s---k pot, 1805 (?)

[Garson O'Toole]

I also came across a "sting pot" reference that seems to be related to
naval warfare in 1757. Perhaps it is an alternative spelling or
pronunciation.

At one o'Olock she made a third Attack, (hoisting a Bloody Flag and
shewing her Sting-pot at the Bowsprit-end)

http://books.google.com/books?id=U-_lAAAAMAAJ&q=%22sting+pot%22#v=snippet&

On Mon, Sep 6, 2010 at 2:26 PM, Garson O'Toole
<adsgarsonotoole at gmail.com> wrote:
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> Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> Poster:       Garson O'Toole <adsgarsonotoole at GMAIL.COM>
> Subject:      Re: s---k pot, 1805 (?)
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> Here is a work in 1900, "A Close Shave, or How Major Flagg Won his
> Bet" that describes a stink pot. Perhaps this matches s----k.
>
> "One of their principal weapons, especially when attacking foreign
> ships, is the stink-pot, which may be more elegantly termed 'the
> asphyxiating vase.' It is an earthen pot, filled with the most
> villainous-smelling compounds that can be produced in the world; when
> thrown on the deck of a ship the pot breaks and the evil-smelling
> contents are scattered all around.
>
> http://books.google.com/books?id=7OYPAAAAYAAJ&q=%22stink+pot%22#v=snippet&
>
> (While I was preparing this message Larry posted this possible interpretation.)
>
> Garson
>
>
> On Mon, Sep 6, 2010 at 2:17 PM, Laurence Horn <laurence.horn at yale.edu> wrote:
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>> Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
>> Poster:       Laurence Horn <laurence.horn at YALE.EDU>
>> Subject:      Re: s---k pot, 1805 (?)
>> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>>
>> An attempt at resending this; please excuse any possible double posting...
>>
>>
>> At 10:12 AM -0400 9/6/10, 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.
>>
>> Or "skunk", _skunk pot_ being either 'a super-strong strain of
>> marijuana' or 'cheap or poorly grown pot', depending on your sources.
>> Somewhat unlikely for 1805, I concede.
>>
>> I suspect it really was "stink pot", which the Ladasha-ellipsis
>> serving to indicate that "stink" here is really "shit", thereby
>> forming a kind of double euphemism. Or maybe blending the two
>> euphemistic devices together inadvertently. (Not that that answers
>> the yardarm-display puzzle.  But then again I'm only familiar with
>> yardarms in connection with their relation to solar positioning and
>> libation schedules.)
>>
>> LH
>>
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