s---k pot, 1805 (?)

[George Thompson]

Joel points out quotations from the OED:
The OED has "transf. 1748 SMOLLETT Rod. Rand. xi, I'll teach you to empty your stink-pots on me. 1913 J. G. FRAZER Golden Bough VI. Scapegoat iii. 133 The girls discharge their stink-pots in the faces of their adversaries."
Both of these sound as if they might refer to the act of emptying a chamber-pot from a window (as a hint to the salesman that you don't want any).
So, if "stink-pot was in use as a euphemism/dysphemism for "chamber-pot", then that would account for the the newspaper writing "s--k-pot", regardless of whether "stink" in itself was considered indelicate in the 18th C, or whether the military stink-pot in use then contained shit or not.

GAT

George A. Thompson
Author of A Documentary History of "The African Theatre", Northwestern Univ. Pr., 1998, but nothing much lately.

----- Original Message -----
From: "Joel S. Berson" <Berson at att.net>
Date: Monday, September 6, 2010 3:37 pm
Subject: Re: s---k pot, 1805 (?)
To: ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU

> At 9/6/2010 10:12 AM, 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.
>
> I acknowledge the hesitations, but:
>
> "stink-pot" = "2. A hand-missile charged with combustibles emitting a
> suffocating smoke, used in boarding a ship for effecting a diversion
> while the assailants gain the deck."
>
> Might a stink-pot used in naval warfare in 1805 have contained other
> odiferous materials, such as excrement? The OED has "transf. 1748
> SMOLLETT Rod. Rand. xi, I'll teach you to empty your stink-pots on
> me. 1913 J. G. FRAZER Golden Bough VI. Scapegoat iii. 133 The girls
> discharge their stink-pots in the faces of their adversaries."  The
> use by Smollet -- who surely knew naval warfare -- of "empty" sounds
> like more was emitted than smoke.
>
> Might "stink" not have been thought by some to be unprintable in 1805
> (perhaps for what a stink-pot might contain)?
>
> Might a stink-pot have been attached to a yard-arm to be handy for a
> "stink-pot-flinger" posted on the yard-arm to throw down upon a ship
> with which it was engaged "yard-arm to yard-arm"?
>
> I will ask Alan H. Hartley, who is knowledgeable about naval
> terminology of the time.
>
> Joel
>
>
> >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

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