Lost Word Of The Day (85)

The glorious city of Durham was once famous for more than its impressive cathedral and castle. It was also the home of the finest quality mustard, the brainchild of a Mrs Chalmers. It was so superior that it blew the socks off the previous stronghold of English mustard production, Tewkesbury.

In 1720 the enterprising Mrs Chalmers had invented a method for extracting the full flavour from mustard seed, which involved grinding the seeds in a mill and passing them through several processes not unlike the manufacture of flour from wheat. So successful was her product that she received royal patronage from King George I.

The downside was that the term Durham man became slang for someone who was knock-kneed, someone who walked as though he was grinding mustard seeds between his knees, as Francis Grose attests in his Classical Dictionary of the Vulgar Tongue (1788). There he defines the term as “knocker kneed, he grinds mustard with his knees”. The price of fame.