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#something about puritans making everything lurid in their quest for purity
marryat92 · 3 years
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BREAKTHROUGH as I finally figured out one of the stupidest "naughty words" in Marryat's Frank Mildmay. There's a scene where some American girls literally do spit-takes and are overcome with laughter after Frank mentions the Po River.
"Since you force me to explain myself, I must say that you used a word exclusively confined to bed chambers," the girls' uncle explains (badly), and the vulgar word is hinted to be of French origin. I searched far and wide for words pronounced like 'po' referring to sexual acts or genitalia to no avail, but Frank gives it away as a "contemptible vessel"—it's a damn chamber pot, or pot de chambre. I'm about as annoyed as young Mr. Mildmay at this moment, realising that the girls were laughing at something akin to "toilet river" or "pisspot river" (are all of you five years old??)
Although published a decade before his non-fiction Diary in America, it feels like an earlier version of Frederick Marryat offending the overly delicate sensibilities of Americans with his language. When the American uncle explains that the refined society of Philadelphia say "western settlements" instead of "back settlements", I have to agree with Frank that "there was a point in our language where delicacy became indelicate."
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