From Shoulder clapper to Thelyphthoric: Insults

A smatchet is likewise an "insignificant contemptible person." Another definition is a "chit," which I hadn't heard used in connection with such a person. I like the word shoulderclapper, which was originally used by Shakespeare as two words. In Act IV of the Comedy of Errors, when Adriana asks Dromio of Syracuse where his master is, he says:

"No, he's in Tartar limbo, worse than hell.
A devil in an everlasting garment hath him,
One whose hard heart is buttoned up with steel;
35 A fiend, a fury, pitiless and rough;
A wolf, nay, worse, a fellow all in buff;
A back-friend, a shoulder clapper, one that countermands/ The passages of alleys, creeks, and narrow lands; / A hound that runs counter and yet draws dryfoot well,
40 One that before the judgment carries poor souls to hell."

It isn't exactly clear what Shakespeare means by "shoulder clapper" here, but Samuel Johnson, in his 1755 Dictionary, which he had worked on for nine years almost single-handedly and with hardly any support--and certainly no patron--defines it as follows: "one who affects familiarity, or one that mischiefs privily." Perhaps he, too, didn't know exactly how to take Shakespeare's use of the term. On the one hand, to "affect familiarity" would be to be what we call today a "glad-hander" or perhaps a "back-slapper." But Shakespeare seems to have a more sinister meaning in mind, since the words "shoulder clapper" are put in the context of fiends and persons that carry souls to hell. Thus, the second Johnsond definition, "that mischiefs privily," comes into play. This would emphasize the way that a person comes up close to you with affirmative greeting (clapping you on the shoulder) but, in fact, is planning something wicked. He wants to get you into the mix, too. I think Johnson's attempt to define it is masterly.

By the way, Spark Notes, which up until a few years ago only had the text and helpful summaries of Shakespeare and other classic texts online, now has a "No Fear Shakespeare" online. This tremendously helpful edition of about half of S's plays has the text on the left side of the page, with a "modern English" equivalent on the right. Such a "help" will not only encourage students to read and appreciate Shakespeare, but will force them to look at the original language to try to plumb its depths. Once you get the "drift" of S, you are in a much better position to want to unpack every phrase (this is what I did, for example, in my Othello essays). These editions allow, and encourage, it.

Well, we are almost done, but I need to say a word about slubberdegullion. The verb slubber, meaning to stain, smear, daub or soil, goes back to the early 16th century, and the addition of "degullion" a century later resulted in a word for "a slobbering or dirty fellow; a worthless sloven." By 1630 the popular (for the time) English writer John Taylor, could write, "Contaminous, pestiferous...slubberdegullions."

Finishing with Thelyphthoric

The word thelyphthoric is easy enough to define--it is something that corrupts or ruins women. It is derived from the Greek words for female (thely) and corruption (phthora). A word used in the Kids National Spelling Bee a few years ago, as I recall, was thelytokous, which means "producing only female offspring." Thelygenous means about the same thing. A thelyblast is not females having a good time but rather refers to the female element of a sexual cell (the male element is called an arsenoblast).

We probably only have the word thelyphthoric in our language because of a two-volume work (entitled Thelyphthora) written in 1780 by Methodist Minister Martin Madan. Madan was converted by John Wesley in the 1730s and then decided to devote himself to the Gospel by being appointed the first chaplain and director of music at the Lock Hospital--a charitable hostpital that cared for women suffering with venereal diseases. After working with these women for a few decades, Madan hit on a scheme which he thought Biblical (and which was supported, he felt, by Luther and some other early Protestants, and which would be picked up by the early Mormons): polygamy. Because poverty threw women into the streets, making them susceptible to all kinds of vicious sexual diseases, and because there was a shortage of marriagable men, Madan argued in Thelyphthora that polygamy was a "lesser evil" to the evils faced by women in mid-late 18th century England. Thus, polygamy was recommended primarily because it benefitted women and not because it would satiate the sexual appetites of men. Unimpressed by his sincerity and scholarly argumentation, he was summarily canned from his position, and finished out his life quietly translating Latin treatises.

Here is the how the title page of Thelyphthora reads. Notice its complete title: Thelyphthora; or a Treatise on Female Ruin, in its Causes, Effects, Consequences, Prevention, and Remedy; Considered on the Basis of the Divine Law: Under the Following HEADS, viz. Marriage, Whoredom, and Fornication; Adultery, Polygamy, Divorce. He also gives some comments on "The Marriage Act," a statue passed in the reign of George II. He claimed to "keep the holy scriptures alone in our view" as he wrote his 800+ page treatise. But all was for naught. He not only convinced no one, but he brought down the ire of his cousin, poet William Cowper, as well as the religious establishment of the day against him. Nevertheless, he coined a word, which is never used but which now you know, and bequeathed it to our language. I think I will try to use the adjective thelyphthoric sometime in the next week or so. I will be thanking Madan when I do.

Conclusion

Note what I have done in these essays. Under the guise of just giving you a few "insult" terms, I have brought you, with vivid pictures, into several centuries of the development of the English language. We know more about Shakespeare now, about an insult dictionary from 1699, about Madan's world in the mid-late 18th century, and about an interesting Victorian-era scheme to defraud people. You won't learn any of this in the typical university courses on English literature or history. But if you know this stuff, you will be welcomed with open arms in doctoral programs of about five fields. All this--just for taking some time with a few essays and following up on some of the "leads" here.

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