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]