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Oct. 20th, 2011 06:27 pmSo I've been reading collaborative game-playing transcripts from #ClubFloyd recently (http://www.allthingsjacq.com/interactive_fiction.html#clubfloyd), specifically Guess the Verb! just now. In the UCLA computer science scene, mention is made of the "Cruel Site of the Day". I think I had vaguely heard of this before (the game was authored in 2000 and this scene appears to be set in earlier times), so I Googled it up and lo, Cruel.com. About halfway down the page there is this post: http://www.cruel.com/59/endangered-profanity-mutton-monger.html which states:
The first profanity we’d like to rescue is mutton monger, an Elizabethan era term that describes a pimp. The term mutton once was used to describe prostitutes, so the mutton monger was the guy selling those nice cuts of meat.
Amusing and colorful enough. But I liked this bit at the end of the quote from a play that uses it:
Orlando: Thou keepest a man here, under my nose –
Matheo: Under thy beard.
Orl: As arrant a smell-smock, for an old mutton-monger as thyself.
Mat: No, as yourself.
Is it me, or is this the Elizabethan equivalent of "I know you are, but what am I" or "I'm rubber, you're glue"?
The first profanity we’d like to rescue is mutton monger, an Elizabethan era term that describes a pimp. The term mutton once was used to describe prostitutes, so the mutton monger was the guy selling those nice cuts of meat.
Amusing and colorful enough. But I liked this bit at the end of the quote from a play that uses it:
Orlando: Thou keepest a man here, under my nose –
Matheo: Under thy beard.
Orl: As arrant a smell-smock, for an old mutton-monger as thyself.
Mat: No, as yourself.
Is it me, or is this the Elizabethan equivalent of "I know you are, but what am I" or "I'm rubber, you're glue"?