Monday, June 22, 2009

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).

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