Fw: New revision of report on the word SCRUMP

[Thomas Paikeday]

Edward GatesForwarding to ADS-L

----- Original Message ----- 
From: Edward Gates 
To: T. Paikeday 
Sent: Monday, November 01, 2004 1:00 PM
Subject: New revision of report on the word SCRUMP


Tom--

 

Recently I encountered an unfamiliar word in the cartoon "Fred Basset" (printed on p. E7 of the Springfield, Mass., Republican for 18 October 2004).  In the first frame, the dog Fred Basset says or thinks "There's nothing like a scrumped apple." In the second frame, it is polishing off an apple on the ground. The word  "scrumped" was completely unfamiliar to me. There is an entry in W3 for "scrump", but it doesn't fit the use in the cartoon. I did Google searches in the Web and News and found two definitions and some uses and discussion of the word.  It seems to be British. It is described in one dictionary entry as "UK  Old-fashioned.  Informal.  Steal fruit (as apples) from trees." In one chat room people discuss "scrumping" apples and other fruit from orchards, and also "scrumping" scaffolding signs (I think we would call them billboard signs), and cars.  One use in the News search is in Grist Magazine  (online) for 5 Oct. 2004. in an article "Norwegian Wood" by Lissa Harris. There it has yet another meaning.  The article is about a young man and woman in Norway who exploit sex to raise money for environmental protection: 

 

It must be noted that what Fuck the Forest lacks in glitzy production it makes up for its sheer joie de vivre.

 

"The two of them (and the occasional friends from Sweden and Germany and the like) scrump with the energy, enthusiasm, and disregard for social convention that makes being a young twentysomething so much fun," [Jamais] Cascio wrote  [in an e-mail to the author]. "They are actually relatively attractive, in a will-fuck-for-spare-pot kind of way."

For this meaning, a Web search later turned up the following:

UrbanDictionary.com/Scrump 

      ... (v.) Any action of or relating to sexual arousal through physical contact. "So did you two do it?" "No, we just kinda scrumped all night.". ... It scrumped itself! ... 
      www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=Scrump - 14k - Supplemental Result - Cached - Similar pages
     

UrbanDictionary.com/Scrump 

      ... 2. n. l337 RS player that pwns you all on GSA. The girl was hot, so I scrumped her. ... "So did you two do it?" "No, we just kinda scrumped all night.". ... 
      www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=Scrump&b=1 - 14k - Supplemental Result - Cached - Similar pages
      [ More results from www.urbandictionary.com ]
     

 

"Scrump" as the name of a music group may relate to this meaning.

 

The cartoon may be British; it is distributed by  Atlantic Syndication/Universal Press Syndicate, and on a later day showed a car with the steering wheel on the right. The chat room discussion is British and perhaps Australian. One writer says he or she has heard the word only in Essex.  Jamais Cascio has a column in a British newspaper.  I haven't  discovered the location of the Urban Dictionary.

 

My curiosity led me on quite a chase.

 

Ed