Tuesday 26 April 2011

Hore-Hound


There aren't nearly enough disparaging word for libidinous men. There are plenty for women. Language, in this way, is quite ungentlemanly. However, leafing through Nathan Bailey's Dictionarium Domesticum (1736) I came across a wonderful phrase: hore-hound.

Admittedly, hore-hound, as Bailey used it, has nothing to do with sex. In fact, it's just a recipe with an amusing name. Yet with its pleasant alliteration and doggy implications I feel it could be usefully carried over as a modern synonym for a coney-chaser.

In case you were wondering, and I'm sure you weren't, the Hore-Hound recipe goes like this:

The leaves of this being roasted in a cabbage under hot ashes and pounded with some salt will cure the stinging of serpents and biting dogs: they are also good for humours and chaps in the fundament; being apply'd  with some honey they will clease foul ulcers: the decoction of it is good for a cough and difficulty of breathing by its cleansing the lungs and promoting spitting.

So if you find a chap in your fundament, get yourself a hore-hound.

Supply your own caption

1 comment:

  1. Once upon a time you could buy (non-alcoholic) horehound beer in Australia, but apparently the company has stopped making it:
    http://www.bundaberg.com/info/ask_john/Default.asp?f=1&m=54&vw=ms

    ReplyDelete