by Kevin Burton
Acts 17:5 describes “lewd fellows of the baser sort” who were aroused into a mob to oppose the early church. We examine their kind with the help of Merriam-Webster dictionary.
The dictionary has compiled “A Handy Guide to Ruffians, Rapscallions, Cads and More,” calling it “22 Charming Words for Nasty People.”
We ran the first of three stories concerning their list Friday, this is the second, the third will run tomorrow.
One of the entries today calls to mind one of my more memorable news stories while working for the Frontiersman Newspaper in Wasilla, Alaska.
Some called it “Hell Week,” the week when the Mat-Su Borough Assembly would set its budget. That task included setting the budget for the local school district. That dynamic produced conflict annually.
The BBC invites listeners to “have your say,” and Alaskans are not shy about that. The public hearings during Hell Week were filled with heated debates, barely-muted insults, passionate defenses.
And the temperature on that got turned up extra high, because of a memo sent out by the school district superintendent.
In a message intended for school district employees, he called citizens speaking against the district’s record-high budget proposals “Hooligans,” except he misspelled hooligans as “hoolagans.” As I recall there were at least two other spelling gaffes in a memo that wasn’t that long.
Somebody got a copy of that memo and brought it to the newspaper office. You could say it was placed in my in box, or you could say it was placed in my lap.
Easy story.
Under the headline “Memo spells trouble for Sorenson” I wrote about the spelling errors and quoted a few citizens that didn’t take kindly to being called names.
Thereafter, the speeches at the public hearings about the budget were of this sort “My name is such and such, I’ve lived in Alaska for so many years…and I’m a hooligan.”
The district boss had given the taxpayers an identity and they ran with it. It was self-destruction on what I though at the time was the highest order. Later I learned there was a much higher order when Hillary Clinton called people “Deplorables.” Same stupid thing.
I’ve just learned that Sorenson passed away about two years ago and that he had a PhD in Education. But he couldn’t spell. I was looking up the spelling of his name so I didn’t get it wrong. (Was it two Rs or one?) Wouldn’t that have been ironic?
OK, I’m going to turn this thing back over to Merriam-Webster for more of their list of bad actors:
Hooligan: a usually young man who does noisy and violent things as part of a group or gang; hoodlum
This word may be eponymous: Patrick Hooligan was an Irish-born ruffian who attained notoriety (and who died in prison) in London shortly before the turn of the 20th century. It’s still associated with Britain, where “football hooliganism” is sometimes referred to as the “English disease.”
Choplogic: an absurdly argumentative person
The word was formed by a combination of logic and an obsolete sense of chop meaning “to bandy words, answer back.”
You should be warned that knowing what to call such a person will in no way alleviate your displeasure should you have to deal with one.
Scamp: rascal; rogue
Scamp once functioned as a verb meaning “to roam about idly” (think scamper). The noun we’ve featured here appeared later, and has a more playful overtone than some other words on this list.
Guttersnipe: one belonging to or suited to the lowest moral or economic condition of usually urban civilization : a street urchin
For many people, guttersnipe conjures up images of a Dickensian waif, some ill-clothed and iller-fed child of the streets, making their way through Victorian London by hook or crook. Which makes sense, in a way, since the works of Charles Dickens are well-populated with guttersnipes.
Dickens, however, seems to have not used the word in any of his writing. There is evidence of the word being used as early as 1824, it initially referred to a pig, and was not in wide use to describe children at the time that Dickens was writing.
Wretch: a base, despicable, or vile person; a miserable person
Wretch has been part of English about as long as knave. Wretch’s Old English ancestor meant “outcast; exile,” which raises this question: Did our ancestors exile despicable people, or did those they exile become miserable as a result of their expulsion?
Blellum: a lazy talkative person
Blellum combines in its definition two qualities that are not often found together: laziness and loquaciousness. Its origin is uncertain, although it is thought to possibly be a blend of two Scottish words, bleber (to babble), and skellum (a rascal).
Mawworm: a mealymouthed sanctimonious hypocrite
Does the definition for mawworm have a slight ring of personal affront to it? As a rule, a definition should not be clouded by the likes or dislikes of the lexicographer. But perhaps this definer once had a bad run-in with a mawworm?
On the other hand, it is also a fine definition, and very clearly explains what this word means.
Purse-leech: one that is excessively greedy for money
If you ever find yourself being described with a word that contains “leech” in it, chances are very high that you are not being complimented. One of the things that is enjoyable about a word such as purse-leech is that while it is archaic and obscure, it is also very simple to understand, and requires no additional explanation.
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