s---k pot, 1805 (?)

[Laurence Horn]

At 3:17 PM -0400 9/6/10, Joel S. Berson wrote:
>Alan Hartley pointed out to me the following:
>
>>>might "s---k" have been "stink-pot"?
>>
>>I think so. At the verb "stink", the OED says "Now implying violent
>>disgust on the part of the speaker; in ordinary polite use avoided
>>as unpleasantly forcible." One of my grandmothers refused to use the word.
>
>I assume his grandmother was not as far back as 1805, but perhaps the
>editor of the newspaper had the same delicacy.  (Now if his
>grandmother had served aboard a British or American naval vessel, it
>would be a different story.)
>
As independent evidence for Joel's last (well, penultimate) point,
and Alan Hartley's, we might perhaps cite the employment of "smell"
(intransitive), as in "That really smells", as a euphemistic
replacement for "stink", attested by the OED (s.v. SMELL III.8.b) as
'To give out an offensive odour; to stink' from c. 1375.  (In the
1684 cite, "If he reach old Age..his Breath smells", the writer is
not using "smell" merely in the general III.8.a sense of 'To give
out, send forth, or exhale an odour; to have a smell, scent, etc.',
but--as indicated--under the specialized III.8.b subentry.)

LH

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