A Monarch of his Profession

Chef: The head cook in a kitchen.

“You will do it, young Bertie, or never darken my doors again. And you know what that means. No more of Anatole’s dinners for you.’

A strong shudder shook me. She was alluding to her chef, that superb artist. A monarch of his profession, unsurpassed – nay, unequalled – at dishing up the raw material so that it melted in the mouth of the ultimate consumer, Anatole had always been a magnet that drew me to Brinkley Court with my tongue hanging out. Many of my happiest moments had been those which I had spent champing this great man’s roasts and ragouts, and the prospect of being barred from digging into them in the future was a numbing one.

‘No, I say, dash it!’

‘I thought that would rattle you. Greedy young pig.’

‘Greedy young pigs have nothing to do with it,’ I said with a touch of hauteur. ‘One is not a greedy young pig because one appreciates the cooking of a genius.’

‘Well, I will say I like it myself,’ conceded the relative. ‘But not another bite of it do you get, if you refuse to do this simple, easy, pleasant job. No, not so much as another sniff. So put that in your twelve-inch cigarette-holder and smoke it.’”

P. G. Wodehouse, Right Ho, Jeeves (1934)

Leech

A doctor, named for the practice of treating patients by bleeding them with leeches.

"The other half of the sword-hilt and the blade were bent, but not severed; and these, I believe, tore off my hand betwixt the gauntlet and the arm-piece: my arm was shattered behind and before. When I marked now that my hand hung loose by the skin, and that my spear lay under my horse's feet, I made as though nothing had befallen me, turned my horse softly round, and, in spite of all, came back to my own folk without let or hindrance from the enemy. Just then there came up an old spearman, who would have ridden into the thick of the fray: him I called to me, and besought that he would stay at my side, since he must see how matters stood with me. So he tarried with me at my prayer, and then he must needs fetch me the leech. When I came to Landshut, my old comrades told me who had fought in the battle against me, and in what wise I had been shot, and that a nobleman, Fabian von Wallsdorf, a Voigtlaender, had been struck and slain by the same shot, notwithstanding that it had struck me first; so that in this wise both friend and foe took harm alike. This nobleman was a fair and goodly gentleman, such that among many thousands you would scarce find any goodlier to behold...."

Goetz von Berlichingen, Autobiography (1504).

Lords Brought Low

A ruler of some ilk. A master of servants.

"The lords of England, who since Brutus' days had never known the yoke of slavery, were now scorned, derided, and trodden under foot: they were compelled to shave their beards and clip their flowing locks in the Norman fashion: casting aside their horns and wonted drinking-vessels, their feasts and carousals, they were compelled to submit to new laws. Wherefore many of the English nobles refused the yoke of slavery and fled with all their households to live by plunder in the woods, so that scarce any man could go safely abroad in his own neighbourhood; the houses of all peaceful folk were armed like a besieged city with bows and arrows, bills and axes, clubs and daggers and iron forks; the doors were barred with locks and bolts. The master of the house would say prayers as if on a tempest-tossed bark; as doors or windows were closed, men said Benedicite, and Dominus echoed reverently in response; a custom which lasted even into our own days [probably about A.D. 1150]."

Thomas Walsingham, Gesta Abbatum S. Albani (1350)

Yegg

A crook.

“The big man was a yegg. San Francisco was on fire for him. The yegg instinct would be to use a rattler to get away from trouble. The freight yards were in this end of town. Maybe he would be shifty enough to lie low instead of trying to powder. In that case, he probably hadn’t crossed Market Street at all. If he stuck, there would still be a chance of picking him up tomorrow. If he was hightailing, it was catch him now or not at all.”

Dashiell Hammett, Fly Paper (1924)

Whipper

"Love is merely a madness; and, I tell you, deserves a dark house and a whip as madmen do: and the reason why they are not so punished and cured is that the lunacy is so ordinary that the whippers are in love too."

--Shakespeare

Statesman

Someone who takes a lead in the political life of a community.

“Through all the employments of life,/ Each neighbour abuses his brother;/ Whore and rogue, they call husband and wife;/ All professions be-rogue one another./ The priest calls the lawyer a cheat;/ The lawyer be-knaves the divine;/ And the statesman, because he’s so great,/ Thinks his trade as honest as mine.”

John Gay, The Beggar’s Opera (1728)

Healer

Another word for a doctor.

"That evening the Third Princess was taken with severe pains. Guessing that they were birth pangs, her women sent for Genji in great excitement. He came immediately. How vast and unconditional his joy would be, he thought, were it not for his doubts about the child. But no one must be allowed to suspect their existence. He summoned ascetics and put them to continuous spells and incantations, and he summoned all the monks who had made names for themselves as healers. The Rokujo mansion echoed with mystic rites. The princess was in great pain through the night and at sunrise was delivered of a child. It was a boy. Most unfortunate, thought Genji. It would not be easy to guard the secret if the resemblance to the father was strong."

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

Translated by Edward G. Seidensticker.

Imperator

In ancient Rome, under the Roman Republic, it originally meant commander. Later, under the Roman Empire it was used solely to designate the emperor.

"We know how far-reaching were the consequences of the agrarian crisis in Italy towards the middle of the second century B.C., and what efforts were made by certain reformers to re-establish that class of peasants which had provided the foundation for the greatness of the Roman Republic. It is interesting, too, to detect an echo of the words of Praxagora in the famous speech which Plutarch (Tiberius Gracchus, 9) puts into the mouth of Tiberius Gracchus: 'The wild beasts that roam over Italy [he would say], have every one of them a cave or lair to lurk in; but the men who fight and die for Italy enjoy the common air and light, indeed, but nothing else; houseless and homeless they wander about with their wives and children. And it is with lying lips that their imperators exhort the soldiers in their battles to defend sepulchres and shrines from the enemy; for not a man of them has an hereditary altar, not one of all these many Romans an ancestral tomb, but they fight and die to support others in wealth and luxury, and though they are styled masters of the world, they have not a single clod of earth that is their own.'"

Claude Mossé, The Ancient World of Work

[translated by Janet Lloyd] (1969).

Commander

Napoleon reportedly said at Austerlitz:

"To command is to wear out! There is only one age for war. I am good for six years more. After that, I myself will have to stop."

Count Philippe-Paul de Segur, Napoleon's Russian Campaign (1824)

Sticker

Someone who kills pigs with a knife. Someone whose employ is to open oysters.

"Master Bardell the pig-butcher, and his foreman Samuel Slark, or, as he was more commonly called, Sam the Sticker."

Hood, Sk. Road, Sudden Death Wks. (1833)

Hey, Porter

Someone who has charge of a door or gate, letting people in or keeping people out.

"Once outside in the courtyard I called out: 'Hey, porter, where are you? Open the gate, I want to be off before daybreak.' He was lying naked on the bare ground beside the gate and answered, still half-asleep: 'Who's that? Who's asking to get off at this time of night? Don't you know, whoever you are, that the roads are swarming with bandits? You may be tired of life, or you may have some crime on your conscience, but don't think that I'm such a pumpkin-headed idiot as to risk my life for yours by opening the gate and letting them in.' I protested: 'But it's almost morning. And anyhow, what harm could bandits do you? Certainly I think you are an idiot to be afraid of them. A team of ten professional wrestlers couldn't take anything worth having from a man as naked as you are.'"

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

[translated by Robert Graves].

Farmer

"A more commonplace consequence of an early exposure to agriculture is a deeply valid appreciation of the nature of manual labor. It leaves all of minimal sensitivity with an enduring knowledge of its unpleasantness. A long day following a plodding, increasingly reluctant team behind a harrow endlessly back and forth over the uninspiring Ontario terrain persuaded one that all other work was easy."

John Kenneth Galbraith, A Life in our Times.

Mathematician

"And so I could never have enough praise for the famous cock who was really Pythagoras. When he had been everything in turn, philosopher, man, woman; king, commoner, fish, horse, frog, even a sponge, I believe, he decided that man was the most unfortunate of animals, simply because all the others were content with their natural limitations while man alone tries to step ouside those allotted to him. Again, amongst men in many ways he preferred the ignorant to the learned and great. Gryllus was considerably wiser than 'many-counselled Odysseus' when he chose to grunt in his sty rather than share the risks of so many dangerous hazards."

Erasmus, Praise of Folly (1509)

[translated by Betty Radice, notes by A. H. T. Levi (1993)].

Bodice Ripper

Corset Maker: someone who makes the laced bodices, or tight fitting outer garments, that in certain periods were worn by women.

"Females are more employed in stay and corset making than males."

Nathaniel Whittock, The complete book of trades (1837).

Camel Breeder

"In the desert, the camel-breeding nomads regarded themselves as the most honourable, because their life was the freest and the least restrained by external authority."

Albert Hourani, A History of the Arab Peoples (1991).

Mime

A mimic or buffoon. A pantomimist.

"He is an admirable mime, or mimic, and most delectable company."

Samuel Foote, The Minor (1760).

Almugavar

A mercenary soldier.

"The King had with him some five thousand Almugavars, whereof he bade one thousand tarry behind at Perelada. These men, therefore, were sore grieved to be thus left, and they were cut to the heart to consider how they must now lose that spoil which the rest could win in skirmishes against the French; wherefore they purposed to get themselves some other satisfaction: hear ye therefore the iniquity which they devised in their hearts! About midnight, when the King and Infante were gone forth from Perelada, and already perchance at Vilabertran or Figueres, they went and set fire to a full hundred places of the town, and cried: "Forth, forth!" What more? When the good folk heard this tumult from their beds, and saw the whole town in flames, then each hastened to save his son or daughter, and the men thought only of their wives and children; and the Almugavars for their part set their minds to steal and pillage."

Don Ramon Muntaner (1325)

Beater

Someone employed to beat the bushes and flush out animals for hunters.

"But then I also had to take into account the fact that I have a voice within me repeating, I want, raving and demanding, making a chaos, desiring, desiring, and disappointed continually, which drove me forth as beaters drive game. So I had no business to make terms with life, but had to accept such conditions as it would let me have."

Saul Bellow, Henderson The Rain King (1958).

Philanthropist

Someone who donates money for good works or good causes. Literally, a lover of humankind.

"Men leave their riches either to their kindred, or to the public; and moderate portions prosper best in both. A great state left to an heir is as a lure to all the birds of prey round about to seize on him, if he be not the better established in years and judgment; likewise, glorious gifts and foundations are like sacrifices without salt, and but the painted sepulchers of alms, which soon will putrefy and corrupt inwardly. Therefore, measure not thine advancements by quantity, but frame them by measure, and defer not charities till death; for, certainly, if a man weigh it rightly, he that doth so is rather liberal of another man's than of his own."

Francis Bacon, Essays, Of Riches (1625).

Doctor

One who gives instruction in some branch of knowledge. A physician.

"I was unwell. You hurried round, surrounded by ninety students, Doctor. Ninety chill, North-wind-chapped hands then pawed and probed and pounded. I was unwell: now I'm extremely ill."

Martial, The Epigrams, (85 AD)

Emerson on Trappers

Someone who sets traps to catch animals, especially for their furs.

“A sudden cry, as of a wild thing taken in the trap, Which sees the trapper coming thro’ the wood.”

Ralph Waldo Emerson, Enid (1857).

Contortionist

A gymnast or athlete who entertains people by contorting his or her body into seemingly impossible positions and postures. The human pretzel.

"Cremorne Gardens - Wanted: male and female Equestrians, Tumblers, Acrobatic Performers, Contortionists."

Charles Cornwallis, New World (1859).

Jack Pudding

A clown or buffoon, especially one who works for a mountebank. Maybe known for throwing pies.

"The Junto-men, the Hocus-Pocusses, the State-Mountebanks, with their Zanyes and Jack-puddings!"

Clement Walker, History of Independency (1648).

Candlestick-maker

Someone who makes candlesticks.

"Some monster of the middle class, some tinker or tailor, or candlestick-maker, with his long purse, preaching reform and practicing corruption."

Benjamin Disraeli, Sybil (1845)

Sutler

One who follows an army and sells provisions, liquors, and the like to the troops.

"The soldiers had not anticipated the assault of the enemy; even had they done so, they had not strength to repulse it. Thus the camp was taken and plundered. Then the enemy fell upon the sutlers and Roman traders, who were wandering about in every direction, as they would in a time of peace."

Tacitus, Histories (100 AD)

Forger

Someone who forges metal. A smith. A coiner of money. A counterfeiter.

"Thinke not that I have forg'd or am not able Verbatim to rehearse the Methode of my Penne."

William Shakespeare, Henry VI (1591)

Head Hunter

Warriors who cut off the heads of enemies they kill in battle and which they later preserve as trophies.

"Some Dyaks have stated that they would give up head-hunting, were it not for the taunts and gibes of their wives and sweethearts."

H. Keppel, Ind. Archip. (1853)

Pantomime

A Roman actor who performed without words.

"The Pantomime may be said to be a Species unto himself: He has no Commerce with the rest of Mankind, but as they are the Objects of Imitation."

Sir Richard Steele, The Tattler (1709).

Prognosticator

Someone who professes to be able to foretell the future.

"Averring no prognosticator lies, That says, some great ones fall, their rivals rise."

Thomas Middleton, Father Hubburd's Tales or the ant and the nightingale (1604)

Raftsman

Someone who takes goods or people over water by raft.

"We slept most all day, and started out at night, a little ways behind a monstrous long raft that was as long going by as a procession. She had four long sweeps at each end, so we judged she carried as many as thirty men, likely. She had five big wigwams aboard, wide apart, and an open campfire in the middle, and a tall flagpole at each end. There was a power of style about her. It amounted to something being a raftsman on such a craft as that."

Mark Twain, Huckleberry Finn (1884)