The blushes of the 1936 Roget's

[truepenny]

The Virtu, Chapter 2: 50 ms pages, 11,248 words
Running total: 79 ms pages, 17,674 words

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My primary thesaurus is a battered copy of the 1936 Roget's. I adore this thesaurus because it's a tool more for people who love words than those who feel their vocabulary is insufficient, but it does have its foibles.

Case in point: today I needed, never mind why, another synonym for slut. I had whore already; wanton was wrong, as were the others that I could think of off the top of my head: jade, jezebel, doxy. Knowing full well I was merely exercising bloody-mindedness, I reached for my Roget's. No entry for prostitute, nor for whore, nor for jade, jezebel, or doxy.

So I did the sensible thing, and used WordPerfect's thesaurus tool to look up whore. It promptly gave me harlot, and I just as promptly emended my text. And then, out of sheer perverse curiosity, I looked up harlot in Roget's.

harlot, n. prostitute, strumpet, courtesan. See BAD WOMAN, LIBERTINE.

Now, I ask you, how am I supposed to resist an entry in a thesaurus for BAD WOMAN?

BAD WOMAN.---Nouns. bad woman, Jezebel, hell-cat, hellhag, witch, hag, harridan, strumpet, jade, drab, trull, trollop, harlot, wanton, Cyprian, adulteress, courtesan; procuress, bawd; Delilah, Messalina; hussy (sometimes playful), minx (usually playful).
See also LIBERTINE.---Antonyms. See GOOD WOMAN.

This is what happens when I let myself get ensnared by the thesaurus.

We head off to LIBERTINE, with a quick stop along the way at GOOD WOMAN.

GOOD WOMAN.---Nouns. good woman, ministering angel, heaven's noblest gift; "Earth's noblest thing--a woman perfected" (Lowell); goddess, deity, queen, Madonna, virgin, maiden, Una (Faërie Queene).
Antonyms. See BAD WOMAN.

My thesaurus has a virgin/whore complex.

But LIBERTINE is where it really lets its hair down.

LIBERTINE.---Nouns. libertine, voluptuary, rake, roué (F.), debauchee, deceiver, Lothario, Don Juan.
harlot, courtesan, strumpet, prostitute, unfortunate, frail (slang), broad (slang), wanton, demimondaine, lorette (F.), cocotte (F.), pick-up, wren (slang), chippy (U. S. slang), streetwalker, woman of the town, woman of easy virtue, fille de joie (F.), Cyprian, demirep, white slave; Jezebel, Messalina, Delilah, Thias, Phryne, Aspasia, Lais.
mistress, paramour, kept woman, hetaera or hetaira (ancient Greece), concubine, doxy (archaic or dial.), leman (archaic), sultana, bona roba (It.).
procurer, pimp, pander, mackerel (archaic), maquereau (F.: slang); procuress (fem.), bawd, conciliatrix (L.), entremetteuse (F.).
See also DRUNKENNESS, IMPURITY.---Antonyms. See GOOD MAN, GOOD WOMAN, PURITY.

(The entry under GOOD MAN, you will not be surprised to learn, has no words listed which have anything to do with chastity or the lack thereof, and although BAD MAN (the antonym, of course, of GOOD MAN) does have wanton--with the notation usually fem.--libertine, and debauchee, it does not include Don Juan or Lothario, and most of the entry is focused on other kinds of "badness," such as stealing, bullying, wasting money, or being from the lower classes. It's not just a thesaurus, it's an anthropological artifact!)

And now, drunk on words, I'm going to find some lunch.

Comments

[katallen.livejournal.com]

I have a Nuttall's Standard Dictionary -- 1914 edition. It's an amazing read, and where else could I find

Carpet-knight -- one who has not earned his honour for service, but recieved it by favour.

(and yes I can hear the Rev James Wood tutting while he edits)

Jamaica-pepper -- allspice.

Jambee -- a fashionable cane.

Japhetic -- pertaining to Japheth, Noah's eldest son. (and I am no wiser as to what that implies about someone buuuuut...)

The only problem being that I know if I open it I'll spend at least half an hour just reading the world-building. Makes me want to write an SF short story out of dictionary entries. ::runs screaming::

[handworn.livejournal.com]

You ought to read the 1745 Bailey's dictionary I have. It has many fascinating distinctions (for example, skirt meant "bottom hem" such that men's coats had skirts) and a lot of fun lower-class London slang. Grose's A Classical Dictionary of the Vulgar Tongue (3d ed., 1797, reprinted in the 1960s) is even better that way, making it excellent bathroom reading.

[stillnotbored.livejournal.com]

Carpet-knight! If I didn't already adore you Kat, I would do so now for that word. I have to remember that and use it in a story. *g*

[http://users.livejournal.com/_swallow/]

Oh my!

[clarentine]

Libertine is where I start, usually. I write a lot of bad men.

Lately, I've been using the international version of Roget's available at Bartleby.com. I get connotations there that I don't find in the two Amglish versions at Bartleby, or in my hardcover Roget's.

"Not just a thesaurus, but an anthropological artifact"...hmm. ::story thinking apparatus engages::

[handworn.livejournal.com]

"heaven's noblest gift"!

You don't feel too much put up on a pedestal, do you?

[malinaldarose.livejournal.com]

I like fille de joie. It's very evocative.

[orangemike.livejournal.com]

Ooooohh, word-geekery!

I'm a grad student in history, so I'm constantly bumping up against the evolving meaning of words. The career of the word "filibuster" in American politics is a history lesson all on its own.

[magentamn.livejournal.com]

I love my Roget's. I don't know which edition, but it belonged to my mother, so it's old, and worn. But it's so much more useful than the dictionary ones, or the one that comes with Word, which is hardly worth bothering with. Roget's shows you so much about the structure of the language.

I'm fond of the word Cyprian. According to the OED: "1. Belonging to Cyprus, an island in the eastern Mediterranean, famous in ancient times for the worship of Aphrodite or Venus." We just got the OED online where I work, and I have been having fun with it.

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

When I was a freshman in high school marching band, we had to play for the football games. Bo-ring. Especially with a team that held the state record for longest losing streak(0-45 at the beginning of the year, 0-54 by the end). So between songs we had a game going in the flute section, where we had a pat-clap-snap-snap rhythm going, and on the snap-snaps you had to come up with a synonym for prostitute. Many, oh, many was the discussion I had with my section leader about whether foreign terms were permitted and which terms implied that you took money for it vs. giving it away for free.

Ahhh, those were the days.

[joey112.livejournal.com]

I got stuck at 1936, which happens to be how old the guitar I play is. (my dad's Martin)

Then I stumbled over chippy... I'm so not having the best day.

Guess I'll go sing pirate songs....

[atheilen.livejournal.com]

Hee. This is great.

[bibliofile.livejournal.com]

That GOOD MAN entry interests me the most, as that's the only masculine equivalent I've ever heard for NYMPHOMANIAC (& its, er, sistren).

Hacking reference books can be fun, yes?

[(Anonymous)]

Dude, that line of fallen-women cosmetics names we've talked about just keeps expanding, doesn't it?

the grrly grrl

[aquaeri.livejournal.com]

I don't think any document like this can avoid being an anthropological artifact; it's just when it's our own culture, it's harder to see.

Old medical textbooks can also be amazing value in this regard.