s---k pot, 1805 (?)

[Bruce Hunter]

Smoke?
V/R,
Bruce Hunter

George Thompson wrote:
> >From the report to his owners by the captain of a ship taken by privateers, 1805:
> ***  We took the privateer to be the Felicity (0ne of the fleet) until the moment she run the bloody flag up and commenced a very heavy fire of musquetry (upwards of sixty) she had ehr graplings and s---k pot to her yard arm, she shot up our windward quarter instantly and made an attempt to board. . . .
> N-Y Commercial Advertiser, March 21, 1805, p. 3, col. 2
>
> the dash I have represented as --- is in the paper a single long dash, so it doesn't indicate how many letters are omitted.  The "k" is perfectly clear, so barring a typo in the Commercial, the disguised word isn't "shit".
> "stink"? -- but I don't know why that word wouldn't be printable, nor, indeed, what a stink pot that might be displayed on a yardarm would be.
>
> GAT
>
> George A. Thompson
> Author of A Documentary History of "The African Theatre", Northwestern Univ. Pr., 1998, but nothing much lately.
>
> ------------------------------------------------------------
> The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org
>
>

------------------------------------------------------------
The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org