elstaffe’s Reviews > Verbatim: From the bawdy to the sublime, the best writing on language for word lovers, grammar mavens, and armchair linguists > Status Update

"Fucktruck 'a van or car in which people engage in sexual activity' had been mentioned in the introduction as being Australian ... a statement rejected by numerous [US] correspondents ... two people noted that the word was also used for 'a bus on which one can meet prospective sexual partners' (both, curiously, referring to a shuttle between Wellesley College and the Harvard and M.I.T. campuses)."(344)vcurious

"... Munç Wang's 'Copulative Sentences in English: A Germanic Language Spoken in Northern Delaware' studies the grammaticality ... of such sentences as 'Micky fucked Michelle's cadaver in the ass' (grammatical), 'Bret fucked the mannikin through the hole he drilled in its throat' (of questionable grammaticality), and 'Fred fucked the log through a hole that squirrels had made (ungrammatical)." (342)

"Fujiyama [British] Phrase.
Acronym for '[Fuck] you, Jack, I'm all right.' Expression of sole concern for self at expense of partner or ally; abandonment, betrayal." (337)

"The English may not reclaim from the Scots the honor, if such it be, of being the first to put the popular quadriliteral into writing." (323) new favorite term for a four-letter word

"fox obs. in the sense of 'prostitute'; now refers to any eyesome female," (307) EYESOME

"strumpet [Middle English strompet, of obscure origin]." (305) STROMPET

"mopsy [origin unknown] 'a disreputable and slovenly woman,' though earlier a term of endearment; obs. exc. as dialectical British English." (302) is this where Flopsy, Mopsy, and Cottontail come from, Beatrix Potter???

"market-dame 'a harlot of the marketplace; colloquial fr. eighteenth century; increasingly Standard English." (302) standard english? since when? when was this article originally published I guess is a better question

"... Blankies, which seem to be Jumbles sitting around the fire telling stories; and Initialettes, which in an earlier day were called Categories or Guggenheims." (291) well now I have five new word games to look up

"... for 'last straw,' the example was The service in this restaurant has been bad before, but this is the last straw" (286-287)