[Loch-Ruadh] Word of the Day, March 18

[Cait O'Hara]

biter of peeters

One that makes a trade of whipping [stealing] boxes and trunks from behind a coach, out of a wagon, or off a horse’s back; [from] peeter, a cloak-bag.
-- B.E.’s Dictionary of the Canting Crew, 1699

On this date in 1662, public-transportation service began in Paris as large, six-horse carriages with eight seats each took passengers on a fixed route through the city.  Although this earliest forerunner of urban mass transit was aimed at citizens of modest means, it also was briefly popular with the well-to-do.  The fashion faded, however, and ridership among the elite declined quickly I this class-conscious society.  The experiment was abandoned and not tried again until 1827.  James Vaux’s Glossary of the Flash Language (1819) lists napping a peter as “cutting portmanteau or trunk.”
Bank Holiday (N. Ireland)




---
Never meddle in the affairs of dragons;
For you are crunchy and taste good with ketchup.
-- Acacia



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