Why slut is a dirty word
QUESTION Further to Godfrey Bloom’s faux pas, what is the origin of the word slut? WHEN UkIP MEP Godfrey Bloom said women who didn’t clean behind the fridge were ‘sluts’, he later said he had used the word in the ‘old-fashioned’ sense.
There is justification for this: some of our best-known writers have used it in this sense. In his diary from 1664, Samuel Pepys writes: ‘Our little girl Susan is a most admirable slut, and pleases us mightily, doing more service than both the others and deserves wages better.’
It might sound suggestive, but slut in this sense means ‘messy, dirty or untidy’.
The word is thought to come from the German schlutt, meaning ‘slovenly woman’, or the Swedish slata, ‘idle woman’.
The earliest reference in this sense is from 1402, in Thomas Hoccleve’s Letter Of cupid, which describes ‘ the foulest slutte of al a tovne’ — talking about cleanliness. In a 1440 treatise on animal husbandry, we have the innocent ‘ Ne delue awey the weed, but pull with honde. Fful ferd is hit for touching of vnclene. Wymmen — and slottes y suppose hit mene.’
However, the meanings had been conflated by the middle of the 15th century. a coventry Mystery Play of 1450 has the unambiguous: ‘ Come forthe, thou stotte! Com forthe, thou scowte I come forthe, thou bysmare and brothel bolde!’
From here on, both senses have equal prominence. In Wynkyn De Worde’s 1533 satirical poem cocke Lorelles Bote, we have ‘ Sluttes drabbes and counseyll whystelers’, and in Nicholas Breton’s a Flourish Upon Fancie (1577), he wrote about someone who would ‘ swap each slut, upon the lippes, that in the darke hee meetes’. clearly, this slut wasn’t cleaning behind the fridge.
Yet in John Bunyan’s Pilgrim’s Progress, we have t he t erm as a s ense of endearment. ‘as the mother cries out against her child in her lap, when she calleth it slut and naughty girl, and then falls to hugging and kissing it.’
More recently, Helen Fielding in Bridget Jones’s Diary used the word ‘slut’ in the ‘fridge’ sense: ‘check plates and cutlery for tell-tale signs of sluttish washing-up . . .’
Perhaps the triumph of the sexual sense of slut was confirmed in 2011 when a protest march called ‘ SlutWalk’ was organised in Toronto after a policeman remarked that ‘ women should avoid dressing like sluts in order to avoid rape or unwanted attentions’. Bloom was taking a risk using the word.
Miss S. L. Weston, Birmingham. QUESTION What became of Robert the Bruce’s brother Nigel? Are there any other famous people of that era or before also named Nigel? NIGEL is an ancient name of Irish Gaelic origin, a variant of the popular Irish name Niall, meaning ‘champion’.
Nigel the Bruce (or de Brus), who lived from about 1279 to 1306, was a younger brother of Robert and supported him in his struggle to become king.
Born in carrick, ayrshire, the fourth child and second son of Robert de Brus, 6th Lord of annandale, and Margaret, countess of carrick, Nigel held kildrummy castle in aberdeenshire for his brother with his steward christopher Seaton.
kildrummy had been built by Gilbert de Moray, Bishop of caithness, in the 13th century, and Edward I paid at least two visits there, in 1296 and 1303, staying as a guest on his way south from Elgin.
By 1306, however, relations had soured dramatically. William Wallace had been executed in 1305 and Edward had ordered Bruce to put kildrummy ‘in the keeping of such a man as he himself will be willing to answer for’, suggesting some mistrust of Robert.
In 1306, Robert declared himself king of Scotland, and Edward I dispatched an army under his son Edward, Prince of Wales (later Edward II), and aymer de Valence, Earl of Pembroke, in an attempt to quell the Scots.
In June 1306, Robert was defeated at the battle of Methven and his wife and daughters were sent to kildrummy in august under the protection of Nigel and John Strathbogie, Earl of atholl.
When the English force arrived there, the ladies of the royal court were forced to flee further north while Nigel de Bruce stayed to defend the castle.
He was betrayed by Osbarn the Smith, who set light to the castle’s ammunition and provisions (he was rewarded, it’s said, by having the gold he’d been promised poured molten down his throat).
Nigel, Strathbogie and Seaton were sent for trial to Berwick, home of the Englishrun Scottish parliament, and executed as traitors.
John Collins, Nairn. THE 12th- century Bishop of Ely was a prominent Nigel, being head of the Exchequer in the reigns of Henry I, Stephen and Henry II.
He was brought into the Exchequer in 1130 and his uncle Roger of Salisbury secured him the bishopric, or ‘see’, of Ely.
Nigel was retained in Stephen’s service, but was suspected of angevin leanings, supporting Henry’s daughter Matilda.
When his uncle alexander of Lincoln was arrested by Stephen in January 1139, Nigel tried to hold on to his see by force of arms, but had to f l ee to the Empress at Gloucester. Reconciled to Stephen in 1142, he was restored to his see.
at the accession of Henry II in 1154, Nigel was summoned to reorganise the Exchequer and, as the only surviving minister of Henry I, his knowledge of it was unrivalled.
In 1166, his health was broken by a paralytic seizure. after his death, his son Richard FitzNigel wrote the Dialogus de Scaccario, a historically important work detailing the procedure of the Exchequer as it was left by Nigel.
Mr G. Heywood, Cambridge. QUESTION In terms of physical dimensions, what and where is the largest word on the planet? Is it the Hollywood sign in Los Angeles? FURTHER to the earlier answer, another word that is larger than the Hollywood sign is the coca-cola logo in the atacama desert in northern chile.
constructed in 1986 to commemorate coke’s 100th anniversary, each letter is 165ft high and the logo is 800ft wide.
The original caption beneath it read ‘100 anos [years]’; this was updated in 2011 to ‘125 anos’.
The l ogo i s made of 70,000 empty coca-cola bottles and was designed to be visible from space.