to dancing.


Terpsichore, Muse of the dance and lyric poetry. Marble, Roman sculpture from the 2nd century AD, sculptor unknown. The head is equally ancient but does not belong to the body. I wonder what it's history was?

Oh my God, They Killed Kenny!

“Oh my God, They Killed Kenny!” is a catchphrase from the cartoon South Park. A big part of what made South Park a hit in the early days from 1997was the tasteless but innovative routine of killing off the same character in nearly every episode. Asked why, the show's creators, Trey Parker and Matt Stone, admitted, "We just like to kill him ... It was used in every episode up to season 5 where Kenny died permanently. He then returned to life but is no longer massacred because the creators ran out of ideas and decided to just make him a major character. Nevertheless, he still dies occasionally.


(I should point out that Richard’s black eye was not a result of an attempt to do a Kenny on him. It was result of him discovering that a revolving chair does not make a good ladder.)

Drugget

In the 19th century, drugget was a sort of cheap stuff, very thin and narrow, usually made of wool, or half wool and half linen (or even, occasionally, half silk); it may have been corded or plain in texture, and was usually plain in pattern. It was often used as a rug over a finer carpet or as a cheap form of floor covering. It is also defined in the dictionary as being used as a dress material but I have never read of it being so used in a novel or diary of that era.
(see Comments!!)

Toque

‘The wings on her toque quivered agitatedly as she cried "Anywhere! Anywhere to be quiet, to be safe!"’ - Mollie Panter-Downes

In this instance a toque was a pillbox or small round women’s hat.


Thie was Lillie Langtry’s famous toque.


The term is also used for a chef’s tall white hat with a pouched crown.

It sounds to me like a good word for a crossword puzzle.

Poilu

I don’t normally put foreign words (unless you count American English!) in this Blog but I came across this in a very British book “Good Evening, Mrs Craven” by Mollie Panter-Downes and as I had to look it up I thought I’d include it.

“...making it sound as though she suspected Dora of having been betrayed by a poilu on a day trip to Boulogne.”

Poilu (pronounced /pwaly/ in French) is a warmly informal term for a French World War I infantryman, meaning, literally, hairy one. The term came into popular usage in France during the era of Napoleon Bonaparte and his massive citizen armies, though the term grognard (grumbler) was also common. It is still widely used as a term of endearment for the French infantry of World War I. The word carries the twin sense of the infantryman's typically rustic, agricultural background. Beards and bushy moustaches were often worn.

The image of the dogged, bearded French soldier was widely used in propaganda and war memorials. The stereotype of the Poilu was of bravery and endurance, but not always of unquestioning obedience. At the disastrous Chemin des Dames offensive of 1917 under General Robert Nivelle, they were said to have gone into no man's land making baa'ing noises, parodying the idea that they were being sent as lambs to the slaughter. Outstanding for its mixture of horror and heroism, this spectacle proved a sobering one. As the news of it spread, the French high command soon found itself coping with a widespread mutiny. A minor revolution was only averted with the promise of an end to the costly offensive.

A Jiffy

The term jiffy (sometimes spelled jiffie) is used for various brief units of time. There is no single ‘correct’ definition but in certain contexts it may be 10 to the power 26 flashes; 1/100th of a second; a heartbeat; or the blink of an eye.


The Jiffy Bag (UK) or Jiffy Mailer (USA) was presumably so called because it was so quick and easy to use.

“I’ll be back in a jiffy...”

Smirkle

Tracy in New York finished one of her postings with a * smirkle * the other day.

That was a word I didn’t recognise. I love words I don’t recognise. I looked it up and whilst it is not to be found in the conventional dictionaries there were three choices in alternative dictionaries –

To smirkle – meaning to steal or pilfer;
A smirkle - the stiff, painful smile worn by the loser of a contest while congratulating the winner;
A smirkle - A facial expression that is halfway between a smile and a smirk.



Ignoring the first meaning I think the other two are wonderfully appropriate meanings for the word.

Heva!

This was one of the pictures in the Royal Academy Notes from 1888.



I had difficulty finding a definition for 'Heva' until I came across the Newquay website.

"Heva heva was a cry commonly heard on the headland above Newquay and indeed all along the Cornish coast up until about 200 years ago. For the cry, issued by the huer, signalled the arrival of huge shoals of Pilchards in mid-July, the fishing of which was once a very lucrative industry in Cornwall. The Huer's Hut high above the quay, is one of the finest examples in Cornwall and is well worth a look. Close your eyes and imagine the huer's excitement at spotting a huge shoal out in the blue Atlantic, meaning financial survival for the then small fishing community.

Fully laden boats would then return to harbour, fish would be gutted and carefully placed in huge piles (baulks) of layer upon layer of salt. Baulked for a month, the fish would then keep for at least a year. The fish could then be placed by hand usually by women into wooden hogshead barrels, each barrel holding up to 3000 fish and pressed to yield 8 or 9 gallons of surplus but valuable oil used to be used in lighting. In a good year up to 40,000 barrels were exported. "