Wondrous Words Wednesday is a weekly meme run by Kathy at Bermuda Onion’s Weblog where you can share new words that you’ve encountered or spotlight words you love.
These are some words from Barnaby Rudge by Charles Dickens:
Usquebaugh – ‘what does my noble captain drink – is it brandy, rum, usquebaugh?’
This is obviously a drink of some sort, but I didn’t know what. Usquebaugh is Gaelic meaning “Water of Life”, phonetically it became “usky” and then “whisky” in English.
Flip – ‘every man … put down his sixpence for a can of flip, which grateful beverage was brewed with all dispatch, and set down in the midst of them on the brick floor; both that it might simmer and stew before the fire, and that its fragrant steam, rising up among them, and mixing with the wreaths of vapour from their pipes, might shroud them in a delicious atmosphere of their own and shut out all the world.’
Another intoxicating drink, I thought. Flip is eggnog, a drink of eggs and hot beer or spirits. I was interested to see it came in a can! Canning food was invented by a French chef in 1795 to preserve military food for Napoleon’s army. Barnaby Rudge, although written in 1839-41 when sealed cans similar to those we use now would have been in use, is set in 1775 and 1780 so Dickens was probably using the word to mean a container for holding liquid – or it’s an anachronism?
Poussetting – ‘Joe Willet rode leisurely along in his desponding mood, picturing the locksmith’s daughter going down long country dances, and poussetting dreadfully with bold strangers – which was almost too much to bear ...’
Poussette is simply a figure in country dancing when the couples hold hands and move up or down the set changing places with the next couple. And by the way Joe describes it he was thinking the locksmith’s daughter was being too familiar with strangers.
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