Bitch

The most curious use, to me, of this word comes from Britain. In this case, “bitch” refers to human females, but not necessarily those of ill repute, and extends from them to something associated with them. This usage, in fact, refers to the more socially popular ladies who gather together to chat at a tea party, or bitch party as it was called circa 1880. This bitch party was composed of females of the species (wives) who would spend their afternoons discussing topics of importance to them. To the husbands, this was a gathering of bitches who spent their time together bitching while drinking a typical drink of bitches, tea. Perhaps through guilt by association, Cambridge University slang from 1820 to about 1914 called this drink – tea – “bitch” (Partridge 1966:57). Furthermore, to pour out tea was to “bitch the pot” (Partridge 1950:210), and one who poured the tea was said to “stand bitch”. “Stand bitch” in the late 18th and 19th centuries actually meant not only to preside at tea but also to perform any other typically female duty (Partridge 1966:57) or, in short, to behave like the female of the species. Metaphors accounting for these tea-time terms are not apparent to me and I do not think metaphors are responsible for these meanings. Instead, I think that the terms came about through their associations with the social function of tea and ladies at tea parties and shifted to the other meanings.

from Collins, C.A. (1984). ‘Bitch: An example of semantic development and change’

Found shopping list

Strickly

A well-wisher at work presented us with a box of chocolates just before Christmas – to wit, the Mint Connoisseur Collection from House of Dorchester. These are pretty high-end chocs. And yet I feel repelled by the language used to describe them.

One mint is ‘finished with a strickle of white chocolate’; another is ‘finished with a natural green coloured chocolate strickle’. I’d argue for the hyphenation of ‘green coloured’ or even the omission of ‘coloured’ altogether (Alan Hansen, take note), but my real beef is with ‘strickle’. I can see what’s happened. Some chocolate marketing bod has decided, quite wrongly, that the words already provided by the English language will simply not suffice. What the squiggly bit on top of the chocolate is, he reasons, is a sort of cross between a trickle and a stripe. A portmanteau word is clearly called for. Having vetoed ‘tripe’, he settles on ‘strickle’. And there the word now sits, adorning many thousands of boxes of chocolates.

I’m not against the evolution of language. Those French tosseurs who try and invoke the law to stop their mother tongue from being besmirched, I think they’re boum out of order. I like new words. Tweeple, webinar, laters, cromulent, paedogeddon. Every word has to be invented at some point. Dickens himself came up with ‘boredom’ and ‘dustbin’. The problem is, strickle already is a word — a word that, unless I’m very much mistaken, most of us use every day. OED defines it as:

n.
1.
a. A straight piece of wood with which surplus grain is struck off level with the rim of the measure. Sometimes applied to the amount so measured.
b. Applied to various instruments used for similar purposes in casting or moulding
2. A tool with which a reaper whets or sharpens his scythe. Also a mechanical grinder

v. trans.
To strike off with a strickle (the superfluous sand) in moulding; to shape (a core) or form (a mould) by means of a strickle.

It’s certainly a word that must pop up regularly in societies where grain and casting/moulding still feature heavily. It doesn’t take a genius to foresee the problems the House of Dorchester’s mindbogglingly careless use of language must inevitably create. Yevgeny turns up at his farm or his iron foundry after Christmas, asks ‘Hyend me thyet strieckel,’ and receives a chocolate in return. He can’t fulfil the daily grain quota, his family can only afford one potato a day (plus the chocolate), the Russian economy collapses, and China takes over the world. Thanks a lot, Dorchester.

Trickle is a lovely word. It sounds like what it is, flowing water, a babbling brook. It needs no addendum. If a new word is really needed to describe a stripe atop a chocolate, I would suggest squizzle (squirt/drizzle).

But the chocolates were very nice. Merry Christmas.