Un Gentil Huteaudeau
I just love words.
At one point in The Silver Casket, the heroine Rinette faces off against Henry Stuart, Lord Darnley, soon to be Mary Queen of Scots’ second husband. Now Darnley may have been tall, blond and good-looking, but Queen Mary’s own uncle the Cardinal of Lorraine described him scathingly as un gentil huteaudeau, which pretty much means “a pleasant nitwit.” Heh. The male Paris Hilton of the 1560s. Huteaudeau appears to have been an idiom along the lines of what today we might call “a dumb cluck,” because in the sixteenth century it also literally meant “young chicken” or “pullet.”
The word is preserved not only in the Cardinal’s disparagement of Darnley, but in a traditional Scottish dish called “Howtowdie,” a chicken stuffed with skirlie (savory sautéed oats with onions), roasted (or boiled) and served on a bed of spinach with “drappit eggs” (poached eggs). Intrigued? Here’s a link to a lovely authentic recipe:
Ishbel’s Traditional Scottish Howtowdie
I’m not sure about the poached eggs, but the skirlie sounds pretty yummy. I love cooking from the periods I write about and I think I will have to try this!
By Request: Lumbago
Had a good chuckle at Lisa Brackmann’s comment about why plumbago is called plumbago—“I would have gone with ‘it’s plum-colored and can be used to treat lumbago.’ For that matter, what IS lumbago?”
Ask and you shall receive. The word “lumbago” dates to early in the seventeenth century and comes from the late Latin lumbago, “weakness of loins and lower back,” which itself is from the Latin lumbus, “loin.” Here’s a fellow from an early 17th-century book of “anatomies” [Cousin, Jehan. Livre de pourtraiture. Paris: Jean Leclerc, 1608] who has obligingly taken off his skin to show us his musculature; his loins are indicated by the number 3. For more fascinating historical books of anatomy, see the Research section of the Wonders and Marvels website. I particularly like the ones in which the subject is rather coyly peeling back his or her own skin and muscles in order to display the organs beneath. What were the artists thinking?
“Lumbago” has rather fallen out of use these days, in favor of “Owie! I just threw out my back!” Perhaps we should bring it back. Or perhaps this evening I’ll tell the Broadcasting Legend™ I’m going to cook him a nice lumbus of pork with potatoes, apples and sauerkraut. Mmmm!
More Words
This is a book I could just sit and read for hours on a rainy afternoon:
The Dictionary of American Regional English
Try some of the quizzes. Larrup! Maypop! Mulligrubs! Noshery! Being from Texas, I actually know what Juneteenth is.
Speaking of words, my revisions are moving forward in fits and starts. The new book is clamoring for attention and I’m having to pet it and chuck it under the chin and reassure it that yes, I will take it out for a nice long walk and maybe even a ride in the car next month when its older sister is finished.
Words as Chocolate
Being a logophile as well as a lover of historical oddities, I find this site delightful:
So many to choose from! It’s rather like opening a huge assortment of luscious Godiva chocolates.
Suicide (No, I’m Not Considering It)
One of the fascinating aspects of writing historical fiction is the never-ending struggle to keep your word choice consistent with your time period, while avoiding distracting “Olde Englysshe” constructions. My trusty sidekick in this battle is the Online Etymology Dictionary.
Take the word “suicide.” Two characters in my book are suspected suicides. However, the word “suicide” itself was not recorded until 1651, about a hundred years after the time of my story. For other words or phrases I could use, I read documents of the time, and mused over Hamlet and the discussions of Ophelia’s death—the Shakespeare Search Engine is another way of checking word usage (in English, anyway) in the second half of the sixteenth century.
Words. I do love words.
The Second Duchess
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