Thatchers

Someone who roofs houses with straw.

“The wind never blew that was strong enough to please the thatcher.”

Richard Jefferies , Wild Life in Southern County (1879).

Hagglers

Someone who haggles or quibbles in making a bargain or coming to terms; a middleman; one who buys of the country-folk and sells in the city market.

"Twenty shillings more, twenty shillings less, is not the thing I stand upon. I'se no haggler, gadswookers!"

Sir John Vanbrugh, Aesop (1697).

On Tinkers and Tailors

Tinker: a craftsman, often traveling from place to place, who repairs metal goods, such as pots, pans, and kettles.

"Say what you have to say, not what you ought. Any truth is better than make-believe. Tom Hyde, the tinker, standing on the gallows, was asked if he had any thing to say. 'Tell the tailors,' said he, 'to remember to make a knot in their thread before they take the first stitch.' His companion's prayer is forgotten. However mean your life is, meet it and live it; do not shun it and call it hard names. It is not so bad as you are. It looks poorest when you are richest. The fault-finder will find faults even in paradise."

Henry David Thoreau, Walden (1854).

The French Peasant's Mistress

"If we want to know the intimate thoughts, the passion of the French peasant, it's quite easy. Let's go for a Sunday walk in the countryside and follow him. There he is moving away over there in front of us. It's two in the afternoon; his wife is at vespers; he's dressed in his Sunday clothes; I tell you he's going to see his mistress. What mistress? his land."

("Si nous voulons connaitre la pensée intime, la passion du paysan de France, cela est fort aisé. Promenons-nous le dimanche dans la campagne, suivons-le. Le voilà qui s'en va là-bas devant nous. Il est deux heures; sa femme est à vêpres; il est endimanché; je réponds qu'il va voir sa maîtresse. Quelle maîtresse? sa terre.")

Jules Michelet, The People (1846).

Circus Ringmasters

"And then faster and faster they went, all of them dancing, first one foot out in the air and then the other, the horses leaning more and more, and the ringmaster going round and round the center pole, cracking his whip and shouting 'Hi!--hi!' and the clown cracking jokes behind him; and by and by all hands dropped the reins, and every lady put her knuckles on her hips and every gentleman folded his arms, and then how the horses did lean over and hump themselves! And so one after the other they all skipped off into the ring, and made the sweetest bow I ever see, and then scampered out, and everybody clapped their hands and went just about wild."

Mark Twain, Huckleberry Finn (1884).

Dubuque's Plowmen

"Dubuque has a great number of manufacturing establishments; among them a plow factory, which has for customers all Christendom in general. At least so I was told by an agent of the concern who was on the boat. He said: 'You show me any country under the sun where they really know how to plow, and if I don't show you our mark on the plow they use, I'll eat that plow; and I won't ask for any Woostershyre sauce to flavor it up with, either.'"

Mark Twain, Life on the Mississippi (1883)

Fidler's Pay

"Fidler's pay: Thanks and wine."

E. B., Dictionary of Canting Crew (1700).

Health

"The proprietor must be well if he plans to enjoy
the good things he's gathered together.
His house and estate are as much of a pleasure to him
Who wants something more (or is deathly afraid he won't get it)
As dazzling canvases are to a man with sore eyes,
Or nice warm robes to a man who suffers from gout,
Or the music of mournful guitars to infected ears.
If the vase isn't clean, whatever you put in turns sour."

Horace, Epistles, To Lollius Maximus (22 B.C.)

Too Clever By Half

"'We lost Alcimus too, our cleverest planner of burglaries and raids, through another stroke of bad luck. He had broken into an old woman's cottage and got up to the attic bedroom where she was lying asleep; but instead of strangling her at once, as he ought to have done, for some reason or other he left here alone and began throwing her stuff down through the window for us to collect. He cleared the whole room in workmanlike fashion and then, thinking that we might as well have the old girl's bedding while we were about it, pushed her out of bed. He was about to throw down the coverlet after the other things when the wicked old creature clasped him by the knees and cried: "Stop, stop! What are you at, son? Why in the world are you throwing my sticks of furniture and my ragged old coverlet into my rich neighbour's back yard?" This fooled Alcimus. He thought he had mistaken the window and instead of throwing the things into the street was really throwing them into someone's back yard. So he went to the window, and not realizing that he was in any danger leant out for a good look around, with a particular eye for the rich neighbour's house, where he hoped to do business later on. Then the old bitch stole up behind him and gave him a sudden unexpected push--not a hard push, but he was off his balance at the time and down he went, head first."

Apuleius, The Golden Ass (2nd Century A.D.)

[translated by Robert Graves].

Patterers

Someone who makes speeches to sell his goods.

"The class of street-orators, known in these days as 'patterers' and formerly termed 'mountebanks'--who strive to 'help off their wares by pompous speeches in which little regard is paid either to truth or propriety.'"

Henry Mayhew, London Labour and the London Poor (1851).

Odd-Boy

“When I was old enough, I was to be apprenticed to Joe, and until I could assume that dignity I was not to be what Mrs. Joe called ‘Pomeyed,’ or (as I render it) pampered. Therefore, I was not only odd-boy about the forge, but if any neighbour happened to want an extra boy to frighten birds, or pick up stones, or do any such job, I was favoured with the employment. In order, however, that our superior position might not be compromised thereby, a money-box was kept on the kitchen mantel-shelf, into which it was publicly made known that all my earnings were dropped. I have an impression that they were to be contributed eventually towards the liquidation of the National Debt, but I know I had no hope of any personal participation in the treasure.”

Charles Dickens, Great Expectations (1861).

Making Hay While the Sun Shines

Someone who cuts grass, spreads it, and cures it.

"The speed of the morning traffic slackened, and single carts rattled carelessly down half-empty streets. In Norfolk, of which Richard Dalloway was half thinking, a soft warm wind blew back the petals; confused the waters; ruffled the flowering grasses. Haymakers, who had pitched beneath hedges to sleep away the morning toil, parted curtains of green blades; moved trembling globes of cow parsley to see the sky; the blue, the steadfast, the blazing summer sky."

Virginia Woolf, Mrs. Dalloway (1925).

Where's Waldo?

“They said they knew who Waldo was, but they wouldn’t tell me. I didn’t believe they knew, because the chief-of-detectives had a morgue photo of Waldo on his desk. A beautiful job, his hair combed, his tie straight, the light hitting his eyes just right to make them glisten. Nobody would have known it was a photo of a dead man with two bullet holes in his heart. He looked like a dance-hall sheik making up his mind whether to take the blonde or the redhead.”

Raymond Chandler, Red Wind (1939).

Swift on Hog Merchants

Someone who sells hogs, castrated male pigs raised for slaughter.

"He snored so hard, that we thought he was driving his hogs to market."

Jonathan Swift, Political Conversation (1738).

The Best Boon Companions

"The men and women who make the best boon companions seem to have given up hope of doing something else. They have, perhaps, tried to be poets and painters; they have tried to be actors, scientists, and musicians. But some defect of talent or opportunity has cut them off from their pet ambition and has thus left them with leisure to take an interest in the lives of others. Your ambitious man is selfish. No matter how secret his ambition may be, it makes him keep his thoughts at home. But the heartbroken people--if I may use the word in a mild benevolent sense--the people whose wills are subdued to fate, give us consolation, recognition, and welcome."

John Jay Chapman.

Sinbad the Sailor and Tinbad the Tailor

He rests. He has travelled.

With?

Sinbad the Sailor and Tinbad the Tailor and Jinbad the Jailer and Whinbad the Whaler and Ninbad the Nailer and Finbad the Failer and Binbad the Bailer and Pinbad the Pailer and Minbad the Mailer and Hinbad the Hailer and Rinbad the Railer and Dinbad the Kailer and Vinbad the Quailer and Linbad the Yailer and Xinbad the Phthailer.

When?

Going to a dark bed there was a square round Sinbad the Sailor roc’s auk’s egg in the night of the bed of all the auks of the rocs of Darkinbad the Brightdayler.

James Joyce, Ulysses (1914-1921).

Flaubert's Conventional Wisdom on Inventors

"All die in the poorhouse. Somebody else profits by their discovery, which is unfair."

Gustave Flaubert, Dictionary of Platitudes (1880).

[Translation by J. I. Rodale (1954).]

Flunkies

A servant, menial, or underling. Low man on the totem pole.

“At the Gatewood residence I found butlers, second men, chauffeurs, cooks, maids, upstairs girls, downstairs girls, and a raft of miscellaneous flunkies—he had enough servants to run a hotel.”

Dashiell Hammett, The Gatewood Caper (1924).

A Successful Author

"A successful author is equally in danger of the diminution of his fame whether he continues or ceases to write."

Samuel Johnson.

Pandering

"You're an informer and a tool of slander
And a notorious swindler and a pander
And a c*ck-sucker and a gangster and a...
I can't make out, Vacerra, why you're poor."

Martial, The Epigrams, (85 AD).

Things That Have Lost Their Power

"A large boat which is high and dry in a creek at ebb-tide. A woman who has taken off her false locks to comb the short hair that remains. A large tree that has been blown down in a gale and lies on its side with it roots in the air. The retreating figure of a sumo wrestler who has been defeated in a match. A man of no importance reprimanding an attendant."

Sei Shonagon, "Things That Have Lost Their Power" from The Pillow Book (11th Century).

[Translated by Ivan Morris.]

The Faint Thump of Fulling Hammers

A fuller is someone who cleans, shrinks, and thickens cloth using moisture, heat, and pressure.

"As if at his very pillow, there came the booming of a foot pestle, more fearsome than the stamping of the thunder god, genuinely earsplitting. He did not know what device the sound came from, but he did know that it was enough to awaken the dead. From this direction and that there came the faint thump of fulling hammers against coarse cloth; and mingled with it--these were sounds to call forth the deepest emotions--were the calls of geese flying overhead."

Murasaki Shikibu, The Tale of Genji (11th Century).

Storekeeping

“No, not for an age had he lived a whole day in the open. As a boy, always running in the muddy, rutted streets of the village, or across the fields, or bathing with the other boys in the river; but as a man, in America, he rarely saw the sky. In the early days when he drove a horse and wagon, yes, but not since his first store. In a store you were entombed.”

Bernard Malamud, The Assistant (1957).

Coleridge on Metrists

Metrist is an old word for a poet who writes in meter, as in iambic pentameter.

"There are not five metrists in the kingdom to whom I could have spoken so plainly."

Samuel Coleridge, Literary Remains (1819).

Fuller Brush Man

One of the earliest door-to-door salesmen.

“A few months before Muggs died, he got to ‘seeing things.’ He would rise slowly from the floor, growling low, and stalk stiff-legged and menacing toward nothing at all. Sometimes the Thing would be just a little to the right or left of a visitor. Once a Fuller Brush salesman got hysterics. Muggs came wandering into the room like Hamlet following his father’s ghost. His eyes were fixed on a spot just to the left of the Fuller Brush man, who stood it until Muggs was about three slow, creeping paces from him. Then he shouted. Muggs wavered on past him into the hallway grumbling to himself but the Fuller man went on shouting. I think mother had to throw a pan of cold water on him before he stopped. That was the way she used to stop us boys when we got into fights.”

James Thurber, The Dog That Bit People (1933).

Speculating in Stocks

“October. This is one of the peculiarly dangerous months to speculate in stocks in. The others are July, January, September, April, November, May, March, June, December, August, and February.
– Pudd’nhead Wilson’s Calendar”

Mark Twain, Pudd’nhead Wilson (1894).

Perdu

From the French word for "lost." Military scouts dispatched to such advanced and perilous positions that they stand a good chance of not making it back alive.

"Our Purdues lie so near the Enemy, as to hear them discourse."

John Rushworth, Historical Collections (1648)

Yeast Makers

"Chozaemon, the yeast maker, found the years and months passing as if life were only a dream. Already it was fifty years since his father died, and he had reason to congratulate himself on living long enough to celebrate such an anniversary. According to the ancients: 'When one goes into mourning on the fiftieth anniversary of his father's death, it is customary to abstain from meat in the morning, but eat fish for supper and drink and sing throughout the evening, having thereafter no further obligations to perform.'"

Ihara Saikaku, Five Women Who Loved Love (1686).

Zymologist

An expert in fermentation.

"Before the rhymologist comes the zymologist, as before the drinking songs, the drink."

--R. G. Voorhees.

Roguery in a Lord Mayor

"Sir Richard Ford told us this evening an odd story of the basenesse of the late Lord Mayor, Sir W. Bolton, cheating the poor of the city out of the collections made for the people that were burned, of 1,800 pounds; of which he can give no account, and in which he hath forsworn himself plainly, so as the Court of Aldermen have sequestered him from their Court till he do bring in an account; which is the greatest piece of roguery that they say was ever found in a Lord Mayor."

Samuel Pepys, Diary (December 3, 1667)

Keep Up the Spirits of Your Patient

"Keep up the spirits of your patient with the music of the viol and the psaltery, or by forging letters telling of the death of his enemies, or (if he be a cleric) by informing him that he has been made a bishop."

--Henri de Mondeville

Calligraphers and Matters of the Heart

"'Or let us look at calligraphy. A man without any great skill can stretch out this line and that in the cursive style and give an appearance of boldness and distinction. The man who has mastered the principles and writes with concentration may, on the other hand, have none of the eye-catching tricks; but when you take the trouble to compare the two the real thing is the real thing. So it is with trivialities like painting and calligraphy. How much more so with matters of the heart!"

Murasaki Shikibu, The Tale of Genji (11th Century)

[Translated by Edward Seidensticker]